Archive for the ‘First Amendment’ Category

At a time when there’s major distrust of institutions of government, you’d think that government closest to the people would hold themselves to a higher level of listening to their constituents. That certainly isn’t what’s happening at the ISD742 monthly meetings.

A loyal reader of LFR sent me an email highlighting the fact that the school board welcomes people to their meetings but doesn’t want the public’s input. Contained in the email is a sentence that says “This is a public meeting and any residents are welcome to attend and listen, but there is not a public input session scheduled at this meeting.”

BTW, here’s the email:

I’m not a constitutional law professor but I can’t see how this isn’t a violation of the First Amendment. This judge’s ruling seems to strengthen that belief:

A section of a Virginia school board’s bylaws violates the First Amendment and results in stifled speech, according to a ruling by a federal district judge on April 27. U.S. District Court Judge Henry C. Morgan Jr. held that the Virginia Beach School Board’s rule banning personal “attacks or accusations” during public comment periods at board meetings was a form of prior restraint.

The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed last July by David and Nicole Bach, who are parents in the school district. The Bachs claimed that school district officials enacted the provision in retaliation for the Bachs’ criticism of the district’s gifted education program. After the school board imposed the restriction, the Bachs argued that the bylaw stifled their free speech rights. The judge ordered the school board to strike the contested provision from the bylaw, but also allowed the other rules for the public comment portion of meetings to remain.

This is directly on point. Most importantly, it’s an attempt to stifle speech that the school board doesn’t want to hear.

That’s tough. If these politicians don’t want to hear from their constituents, they should resign. If they can’t stand the heat, they shouldn’t be in the kitchen.

The next time that the St. Cloud School Board meets, citizens should insist on giving input. If the board doesn’t permit it, the citizens should notify the school board that they’re filing a lawsuit in federal court claiming that their practices violate their First Amendment rights.

Citizens shouldn’t be stifled by the ruling class. It’s clear that they don’t see themselves as public servants. How sad is that?

Perhaps the more accurate title of this post should be ‘When will Leftists protest these civil rights’? FIRE’s Susan Kruth’s article on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s revised regulations outlines changes to Obama administration’s anti-due process regulations.

Let’s be clear. The Obama administration’s Education Department was anti-civil rights. When it came to dealing with alleged sexual assault on campus, the Obama administration’s Education Department “encouraged schools to have a single investigator adjudicate sexual misconduct cases through a series of separate meetings with the parties and witnesses.” By contrast, the DeVos-proposed regulations pertaining to alleged sexual assault “requires that schools ‘must provide for a live hearing’ when adjudicating a case.”

In other words, universities must allow a cross-examination of the accuser. Nameless, faceless accusers won’t have their ‘day in court’. Kruth continues with this:

Having a live hearing ensures that all parties can see exactly the same evidence and testimony that the fact-finder is seeing, so that he or she can rebut that evidence and testimony as fully as he or she is able.

The department’s new rules go on to require a typical and critically important feature of live hearings: cross-examination of all witnesses, including the parties. The Supreme Court has called cross-examination the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth,” and it can be especially paramount in cases that hinge on witness testimony, as the Sixth Circuit emphasized just two months ago.

How an administration that swore an oath to uphold the Constitution can deprive people of this basic civil right is startling. Further, it’s time to admit that leftist Democrats are now fascists and/or anarchists. IF you think I’m kidding, check out Eric Swalwell’s proposal:

In a USA Today op-ed entitled “Ban assault weapons, buy them back, go after resisters,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., argued Thursday that prior proposals to ban assault weapons “would leave millions of assault weapons in our communities for decades to come.”

Look at the mental gymnastics Rep. Swalwell employs to justify this confiscation:

You’re probably wondering what gun confiscation has to do with due process rights. That’s a fair question. They’re both part of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The right to keep and bear arms is a sacred right. I prefer referring to it as the right to protect myself and my family. It’s a natural right. The Supreme Court has called the right to due process and to confront your accuser the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.”

It isn’t supposition to say that Democrats have opposed the right to protect yourself and your family from burglars and criminals as vigorously as they’ve opposed the right of people to cross-examine their accusers. What other constitutional rights do Democrats want to sacrifice on the altar of political correctness?

According to this article, House Democrats unveiled their agenda for the first 100 days of the 116th Congress. According to the article, the “Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, promises that the first bill voted on by the new Congress will focus on campaign finance and ethics reforms. According to news accounts, H.R. 1 would, among other things, establish automatic voter registration and “reinvigorate” the Voting Rights Act.”

Further, House Democrats want to overwhelm Republicans by pushing “public financing of congressional campaigns, with a 6-to-1 government match on small dollar donations.” Democrats will certainly define small dollar donations to their advantage.

The reason they’ll do that is because, according to Tucker Carlson’s op-ed, when “a Republican wins an election, it’s fine to question the legitimacy of the process. Democrats have been doing since the days Trump was elected two years ago. That’s patriotic. It’s your duty. But when the Democratic Party’s power is at stake, raising questions about the process is wrong. Indeed it’s nothing less than the road to dictatorship.”

It’s worse than that. Here’s Howard Dean talking about this topic:

In other words, in 2018, Dean vehemently insisted that the nation was in a fight of “good vs. evil” while being convinced that “we’re the good” and that Republicans were the evil. That’s literally what he said a couple weeks ago. That isn’t the first time he’s made that statement. When he was DNC Chair in 2005, he said this:

And concluding his backyard speech with a litany of Democratic values, he added: “This is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good.”

Think about that a second. In 2005, Howard Dean thought that George W. Bush was a hardcore conservative who was a religious extremist. Now, he’s insisting that President Trump is an extremist who thinks that the US-Mexican border should be protected.

What’s funny is that Democrats think that’s immoral. That puts the Democrats on the opposite side of the Founding Fathers. In Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution, Congress is authorized to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” It doesn’t say that Mexicans and Central Americans will “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization” in consultation with Congress.

BTW, Democrats insist that the mobile mob making its way through Mexico isn’t an invasion. Here’s the official definition of invasion:

entrance as if to take possession or overrun:
infringement by intrusion.

CNN and Jim Acosta need better dictionaries. More importantly, Democrats need to start telling the whole truth more often:

Gun control was not a big issue in the midterm campaign, despite promises by gun control advocates to make it a centerpiece of the elections in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting. The issue “evaporated during the final weeks of the election in all but very safe liberal districts,” noted Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner. “But now that the Democrats have won the House,” Bedard notes, “leaders feel emboldened to raise calls for expanded background checks and an assault weapon ban.”

Gun control advocates tout the fact that 15 House Republicans with “A” ratings from the NRA lost their elections. But gun control advocates lost seats in the Senate. That includes Joseph Donnelly, who lost his bid in Indiana. Pro-gun rights Josh Hawley unseated Claire McCaskill in Missouri. According to the NRA, candidates backed by gun rights group won 106 races, and lost 33 despite being outspent by gun control supporters. This was not the groundswell of support for gun control laws that advocates promised.

These items might gather majority support in polls but they don’t excite people. If Democrats pass tax increases in the House and the economy falters after that, they’ll rightly get blamed. If the Democrats focus on investigations, gun control and campaign finance reform instead of focusing on keeping the economy going strong, they’ll deserve the blame they’ll get.

Kevin Lindsey, the current commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Human Rights, is on a collision course with the US Supreme Court. According to this article, Carl and Angel Larsen, the owners of Telescope Media Group, want to “use their wedding cinematography [business] to reanimate the hearts and minds of people about the goodness of marriage between a man and a woman.”

Standing in their way is the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which “mandates that if the Larsens make films celebrating marriage between one man and one woman, then they must make films celebrating same-sex marriages as well.”

The Minnesota Human Rights Act is likely unconstitutional, thanks in large part to a Supreme Court ruling from this past summer that said that a baker didn’t have to bake cakes for same-sex marriages.

There’s likely a First Amendment argument to be made, too. Government shouldn’t have the authority to tell businesses what they have to write.

State officials have repeatedly threatened to prosecute expressive business owners who decline to create speech promoting same-sex marriages. And there are steep penalties for violating the law, including payment of a civil penalty to the state, triple compensatory damages, punitive damages up to $25,000, and even up to 90 days in jail.

The Larsens can’t comply with Minnesota’s speech-compelling law. Telling stories that celebrate a same-sex marriage would violate their religious beliefs and directly contradict the very message about marriage they desire to express. But they also don’t want to be investigated, prosecuted, and possibly jailed simply for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Whether you’re for or against same-sex marriage, the heart of the matter is that government shouldn’t have the authority to tell individuals or companies what they have to write.

According to the WCCO video, the Larsens won their appeal in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. If Lindsey appeals the Eighth Circuit’s ruling, which is likely, he’ll likely lose in the Supreme Court. Simply put, the DFL should stop passing laws that aren’t constitutional.

Written by Rambling Rose

Even on the Left Coast of the USA, justice wins occasionally. On Tuesday, July 24, 2018, Addison Barnes prevailed in his lawsuit against Liberty High School, where his liberty or expression was not tolerated in January because he wore a T-shirt that supported the construction of the wall along the southern border of this country and also included a quote from President Donald J. Trump.

The topic in class that morning was immigration. So much for tolerance when he was forced to cover his shirt, which he did for a short time, and then removed the jacket to exercise his First Amendment Right of freedom of expression. He was then escorted from the school grounds and suspended, even though the year before he had attended a class where a pro-sanctuary city poster hung all year long.

This valiant young man was awarded $25,000.00 and an apology from the school. Actually, the apology is lame—it expresses regret but does not admit culpability for nullifying his rights when he, and probably others, have been offended by the liberal stance of the school.

For the full story, please read this article posted on May 28, 2018.

Editor’s note: This is beyond insulting:

“I had a teacher who had a pro-sanctuary city poster in her room which was up all year,” Barnes told NBC News-affiliate KGW. “Yet as I wear a pro-border wall shirt I get silenced and suspended for wearing that.”

The term double standard isn’t strong enough for this situation. The school should apologize to the community for holding such obvious double standards. I’ve read the First Amendment many times. I’ve never recalled it suggesting that it protects liberal speech but not conservative speech.

It’s ironic that Addison was suspended from Liberty HS.

This article is proof that Keith Ellison hates the Constitution, especially the First Amendment. It’s also proof that he’s unfit to be Minnesota’s chief law enforcement officer, aka state Attorney General.

The article notes that Ellison is “demanding that Amazon censor books and other materials produced by organizations listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups.” That’s a frightening insight into Ellison’s thinking on multiple levels. First, it’s disturbing that the man who wants to be Minnesota’s attorney general thinks that censorship is a foundational constitutional principle. Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment except if it incites violence. It doesn’t make much sense to have an attorney general who hates constitutionally protected civil rights.

Next. it’s disturbing, though not surprising, that Ellison thinks that the SPLC is a reputable arbiter of right and wrong. Here’s a couple snippets from Ellison’s censorship letter:

Click to enlarge.

Later in the letter is something that’s definitely chilling:

As stated earlier, Amazon has a strict policy against hateful and racist products on its platform. The availability of all the material listed in the aforementioned report indicates to me that either Amazon is willfully refusing to enforce its own policies against the sale of racist products or its sheer size make it impossible for the company to police itself. In either event, Amazon must immediately cease doing business with groups that promote racist violence.

It’s apparent that Ellison hasn’t hesitated in using his official capabilities to intimidate companies into outright censorship.

Any legal eagle that’s anti-civil rights is disqualified to be Minnesota’s attorney general.

Mayor Kleis and the City Council are putting together the 2019 City budget so they want to hear from its citizens. Of course, that doesn’t mean they want to hear from everyone. They definitely don’t want to hear from the citizens who are collecting signatures to put a petition on the ballot.

A “group of St. Cloud residents is gathering signatures for a petition that would put a refugee resettlement resolution on the November ballot.” According to Matt Staehling, the city administrator, the “initiative petition does not meet the legal criteria of an initiative pursuant to our city charter, state statute and long established case law in the state of Minnesota.” That’s too bad for Mr. Staehling because the Minnesota State Supreme Court disagrees with him.

A citizen watchdog group just handed the city of Bloomington an embarrassing loss at the Minnesota Supreme Court. The case started over the rights of residents of the Twin Cities suburb to choose their own garbage hauler. But more broadly the unanimous 6-0 ruling upholds the standing of citizens in home rule charter cities to bring petitions and place legislation on the ballot apart from and in opposition to the city council.

Staehling’s argument is that resolutions aren’t legislation, therefore, they can’t be put on the ballot.

Greg Joseph, the citizens’ attorney, said “What the ruling today says is that cities can adopt a home rule charter and that governs what happens in that city, period. And voters can go around the city, they’re not subservient to it.”

The taxpayers are getting hurt financially by the federal government not picking up the full tab for the Refugee Resettlement Program as required by the Refugee Act of 1980. The City Council acted irrationally last November by passing Jeff Goerger’s ‘Welcoming Community’ resolution. A significant number of St. Cloud residents were prevented from speaking against Goerger’s resolution that night. Why shouldn’t they have the right to put their petition on the ballot? (Notice that the ruling didn’t limit the petition to just legislation.)

Further, it’s rather hypocritical for Mayor Kleis to sit silent on this. In my past conversations, Kleis identified himself as welcoming hearing from the citizens, whether it’s in the form of ballot referenda or whether it’s in the form of town hall meetings. Kleis loves townhall meetings so much, in fact, that he’s got his own bus so he can get around and talk to people in their neighborhoods:

Mayor Kleis, since you love hearing from the people, it’s time to exhibit some leadership and get the petition on the ballot if they collect the required number of signatures. The citizens are tired of being ignored by this City Council. They’re tired, too, that jackasses like Dave Masters object to hearing from his constituents and that Carol Lewis makes rulings that violate prior Minnesota State Supreme Court rulings.

If people like Masters and Lewis think that they don’t have to listen to their constituents and that they’re above the Constitution, it’s time to fire them so they don’t have constituents.

Finally, it’s important to show up Monday night and tell Mayor Kleis and the 5 ostriches how you want your money spent.

If anyone thinks that the St. Cloud City Council isn’t hostile to the First Amendment, they need only view the video for the June 4th City Council meeting starting approximately 65 minutes into the meeting. During a discussion of City Council Rule No. 16, George Hontos defended the rule, saying that “Without objection, any council member could object to it. I mean, I object all the time but the point is that said recognition shall terminate upon motion passed by majority vote of the Council. So, in other words, one person can object but it takes a majority vote…”

With this Council, that’s meaningless. Laraway, Lewis, Libert, Masters and Goerger vote in lockstep. It isn’t that they’re incapable of independent thought. It’s that they frequently choose not to think independently. Further, the First Amendment didn’t appoint someone to be the arbiter of who gets to speak. The government doesn’t have the right to silence citizens during a public meeting.

Later in the same explanation, Councilman Hontos tried selling the virtue of having a recognized speaker being rejected by a majority of the Council instead of a single councilmember shooting down the previously recognized speaker. That’s a flawed argument. First, most of the people that objected to recognizing Dr. Palmer have a personal animus against Dr. Palmer because — gasp! — he’s held them accountable multiple times. He’s highlighted their mistakes. FYI- Being rejected by a majority doesn’t mean that the majority is right. It simply means that 4 or more people agree.

In essence, Dr. Palmer was rejected for less than honorable reasons. I’m not ok with that.

Later in the discussion, Dr. Palmer stepped to the microphone to defend himself and debate the rule. Council President Lewis told him he had to sit down, that he hadn’t been recognized to speak. Dr. Palmer refused, thanks in large part to something I wrote about in this post:

“I feel like justice was finally served,” said Robin Hensel, whose refusal to move her chair at a 2013 Little Falls City Council meeting was at the heart of the court’s decision. Hensel, a grandmother and peace activist who frequently protests at Camp Ripley, said she never thought she would actually get charged when she moved a folding chair to the open space between the public galley and the City Council’s dais.

In its ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court sided with Hensel, saying: “The statute is broad and ambiguous, prohibiting any conduct or speech that ‘disturbs an assembly or meeting,’ whether expressive or not. An individual could violate the statute by, for example, wearing an offensive t-shirt, using harsh words in addressing another person, or even raising one’s voice in a speech.”

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that Ms. Hensel had the right to be disruptive during a meeting. Repeatedly telling Dr. Palmer to sit down is a violation of that Minnesota Supreme Court ruling.

This Council don’t want public input. The exception seems to be when a businessman is asked to explain why he’s asking for a variance or applying for some sort of license or whatever. I don’t have a problem with those people getting recognized. I’m just establishing the council’s inconsistency.

Later in the discussion on Rule 16, Councilman Masters said “Personally, I take offense with Dr. Palmer not following the rules and standing before the Council after being asked numerous times to sit down please. You have your time when you can speak during the Open Forum.”

According to the Minnesota Supreme Court, asking Dr. Palmer to sit down is against their ruling. Further, one of the rules of Open Forum is that speakers can’t speak about agenda items. This discussion was an agenda item. In other words, Councilman Masters was incorrect in saying that Dr. Palmer could address the Council on this later.

What’s delicious about that confrontation is that Dr. Palmer filed to run against Councilman Masters earlier in the day. Further, who is Councilman Masters to complain about following the rules when he’s violating a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling? That’s doing more than violating a Council rule. That’s violating a Supreme Court ruling.

Finally, Elizabeth Baklaich, Dr. Palmer and I spoke during the final part of the meeting. It’s known as Open Forum. Each of us spoke to what we see as the Council’s unwillingness to listen to We The People. Our speeches start at 1:20:00.

Written by Rambling Rose

The Left calls foul and proves how intolerant they are when the person they attack is not silenced and does not cower in their presence. Last January, senior Addison Barnes at Liberty High School in Hillsboro, OR, entered his first-period “People and Politics” class wearing a T-shirt. The only problem was that his T-shirt was not PC. He displayed a statement from President Trump’s campaign. He knew that he was “making a statement” but assumed that it was covered by the school’s policies on the right of students’ free speech and the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

“Specifically, the words on the shirt read: ‘Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co.,’ with ‘The Wall Just Got 10 Feet Taller’ in quotes.”

He was wrong. During the class, Assistant Principal Amanda Ryan-Fear removed him from class and ordered him to cover his shirt. She stated that the teacher and at least one other student had been offended by his shirt during a discussion on immigration. He complied and returned to class. However, he realized that he had a right, protected by the First Amendment and his own school’s policies, to state his own opinion so he uncovered his shirt.

Later that same hour, the assistant principal returned to his class and saw his shirt. She ordered a security guard to remove Barnes. She reminded him that his shirt offended others and gave him the choice to cover the shirt or to go home for the day. Barnes went home. [Editor’s note: I would have said ‘None of the above’, then asked the assistant principal if she’d prefer I be allowed to wear the shirt or fight a civil rights lawsuit that she’d lose badly.]

The following Monday, Addison Barnes and his father met with Principal Greg Timmons. They learned that his absence had become a suspension and that the teacher and student had also changed their claim—they felt “threatened.” The suspension was rescinded, but Barnes was told that he would be suspended again if he ever wore that shirt in the school.

He obeyed the directive until April when he was interviewed by another student for a documentary on the First Amendment. That student was ordered to obscure or blur the shirt before uploading the segment to the school’s online learning platform.

Mr. Barnes sued the school, the district and Principal Timmons for denying him his First Amendment right. His actions were silent and passive, reflected the theme of the day’s discussion in January and the topic of the interview in April. No violence or disturbance were caused by Barnes; only the teacher, a fellow student and the administrators were disruptive in protesting his rights. The charge also addresses the “selective” discrimination by allowing other offensive statements reflecting the favored stance of the welcoming Sanctuary City to be displaced in posters in classrooms for the entire school year. Mr. Barnes and others found those posters offensive but recognized that they were protected by the First Amendment and said nothing.

“The suit seeks a declaratory judgment stating that the school violated Barnes First Amendment rights and a permanent injunction against the school enforcing its guidelines in a similar manner, so the teen can again wear the shirt to school. Unspecified damages, court costs and attorney fees are also sought.” It was filed on May 18, 2018.

In the words of one of his lawyers, “The high school, ironically named Liberty High School, had violated his free-speech rights. He was told he offended them but that’s a far cry from being disruptive, and it is certainly a far cry from violating school policy, let alone what is clearly First Amendment free-speech law.”

Even the ACLU had to defend Barnes’ right to free speech, although they did so reluctantly. “It is disappointing that Liberty High School decided to censor the student instead of inviting the student body to discuss immigration, the freedom of speech, and the impacts of xenophobic rhetoric. Schools have a responsibility to teach our youth how to engage in thoughtful conversations about difficult and potentially offensive subject matters. Censorship doesn’t work and often just elevates the subject the government is trying to silence.”

While the Liberty High School’s Parent-Student Handbook does not address political clothing directly, the Standards of Student Conduct do prohibit “illustration, words or phrases” that are or could be disruptive and/or that promote one group over another. There was no disruption in the class or the interview and the T-shirt reflected the topics under discussion—immigration and the First Amendment. It does not appear that Mr. Barnes committed any violation. [Editor’s note, part II: If possible, the judge should prohibit Liberty HS from posting rules that infringe upon a person’s right to speak their mind. Final note: The First Amendment guarantees the right of people to say offensive things. It doesn’t, however, give people the right to say things that cause people to injure people.]

One can only hope that justice will be served, but that is not always the case when judges make law from the bench rather than interpret the laws of the land.

Thanks and stay strong, Addison Barnes.

It looks like John McCain’s final fight will finish in defeat. His final fight apparently is against President Trump. Based on this article, McCain finishes looking like a bitter loser.

John McCain always said he’d go down fighting, and so he has, dickering from his deathbed over CIA nominee Gina Haspel and pre-emptively disinviting President Donald Trump from his funeral, then leaving as a legacy some fierce final words for the leader of his party, who is now a political enemy. All Trump displays is “a reality-show facsimile of toughness,” the six-term Arizona senator and former GOP presidential candidate, who for a generation of Washington politicians has defined genuine toughness, writes in his forthcoming memoir.

There’s no questioning that John McCain, POW, was tougher than nails. What he did in the Hanoi Hilton took fortitude and then some. John McCain, the politician, however, is an entirely different story.

Sen. McCain, the politician, was a wimp. Further, he wasn’t that bright when it came to policy. As a senator, Sen. McCain swore to uphold the Constitution. That’s odd because Sen. McCain’s signature piece of legislation, McCain-Feingold, was thrown out because it violated the most sacred of our rights, the right to speak freely about our political opinions. The bill wasn’t just taken apart a little bit. It was totally uprooted.

Sen. McCain tried preventing Gina Haspel from becoming the CIA Director. He failed in his misguided attempt. Haspel’s sin? Doing what was legal at the time she did it while trying to protect the country from a terrorist attack.

The irony of McCain’s curtain-closing contretemps with the president is that it is clearly Trump himself who has inherited McCain’s mantle as the leading Republican maverick in Washington. Both men have often taken on the party orthodoxy across an array of big issues, with Trump running as the ultimate populist outsider in 2016 and spouting apostasies on trade, immigration and foreign policy; and McCain doing so on just about everything at one point or another during his long career. Both are known for being irascible and often bad-tempered, and unsparing toward enemies and rivals, even in their own party. Indeed, during McCain’s first run for president in 2000 he managed to enlist only a handful of his 53 Senate Republican colleagues to support him over George W. Bush, and some cited his volcanic anger and congenital impatience (traits that McCain insists he has since reined in) as reasons. As one GOP senator told me back then, “I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.” The two politicians even share some views on the proper use of American force in the world and the perils of palliative diplomacy—McCain opposed the Iran nuclear deal as fiercely as Trump, for one.

The difference between McCain and Trump is that we always know where Trump is on the important issues of the day. Sen. McCain was totally unpredictable in that respect.

It’s become a cliché to label McCain a “maverick” for his dramatic, and increasingly frequent, breaks with the Republican Party line. But it’s a cliché because the label fits: Over nearly four decades in Washington, McCain has given a master class in maverickism, and it is for this he will be most remembered.

Sen. McCain was all over the place because he rarely thought things through. He’s been short-tempered and not that bright.

Truthfully, the Senate will be a better place when Sen. McCain is no longer part of it. Hotheads that don’t respect the Constitution shouldn’t be part of the greatest deliberative body in the world.