The United States Supreme Court recently affirmed the theory that “federal and state governments are separate constitutional actors with their own sovereign authority,” wrote Robert Barnes for the Washington Post. This involved a case where the court ruled that people can be tried for the same crime by both federal and state governments. A man […]
Category: Be a people
The film is called ‘The Accused’ not ‘The Defendants’
The ‘accused’ is the man or woman charged with a crime. It’s not the defendant. Something I read recently made me realize this distinction. I don’t know etymology of the word ‘defendant’ or why it’s something to be avoided, but I do know the ‘accused’ seems like the more appropriate label. And the old movie […]
Banks on a river, not for money
Nautical or maritime words are everywhere. Even the word ‘bank’ literally means a river bank. Ships pull up to the bank. They assume I’m a master/mister of a vessel and banked at the river. I expect I need to find a ‘savings and loan’ or a ‘safe deposit’ company, though even the word deposit/depose is […]
Traffic means movement of goods, as in the movie Traffic, about drug trafficking
The movie Traffic tells me that ‘traffic’ means to trade or deal in a commodity or service (definition). Did the police man make a ‘traffic’ stop? Not if I’m not trading or dealing in goods. They call it a traffic stop to convert traveling into a commercial activity, called trafficking, they can then regulate. Trafficking […]
An odd part of the tax code and how Alaska and Texas were states before they were states
Before Alaska and Texas were States in the Union, they were considered states in the area under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government. That the word ‘state’ can mean two different things shows how the federal tax code can be confusing. When people read the word ‘state’, they think of the 50 states in […]
Unvaccinated ‘persons’ banned from ‘public’ places (not private) by ‘County of’ Rockland Executive
Analyzing a recent emergency declaration about Rockland County, I see at least two ways to read it. In summary, it may only apply to people from Puerto Rico and the territories, not state Citizens. It pertains to ‘public’ places (meaning government land), not ‘private’ places, such as malls, even though malls are listed as part […]
Whiteboard videos from Kurtis Kallenbach
It’s worth watching these whiteboard videos from Kurtis Kallenbach. I learned about the videos from What is a Born Alive Certificated Person – Intro That page, and others, bring up a reference to the word ‘infant’ in the IRS manual. I am not sure if people are reading this wrong. 21.7.13.3.2.2 (10-01-2018) An infant is […]
Obama defines citizen as the ‘title’ of an ‘office’ in a democracy (not republic)
In his farewell address in 2017, President Obama said: “…we all share the same proud title. The most important office in the democracy. Citizen. Citizen.” Taken at face value, this citizen is the title of an office, meaning a paid (or unpaid) role in a government or corporation that is a democracy. It is not […]
The word ‘statute’ can mean ‘an act of a corporation’
Richard McDonald’s Seminar on state Citizenship
The author covers the differences between state and federal citizens, and how one inadvertently becomes a federal citizen. He provides answers to ‘trick’ questions such as “Are you a citizen of the United States?” The answer would be ‘no’ for state citizens. On the topic of ‘driving’, which always means ‘for hire’, he notes the […]