The Daily Signal - #333: The Supreme Court Will Hear Case on Veterans' Cross Memorial Atheists Oppose

Episode Date: November 4, 2018

The Supreme Court recently announced that it will hear an appeal for a case involving a memorial cross. This large cross stands in an open field in Bladensburg, Maryland, and commemorates the sacrifice of 49 local servicemen who gave their lives in World War I. We talk with Jeremy Dys of First Liberty, the organization which is defending the memorial against the American Humanist Association.  We also cover these stories:--The midterm elections are today--and the Justice Department is not going to tolerate fraud. Officials will be monitoring voting in 19 states.--The U.S. government restored economic sanctions that the Obama administration lifted in 2015 as part of the Iran nuclear deal. The sanctions target Iran’s energy, shipping, and banking sectors, among others.--Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the United States will hold accountable the men who murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, while still maintaining the strategic U.S.-Saudi relationship.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, November 6th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. The Supreme Court recently announced that it will hear an appeal for a case involving a memorial cross. The large cross stands in an open field in Bladenburg, Maryland, and commemorates the sacrifice of 49 local servicemen who gave their lives in World War I. We'll talk with Jeremy Dice, whose organization is defending the memorial. Plus, we'll take a look at the trend of elderly Americans filling in for a missing cohort of young workers. But first, we'll cover a few of the top headlines. Well, the midterm elections are finally happening today, and the Justice Department is not going to tolerate fraud. Officials will be monitoring in 19 states. In a statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, this year,

we are using every lawful tool that we have, both civil and criminal, to protect the rights of millions of Americans to cast their vote unimpeded at one of more than 170,000,000,000. precincts across America. Citizens of America control this country through their selection of their governmental officials at the ballot box. Likewise, fraud in the voting process will not be tolerated. Fraud also corrupts the integrity of the ballot, end quote. According to the Daily Signals, Fred Lucas's reporting, this isn't unprecedented. The Obama administration took similar actions during past elections. Well, the U.S. is putting a serious pinch on Iran this week. On Monday, the U.S. government restored all economic sanctions that the Obama administration lifted in 2015 as part of the Iran nuclear deal.

The sanctions target Iran's energy, shipping, and banking sectors, among others, and Secretary of State by Pompeo called it a maximum pressure campaign. This past May, President Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the deal entirely. In an op-ed in the Financial Times, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the Iran deal actually emboldened the Iranian government. He said, quote, from its support of Syria's brutal Bashar al-Assad regime and the Houthis in Yemen to missile attacks on its neighbors, the Iranian regime actually grew more aggressive. Its increasingly brazen actions highlighted the deal's fundamental flaws and reinforced the decision to withdraw. The Food and Drug Administration has approved an incredibly strong new opioid, one that's reportedly as much as 1,000 times stronger than morphine. But the FDA is putting tough restrictions. on the drug to try to avoid problems.

DeSuvia will be available only in medical settings, won't be available at pharmacies or for any use at home. The FDA said that this product was a priority for the Pentagon, which saw it as having potential for treating soldiers. Well, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is walking somewhat of a fine line on Saudi Arabia. On Fox News Sunday, Pompeo said the United States would hold accountable the men who murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi while still maintaining the strategic U.S. Saudi relationship.

Pompeo stressed the importance of Saudi Arabia as a check on Iranian power in the Middle East, calling Iran the world's largest state sponsor of terror. Last month, Khashoggi was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The Saudi government initially denied any involvement, then said that the killing was carried out by rogue operators, and then later, Saudi Attorney General said the killing was indeed premeditated. On Friday, there was another horrible shooting, this time at a yoga studio in Florida, leaving two women dead.

And the actions of one man, Joshua Quick, probably helped save some lies. Here's what Quick told ABC News. The only thing that was there I could think of was this vacuum with a heavy end. The guns stopped firing. I don't know if it jammed or what. So I used that opportunity. I hit him over the head with it. I jumped up as quickly as I could, ran back over.

and next day I know I'm grabbing a broom, you know, anything I can, and I hit him again. Daniela Garcia Elbelette, who was shot, told ABC that she was grateful for Quicks actions. Quote, thanks to him, I was able to try to rush out of the door. I was slipping. I was dripping blood everywhere because I got shot through my thigh. I want to thank that guy from the bottom of my heart because he saved my life. Just a powerful reminder that even when horrible things happen, the actions of good people can at least sometimes make somewhat of a day.

difference. Well, up next, we'll talk to Jeremy Dice, whose law firm is defending a memorial cross at the Supreme Court. Want to get up to speed about the Supreme Court? Then subscribe to Scotus 101, a podcast about everything that's happening at the Supreme Court and what the justices are up to. Well, we're joined now over the phone by Jeremy Dice. He's the Deputy General Counsel for First Liberty Institute, a law firm that defends religious freedom for all Americans. Jeremy, thanks for being on. Hey, thanks so much for having me. So Jeremy, last year, my colleague Jared and I actually went out to Bladensburg, Maryland, to see the Memorial Cross that your organization is now defending in court.

And we got there. We saw a list of names on the monument, men who had given their lives in World War I. And it was kind of sobering because we knew that if the court had ruled a certain way, if it ruled a certain way, that it could soon be gone. Can you give us some background here? Why is this Memorial Cross under threat? Well, a couple years ago, the American Humanist Association decided that for the first time and the 90-plus-year history of this memorial, it is violating the Constitution because it appears on public property. And the reason they say that it is violating the Constitution is that it is in the shape of a Celtic cross, which is really designed. In fact, the Gold Star Mothers who designed this memorial back in the 1990, 1990, 100 years ago now, they chose the shape. that mimicked the markers that sat over top of the graves of many of their sons over in Europe.

In fact, most of the men who died in World War I were buried under a Celtic cross. Teddy Roosevelt's son, for instance, famously was buried under a Celtic cross on the European battlefields. And so they knew that Americans would forget the sacrifice of their sons if they didn't have something to visually remind them of that. And so they decided to design this monument in the design of a Celtic cross. And then they built it. The American Legion jumped into Help Out, and by 1925, that monument was erected right there, right at the terminus of the National Defense Highway, which is itself a World War I Memorial, at least between D.C. and Annapolis, Maryland. And it's been standing there perfectly innocently, keeping watch over the memory of these 49 men from Prince George's County, Maryland, just as their mothers had won for nearly 100 years now, until the Humanist Association decided, that they'd had enough and that that could not, and even longer be tolerated. And so they managed to get the Fourth Circuit to agree, and now we're at the Supreme Court of the United States.

Okay, and yeah, I have to say, you know, I have a family member who lives near that cross, and every time I pass it, you know, you don't really think a lot about World War I, and it is a very poignant reminder. Jeremy, what are some of the possible implications of this case? I mean, obviously we have religious-themed art throughout the United States and government buildings. We've talked some about Arlington National Cemetery. Could this case have wide-ranging implications? Very much so. You know, to kind of answer that, I get running to start to it. I have to remember Martha Redmond, who her son, William, is on the side of that memorial.

And when she was organizing support for this memorial back in 1919, she wrote to her senator and said, the reason I'm so excited about this memorial is that I very much view this as my son's gravestone. She couldn't go to her son's grave. It was over in France. You couldn't just jump on a plane and go visit it at the time. So this was in her mind at her son's gravestone. And I think it's appropriate that we think of it as that as the gravestone for 49 men from Prince George's County, Maryland. So if that goes down, then it unleashes a bulldozer across the country. It'll start there in Blainsburg, Maryland, and then it'll go across the river, Arlington National Cemetery where you're going to knock down the Argon Cross, the Canadian

Cross of Sacrifice. You may have to sandblast the side of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that has religious language on it. Teddy and Bobby Kennedy's gravestones are going to have to come down. They're both buried under a cross in the grass of Arlington. And you can keep on going across the country. But this is why this case is so vitally important. Not only do we want to avoid this, the erasure of the memory of the service and sacrifice of these 49 fallen servicemen from Prince George's County, Maryland, we want to ensure that there's a restoration of common sense here, that just because something is in the shape of what some people view as religious doesn't mean that it is somehow in violation of the Constitution if it shows up on public property. That's what I think Justice

Thomas has in mind when he talks about how the Establishment Clause jurisprudence of our country is in, quote, disarray. And so I think this presents a great opportunity for the Supreme Court to provide clarification to that, protecting this memorial in the first place, but providing guidance to the country as to what the Estabption Clause is meant to actually mean. Yeah, I was actually just about to ask about that because that's such a key point. You know, the other side is arguing that the establishment clause, basically having any religious symbolism or language on public property is basically

equivalent to establishing a religion, and so you have to get rid of all of that. How do you respond to that assessment? Well, look, I think I'm as confused as everybody is, right? Even those who did go to law school, like me, are confused? Which test are we supposed to apply now? You've got, what, three, four different tests that might apply on Estabstment Clause cases. The reasonable observer that has talked about is almost always offended at anything that is smacking of the religious. And so it's almost impossible for the establishment clause not to be

violated by anything that bears on the religious and comes on public property. So, you know, the key thing that was very clear in Van Orden, for instance, there were a lot of different monuments and memorials, the Van Orden versus Perry case involving the Texas displays on the state grounds. There are other kinds of morals and things like that. You have the same kind of situation here as well, You know, a nine iron will get you from the Blainsburg Memorial to be able to hit a World War II Memorial, a Battle of Bladenburg from 1812 Memorial, Vietnam, Korea, September 11th has memorials all right there. So at least in one of these tests that we have, it should be constitutional and without a problem. But then the defense is quickly able to move to or the, yeah, the defense is able to move to pointing out the fact that maybe this violates the Lemon test or something like that.

The bottom line is this. The Supreme Court has the opportunity to provide guidance on these issues. And more particularly, the Supreme Court is really the last hope for preserving the 90-year-old Blainsburg World War I Veterans Monument in the memory of the 49 men from Prince Georgia County that it represents. So, of course, the American Legion is involved in this. Have you, throughout First Liberty's work on this case, encountered veterans or their families? and is this a case that you expect they'll be following closely? Yeah, no, look, we are very privileged to represent the American Legion in this lawsuit. I should point out that if you haven't seen the memorial,

what you need to know is that this concrete memorial right in the dead center of the cross has the emblem of the American Legion right there. I mean, don't forget the American Legion was formed out of World War I, and so these guys coming back to the United States, wanting to remember the men who had died. You know, men like Howard Morrow, who received a distinguished service cross for his bravery overseas as a grenadier.

These are remarkable men, some of whom were not able to be, well, I mean, you weren't able to find enough of them to bury. I mean, these were heroes beyond words are able to describe. And families felt the real loss of these things. But they would have been members of the Legion had they survived. And so I think the Legion feels a particular duty.

to remember the men that they served with or that served with their forebears and preserve the freedom that you and I possess today. And so their duty is to turn to them and say, we're going to stand watch over this memorial, this gravestone, as Martha Redmond called it, and make sure that their memory has never forgotten come hell or high water or the Supreme Court of the United States. So, Jeremy, what's next in this case and when are you all going to be up in D.C. arguing? Well, we get back to the books now, start doing the writing and the briefing that is going to be involved on the merits of this case now.

Now that the court has granted our petition for review, we've got to fill all that briefing schedule out. And then I would guess probably in the early spring, the Supreme Court will have arguments. They set aside an hour for the argument on this case. And so maybe March or so we might be seeing arguments for the Supreme Court. And that would be followed, of course, by June when we would have an order coming from the court. finally articulating whether or not this monument is going to have to be turned into an obelisk or raised to the ground or somehow removed. Now, we're not going to remove it.

We're not going to take that monument down. But it's a very key decision that the Supreme Court has to make here. And I think they should just simply honor the way that Gold Star mothers chose to remember the service and sacrifice of their sons who died defending our freedom. That's the easiest solution here. So you mentioned, of course, that there's been several times at the courts of weighed in on this issue. Kavanaugh, of course, will not have a history on the Supreme Court on this, but have any of the other

justices been involved in rulings that maybe hinted how they would approach this? Well, that's a great question. And one, I'd have to go back and kind of do my own research on to make sure I was speaking most informally. You know, Justice Thomas has been on the bench, perhaps the longest of anyone except for Justice Ginsburg or their neck neck neck, I guess, aren't they? So they've had opportunity to see a few of these cases. in the past, I think of a case of ours in the past called the Mojave Desert Cross case

or the La Jolla Cross case out in California. Both of them had dealings at the Supreme Court level, but never a full vetted argument on things. And so they've had opportunity to see these things and to weigh in on them. But this is a pretty unique one. I mean, you're looking at a 100-year-old monument. Don't forget, most of these men died 100 years ago last month in October of 1918. So most of the men, in fact, the grand majority of the people who died in World War I from America died in that offense of it at the end of World War I in 1918. And so this certainly takes on the historic and presents a great opportunity for the court to remind everybody that we forget what we don't see.

And so we ought to honor the sacrifice of these men made. Well, Jeremy Dice, we really appreciate you being on the podcast. And we look forward to the arguments and the decision next next. spring. Thanks for your guys. I really appreciate it. Liberals have pretty much cornered the market on 101-style podcasts that break down tough policy issues in the news.

Until now, did you know that every week Heritage Explains intermingles personal stories, news clips, and facts from heritage experts to help explain some of today's hardest issues from a conservative perspective? Look for Heritage Explains on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, turns out the person saying, do you want fries with that, may start to more often be a grandparent than a teenager. Bloomberg reports, quote, between 2014 and 2024, the number of working Americans age 65 to 74 is expected to grow 4.5%

while those age 16 to 24 is expected to shrink 1.4% according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, end quote. And as a result, fast food outlets are recruiting. senior citizens to work at their establishments. Stevenson Williams, a 63-year-old working in South Carolina, told Bloomberg, a lot of times with the younger kids now, they can be very disrespectful. So you have to coach them and tell them, this is your job. This is not the street. I think this sounds kind of great, actually, this idea of teens and a little bit more senior folks working together and the teens' learning some manners.

Yeah, and it kind of makes you wonder what kind of explains. this change in the demographic. And part of it, I think it's just like the natural movement of the population. More people, more baby boomers are getting into that age where they're going to be in that older. Like there's just more baby boomers around. But I think, and there's going to be a smaller proportion of teenagers because the millennials are like the biggest generation and we're getting older. So that makes sense. But also, I really do believe that there is a deeper problem.

with our younger culture today. A lot of people, frankly on drugs, you know, kind of stuck in the video game kind of habit. And nothing against video games, obviously. But these are trends that can keep younger folks from going out and getting a job, especially if they come from a family

where they don't necessarily have to work in order to provide for themselves. Yeah. And I would be the first to say I do have sling up against video games and you start playing them addictively, which I think can easily happen. Yeah, I don't know. I would actually, though, argue my guess is it's not so much those symptoms as it is the amount of unpaid internships, after school activities, et cetera, that a lot of students and their families feel compelled for them to do in order to get into the best college and that whole rat race. But I don't know.

I think probably there's a lot of missing out. You gain a lot by working a job. But I also remember, and one of my Burger King gets. eggs, two different summers. Yeah. One of my favorite co-workers was a woman with, I want to say, a nine or ten-year-old boy at home, and she was married. Her husband didn't work at Burger King.

I forgot what he did. But she was one of my favorite people to talk to when things were slow between the lunch and the dinner rush. And I think it's sort of great. I mean, most of it was young people. And I don't think I really liked most of my young co-workers, to be honest. And I actually think that working past what we would consider the age of retirement can be a great thing. I remember in college, I loved, you know, having classes with professors that were older, like in their 70s.

I had one professor that had been there since the 1960s, and he was like in his mid-70s, I think. I'm pretty sure one of my professors in college was in his 80s. Yeah. So, like, it shows, you know, and work really does give meaning to life in certain ways. And I think that's real. And I've known a lot of older folks who have been retired, but then done. things either in their community or who have found sort of part-time work just because, you know, it's great to be around people and it really, it really is meaningful. So I'm all about this. I think

it's great. And, you know, as Michael was talking to us earlier before the show, it really... That's our producer. Our producer, I agree with him that older folks are some of the best people to talk to. I mean, I think of my grandpa, all of his stories and wisdom, you get a lot more out of those conversations, frankly, than people our own age. Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, I mean, it can definitely be enriching. And I think that, yeah, there's probably, like, if you're a young person working with an older person, especially at a job that involves customer service, you are probably going to gain tremendous insight. I don't think it really comes naturally to anyone to, you know, have, frankly, the sort of humility that is required. the customer service job to learn how to keep your face calm as someone insults you to your face.

Did that happen to you? Um, I, I, I, I had some very weird burglary experiences. And I will say, I think the weirdest one was getting, I think it was yelled at by a customer for not speaking Spanish. And I was just like, what? And this was in San Francisco? Uh, it was in the San Francisco Bay Area. Yeah. I, I don't remember what year. You probably should have known Spanish. I mean, you know how to say like Unwapur, Coen-Ceso, and that was about it. That's pretty good, actually.

Yes, three words of Spanish. But that was the weirdest customer service experience, I think I had. But yeah, anyway, so if you are a senior citizen working in fast food and teaching banners to the new generation, thank you. Yes. Well, we're going to leave it there for today. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes,

Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis, sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad.

For more information, visitdailySignal.com.