Devolving Justice: America Has Problems With Selective Rule of Law
Bill Lindner
February 06, 2009
For too long now, America has had two sets of laws: one for politicians, Judges, law enforcement and military officials -- as evidenced by the most delusional, lawless Presidential administration aided by a complicit Congress, backed by politicized Judges and Justice Department we've been witness to and victimized by for the past eight years -- and one that applies to every other American citizen.
Proponents of the Bush regime argue that after the attacks of 9/11, President Bush kept America safe from further attacks, conveniently forgetting to mention the anthrax attacks that occurred a week later. Some have tried to lay the blame for the attacks on former President Clinton. Some continue trying to claim that Iraq was responsible for the attacks. None of that is true. In fact, the attacks of 9/11 could have been prevented. The Bush administration was complicit in allowing attacks that could have been prevented to happen.
John Yoo, a lawyer and former official in the Bush administration's politicized Justice Department wrote, as noted by Larisa Alexandrovna's at-Largely blog, a best-of-Bush-Propaganda piece that Rupert Murdoch was happy to spread in his Wall Street Journal. John Yoo is busy trying to justify the crimes he helped 'legalize,' and trying to avoid going to jail.
In a USA Today article, Ross Baker tried to defame those seeking Bush's prosecution as being motivated by 'revenge.' Hardly. As noted by The Centre for Research on Globalization, nowhere does Baker credit the Bush posse forming up with seeking justice after the death and destruction Bush reigned down on Iraq. Instead, Baker thinks American should make "allowances for errors in judgment" by the lying imbecile that killed a million human beings, drove four million from their homes, killed over 4,000 U.S. troops and wounded over 30,000 more.
President Obama, Vice President Biden, many Bush administration insiders and groupies as well as complicit corporate media continue arguing for immunity for high-level government officials who have committed felonies. As noted by Glenn Greenwald from Salon News, it's' the total selectivity of the rationale underlying that case which makes it so corrupt. Bush defenders say we shouldn't get caught up in the past, shouldn't be driven by vengeance and retribution and we shouldn't punish people whose motives in committing crimes weren't really that bad when in reality, they were.
Out Of Control No-Knock Drug Raids
Ryan Frederick, a Chesapeake, Virginia man faced charges for killing a police officer during a drug raid on his home. No marijuana, as claimed by the warrant, was found during the raid and prosecutors conceded that two men, one a police informant named Steven Rene Wright, illegally broke into Frederick's home three nights before the raid and claimed that he found marijuana plants -- the probable cause for the raid.
Frederick has no prior criminal record and had no idea the men breaking down his door were the police. He fired because he thought his house was being invaded, which isn't surprising since he'd been burglarized earlier that week.
Another police informant, Renaldo Turnbull, who is thought to have been with Wright when he broke into Frederick's home, confirmed that police regularly sent he and the other informant to illegally break into private homes to obtain probable cause for search warrants. He told reporters that the police consented to the break-in on Frederick's home. For an excellent example of how the police abused their authority, resulting in the death of one officer and the illegal tactics utilized in order to charge Frederick can be found in the report from Reason Magazine. Ryan Frederick was convicted of manslaughter.
Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife lost their two dogs when a SWAT team raided their house, shot his dogs and confiscated a box containing 32 pounds of marijuana, terrorizing his mother-in-law in the process.
Narcotics investigators for the Prince George's police left that white box on the Mayor's front step, then sent SWAT officers from the Sheriff's Office to retrieve it. The box left by narcotics investigators contained the only marijuana found.
In a similar case from 2006, the Supreme Court found that even when police make a clearly illegal no-knock raid, the evidence they seize can still be used against a defendant at trial. In other words, police can do what they did to Calvo and his family with impunity. There are no consequences for them. No-knock raids on the wrong house are becoming increasingly common and innocent people are being terrorized by those who are supposed to be protecting them courtesy of a politically corrupt court system that has done more harm than good.
America's Justice System Is Broken
Teens who take nude pictures of themselves on their cell phones and send them to friends are now being charged with felonies, including child pornography charges, and labeled as sex offenders -- along with those who receive the pictures. It's a problem that is becoming more increasingly common. Taking pictures of yourself is now considered a crime.
A New York Times article about a young black male who received a life term, without the possibility of parole for rape -- that was never proven -- at 13 is one of many stories about cruel and unusual punishment coupled with racial discrimination that has plagued this country for years.
When a homeless man steals $100 from a bank because he's homeless and hungry, then remorsefully turns himself in to the police the next day and gets sentenced by a judge to 15 years in prison, it's easy to understand the difference between ordinary citizens and those in authoritative positions in the Federal government -- ordinary citizens receive ridiculously harsh punishments for stealing a little bit of money, but when you run a country into the ground, rape and plunder average America, spy illegally and commit numerous felonies and war crimes for corrupted political purposes, you receive impunity. Our Justice system is badly broken.
Mandatory minimum sentencing schemes are embraced by our policially corrupted class as a way to eliminate mercy and sentencing flexibility for ordinary people who break the law -- as opposed to Bush officials who do -- are grotesquely unjust. The U.S. leads the world in producing prisoners. A lot more information on major problems with the two-tiered justice system can be found in Mr. Greenwald's article. Egregious, unconstitutional legislation allegedly designed to fight the 'war on terror' assumes you are guilty until proven innocent has turned a democracy into a dictatorship.
Court Says Schools Can Discriminate Based On Religious Beliefs
The Los Angeles Times reported that an Appeals court, in a unanimous decision, found that California Lutheran High School in Riverside County is not a business, so therefore they don't have to comply with a state law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation after two 16-year-old girls were expelled for having "a bond of intimacy" that was "characteristic of a lesbian relationship." The girls sued saying the school violated a state anti-discrimination law.
The ruling, if not overturned by the California Supreme Court, would permit private schools to discriminate against everyone, as long as the schools used their religious beliefs as justification.
The girls, now in College, were expelled in their junior year for "conducting themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians" although the girls never disclosed their sexual orientation during litigation. The girls had been best friends and declined to discuss their sexual orientation, citing privacy issues.
The dispute started after a student at the school told a teacher in 2005 that one of the girls had said she loved the other, advising the teacher to look at the girls' MySpace pages that identified one as bisexual. The other's page said she was not sure of her sexual orientation. The website also contained a picture of the girls hugging.
Sweeping Abuses Under The Rug Guarantees They'll Happen Again
Protecting and defending the Constitution means that a president must not only obey the Constitution himself, he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable for their actions. The Bush administration spent eight years violating the Constitution of the United States.
On top of illegally starting a war, torture and illegal wiretapping -- despite claims that they were acting in defense of the nation's security -- there are abuses that extend from environmental policy to voting rights, including multiple abuses that involve politicizing all facets of the federal government. Political friends were rewarded while political enemies and dissenters were punished.
Justice Department appointees illegally reserved nonpolitical positions for 'right-thinking Americans' and there is strong evidence showing that officials used their positions both to undermine the protection of minority voting rights and to persecute Democratic politicians.
Billions of dollars were handed to politically connected companies who failed in rebuilding Iraq. Any government official who tried to enforce accountability on Halliburton for example, quickly found their careers derailed.
As noted by Paul Craig Roberts, contrary to U.S. government propaganda, terrorist cells are not spread throughout America and it is not necessary for the government to spy on all Americans while violating other constitutional protections. The 'War on Terror' is a fraudulent hoax designed to take rights and freedoms away. If America was full of terrorists, we wouldn't need the government to tell us. The U.S. government has to substitute warnings for real terrorists in order to keep the fear alive that causes the public to accept illegal wars and infringements on civil liberties.
No important figure in the Bush administration or among its political allies, has ever expressed remorse for breaking the law. Sweeping the abuses of the past eight years under the rug will guarantee that they will happen again. President Obama needs to investigate and hold those responsible for committing the crimes accountable. Not investigating them is not a decision he has the right to make when it's mandated in the Constitution.
Several states have begun realizing the games being played by our Federal government. As noted in an article entitled '9+ States declare their sovereignty or intentions thereof' from Kitco Forums, the Federal government has been using terrorism and the economic crisis -- Senate Republicans are still hellbent on making sure Obama's economic stimulus does not pass, regardless of how many people are in need of it -- to prompt the American people to acquiesce to demands. By creating fear and a general sense of helplessness the public curls up and takes it. Little if any mention is made in the corporate media as the corporate news media no longer serves the public interest. They too, like many in Congress, have been bought out by large, corrupt corporations.
America's Selective Justice Is Not "Change We Can Believe In"
There is more than ample evidence -- as confirmed by a previous Bush administration lawyer -- showing that President George W. Bush authorized torture. If President Obama is going to claim that we are now a nation of laws while walking away from confirmed war crimes committed by the previous administration, people around the world will view the U.S. as an outlaw regime for not arresting them on our own soil. There is an expectation around the world that Bush should be and, one way or the other, will be prosecuted for those crimes.
The political establishment and media continue saying we should look forward and forget about the past. That's only because a lot of them are personally involved in aiding and abetting the crimes committed by the Bush administration. It's not going to look good to the rest of the world if President Obama turns his back on Bush administration crimes, especially since binding U.S. law requires prosecutions for those who authorize torture.
The rest of the world is waiting to see how the Obama administration is going to handle the crimes committed by the Bush administration, crimes that not only violated American laws, but also crimes committed against humanity for which, according to John Dean, the world is ready to hold them accountable.
Unless Obama's administration prosecutes, there will be no "change we can believe in." Harboring criminals will make President Obama look bad. One would think, as also noted by Dean, that former Bush administration officials who claim to have done nothing wrong, would call for investigations to clear themselves if they really believed that to be the case. Not investigating the crimes committed by the Bush administration would be a crime. It's time for the rule of law to apply to everyone, and it's time for the selective justice to end.
Proponents of the Bush regime argue that after the attacks of 9/11, President Bush kept America safe from further attacks, conveniently forgetting to mention the anthrax attacks that occurred a week later. Some have tried to lay the blame for the attacks on former President Clinton. Some continue trying to claim that Iraq was responsible for the attacks. None of that is true. In fact, the attacks of 9/11 could have been prevented. The Bush administration was complicit in allowing attacks that could have been prevented to happen.
John Yoo, a lawyer and former official in the Bush administration's politicized Justice Department wrote, as noted by Larisa Alexandrovna's at-Largely blog, a best-of-Bush-Propaganda piece that Rupert Murdoch was happy to spread in his Wall Street Journal. John Yoo is busy trying to justify the crimes he helped 'legalize,' and trying to avoid going to jail.
In a USA Today article, Ross Baker tried to defame those seeking Bush's prosecution as being motivated by 'revenge.' Hardly. As noted by The Centre for Research on Globalization, nowhere does Baker credit the Bush posse forming up with seeking justice after the death and destruction Bush reigned down on Iraq. Instead, Baker thinks American should make "allowances for errors in judgment" by the lying imbecile that killed a million human beings, drove four million from their homes, killed over 4,000 U.S. troops and wounded over 30,000 more.
President Obama, Vice President Biden, many Bush administration insiders and groupies as well as complicit corporate media continue arguing for immunity for high-level government officials who have committed felonies. As noted by Glenn Greenwald from Salon News, it's' the total selectivity of the rationale underlying that case which makes it so corrupt. Bush defenders say we shouldn't get caught up in the past, shouldn't be driven by vengeance and retribution and we shouldn't punish people whose motives in committing crimes weren't really that bad when in reality, they were.
Out Of Control No-Knock Drug Raids
Ryan Frederick, a Chesapeake, Virginia man faced charges for killing a police officer during a drug raid on his home. No marijuana, as claimed by the warrant, was found during the raid and prosecutors conceded that two men, one a police informant named Steven Rene Wright, illegally broke into Frederick's home three nights before the raid and claimed that he found marijuana plants -- the probable cause for the raid.
Frederick has no prior criminal record and had no idea the men breaking down his door were the police. He fired because he thought his house was being invaded, which isn't surprising since he'd been burglarized earlier that week.
Another police informant, Renaldo Turnbull, who is thought to have been with Wright when he broke into Frederick's home, confirmed that police regularly sent he and the other informant to illegally break into private homes to obtain probable cause for search warrants. He told reporters that the police consented to the break-in on Frederick's home. For an excellent example of how the police abused their authority, resulting in the death of one officer and the illegal tactics utilized in order to charge Frederick can be found in the report from Reason Magazine. Ryan Frederick was convicted of manslaughter.
Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and his wife lost their two dogs when a SWAT team raided their house, shot his dogs and confiscated a box containing 32 pounds of marijuana, terrorizing his mother-in-law in the process.
Narcotics investigators for the Prince George's police left that white box on the Mayor's front step, then sent SWAT officers from the Sheriff's Office to retrieve it. The box left by narcotics investigators contained the only marijuana found.
In a similar case from 2006, the Supreme Court found that even when police make a clearly illegal no-knock raid, the evidence they seize can still be used against a defendant at trial. In other words, police can do what they did to Calvo and his family with impunity. There are no consequences for them. No-knock raids on the wrong house are becoming increasingly common and innocent people are being terrorized by those who are supposed to be protecting them courtesy of a politically corrupt court system that has done more harm than good.
America's Justice System Is Broken
Teens who take nude pictures of themselves on their cell phones and send them to friends are now being charged with felonies, including child pornography charges, and labeled as sex offenders -- along with those who receive the pictures. It's a problem that is becoming more increasingly common. Taking pictures of yourself is now considered a crime.
A New York Times article about a young black male who received a life term, without the possibility of parole for rape -- that was never proven -- at 13 is one of many stories about cruel and unusual punishment coupled with racial discrimination that has plagued this country for years.
When a homeless man steals $100 from a bank because he's homeless and hungry, then remorsefully turns himself in to the police the next day and gets sentenced by a judge to 15 years in prison, it's easy to understand the difference between ordinary citizens and those in authoritative positions in the Federal government -- ordinary citizens receive ridiculously harsh punishments for stealing a little bit of money, but when you run a country into the ground, rape and plunder average America, spy illegally and commit numerous felonies and war crimes for corrupted political purposes, you receive impunity. Our Justice system is badly broken.
Mandatory minimum sentencing schemes are embraced by our policially corrupted class as a way to eliminate mercy and sentencing flexibility for ordinary people who break the law -- as opposed to Bush officials who do -- are grotesquely unjust. The U.S. leads the world in producing prisoners. A lot more information on major problems with the two-tiered justice system can be found in Mr. Greenwald's article. Egregious, unconstitutional legislation allegedly designed to fight the 'war on terror' assumes you are guilty until proven innocent has turned a democracy into a dictatorship.
Court Says Schools Can Discriminate Based On Religious Beliefs
The Los Angeles Times reported that an Appeals court, in a unanimous decision, found that California Lutheran High School in Riverside County is not a business, so therefore they don't have to comply with a state law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation after two 16-year-old girls were expelled for having "a bond of intimacy" that was "characteristic of a lesbian relationship." The girls sued saying the school violated a state anti-discrimination law.
The ruling, if not overturned by the California Supreme Court, would permit private schools to discriminate against everyone, as long as the schools used their religious beliefs as justification.
The girls, now in College, were expelled in their junior year for "conducting themselves in a manner consistent with being lesbians" although the girls never disclosed their sexual orientation during litigation. The girls had been best friends and declined to discuss their sexual orientation, citing privacy issues.
The dispute started after a student at the school told a teacher in 2005 that one of the girls had said she loved the other, advising the teacher to look at the girls' MySpace pages that identified one as bisexual. The other's page said she was not sure of her sexual orientation. The website also contained a picture of the girls hugging.
Sweeping Abuses Under The Rug Guarantees They'll Happen Again
Protecting and defending the Constitution means that a president must not only obey the Constitution himself, he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable for their actions. The Bush administration spent eight years violating the Constitution of the United States.
On top of illegally starting a war, torture and illegal wiretapping -- despite claims that they were acting in defense of the nation's security -- there are abuses that extend from environmental policy to voting rights, including multiple abuses that involve politicizing all facets of the federal government. Political friends were rewarded while political enemies and dissenters were punished.
Justice Department appointees illegally reserved nonpolitical positions for 'right-thinking Americans' and there is strong evidence showing that officials used their positions both to undermine the protection of minority voting rights and to persecute Democratic politicians.
Billions of dollars were handed to politically connected companies who failed in rebuilding Iraq. Any government official who tried to enforce accountability on Halliburton for example, quickly found their careers derailed.
As noted by Paul Craig Roberts, contrary to U.S. government propaganda, terrorist cells are not spread throughout America and it is not necessary for the government to spy on all Americans while violating other constitutional protections. The 'War on Terror' is a fraudulent hoax designed to take rights and freedoms away. If America was full of terrorists, we wouldn't need the government to tell us. The U.S. government has to substitute warnings for real terrorists in order to keep the fear alive that causes the public to accept illegal wars and infringements on civil liberties.
No important figure in the Bush administration or among its political allies, has ever expressed remorse for breaking the law. Sweeping the abuses of the past eight years under the rug will guarantee that they will happen again. President Obama needs to investigate and hold those responsible for committing the crimes accountable. Not investigating them is not a decision he has the right to make when it's mandated in the Constitution.
Several states have begun realizing the games being played by our Federal government. As noted in an article entitled '9+ States declare their sovereignty or intentions thereof' from Kitco Forums, the Federal government has been using terrorism and the economic crisis -- Senate Republicans are still hellbent on making sure Obama's economic stimulus does not pass, regardless of how many people are in need of it -- to prompt the American people to acquiesce to demands. By creating fear and a general sense of helplessness the public curls up and takes it. Little if any mention is made in the corporate media as the corporate news media no longer serves the public interest. They too, like many in Congress, have been bought out by large, corrupt corporations.
America's Selective Justice Is Not "Change We Can Believe In"
There is more than ample evidence -- as confirmed by a previous Bush administration lawyer -- showing that President George W. Bush authorized torture. If President Obama is going to claim that we are now a nation of laws while walking away from confirmed war crimes committed by the previous administration, people around the world will view the U.S. as an outlaw regime for not arresting them on our own soil. There is an expectation around the world that Bush should be and, one way or the other, will be prosecuted for those crimes.
The political establishment and media continue saying we should look forward and forget about the past. That's only because a lot of them are personally involved in aiding and abetting the crimes committed by the Bush administration. It's not going to look good to the rest of the world if President Obama turns his back on Bush administration crimes, especially since binding U.S. law requires prosecutions for those who authorize torture.
The rest of the world is waiting to see how the Obama administration is going to handle the crimes committed by the Bush administration, crimes that not only violated American laws, but also crimes committed against humanity for which, according to John Dean, the world is ready to hold them accountable.
Unless Obama's administration prosecutes, there will be no "change we can believe in." Harboring criminals will make President Obama look bad. One would think, as also noted by Dean, that former Bush administration officials who claim to have done nothing wrong, would call for investigations to clear themselves if they really believed that to be the case. Not investigating the crimes committed by the Bush administration would be a crime. It's time for the rule of law to apply to everyone, and it's time for the selective justice to end.
Print
Email
