When Politicians Get Away with Murder
In 1974, Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace to avoid being impeached and removed from office for obstruction of justice. New shiny new president, Gerald Ford, pardoned him of any possible federal charges immediately after taking the oath of office citing that it was in the best interest of the country and “a tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.” Nixon walked and lived out his life out in isolation in San Clemente.
In 1998, Clinton was impeached by Republicans in the House for obstruction of justice (for lying about sex), but the Senate failed to convict. Clinton’s popularity actually rose during the proceedings and the impeachment hearings ended up hurting the GOP in the subsequent mid-term election.
From 2002 through 2008 George W. Bush and Dick Cheney led one of the most lawless periods for the executive branch in US history, prosecuting the “War on Terror” by terrorizing millions of innocents, killing hundreds of thousands of people, detaining thousands without charges, kidnapping and torturing, and killing thousands more remotely by drone. That’s not to mention the war profiteering and mass surveillance of millions of Americans. President Barack Obama refused to allow any investigations of the Bush Administration, sweeping 7 years of crimes against humanity under the rug saying, “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the sorry lot walked, most into lucrative speaking and lobbying gigs.
So. Bad conduct, lawlessness, violation of human rights laws, obstruction of justice, and profiteering don’t matter anymore, especially after internal DOJ memos of 1973 and 2000 opined that the President of the United States cannot be indicted for a federal crime while in office. These memos are just another nail in the coffin of our democracy, giving a criminal like Trump free reign to plunder and pillage the US government, allies, other foreign governments, US industry, farmers, religious devotees, workers (especially union), children, migrants, and the poor with impunity. Surely, there’s a special place in hell for the sumbitches who came up with that stupid policy that led to the catastrophe playing out on our televisions on a daily basis.
The Founders feared corruption in the executive branch as a critical threat to our democracy. That’s why they inserted the Emoluments Clause, (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8), that forbids federal officials from receiving money, gifts, and titles from foreign governments. They also inserted Article II, Section 4, which provided for the impeachment and removal of a corrupt president or vice president. The problem? Our elected gerrymandered representatives don’t give a shit about us. Our Senators are drunk with power (or just trying to hang on), and corruption is consuming the very core of our democracy. The Supreme Court has become a cancer on the rule of law, infested with deplorables who believe that money is speech, unlimited money does not corrupt, and that individual liberty is subject to corporate power and permissions they grant. And all this set the stage for…
Trump. Trump is the president the Founders dreaded. Trump is the president we all feared. Trump has destroyed our norms of conduct and common decency, ignored our laws, and exuberantly claimed the WH, the US government, our society, and the global economy for himself. He’s too stupid to actually govern, but smart enough to line his own pockets. And he’s mean; cruelty and revenge are hallmarks of his infestation of the Oval Office. Yet, we do nothing. NOTHING. Our decades long practice of looking the other way in the face of felonious conduct has now come home to roost. Past presidents and congresses have demurred in the face of abject corruption, and this is what we get. Who do I blame? I blame everyone…Nixon, Ford, Clinton, Bush, Cheney, Obama, Gingrich, McConnell, and yes, absolutely Trump.
All these sumbitches let us down, and now we, as individual Americans, are threatened…threatened with the undoing of over 230 years of democracy and the greatest experiment in the history of free people. Politicians know they can urinate all over our laws and society and there is no price to pay. Trump understands this…McConnell understands this…they’re raking in millions and millions of dirty dollars as our justice system does nothing. Our representative form of government atrophies while our leaders do nothing.
Such is the price of complacency and corruption. The Founders saw Trump coming. The problem is that those who followed took the easy route and let him come. Now we’re paying the price.
This is a symptom of the failure and perversion of the justice system
1In a balanced system the rich and powerful would face dramatically more punishment for criminal violations then the weak and poor. After all the wealthy have benefited from the social/ political system whereas the poor have been the victims.
An example would be where the spawn of the wealthy are convicted for crimes instead of hearing bogus excuses for crimes we hear bogus rationals of how proper punishment for the rich and wealthy would limit their ability to become even more rich and powerful whereas whereas we never hear about how the same penalty would drive a poor teen even further into a hole and revolving door of the injustice system.
One of the Scandinavian countries applies this principle to traffic offenses at least.
Wealthy should get greater jail time with less consideration then the poor.
The powerful should face greater loss of priviledge then the weak.
The enshrinement of the powerful from penalties is obscene
>>>….over 230 years democracy and the greatest experiment in the history of free people<<>>….which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.<<<<
2For some reason part of what I wrote in the comment above didn’t make it into what got posted but I hope the point is still clear.
3Another exmple of the illegalities running amok is that cuccinelli’s appointment as “acting secratary of USCIS” is illegal.
4Only 3 “classes” of people, defined by preesent position, prior senate appointment or ( like your ex gov Goodhair I forgot) cuccinelli does not meet any of that criteria.
The only reason there is serious questions about this is because of corrupted judicial system, spineless d’s and a criminal administration.
But the upshot is wouldn’t this invalidate any actions that his position would have to sign off on?
I know this ill not be of comfort to those abused under his false leadership but just the possibility that these actions may be challenged on this point is a dim feeble ray of light in this, our miasma, of shame and disgust over this action.
Great now it has been postponed so the demented one can further besmirch and soil the fourth by sending his “cossacks” out to sweep up the undocumented preferably with force, similiar to a czarist “pogam” against the jews.
Will we ever be able to celebrate this holiday again?
By far your best, most concise work yet. It shames me for my complacence, a hard thing to accomplish. Bravo, Hefe!
5Are you pointing out symptoms or problems themselves? Do you think or imply that the result of trump started with nixon? Eg. slavery early on, genocide intent of Native Americans after we stole this whole country from them, every conflict since Jamestown, as I have pointed out in previous opinions, up to this day involving the corporate powers.
6I know people, including relatives who would only vote against trump if he suddenly turned black (attributed to Mrs Clinton).
There is no logical reasoning with these people.
See, Dixiecrats for more recent background.
Seems only hope is for these negative peoples to suffer personally and recognize actually causation; otherwise, forget it.
And now, for the downside …………..
A large part of the problem is that the people who are supposed to represent us in DC have to depend on campaign donations to get elected– and as a result, they represent mostly those upon whose largesse they depend.
It took Bernie Sanders over a year and 259,000 contributors to raise $7,000,000 in his 2016 campaign. It took the Koch brothers three weeks and 700 in their network to raise the same. Bernie’s going to listen to 259,000 contributors, but 85% of the Democrats are going to listen to the likes of the Kochs.
7I’ll believe until the day I die that Obama could have destroyed the NSGOP if he had permitted investigation of Bush and Cheney for war crimes. That he didn’t permitted all this to happen.
Trumpism didn’t spring up full grown overnight. It came about as the result of years of unanswered propaganda from the right-wing noise machine, Supreme Court decisions going all the way back to Buckley v. Valeo, the wealthy’s sense of entitlement, and so much more. It won’t end when Trump is gone.
We need to win the next several elections and win them big. We need big majorities to get the constitutional changes we need, such as abolishing the electoral college; fixing the Second Amendment; passing the Equal Rights Amendment; etc. At the state level, we also need to assess heavier penalties for white collar crimes, because they affect far more people than simpler crimes.
I could go on, about the need to solve the climate change crisis (and, yes, it’s a crisis); the need to put real scientists in charge of government agencies like the EPA, NASA, the Department of Energy; an educator to run the Department of Education; and so much more. We can do all of that only if we have total control, and that will take prodigious amounts of work.
Organize, work, then organize and work some more!
8Oh, yes, and throw the bastards out!
9BFSMan … Yes, yes, and YES!!!!!
10Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and Shelby County v. Holder, John Roberts and conservatives doing their best to maintain corruption in politics.
11Why has The House Democratic majority abrogated its responsibility to bring impeachment charges? Just about everyone in Congress, when faced with a choice of doing the right thing or being reelected, would choose reelection. I think it’s too late to salvage the idea of America that the founders had in mind.
12President Obama thought that he could work across the aisle with the Republicans. By the time he found out that this was not possible, war crime investigations would have looked like political retribution.
Now that Trump has opened this door, it’s time for Democrats to show Republicans that this door can swing both ways. Prosecuting virtually the entire Trump Administration for their various criminal activities would be a good start – as would a truth commission on the tactics used during the “War on Terrorism.”
Senator McConnell will threaten “payback” – my response would be “you’re going to do it anyway, so why should your threat make a difference?”
13All ideas, suggestions, here are good. But are they addressing the root, heart, of this present situation which has been going on forever?
14IMO, identify the large money contributors down to the individual; ie, no dodges of any kind, who makes that decision by the end of the following month of contribution.Then there must by some real consequences for the violators; eg, relative financial penalties and jail time.
This won’t cure the problem of human nature but could contribute some kind of control over the present situation given some time.
Right on El Jefe!
15Without accountability there is chaos.
Which is why we have laws in the first place.
Unfortunately with the ideological hacks being placed on the bench we will get less accountability rather then more.
16Those incompetents are already delivering for the syphlitic don by denying standing to House of Rep’s on challenge to doddering don’s theft of funds to pay for vanity project “wall” and then by throwing out case of Black Woman campaign worker who was sexually assaulted by the demented one because it was a “political” case that should not be decided by the courts.
So sexual assault by the wealthy and powerful are now “political” questions to be settled in an election and not a crime. Wonder if kraft of the unpatriot’s will try this defense for “massage” parlor tryst?
And the ones getting screwed the hardest are the very ones who thought Trump was on of them such as farmers and ranchers. Since when has Trump ever done anything near the reality of farming and ranching? And yet these are the very ones who will vote for him again. Could it be they like getting screwed?
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