Acquittal Deals Blow to Inquiry Urged by Trump

 

The acquittal of lawyer Michael Sussmann, on a charge that he lied to the FBI about whether he was representing a client or acting on his own when he passed on information concerning a possible Trump-Russia connection, brings a fitting end to a legal travesty.

Special counsel John Durham, appointed by the Trump administration to find evidence of a deep state conspiracy, dreamed up and promoted by Fox News anchors, has sullied his reputation by bringing the flimsiest of charges while using the case as a springboard to make broader, baseless allegations about the non-existent conspiracy calculated to please Mr. Trump and his following.

It took the jury just six hours to render a not guilty verdict and, thus, deliver a deserved rebuke to a politically driven prosecution.

Gun Legislation

 Gun apologists continuously distort the facts to justify their opposition to reasonable gun safety. The greatest untruth is that banning military-style assault rifles does not help prevent mass shootings. Put aside the self-evident fact that automatic or semi-automatic weapons with large ammo capacity fire rapidly and repeatedly without constant need to reload thus greatly expanding the opportunity to inflict maximum carnage.

The facts are that during the ten years an assault rifle ban was in effect in the United States mass shootings decreased; since the ban was allowed to expire, in 2004, these atrocities have spiked. Since Australia enacted a ban, adopted strict gun control laws and bought back and destroyed assault weapons, that country has had almost no mass shootings.

The gun lobby and its legislative acolytes simply refuse to acknowledge these facts or draw any lessons from them. Instead, it persists in spreading falsehoods behind which it promotes a campaign of more gun sales resulting in more mass casualties.

Mass Shooting-Uvalde

 

The police waited an hour to breach the classroom and take out the killer while children lay bleeding to death.  Why? Because they were outgunned by an 18-year-old armed with a military assault rifle and over 600 rounds of ammunition. 

Can anyone imagine a clearer case for banning such weapons and preventing the accumulation of such a stockpile?

Justices Cut Challenges On Counsel

 

According to Justice Clarence Thomas and the other five conservative justices of the Supreme Court, a person may be executed notwithstanding the utter failure of his defense counsel to perform competently. The Constitution guarantees an accused the right to counsel; being defended by an attorney who fails to provide a bare minimum of competent representation is tantamount to having no counsel at all.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court majority values "finality" over the protection of a constitutional right and now forecloses federal judges from obtaining facts beyond the trial record, facts which should have been developed by competent counsel, when weighing whether an injustice has occurred. Requiring a reviewing federal court to rely upon an incomplete record and refrain from learning all relevant facts, is an abdication of the judicial function and an insult to the Constitution. 

Court Decides for Cruz On Campaign Finance

 

Apparently, the Supreme Court has learned nothing from the fallout of its ruling in Citizens United, the case which equated giving money to politicians with free speech and empowered the wealthy and corporations to wield disproportionate influence in the governing of this nation. 

Now, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, speaking for its six conservative members, the court has struck down a law which put a monetary cap on the amount a candidate can be repaid on a loan he made to his campaign from post-election donations. Starkly restated, a donor can say, " now that you have won the election, using your own money as you have a right to do, I will put the money back in your pocket in the hope and expectation that you will remember my generosity as you perform your official duties."

Incredibly, Justice Roberts said that scenario does not smack of the appearance of corruption sufficient to justify campaign finance limits.

Roe v. Wade Leaked Draft

 

Apparently, the Supreme Court is about to overturn Roe v. Wade, thus terminating the right of a woman to abort a pregnancy, a right established fifty years ago and subsequently reaffirmed by the court. The leaked draft of an opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined in by at least four of the other conservative justices, disparages Roe as "wrongly decided". The opinion relies on the absence of any reference in the Constitution to a right to abortion and concludes that access to abortion remains a contentious, political issue best left to state legislatures.

This putative decision effectively rejects the existence of a constitutional right to privacy, a right recognized for decades and which underlies other bedrock decisions of the Supreme Court. Other recognized rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution but found to be supported by due process, equal protection and/or privacy rights, guaranteed by or implicit in the Bill of Rights  amendments to the Constitution, are now at risk of being abrogated by this court.

Thus, the right to contraception, based upon marital privacy, the right to engage in consensual same sex and the right to same sex marriage are all subject to challenge on the same ground relied upon by the current court; that these rights are not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution and, therefore, should be left to regulation by the states.

The Supreme Court is ushering in a theocratic era in which the liberties of citizens will be subject to the religious convictions of a majority of the legislators in the states where they live. Does anyone believe that this is the democratic republic envisioned by the Founders?

Tucker Carlson-American Nationalist

 

Hey Tucker. What a hatchet job the NY Times has done on you. Pouring over years of telecasts, interviewing scores of people, quoting your own words, laying out all those nasty facts. Talk about conspiracies, they're clearly out to destroy you and all because you speak up for the threatened white man and all other legacy Americans who just want to live in a country that looks like the one they grew up in. 

I hope you don't give the Times the satisfaction of knowing it nailed you by denying and attacking its reporting. Show what a man you are by admitting that the piece accurately describes what you stand for and what you are promoting. That would tick off your detractors and make your followers very happy.