A Chilling Thought: Once He Gets In Trump May Never Be Removed Via Elections

Again, on display in the last half hour of 'Morning Joe' , was the incredible human capacity to embrace fancy, groundless hope, and baseless suppositions. This was when host Joe Scarborough was presented with multiple rational ways in which Trump, and his administration, could flout existing laws and the constitution with impunity.  Joe, bless his Repuke heart, simply believes based on history that the constitution and "separation of powers" will protect us against any extreme Trump maneuvers.

But as his guest pointed out, that didn't stop Bush from using the Patriot act in various ways it was never intended (and is still on the books - to arrest protesters as "domestic terrorists") as well as undertaking NSA mass surveillance on scales that flout the 4th amendment of the Bill of Rights, specifically against warrantless searches.

Then we beheld honorary national "historian -in- chief"- actor  Tom Hanks -  at a recent confab at the Museum  of Art in NYC  imploring us all to "Calm down".  Hanks,  the same guy who three years ago wanted to save Americans from being "snookered" (by accepting Lee Oswald was set up as a decoy in the JFK hit),  said we have "nothing to worry about" and "our Constitution will protect us".

For any who really believe that I suggest reading how Germans fared after Hitler got the Enabling Act passed in Germany, e.g.

http://www.dw.com/en/the-law-that-enabled-hitlers-dictatorship/a-16689839

Most true experts, not Hanks, are of the belief that under the right conditions - and especially with ALL branches of government (including Supreme Court) controlled by one party, it can happen here.  Let's also register that millions implored Obama to remove the part of the (2006) Military Commissions Act repealing Habeas Corpus, to no avail.  Obama repeatedly used the bromide that "there is nothing to fear" and no one would ever be locked up for no good reason. More sober minds, however, kept telling him 'yes, that's fine if you're there, but one day you won't be and a strong man type could take your place'.

Now that situation looms over us as a confirmed authoritarian narcissist - in many ways like Adolf Hitler- prepares to assume office on January 20th. This is even as many (even on the media  left) pooh pooh Hitlerian comparisons as:"hysteria". But just yesterday, the bombastic buffoon issued  a warning against those who used the First amendment for flag burning, tweeting:

"Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag, If they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or a year in jail"

A year in jail for exercising first amendment rights? As I pointed out in a post from two years ago (July 24):

"in the case Texas v. Johnson (1989) flag burning was upheld as symbolic free speech which could not be curtailed under the 1st amendment. " This was upheld in a 1990 Supreme Court decision (7-3) ( United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310  ) which declared an earlier  opposing law  impermissibly discriminated upon viewpoint .

Now Trump wants to tear that protection down, and I also suspect- inflated ego and thin skin that he has - he will also try to implement the earlier Patriot Act provisions against demonstrations and mass protests. Hell, he could even invoke the "continuity of government" provision introduced under Reagan.

Reagan’s Executive Order 12656, issued in 1988,  stated that Continuity of Government procedures were called for in the event of "any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States."   In the 1980s COG planning was being handled by Louis Giuffrida. According to an article by Alfonso Chardy (‘Reagan Aides and the `Secret’ Government’, Miami Herald, July 5, 1987.) the stated plans included "suspension of the Constitution," along with detailed arrangements for the declaration of martial law.

Get that? Suspension of the Constitution. And if you don't believe Trump would resort to any ruse to implement it, to advance his own ends - including perhaps to remain in power (despite the 22nd amendment), you really are a political and historical Pollyanna.

Look, already this overgrown,  authoritarian 'boss' baby is fulminating about the election recounts, and recklessly citing Infowars conspiracy BS that he really won the popular vote. The man is certifiably unstable just as Hitler was (though in the Fuhrer's case it likely was from syphilis).  If he was the least bit rational, as well as temperamentally suited to be a true chief executive, he'd settle down and grasp that if he REALLY won - and didn't have the votes rigged for himself - he has nothing to fear. His outbursts merely show he's terrified of losing those 3 states and having his totalitarian agenda overturned.

His very active paranoia, as well as his carping about "rigging" during the campaign,. indicates to me that once in office he will essentially piss on amendment XXII and remain there using any ruse to justify it. "Terrorist threat?" Insurrection? Need for extended martial law?

Further, the Repukes themselves may well abet him in this, grasping there may be no other Republican who can win the presidency after four horrific years of Trump or worse, eight. In that case, they may wager better to repeal the 22nd amendment  - or Trump does it via a specious executive order. And if you believe the Dems will be our saviors here you're also dreaming, because Trump may find some ruse to lock them up too.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001. Those suspicious of what COG means today have pointed to a number of post 9/11 steps to facilitate the implementation of martial law, including the creation of a new military command (NORTHCOM) for the continental United States. They note also Homeland Security’s strategic plan “Endgame”, whose stated goal is the creation of detention camps designed to "remove all removable aliens," including "potential terrorists."
Even worse, later mutations of COG under the Bushites  equated political dissent with treason. In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"…activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"

According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”    It could also include opposition politicians, representatives if their words are interpreted as "sedition" - say under a new GOP-Trump passed law. Again, if this transpires the Constitution will become "just a piece of paper" as John McCloy once described it when he approved internment camps for Japanese Americans.

Clearly most COG plans are shrouded in extreme secrecy, effectively unregulated by Congress or the courts. But what ought to get the hackles of any sentient American up is their potential to be yoked to an overreaching surveillance state.  All this is within Trump's purview, authoritarian that he clearly is.

Those who understand history and especially those who take George Santayana's quote seriously:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. "

know it is stupid to dismiss Trump as just another clown. No, once he has the power of the office - and allies in his cabinet and congress- he becomes much more. He becomes a massive threat to every principle this nation holds dear.  Those convinced the constitution will protect them may want to do more research into the continuity of government process as well as elimination of habeas corpus via the Military Commissions Act.

Once this narcissist authoritarian assumes office, there is no way his enormous ego will allow him to accept people want him gone, even in an election.  And if (by his own words) he wouldn't accept the results of an election in this cycle, what makes you believe he'd accept them in a future one?  A paranoid who is indispensable in his own mind is a dangerous leader indeed. Ask the Germans!

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/stephen-pizzo/70079/time-to-chose-american-or-vichy-american


Excerpt:

"Now, having spent a big chunk of my adult life as a journalist, I am familiar with the sin of hyperbole, so I don’t write this with a careless hand. But everything I have seen and heard to date about Trump and those he is surrounding himself with, I am quite certain we Americans face a choice not entirely dissimilar to what the French faced in 1940. And that the time has arrived for every American to make a choice: America, or Vichy-America?

Whether you make that choice explicitly or by inaction, that choice will be the most important decision you will make as a citizen and person. It will mark, forever, exactly who you are."

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bruce-ticker/70063/that-scary-hidden-agenda

Is the U.S.A. Off Its Rocker? Most Other Nations Believe So

Scene at an astronomy workshop for secondary school teachers in Georgetown, Guyana in August, 1978. After each session I was peppered with questions about the U.S. its foreign policies and educational system.

To anyone born after 1996 or so, it is unlikely the nation would appear to have "lost its marbles" (although older citizens should have seen warning signs from the Reepos' impeachment of Clinton for a sex act, and Bush's sleeping  (errrr, sitting, reading a child's book) on the job when the 9/11 terror attacks struck  - then using it as an excuse to pump up the defense -security enclave to monstrous proportions while also repealing habeas corpus in the Military Commissions Act of 2006).

But though the evidence may be marginal in terms of a recent time perspective it is in so-called "neon lights" for those of us who've been paying attention to the national scene since the early 1960s.

We've watched the United States  slowly deteriorate in terms of its quality of life (from the time only a single parent had to work to support a family) to now when even two wage earners can't earn enough for decent housing, food and utilities.  We've seen the decaying infrastructure all around us as once grand bridges - as well as water and sewer systems built in the 1950s-60s - are now coming apart literally,  with no effort to replace or maintain them. In the intervening years we've also seen the nation- spellbound by rhetoric-  unravel its already flimsy safety net, fail to replace it even as organized labor has been diminished. This coinciding with the erosion education in most of our schools. Let' not even get into how our national legislature  has been brought to a standstill, and create the greatest degree of economic and social inequality in almost a century.

As I also learned when I worked for 20 years in Barbados, Americans who live abroad — more than six million  worldwide currently-  also face hard questions about our country. We're peppered  by people we live among, whether Europeans, Asians,  West Indians or Africans, who ask us to explain everything that baffles them about the increasingly odd and troubling conduct of the United States.  Polite people, normally reluctant to risk offending a guest, complain that America’s trigger-happiness, cutthroat free-marketeering, and “exceptionality” have gone on for too long to be considered just an adolescent phase. Which means that we Americans abroad are regularly asked to account for the behavior of our rebranded “homeland,” now conspicuously in decline and increasingly out of step with the rest of the world.

Questions I've had to confront over two decades have included:

* Why do so few average Americans understand science?

* How can your people speak of the rule of law when your presidents break international laws to make war whenever they want?

* How can American voters cede the power to blow up the planet to one lone, ordinary man with a 'football'?

* How can Americans throw away the Geneva Conventions whenever it suits your fancy?

* Why do you Americans like guns so much?  Why do you kill each other at such a rate?

* How can so many average Americans still be so blind to the reality of climate change?

Often my attempts to address such questions, whether in college classes, cocktail parties (at the British High Commissioner's) or even following astronomy workshops at the Harry Bayley Observatory, were met with stark skepticism. For example, I'd say: 'Well - it just happens that America possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world and when a person becomes President he "inherits" the responsibility for when to key in the 'football' should the Russians, or whomever launch a first strike.'

At other times - such as the first question and last - I'd simply admit the  inferiority of the American educational system in most cases, to the British,  which system is still used in the West Indies. I'd also refer to the power of local school boards which were directly responsible for doing their own thing and omitting critical areas (say like evolution in biology, or large civil protests in American History) if they didn't like them.

But to many foreign citizens,  since the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, the most baffling and important question of all is: Why do you send your military all over the world to stir up more and more trouble for all of us?

Most West Indians, including Bajans, saw no point or purpose to our involvement in Vietnam, for example, and didn't see it as our business to intervene in an Asian civil land war. (They also thought the 'Domino theory' to be an excuse to butt in, like the "Bush doctrine") Others are still seething over the involvement of the U.S. in blowing up a Cuban airline (CU-455) r off Barbados' southwest coast on October 6, 1976. The bombing cost 73 lives and was the bloodiest terror episode in the Western Hemisphere before 2001.

The other event which riles people no end is the assassination of a "good and decent American president", John F. Kennedy, and most foreigners are well aware of the background of the CIA's involvement and don't buy that "one lone gunman" did it. They concur it was a conspiracy and plausibly forged by our security state in league with the military.  They also are convinced it paved the way for our future psychosis - since the truth has been kept concealed by our officialdom - who refused to even release key files 50 years after. See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/germans-tom-hanks-wasting-his-time-with.html

Did I resent the barrage of questions? Only some of them, and some of the time. But mainly it indicated the extent of curiosity about the U.S. but also that most Americans have no idea just how strange we seem to much of the world. As noted in the link above while we were in Germany two years ago, those German observers were far better informed about us than the average American is about them.

We already know this is partly because the “news” in the American corporate media is so parochial and so limited in its views both of how we act and how other countries think.  And while our people can afford to keep their noses in smartphones, Ipads and remain deaf, dumb and blind to external reality, foreign citizens can't be so cavalier. After all, who knows when we will threaten  to be at war with the next enemy of the moment? America’s belligerence alone, not to mention its financial acrobatics, compels the rest of the world to keep close track of us. 

Most unnerving to me, in Barbados visits-  especially last year and in 2010, and in two European visits (in Austria and Germany in 2013 and Switzerland last year) was the subtext of American "insanity" that lingers on the tongues of many. Our actions then, speak louder than our principles and words and often contradict them - indicating at least a cognitive dissonance, but to many being out of touch with reality.

For example, as my German friends Reinhardt and Elli put it:  How is it ordinary Americans in startling numbers have been persuaded to dislike “big government” and yet support (by their votes) representatives, bought and paid for by the rich?  How to explain that?

And as one Bajan friend who'd recently visited the U.S. put it: How can we allow our roads and bridges to collapse while we hail each new high in the DOW? Is that not insanity? Are not the roads, bridges needed for transport and the water mains needed for water conveyance more important than an artificial number that can change any given day? I have  had no answers for such questions. So I have had to admit (from their perceptions)  the country is indeed off its rocker.

Others have pointed out that we spend more on our health system than any other nation yet are ranked below Slovenia in assorted charts? Is that not insane? Well, uh yes, I guess so. I do point out that the ACA (Obamacare) has made a dent but not nearly enough and many states (like Texas) won't even accept a key part of it, Medicaid.

Some other writers along these same issues have opined that  "crazy may be too strong a word, too broad and vague to pin down the problem" but I am not so sure.  Yes, it is possible Americans are merely “ill-informed,” “misguided,” “misled,” or “asleep,” and could still recover sanity.  But I still keep returning to Einstein's fundamental definition of insanity: doing he same thing over and over, while expecting a different result.

And that description fits the U.S. to a tee: starting new wars and military adventures but expecting a different outcome each time - but it never comes; playing loose with the financial markets and almost bringing them down with swap derivatives- then five years later passing a law to make it possible again. Allowing infrastructure to crumble year after year while we chase the magic numbers in the DOW - and are no better off with our basic property. And opining how we have 'advanced on race' but always seem to revert to what we were, as in the 1950s, 1960s.

The country as a whole needs a head check and needs one soon. I am sure few Rwandans in 1990 saw the signs their nation would unravel and suffer a massive breakdown and genocide in 1994, just as I am sure few Germans saw it in 1933, just after Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor simply on the basis of getting a plurality of votes. 'Why worry about that guy?' they joked. 'What can he do?  (Big business, meanwhile, like Krupp - believed they could manipulate him to their own ends). They soon found out otherwise and that der Fuhrer had his way with them.

Hopefully, our people come to their collective senses - meaning sanity - before they make similar mistakes. Say like electing Ted Cruz and Chris Christie next year as Vice-President and President, respectively.

Yes, Those Detention Camps Are REAL and for YOU!

Martial law: (def.) The law imposed upon citizens by a national military force when civil authority has broken down or during military operations.

"The loss of civil liberties by the American people is probably the biggest thing that's happened in this decade. Now, we no longer have habeas corpus. Any president can decide that you're an enemy combatant and put you in a military prison without trial, without lawyers, without access to your family...indefinitely. Whether you're a citizen of the United States or not. They now have active military battalions on duty - under the North American Command - ready to go and act as police in any city of the United States.

They have built detention centers throughout the country, $350 million that went to Halliburton, to expand detention centers and be prepared for martial law" - Peter Phillips, Former Director Of Project Censored, and now Direction of Media Freedom Foundation.

In the previous post I examined Chris Hedges' exposure of Ivy League institutions as seed beds for elite control of the country,  spanning the areas of business, economics and politics. At the end I also referenced Thomas Frank's quote of Obama to the effect that he was the "only thing" standing between investment bankers and "the pitchforks". The latter is the metaphor used for public or populist outrage at any given shenanigan or even national policy. At its extreme, if investment bankers or any other elites really had anything to fear, it would be mass insurrection or revolution - with the Right and Left finally coming together to oust all of them and who knows what else. Think of the Ukraine- Kiev  uprising back in March but magnified one million times.

The U.S. Neocons and their allies cheered while the "pitchforks" came out in the Ukraine and ousted the democratically elected leader, Viktor Yanukyovich , but don't think for a second they or the national security state would tolerate the same thing here. Say if millions across the nation got violently disaffected with economic conditions and acted out.  In this sense there's always been a measure of hypocrisy but Official Washington used to at least pretend to stand for “democracy,” rather than taking such obvious pleasure in destabilizing elected governments, encouraging riots, overturning constitutional systems and then praising violent putsches - while removing all possibility for such at home - including elimination of habeas corpus (via the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and setting up the COG and Main Core programs as well as expanding corporate -constructed detention camps.

Of course, mass popular insurrection directed at the elite corporate power structure is the corporate security state's worst nightmare. (As Chris Hedges notes, op. cit., p. 177: "The emergence of the corporate state always means the emergence of the security state.") And they have also harbored incessant fears of its realization since the 1960s, especially with probabilities increasing as economic conditions and inequality worsen. But mostly they've been able to keep the anger at bay via the use of the media - to create umpteen diversions to titillate the masses and anesthetize them, or ply them with so many choices they can't decide whether to shit or go blind, far less grab a pitchfork to take out an elite. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/07/media-and-human-attention-whos-to-blame.html

For a long time I admit that I dismissed the crazies on the Right - who endlessly yapped about "FEMA concentration camps" - as whackos, nuts and loony tunes. Their conspiracy theories - including of UN  black helicopters, gave all conspiracies (even legitimate ones like Watergate and the Kennedy assassination) a bad rap and rendered them easier to lampoon by the media cynics. However, after seeing the film "Project Censored the Movie" and extracting further documents based on it, including from  the Project Censored archives i.e.

http://www.projectcensored.org/14-homeland-security-contracts-kbr-to-build-detention-centers-in-the-us/

I became convinced the Righties were basically on to something. They just got the time line a bit wrong. As researcher Peter Dale Scott points out in an update to the Project Censored article (in the above link), it was actually under Reagan that: FEMA’s former plans ‘for the detention of at least 21 million American Negroes in assembly centers or relocation camps’  had arisen.  The basis was to obviously prevent mass riots such as occurred in the 1960s in hundreds of American cities. The reasoning is that Reagan's planned "Reagonomics" supply side impositions would so badly extirpate the social support programs for many African-Americans that it would be intolerable.

But the Righties failed to go to the next level, which was the construction or expansion of existing detention facilities by KBR - an offshoot of Halliburton, soon after Bush Jr., Cheney and that lot revamped the COG (continuity of government) program to include a wide swatch of "domestic terrorists" and malcontents.  Indeed, in the movie, a map is shown of all the detention facilities expanded by KBR, stretching from California to New England. Clearly, the elites hatched out of the Ivies (see previous post) and controlling our nation's destiny aren't about to go quietly into that good night.


As I noted in a previous blog post:

 According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001. But what measures were invoked remains unclear, though Giuffrida’s template was believed to be integrated into it and former Reaganites were in the WH at the time, who had shared earlier in the architecture (Rumsfeld, Cheney etc.)


 Those suspicious of what COG means today have pointed to a number of post 9/11 steps to facilitate the implementation of martial law, including the creation of a new military command (NORTHCOM) for the continental United States. They note also Homeland Security’s strategic plan “Endgame”, whose stated goal is the creation of detention camps designed to "remove all removable aliens," including "potential terrorists."


- Even worse, later mutations of COG under the Bushites  equated political dissent with treason. (Now we know why the security state was so hot to trot to squelch all OWS protests, including beating the living shit out of them when they tried to approach Wall Street and the Stock Exchange!)

In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"…activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"


According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”  That includes Occupy Wall Streeters and anyone who protests the Keystone XL pipeline!

Most concern has been expressed at the Main Core program which one knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

Those who think this is a joke or conspiracy theory nonsense are not paying attention, especially on how the hammer of the security state was brought down on Occupy Wall Street protestors two years ago.  See e.g. http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1494

All of this, of course, facilitated by the NSA's mass surveillance programs - XKeyscore, MUSCULAR, PRISM etc.

The Elite power structure also knows these mass warrant, 4th amendment violating programs are essential, not for "terrorists" or to prevent terror attacks, but to get a handle on who all the potential domestic trouble makers are if a mass eruption does break out.  As Chris Hedges observes (p. 177):

"As the pressure mounts, as this despair and impoverishment reach larger and larger segments of the populace, the mechanisms of corporate and government control are being bolstered to prevent civil unrest and instability. ...This is why the Bush White House pushed through the Patriot Act (and its renewal) , the suspension of habeas corpus, the practice of 'extraordinary rendition', the practice of warrantless wiretapping on American citizens, and the refusal to ensure free and fair elections...

It's all part of a package, It comes together. The motive behind these measures is not to fight terrorism or to bolster national security. It is to seize and maintain internal control."

Hedges notes that the real purpose for these programs leaked out in the course of a Senate Intelligence meeting in February and March, 2009.  That was when then Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified that the "deepening economic crisis posed the gravest threat to stability and national security".  It could "trigger" he said, "a return to the violent extremism of the 1920s and 1930s." The implication was that the immediate means and infrastructure needed to be brought up to speed to identify and detain those who might adversely affect corporate state security. The widespread NSA programs, as exposed by Snowden,  followed almost immediately in the wake.

Were Blair's worries justified?  Of course! Because no normal human or mass aggregation is prepared to be shat on their heads forever, exploited and ground under like so much dirt while the elites enjoy their weekend golf jaunts to St. Kitts, as their wives get costly rose wine wraps, e.g.
















Oh we also wouldn't want to deprive them of their special gold -lined bath tubs, and $25,000 apiece Frrrozen Haute Chocolate delicacies now (see below), would we?

 Oh wait, I mustn't do that! No, no and no! That's waging "class warfare" on the little turds!


But you get my point! Just presenting these class warfare images could easily entice the next President - god forbid Ted Cruz or Paul Ryan or that porker Chris Christie, to declare me an "enemy (of the rich) combatant" and have me dragged away to one of those KBR made detention centers.

But the sad fact is one guy raising hell on his blog is mostly going to elicit a big yawn from the elites. The truth is that most Americans are so hypnotized by their little consumer toys, Ipads, smart phones and Facebook that they're nowhere near to being discontented on a level to inspire a Kiev-like insurrection against the corporatists. And a large part of this is the zombie media saturation as well as the false statistics, such as the consumer price index, that Chris Hedges notes the power structure uses to keep people baffled with bullshit.

Want to know the sad truth in all this?  The people most likely to get riled up and take it out on all our hides, whether in domestic bombings (like Oklahoma City) or para-military standoffs (like Waco incident on Clinton's watch) will be the radical Right. As Hedges grimly observes (p. 183):

"As the public begins to grasp the depth of the betrayal and abuse by our ruling class; as the Democratic and Republican parties expose themselves as craven tools of our corporate state; as savings accounts, college funds, and retirement plans become worthless, as unemployment skyrockets and home values go up in smoke, we must prepare for the political re-emergence of the reinvigorated Right wing radicals."

In other words, we may well be put on a track analogous to that in 1932-33 leading Germans to the nightmare of the Third Reich. Only our version will be much worse, since a Right wing controlled NSA- say with a Ted Cruz at the helm as President- would be vastly more powerful than the Nazi Gestapo.

See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/57092/the-spoils-of-class-warfare

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/57086/corporate-tax-deferral-inversions-and-the-destructive-result

and:
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/22/a_much_larger_and_more_dangerous_movement_right_wing_militias_thrive_post_bundy_and_the_media_wont_talk_about_it/

A Free Country? Only Rhetorically!

"Jeebus! All I did is copy a picture of Smokey the Bear and they give me Ten YEARS!"


Too Many 'Muricans have this pie-eyed delusion they inhabit a "free country". Perhaps it's a result of getting bombarded daily by the corporate-paid pols with words like "freedom" and "liberty" or maybe it's the codswallop being fed them for the reason we're in Afghanistan, i.e. that all those troops are "fighting for our freedoms". Who can say?

But, if that's truly the case, then riddle me this: How come congress is slowly but surely retrenching all the most basic freedoms and no one, or barely anyone, is paying any attention?

Let's even forget for the moment that habeas corpus, one of the most cherished principles of jurisprudence, was basically repealed under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. But an even more (if that can be conceived) insidious threat to Americans' freedoms is the congressional attack on the other great principle known as 'Mens rea' - embodying the notion that a citizen can't be held accountable for an alleged crime unless he knows exactly what he's done and moreover that his accusers have established his malicious intent.

But according to an article appearing on the front page of yesterday's Wall Street Journal ('As Federal Crimes List Grows, Threshold for Guilt Declines') tens of millions may have real reason for worry and our troops may well be placing their lives on the line for nothing. Why, because today "there are more than 4,500 crimes in federal statutes, plus thousands more embedded in federal regulations", most of which have been added to the penal code since 1970.

Are we freeer because of these additions? Hardly! And certainly not when 1 in every 100 Americans is locked up and 2 of every 100 is under some control by the penal process- whether on parole, probation, jailed or under bond. Indeed, more Americans are locked up per capita than in Russia and China combined.

By comparison, and for historical perspective, back in 1790 only 20 federal crimes were listed in the then federal statutes. So what happened? Is it really true that the evolved complexity of our civilization has made necessary nearly 225 times more laws? Or is it more realistically a case that because our congress critters literally believe they are "law makers" they actually have to make them each and every year, irrespective of quality or the effect on Americans' liberty?

Let's cite another historical perspective, that of mens rea under English common law, which has also been a staple of American jurisprudence since the founding of the Republic. By this venerable standard, prosecutors not only had to demonstrate a crime was committed but also had to show intent. Thus, it wasn't enough to call "Thief!" on a person with some item or property, the prosecution had to show the item belonged to another person.

But that standard now seems to have been eroded by an over-active set of legislators. But don't take my word.

As the WSJ piece notes, "one controversial new law can hold animal rights activists responsible for any protests that cause the target of their attention to be fearful, regardless of the protestors' intentions".

This 'Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act' is some serious shit! Thus, if those who oppose the fur trade happen to show up at some Gala in Hollywood or New York City, and toss pig's blood onto a mink stole to demonstrate, then they can be hauled off to spend five years in federal prison if they caused any "fear" in their targets. Hell, they can be found liable if they even hold a sign up (never mind any direct overt actions) that shows a baby seal being clubbed, or whatever. If said sign arouses fear, they have had it under the new guidelines. Of course, if their target knows the law, then they can easily game it and discover their "fear" in assorted altercations with protestors.

Advantage poor widdo corporate "Target" and game over for protestors...and "free speech".

Andy Weissman, a New York attorney, is quoted in the piece as saying that "requiring the government to prove a willful violation is a big protection for all of us". Well, no shit, Sherlock! I mean if intent or malice of forethought is dispensed with, anyone can be locked up on any pretense or fiction that may emerge in a prosecutor's mind.

And how bad is the erosion? According to the Journal's analysis (ibid.), "more than 40% of non-violent offenses created or amended during two recent Congresses, the 109th and the 111th (the latter of which ran through last year) had weak mens rea requirements at best.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, usually no friend of liberals or libertarians, recently lobbed a volley at Congress, tasking them for "passing too many fuzzy or imprecise laws" and leaving the details to be sorted out by higher courts. In most cases, the congress critters deliberately punted on the mens rea protections to make their work loads lighter, just as they have done regularly when allowing lobbyists to write their legislation for them (as was the case with the 2003 Medicare law that introduced a prescription drug "benefit"- that was laden with corporate welfare.)

Jay Apperson, a former Chief Counsel for the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, said the erosion of mens rea is partly due to the "hit or miss way American legislation is written". Apperson adds (ibid.) that most members "don't think about it. Not out of a malevolent motive, they just don't think about it".

Well, maybe they damned well should! They are toying with people's -citizens' lives here and those same citizens are the ones who pay their salaries. If they won't or can't do their jobs properly, which entails vetting legislation - especially to do with criminal law- properly, then they should vacate those offices!

It's better they do that than to undermine citizens' actual freedoms while troops are overseas allegedly "fighting for them". Maybe those troops need to keep a closer eye on our own congress critters, rather than the Taliban!