Does Justice Still Live In The United States? Perhaps Not

The President and the Courts

Since the Republican majority has decided to allow President Bush to usurp Congress's role in matters of national security, the battle to save the constitutional balance of powers moves to the judiciary. A critical test of judicial independence will come this month, when the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case that has become a focus of Mr. Bush's imperial vision of the presidency.

In my mind, Bush v. Gore, the case heard by the Supreme Court that stole the election from Al Gore and handed it over to George W. Bush, demonstrated that the SCOTUS was not independent, but an entrenched bastion of ideological influence peddling pseudo-intellectuals with no claim to honor, duty or independent ability to reason, comprehend the language and meaning of the US Constitution, or to reach beyond the subjective and/or culturally relative approaches to law, government, politics and ethics.

We cannot rely upon the court alone to check and balance the executive or legistative branches of government. Our forefathers and framers of the Constitution knew this to be true. The design of our government is tri-fold for deliberate and purposeful reasons. Each branch has to work independent of the other--with clear and distinct powers--to make our system of checks and balances effective. When the degree of co-opting, corruption and party domination reaches a level where all three branches are dominated by the ideology of a small segment of society (or even a majority segment of society); the rules of our governmental institutions are no longer based on principles of justice and process becomes a means to justify the ends (or vice versa); there is no sense of the social contract, complete with duties, obligations and honor in the way our representatives conduct themselves; and the very purposes of government--as defined in the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America--are ignored out of hand... our government becomes an organized chaos where lots of things happen but nothing is accomplished. Our nation is suffering a moral crisis that has nothing to do with religious principles of conduct, but of basic principles of natural law... and an utter failure of the ideals and hope our founders laid before us.

Recently, during a press conference, President Bush went on the attack to defend his administration. In the process he touted economic, labor and business statitics. He claimed unemployment was only 4.8% nationally. But he forgets that any reasonably trained or educated person knows that that figure represents only those of us that are unemployed and collecting unemployment insurance benefits. Anyone out of work beyond 26 weeks and off the unemployment rolls is no longer counted as unemployed. Bush also forgets that a large portion of lower and middle income citizens and residents of the US are working two and three jobs, along with their spouses working at least one job, just to make ends meet. If they are not working two or three jobs, they are spending 55-70 hours per week working for a decent salary.

Bush also forgets that the vast number of jobs he touts as having been created during his tenure as president have been, for the most part, jobs that do not provide a living wage, adequate benefits, or even enough money to cover the cost of proper child care. Most of us working folks worry about providing our kids with clothes, books and food to get them through a day at school. The vast majority of us have to worry about whether we pay our heating bill, our electric bill, our medical bills, or go shopping for groceries. These are not worries he has had to deal with.... or has ever really had to worry about over the years.

George W. ignores or dismisses bad news while the rest of us struggle with one setback after another on a daily basis. When the price of gas jumps 10 or 20 cents a gallon, we pay for his trips, motorcades, flights on Air Force One. When the cost of heating fuels jumps up even a nickel a agallon, we foot the bill for his residence. Even if he wasn't having his fuel bills paid for by our tax dollars, his personal and family income is so far above the average that tightening his financial belt to deal with the price jumps is barely equivalent to a mosquito bite--annoying but no great threat to his lifestyle. But for those of us not living in the White House, gas price jumps mean that we may have to sacrifice something just to make it to work. Some of us will have to sell or pawn something to make ends meet or pay our taxes. Most of us will have to choose between turning up the thermostat to contend with a cold snap or feeding our children.

President Bush has also been an advocate of giving money to the people to manage for retirement. The problem is that even those of us that are educated and participating in 401Ks, 403Bs, stock market investments and IRAs are losing. I recently polled members of my family, extended family and circle of friends... NOT ONE OF THEM INDICATED ANY SIGNIFICANT GAINS IN THEIR RETIREMENT PLANS and most reported that due to rising costs, taxes and pressing day-to-day financial issues had to take money out of their retirement plans to make ends meet. Most people have a hard enough time trying to figure out how to pay bills on a monthly basis, nver mind managing investments and planning for retirement... and then to have it all thrown in the crapper while former CEOs, CIOs, CFOs and other executives walk away with tons of money, benefits, perks... and welcomed into other high-paying positions where they can make the same type of asinine decisions that ran businesses into bankruptcy or scandal before... Let's just say that it is discouraging to get screwed by the folks that are supposed to do right by you.

My in-laws are hard-working devout Christians. My father-in-law worked his tail off in the steel mills in Northwest Indiana to make ends meet. My mother-in-law, an enrolled agent of the IRS and tax specialist, is sweating the bills because their retirement income was shot to hell because the companies that guaranteed retirement pension and healthcare benefits went belly-up... cutting my father-in-law's pension by almost a third and eliminating his healthcare benefits completely. As a result of these cuts, in the aggregate sense, the actual cut in his monthly income is over 50% because the cost of healthcare is so high--and constantly increasing--and he was only able to get emergency healthcare insurance. He now pays for LIFE SAVING medications for him and my mother-in-law out of pocket because Medicare doesn't cover most of his medications, my mother-in-law is not yet eligible for Medicare, and their income is still too high to qualify for any other benefits or assistance program. On top of that, their property taxes jumped over 200% last year due to the increased tax burden shifted to states, counties and municipalities, as well as recent re-assessments of property values that are inherently unfair and unscrupulous.

Bush also touts his "tax cuts" as being a prize of his administration. Even if we ignore the major cuts to essential services, the wasteful spending by the federal government, the increase in national debt, the ever-widening trade deficit, the ever-shrinking GDP... etc.... we still have to deal with the rise of tax assessments by the states in the form of increasing income tax rates, sales tax rates (some place are now charging 9.5% sales tax on everything), excise taxes, etc. Local and county taxes are increasing as well. Cities like Chicago add a percentage to the sales tax, are increasing the municipal property tax rate, and are increasing fees for services in what feels like an exponential manner.

I personally know people that are making choices to forego medical care, obtain medicine that would keep them healthy, eat a nutritional meal or keep them warm through the night.... and these folks are making more than $70,000 per year. The cost of running a household is ten times more difficult to manage than it was 30 years ago. So when President Bush talks about economic metrics in the way he did at this recent press conference it is all abstract and meaningless to those of us struggling with daily living.

So when Bush is using the "bully pulpit" of his office to tout successes that are not real for the vast majority of us, and we see a constant flow of scandals and wasteful spending on his watch, and we see $100 Billion dollars a year spent in Iraq (and billions more in other places) while our own needs are ignored, and most of us see the government as being more dysfunctional than ever, it is only reasonable that we do not have much confidence that our government is doing the job.

Our elected officials, appointed officers, sitting judges and government employees are failing to do the job... and it is President Bush's fault because he has failed to lead us toward a better ideal and a more rational reality.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national accused of having been a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, has been detained since 2002 in Guantánamo Bay. He filed suit to challenge the legitimacy of the military commission that upheld his designation as an "unlawful enemy combatant" — a term Mr. Bush invented after 9/11 to deny the protections of the Geneva Conventions, international statutes or United States law to certain prisoners.

Then, to add insult to injury, President Bush creates an environment where our principles of justice, fairness and human decency are cast aside in pursuit of a regime changing agenda that is patently unsound, unprincipled, un-American and un-Christian... all the while claiming an insight into the mind and will of God, the best interests of a people he doesn't know anything about, and an international policy that only perpetuates an "us versus them" mentality... and using the congress and the courts as a tool to push his power, authority, influence and agenda beyond constitutionally sound boundaries...

Mr. Hamdan argued, rightly, that the commissions are not legitimate because prisoners are routinely barred from seeing evidence, much less confronting their accusers or having access to real legal representation. But his case has now become a much larger battle over the principle of habeas corpus, which is embedded in the Constitution and says that a prisoner cannot be denied the right to challenge his detention. Mr. Bush's decision after 9/11 that he had the power to put prisoners beyond the reach of the law at his choosing was the first attempt to suspend habeas corpus on American territory since the Civil War.

And instituting unjust processes that deny basic rights to not only illegally held detainees, but also advocate torture, promote advanatages for big business over citizens and real people, pervert the rule of law, promote scandal and breach the oath of office...

The Supreme Court two years ago emphatically rejected the president's claim that its jurisdiction did not extend to Guantánamo. Seeking to reverse that ruling, the White House in December helped push through a special amendment as part of the deal that also saw Mr. Bush sign a watered-down ban on torture of military detainees. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat, stripped Guantánamo detainees of the normal rights of judicial review. It also designated a single appellate court to conduct a limited review of decisions by the military commissions, and left "enemy combatants" held without a trial in a seemingly inescapable legal black hole.

And usurping powers of other governmental branches in a manner that tilts the whole of the government toward utter fascism and commit despicable acts against humanity...

As soon as Mr. Bush signed this law, he declared that the administration was going to apply it to all pending cases, about 160 or so, and the solicitor general told the Supreme Court it no longer had a right to hear Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. This is court-stripping — the attempt by another branch of government to prevent the court from deciding a particular issue. The White House tried to justify this outrageous tampering with the judiciary by ignoring the new law's actual language and legislative history to argue that the new legislation took away the power of the courts to hear not just future cases but also cases already filed and accepted for review. The Supreme Court responded by adding the jurisdictional objection to the list of issues it will consider when the case is heard on March 28.

And apply these errant ideas of power and authority to justify warrantless searches, illegal wiretapping, and spying on presumably innocent American citizens and residents....

I am just a bit too disgusted with Mr. Bush... He is a scoundrel and, in my view, a criminal. He has robbed us of our civil liberties, our functioning government, our dignity, our financial well-being, the lives of thousands of our bravest souls, the well-being of thousands more of those brave souls, our standing in the international community, and our fundamental right to an equal playing field...

The rich are getting richer while most of us are getting poorer...

The brave are dying while cowards are living free and high on the hog...

Our values are touted as valuable while these very same values are being undermined by our own words, actions and abandonment of principles...

Our congress, courts and executive are corrupt, defunct, ineffective, scandal-ridden, unjust, unprinciples and dysfunctional... and we have wrongly imprisoned foreigners; robbed our own citizens of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and don't even have the decency to recognize and address the problems...

Vote the bastards out... all of them! Impeach the bastards that have permanent positions but flaunt their corruption before us... all of them! Send the bastards that are using corporations to screw John Q. Citizen to jail for 20 years or more... all of them! Stand up and demand principled leadership, principled government, and principled support of basic human values... LIFE, LIBERTY and THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. Let's take back America and American values! Let's restore our standing as the "land of the free and the home of the brave" by bravely standing up for genuine principles of justice, freedom and fairness for all.