|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
[Editor’s note: Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s masterpiece contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
When Barack Obama announced that he was unilaterally legalizing millions of illegal aliens while further opening the border, he described it as using “discretion about whom to prosecute”.
In the years since, pro-crime prosecutors have virtually dismantled the justice system in some jurisdictions by using their “discretion” not to prosecute thieves, drug dealers and violent criminals. Some prosecutors announced that they wouldn’t prosecute rioters and looters, others that they would stop prosecuting prostitution, public urination or thefts of under $1,000.
In the decade since Obama announced his exercise in prosecutorial discretion, the country has been overrun with criminals and illegal aliens who benefited from that “discretion”.
But prosecutorial discretion, like most leftist policies, works both ways.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg issued a ‘zero day’ memo on taking office that told prosecutors not to seek prison sentences for armed robbers. Bragg then labored to indict former President Trump while bypassing such niceties as the statute of limitations and the actual nature of the crime.
Such prosecutorial discretion has become routine in New York where Attorney General Letita James has championed criminal justice reform while targeting not only Trump, but the NRA. Bragg’s predecessor, DA Cyrus Vance, gave Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein a pass. He announced that he wouldn’t charge former Mayor Bill de Blasio, but pursued Trump. After refusing to charge BLM rioters or prostitutes, he made a point of dragging a woman featured in a viral video into court because she had called the police during a dispute with a black man.
But it’s also become normal at the federal level.
Hillary Clinton and her aides mishandled classified information on a massive scale. The indictment of President Trump contrasts sharply with the treatment of Hillary, not to mention Biden who left classified documents lying around his garbage. The Trump team will argue selective prosecution, but the prosecution will argue that it can charge whom it pleases.
And to some degree this is true. Prosecutors have no obligation to charge Bob if they charge Jack. And Jack’s lawyers will rarely even bother bringing up Bob in court unless he’s white. Most of the major selective prosecution cases have relied on racial discrimination and so, like most civil rights laws, they leave out the political discrimination that has become the leading civil rights issue of our time. Prosecutors don’t target black people, they do target Republicans.
Prosecutorial discretion is meant to allow prosecutors to bring their strongest cases. Instead, beginning with Obama, it has created a two-tier justice system in which some forms of crimes, despite their destructive impact on society, get a pass while others that have minimal impact, are overcharged for purely political reasons. Even offenses that are very similar are treated very differently based on the political identity of the prosecutor and of the defendant.
And that has made for two sets of laws: written and unwritten laws.
Written laws matter very little. Whether a written law is enforced is subject to the discretion and therefore the political agenda of the prosecutor. That’s no longer a function of individual judgment, but political alignment. Billionaire leftists like George Soros and Netflix boss Reed Hastings have spent a fortune electing prosecutors that meet their needs. A movement of political prosecutors has vowed to enforce, or not enforce laws, for political reasons.
What matters are not the written laws, but the unwritten ones of politics. Justice takes a backseat to social justice. Criminals who clearly violate written laws are not charged by the same prosecutors who indict political opponents for process crimes or laboriously invent crimes.
“Show me the man and I will find the crime,” Andrey Vyshinsky, Stalin’s prosecutor, had reportedly boasted. Prone to speeches in which he declared that, “our entire country, from small to old, is waiting and demanding one thing: traitors and spies who sold our Motherland to the enemy, to be shot like filthy dogs” and “down with these abject animals, let’s put an end once and for all to these miserable hybrids of foxes and pigs, these stinking corpses, let’s exterminate the mad dogs of capitalism, who want to tear to pieces the flower of our new Soviet nation”, he dominated the show trials of the Great Terror with political posturing.
Justice depends on written laws. The Great Terror discarded, invented and casually misapplied laws. As did its counterparts in Nazi Germany. The unwritten law of the regime mattered more than the written law. And in America, the unwritten law has come to matter more than the written. The only law that truly matters is upholding the political agenda of those in power and histrionics and theatrics are used in place of a rigorous adherence to the written law.
Vyshinsky warned of an urgent threat to Marxism and the Soviet nation, his modern counterparts clamor that they are averting urgent threats to democracy on the one hand and systemic racism on the other. The written law has failed and they replace it with their unwritten laws to meet the manufactured emergencies that they have created for just this purpose.
The fundamental principle of the civil rights movement was that justice was no substitute for equal justice. Political prosecutorial discretion eliminates equal justice and replaces the law with an agenda. There can be no equality and no justice if prosecutors pick and choose whom to charge based on their politics. Even when their charges are grounded in the legality of individual cases, the systemic double standard eliminates the legality of those charges.
Only the consistent application of the law serves as an instrument of justice. The legally inconsistent, but politically consistent application of the law is simply tyranny under the color of law. It is no more justice than only handing out parking tickets to Democrats or Republicans. It would matter very little whether the tickets were individually justified because they would still be expressions of political repression, not an honest enforcement of parking regulations.
Nothing undermines respect for the law and trust in the legal system faster than when people observe that they have become corrupt tools for the repression of political opponents.
When Democrats freely defy subpoenas while Republicans are arrested, when mishandling classified information is only a crime for one party, when rioting isn’t a crime, but defending yourself is, there is no law, only a totalitarian regime selectively exploiting some laws.
The Left demands discretion for judges and prosecutors to set aside the law for social justice. And then, when they set aside the law for leftists and selectively throw the book at conservatives, also in their discretion, we become a nation of men, not laws.
A nation of laws, not men, does not allow prosecutors or judges to place their will above the law.
Prosecutors who refuse to enforce the law consistently should be removed, impeached or charged. There is no room for Vyshinskys or a two-tier justice system in our nation.
Until we have one set of laws for all, not two, there will be no justice in America.
This issue is almost like beating on a dead horse, but in this case it is necessary, because so many people don’t seem to understand it. Funny paradox, maybe we need a new name for it to serve as a metaphor 🙂
There’s an old saying that fits.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The leftist elites believe they are fighting against right wing radicals and will convince themselves that they are doing the right thing.
And yet. they’re evil.
“Vyshinsky gave the impression of a cringing toadie only too anxious to obey His Master’s Voice even before it had expressed his wishes”
Understandable, terrorized witless by Stalin. I met a couple of elderly Jewish emigres in Berkeley who had lived through that period and just arrived from the Soviet Union, around 1970. The were still terrorized to stone, even though they were now safe in USA.
Stalin ruled by spreading terror, playing with his victims, torturing and killing their loved ones, and cultivating a cult of personality so that his victims praised him.
Like Hitler, he wanted to be a god, not just a ruler.
So did the World pHarma Organisation in 2020.
“Uncle Joe.” He was a monster. Some people get too much power and they abuse it.
The FBI, CIA and people like that have never bothered to secure my
cellphone. Nor did they secure Hillary Clinton’s when she was
Secretary of State – one of the highest offices in the land. She
could’ve borrowed my phone or any other American’s to conduct
classified business at any time if she wanted to. It would’ve made
no difference from hers. That arrogant, dictator wannabe should be
rotting in jail. Trump’s alleged crimes pale in comparison to hers.
Right now the Commie Globalists are going after political challengers,
with President Trump being their #1 threat – in the infancy of a “nation
of men, not laws”. If they get away with convicting Trump – while
ignoring the crimes of Biden, Hillary and other crooks – how long would
it take to segue into outright rounding up and arresting anyone who
disagrees with their government dictates?
Not long. Not long at all.
In a realm of deceit and hidden schemes,
The leftist, Marxist coup planners spun their dreams.
Whispered plots and darkness enshrouded,
They sought to seize power, voices unbowed.
But amidst their web of deceit and lies,
Stood honest citizens with watchful eyes.
They sensed the danger lurking near,
A threat to the values they held dear.
With courage and unity, they took a stand,
Unyielding, they formed a human band.
Their hearts ablaze with justice’s fire,
They were ready to quell the coup’s desire.
Through clandestine whispers and secret signs,
They gathered knowledge, connecting the lines.
Their vigilance sparked a rising tide,
Unraveling the plots, step by stride.
The coup planners, arrogant and blind,
Did not perceive the power they’d find.
For the strength of honesty knows no bounds,
And truth’s symphony, an eternal sound.
As the day of reckoning drew near,
The honest citizens showed no fear.
They rallied together, resolute and strong,
Defending their land, where they belong.
When the coup’s hour arrived at last,
Their plans unraveled, shadows cast.
With evidence exposed, their lies unmasked,
The coup planners’ dreams were quickly dashed.
The honest citizens, the heroes untold,
Stood tall and proud, their spirits bold.
They safeguarded their democracy’s core,
And justice prevailed forevermore.
In the annals of history, their names inscribed,
The brave defenders who never compromised.
Their courage and unity a beacon of light,
A reminder that truth conquers the darkest night.
So let us honor those honest souls,
Whose resilience thwarted the coup’s dark goals.
May their story inspire generations anew,
To protect what is just, what is right, and true.
I’m not usually interested in poetry but this is terrific. It’s been a bad day, Trump, Candace Owens and Michael Knowles banned from Goolag’s YouTube.
Thank you for the positive energy, I know I needed it today.
Did you write that yourself or quoted it? It’s very good. If you wrote it, kudos. I enjoyed it very much. Not as much as the chick I was with the other day but close enough. And no, I don’t remember her name. I don’t even remember if I asked her.
You aren’t a person with a bundle of political rights. You are the subject of social experimentation. Your sole purpose in experiencing biological life is the opportunity afforded to ascertain the effects of social engineering.
This is best use that can be made of you. You should have, could have, but utterly failed to assemble Utopia. So experimenting upon you is the most utility that can be derived from your existence. The next step is having you reduced to soap or glue.
Waste not. Want not.
The Useless Classes. Turns out they can still be useful, if only as eggs to break for your omelet. It’s like the Tuskegee Experiment except on a class basis instead of a race one. And less radioactive. Which is nice but not much consolation.
As for you Laptop Class midwits? You are gonna learn just what it’s like when the steam engine comes to town, and you ain’t no John Henry. Hope you enjoy delicious bugs & spacious pods. “10 ways a MegaUrban Pod(tm) is so much better than a house in the suburbs. #7 may surprise you!” The steam engine wrote that.
What’s actually gonna surprise you? When the Steam Engine fires all middle management, DEI, & HR. Don’t worry Alyssa Heinerscheid. Some johns love a woman with a horse face & big teeth. And don’t worry Democrats. The Steam Engine is so woke that DEI won’t suffer a minute’s unenforcement. The public one is at least…
The biggest surprise is gonna be on your bosses The Servitor Class. They thought being a seneschal to a trillionaire would be a great gig, and it is, but really only by comparison. You still aren’t welcome at the castle, and by the “castle” & mean the State that’s now an Estate. There’s really a lot to be said for your 13th of Wyoming when all the pesky dirty people are off in MegaPods except for your staff & security.
One of the things that can be said is “oh, I don’t think the geofence on your Tesla Model H will allow you to reach New Montana Clive. Sorry, no company flights. I just heard all about why in Singapore at the conference. Enjoy your Walkable Urban District though. I got you into one of the very best.”
As for me, I presume I’ll have room in my pod for some schadenfreude if not much else.
Well said. The logic of feudalism is gonna compress its enforcers and accomplices even now showing off their reusable bags who were fantasizing that they were going to live under full luxury communism without paying for anything.
Utopia for mee but not for thee.
You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few million or billion eggs, and it’ll take a lot of experimentation and broken eggs until we’re on the right side of history.
No need to waste time to actually pass discriminatory laws, decrees and edicts the old fashioned way.
It’s a lot less time consuming to just pull the plug on the legislative and meld the judicial into the executive.
Make criminals the police.
Pay for slay, the American way.
A lot less time consuming. And time IS of the essence.
Because evil has to hurry while most of the world is still apathetic and a/un/im/moral, whose basic instinct for survival is apparently anaesthetized.
When the abstract matter of good versus evil becomes a very concrete personal matter of life versus death, will the anaesthetic have finally worn off?
It’s much simpler, at least in the initial phase of leftist totalitarianism, to bake discriminatory intent into the judicial and prosecutorial process, selectively enforcing existing laws, rather than creating new laws criminalizing political dissent.
Just make equity the touchstone of everything and the rest neatly falls into place.
Yes! I see you’ve put with brilliant simplicity and simple brilliance your finger on the linchpin issue – equity – that will determine America-at-the-Crossroads‘ fate (excluding God’s will) in 2024.
The trinity of DEI sandwiches (anti)equity between (anti)diversity and (anti)inclusion.
How can the woke be defeated at its own game?
How can America get reacquainted with what equity really means? What justice really means?
Who can engage every American and champion safety, integrity, imagination and good thinking?
Who will help America live?
We are experiencing plagues of Biblical proportions. At the same time we have a completely partisan and corrupt DOJ, we have media who are likewise partisan and corrupt to further the Left’s agenda, including its perversion of law enforcement. The media take the object of the Left’s ire and relentlessly work to shape the public’s perceptions of them. As Malcolm X observed nearly sixty years ago, the press has the power to make the innocent look guilty and the guilty innocent. When all of these institutions work in tandem, and we have a public that is largely dumbed down and thoroughly propagandized, it is hard to see how our country survives as a democratic republic.
It’s a totalitarian system that, for now, is not turning openly to force because it suborned our existing system.
What comes next is another matter. Either we defeat the system or the system defeats us.
The Democrats are not going to give up the power they have secured or go quietly into the night. Americans need to give serious thought to “what happens next” and prepare for it or at least try to prevent what seems inevitable.
It might already be too late for that.
Of course not. But the significant part of the Dems is the Left and the significant part of that is its corporate and establishment arms which is parasitically dependent on the system.
It has no plan for operating if the system were to implode or suffer a dieback.
These aren’t Leninists, they’re fundamentally upper middle class bureaucrats with kids that have a dozen genders and two drug habits.
They’re slick at operating the system and messaging, but bad at everything else.
“They’re slick at operating the system and messaging, but bad at everything else.” Yes, and that includes critical thinking – or thinking of any kind…
this is what happens when a demicracy becines a one party state
Indeed. Once politics become unipolar, so do morality and the law.
What is left is to decide whether Trump is an American version of Alexey Navalny or Aun San Suu Kyi. Tell me more about “a shining city on the hill,” “a thousand points of light” and the bill of rights. I love fairy tales.
For decades intellectuals have been telling us about the dangers of this left, and yet more than ever it is installed in American institutions. Intellectualism can become a refuge, but it should never be. It is time to fight those who are destroying this country. America must remain a lighthouse for freedom, not a lighthouse for the destroyers of freedom. Yes, it is time to fight. Take charge of your responsibilities, the future of the United States depends on it. Economic freedom is a principle that is being destroyed, in the name of good. It is time for conservatives to really show where the good is and where the bad is, and to fight mercilessly those who want to destroy them, those who want to destroy what people died for. Millions and millions of people built this country, some sacrificed their lives. For that ? For this result ? It’s not possible. Make no concessions with these destroyers.
Best!
As Mark Levin stated the DOJ established precedent when it decided NOT to pursue Hillary over her email scandal (among others).
The DOJ has purposefully ignored that precedent with its ginned up indictment of DJT.
We have reached the stage where each day sheds new light on the fact that the United States is sinking fast and there may be nothing to stop it from hitting rock bottom or pulling it up later.
The left will continue to push these unconstitutional witch hunts to the liberal judges, and snag them to rule unconstitutionally, with they who uphold their ideologies and try to keep the rightfully elected President out of office, so they maintain control over the government that is not by and for the people now. With one mind they sit at one table, lie and plot against the people. The so called world wisdom is flawed in all areas of the broad scope of things.
” . . . a two-tier justice system in which some forms of crimes, despite their destructive impact on society, get a pass while others that have minimal impact, are overcharged for purely political reasons.”
Exactly. Compare the damage – even the loss of life – caused by Biden’s open borders policy with the damage – none whatsoever – caused by the boxes of documents that Trump had at Mar-a-Lago. I have seen not a shred of evidence that those documents posed a threat to national security or were ever likely to.
Yet, Biden walks free, repeat violent offenders walk free, and habitual shoplifters aren’t even arrested, as Trump potentially faces years in prison for a “no harm, no foul” crime, a dispute about the custody of documents that have less relevance to current affairs and less value to foreign governments with every passing month..
SO HIGHLY PREDICTABLE WHEN YOUR OBVIOUS DUTY IS TO RE-WRITE HISTORY AND IGNORE NATURAL LAW AND ORDER.
MY CUBA GIVE-A-DAMN FILTER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.
TOO BAD NOBODY HAD THE COURAGE, FORTITUDE OR COMMON SENSE TO LISTEN TO ME…
NOT EVEN MY OWN COUSIN FROM VENEZUELA DEFENDING CHAVEZ AND PUTTING ME DOWN
NOR OTHERS DOING THE SAME TO MY MOTHER CALLING US COWARDS FOR “NOT FIGHTING THE COMMUNISTS”
BY ESCAPING TYRANNY, RAPE, TORTURE, MURDER AND SO MUCH MORE !!!
LOOK AT VENEZUELA NOW. LOOK AT USA NOW, AND CANADA???
WHAT A JOKE! THE MISERS AND OBCENE NAVELGAZERS WILL ALL FEEL IT AS IT ALWAYS FAILS FOR THEY ARE CASTIGATING THEMSELVES.
ALL USEFUL IDIOTS GET IT GOOD BY THEIR OWN IDOLS.
WE THE FREE AND GOD FEARING CAN ONLY PRAY FOR THESE LOST SOULS.
FAKE NEWS FAN CLUBS AND WORSHIP ZOMBIES OF THE “SELF” ARE THE WEAKEST LINK.
NEWS FLASH: YOU ALL HAVE TIME TO ADMIT, ACCEPT YOUR SINS AND REPENT (USING BIBLE THUMPING LINGO) OR
HOW ABOUT BECOMING LOVING OF YOUR OPPONENTS THAT LOVE YOUR COUNTRY?
I NEVER LIKED TRUMP BUT LIKE BATISTA HE HAS FANATICS WITH HATE SYDROMES THAT GO DEEP. UGLY DEEP.
ALL PANDERING THEIR PSEUDO ELITIST STATUS GANGS OF PATHETIC SELF HATERS.
IT TAKES A LOT OF GUTS TO ADMIT THE STUPIDITY OF IT ALL. MOST WOULD RATHER DIE.
MANY BELONG TO THE ASS GODS. SELF JUBILATIONS AND PRETEND HAPPY MOB LOVE JUST CANT CUT IT.
THE TRUTH WILL SET THEM FREE EVEN IF THEY ARE IN IDEOLOGICAL BONDAGE.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
Mr. Greenfield hits it out of the park again. We are the closest to being a ruled people whose laws are little more than decrees from TPTB then at any other time in my life. Selective enforcement of our laws effectively negates them. Today it’s shoplifting, tomorrow it’s our bill of rights?
The Left says America is systemically racist and needs to be fundamentally transformed. Equity means the Left gets to decide which laws to enforce or not.
Biden, Bragg and Soros need releived of their American Citizenships and stranded in the Amazon
Very disappointed in FP Mag and Daniel himself. The disgraceful handling of Hillary Clinton is irrelevant to the merits of the case against Trump. Andy McCarthy at NR has been very incisive and I commend his analysis to FPM readers. Yes, the Dems are out to get Trump but he is such a deeply flawed person who has shown no ability to learn or apologize or forgive or engage in self-criticism. I voted for him twice but feel strongly that he needs to leave the field one way or another. The fact that my friends at FPM refuse to see. his deep vices really bothers me.
“he needs to leave the field one way or another”
It’s not his will, and it’s not what tens of millions of Americans want.
You are in the middle of a battle, he is the one who can win the elections.
“his deep vices really bothers me”
What are his deep vices? Please describe them to us.
The playing field is not level now. Joe and his team have stolen an advantage, as though the Republicans had a big handicap. The best thing is to vote the Dems out of power and restore fairness to the political system. Otherwise America is no better than Argentina or any third world dictatorship