Fun with the lexicon

President Donny has done a lot of highly questionable things but, at least according to the Constitution, treason is not one of them.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

Let's break it down, shall we.

According to the definition of treason found in Article III, Section 3, one commits treason if one levies war against the US. Levy means to "enlist someone for military service." In other words, to levy war against the US would be to raise troops to fight against the US. Thus, everyone involved with the secessionist movement and the Confederate government committed treason.

The next part of the definition is "adhering to their enemies." Adhere means "to believe in and follow the practices of."  Enemy means "a hostile nation or its armed forces...especially in time of war."

The first thing we need to look at is whether Russia is a hostile nation. From 1945 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the Soviets were considered an enemy of the US. They were considered an enemy because they stood for the destruction of capitalism. Let's make no bones about this - the Cold War was never about expanding freedom or democracy or any of the other things our government told us. The Cold War was about making the world "safe" for capitalism.

During the Cold War era the US overthrew, orchestrated the overthrow of or funded the overthrow of countless democratically elected governments that espoused socialist ideas.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has been as much of an ally as anything else. Sure, the Russian government flexes its muscle at times when dealing with some of its former allied states and republics (but just look at US foreign policy in Central America)., but both states are for the expansion of capitalism.

Aside from that, the US and Russia are not at war with one another. The US and Russia are not in a state of armed conflict with each other. I know we like to throw the word war around like its cheap candy, but there is nothing resembling armed conflict between our nations.

So, before we throw around terms like treason, maybe we should make sure we know what that term means. Otherwise it makes you look like a raving lunatic. Donald Trump is a lot of things, but traitor isn't one of them.

Ignorance is disgusting

Last week Donald Trump once again displayed his ignorance about how the criminal (in)justice system works in this country when he tweeted out that the verdict in the trial over Kate Steinle's murder was disgraceful. Attorney General Jeff Sessions opened his mouth and displayed his ignorance when he proclaimed that the murder was the result of San Francisco's status as a sanctuary city for immigrants.

Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was acquitted of the charge of murder in a month-long trial in San Francisco, though he was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Now, I don't recall Mr. Trump expressing any outrage at jury verdicts in which police officers were acquitted for killing unarmed an unarmed black man. Quite the opposite, he was quite happy. We can all be angry at a jury for the decision they made but, unless you were in the jury, your view of the case can be quite warped.

Mr. Trump seemed upset that the jury was not told that Mr. Garcia Zarate had crossed the border illegally five times. Well, I've got news for you, Mr. President, such a fact is inadmissible in a murder trial. You see Mr. Garcia Zarate was tried for the specific offenses related to the death of Ms. Steinle and, therefore, the only evidence the jury heard was related to those offenses. You see, Mr. President, in this country (as flawed as our criminal (in)justice system is) we try folks on the evidence related to the crime with which they are charged.

Were the jury to have heard evidence regarding Mr. Garcia Zarate's immigration status they may have made a decision based on something other than the evidence regarding Ms. Steinle's death. They may have been asked to convict a man for murder for no other reason than he wasn't born in this country.

Now that would have been a disgusting verdict.

A jury doesn't hear all the evidence because some of it, sometimes a lot of it, isn't relevant to the case at hand. It is not uncommon for a jury to be excused from the courtroom while the attorneys argue over the admissibility of evidence before the judge. Those reading the newspaper or watching the news (or in attendance) are then made privy to information the jury never heard and will never consider.

The jury that heard the case wasn't trying to make any political statements. Their sole duty was to hear the evidence presented and to make a decision as to whether or not the government had proven their case(s) beyond a reasonable doubt. Just because a jury acquits a person doesn't mean they don't think a crime occurred. It means, instead, that they have more than a reasonable doubt, based on the evidence presented, that the government proved its case.

The jury's job isn't to convict someone - and it isn't to acquit someone. You may think a jury got it wrong, but that is how we decide cases the parties cannot work out on their own. And, in a murder case, sometimes the hardest thing to prove is that the actions of the defendant were intentional. And even though motive is not a required element of a murder case, the absence of a motive can raise reasonable doubt in the mind of a juror.

So, Mr. President, the jury's verdict wasn't disgusting. It was what it was. Using your bully pulpit to try to intimidate future jurors is disgusting.

And as for Mr. Sessions, you took an oath to uphold the Constitution and to seek justice. You're not happy with the verdict. Okay, I get that. However, threatening to file federal charges against Mr. Garcia Zarate is not seeking justice. It is called vindictiveness.

The bankruptcy of ideas

President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch is a real throwback. Really a throwback.

He is a self-described "originalist" when it comes to interpreting the Constitution. In other words, in Mr. Gorsuch's reality, the words and phrases in the Constitution mean just what they meant back in the late 18th century.

Let's see. Back in the 1780's slavery was legal in the United States. Women didn't have the right to vote. There were no cars, there were no computers. The United States was a rural agrarian society. There was also a belief back in the early days of the Republic that the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government - not to the individual states. There was also no such thing as judicial review by the Supreme Court until Chief Justice John Marshall went looking for a justification for his ruling in Marbury v. Madison and created it out of whole cloth.

Does this mean that a Justice Gorsuch would hold any warrantless search to be unconsitutional? Would he find that the NSA's data dumps to be illegal since computers weren't something contemplated by the Founding Fathers? Will warrentless searches of cars go away since there wasn't such a thing back in George Washington's days?

Will we return to the 18th century notion of an arrest instead of looking for any way possible to not call an arrest an arrest in order to keep evidence admissible?

Will the ruling in Citizen's United be cast upon the ash heap of history since the notion of the corporate person did not exist in 1789? And what about this quaint notion that campaign contributions are a form of free speech?

Does Mr. Gorsuch believe that every armed conflict the United States has entered since the end of World War II was illegal since there was no declaration of war from Congress?

Mr. Gorsuch's self-proclaimed judicial philosophy is completely vapid. It is but a fig leaf to cover a naked attempt to turn back constitutional protections of the accused, minorities and women. Now, as much as I disliked Antonin Scalia, he made some rulings in 4th Amendment cases that protected the rights of the accused. Of course those rulings were a small counterpoint to his rulings that favored the rights of the powerful over the rights of the powerless.

This bankrupt philosophy isn't a philosophy at all. It is merely a justification to carry out a libertarian agenda that will seek to unleash capitalism at its worst.

Two sides of the same coin

For the past couple of weeks about all we've heard from the presidential campaign are attacks on the personality and temperment of the candidates. There have been few mentions of actual policy differences (with the notable exception of immigration). Why is that?

I would posit that it's because there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. While they speak in generalities about economic, foreign and social policy, neither of them is going to challenge the basic tenets upon which American capitalism rests. Neither one of them is willing (or able) to acknowledge that we must rethink what passes for an energy policy. Drilling more holes in the ground will only make matters worse when it comes to the climate and our sustainability on this planet.

Neither candidate is going to change our petroleum driven foreign policy. Neither one is going to abandon autocrats and and dictators who either do our bidding or from whom we are dependent upon for resources (be they oil fields, minerals or landing rights).

Both candidates are beholden to the corporate ruling class - Clinton because she is dependent upon their campaign dollars and Trump because he is one of them.

Both candidates will sit and watch as our protections under the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments are watered down even further in the name of keeping the streets safe.

Oh, wait, you say. Now you're talking about the Supreme Court - there's where a difference exists between the candidates. Clinton will appoint judges who are left of center and Trump will appoint judges who are on the right. Those choices will affect jurisprudence for a long time to come.

Or will they?

The change in the composition of the court has done nothing to stop the constant erosion of the Fourth Amendment. The fact remains that bad facts make bad law. Most of the decisions that helped to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment were on cases in which the defendant had either done something really bad or had a lot of bad stuff in his possession. Lower courts (in which judges face the voters) will bend over backwards not to throw out the conviction. And, by the time the matter gets before the Supreme Court, the justices can find almost any justification for further restricting our rights.

And then there is the nagging little fact that what is constitutional or not is determined by the votes of nine men and women who attended Ivy League law schools and have little (or no) experience working in the trenches. What is a constitutional protection today could be gone tomorrow and put back in place a year from now. Let us also not forget that no one party is going to control 2/3 of the Senate. That means anyone who is nominated is going to go through a grueling process (and, by the way, the same holds true for other federal judicial appointments).

Let's not give in to the fear-mongering from both sides. The republic will not collapse upon the election of either Clinton or Trump. The Constitution will remain a document upon which a group of fallible men and women decide what the government can and cannot do.

Don't settle for the candidates being sold to us by the ideologically and morally bankrupt major parties. Go out on election day and vote your conscience. A vote cast for one candidate in order to prevent the other one from winning is a tacit surrender to a corrupt corporate system.

Don't wave the white flag in November.