Tag Archives: law and order

crime news

‘Law and order’ party? A mirage!

Whatever happened to what we once called the “Law and Order Party”?

I think I have solved the mystery. The Law and Order Party never existed in the first place. It became a catchphrase coined in the 1960s for Republicans to get tough with (a) anti-Vietnam War hippies, (b) Blacks who were angry at the illegal and immoral indignities they were suffering and (c) anyone else who sided with them.

Many of us, me included, have been wringing our hands over the Law and Order Republicans who suddenly now want to “defund the FBI,” who accuse the Justice Department of “weaponizing” itself” and who — in the words of the dimwit GOP U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, believe we now are a “communist country” because a former POTUS has been indicted for criminal charges.

An actual Law and Order Republican would never stand still for the behavior that the ex-POTUS has done during his time in office and the period after he lost re-election.

I have concluded that the term “Law and Order Republican” is a fabrication. It meant nothing when they coined it in the late 1960s and it means even less than that now that the nation’s leading Republican pol is under indictment for crimes he allegedly committed after he got drummed out of the White House in 2020.

The former POTUS’s GOP pals are making a mockery of law and order — and the insistence at DOJ that every American is subject to the same standards and the same laws.

It is yet another slimy, stinking and sickening example of the hypocrisy that has infected a once-great political party.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

GOP goes after the FBI?

Can this really be happening, that a once-great political party that spoke to the virtues of a strong system of law and order now wants to dismantle the FBI?

Yep. It is happening in real time. Frankly, it astounds me beyond my ability to comprehend.

I have a theory as to why it is occurring. Here goes.

The FBI became the Republican Party’s go-to federal agency when it was investigating anti-Vietnam War protesters, Black activist organizations, those who opposed big business.

These days? The FBI has been active investigating alleged criminal activity among prominent GOP politicians, starting with Donald John Trump. Now we hear yammering from the MAGA crowd and other right-wingers about how the FBI is “weaponizing” law enforcement.

These same GOP pols also are on the record opposing congressional resolutions honoring police and other first responders who acted heroically to — and this is truly astonishing — save the lives of the very politicians on 1/6 who now oppose honoring them!

What the hell is wrong with this picture?

How can it be that the political parties’ roles are so dramatically reversed? Republicans once chided Democrats for being “soft on crime,” for wanting to weaken our law enforcement agencies. These days we hear Democrats beating their chests as champions of democracy and strong police while needling Republicans as belonging to the party that favors foreign autocrats and seeking to disband nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency.

All of this provides one more example of how the principles that govern political policy have changed in such dramatic fashion. So help me, my head is spinning.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

The ‘law and order’ party? My a**!

Can it truly be that the “party of law and order” — aka the Republican Party — has become the party of violence and chaos?

How else does one explain the absence of all but two prominent GOP members at the House of Representatives ceremony honoring the officers who sacrificed so much during the 1/6 riot?

Only U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney and her dad, former Vice President Dick Cheney, thought enough of the officers to attend the House’s moment of silence honoring the valiant law enforcement officers who fought like hell to hold off the violent mob that stormed the Capitol a year ago.

The rest of ’em? They hid out. They were somewhere other than in the House chamber that came under direct attack by the domestic terrorists who sought to block Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election, the one that chose Joe Biden over the 45th POTUS.

This is the party that used to proclaim itself to be the “party of law and order.” It would fight like the dickens to protect the honor of our police officers. It would shame others who favor squishy social reform policies.

These days it’s a different sort of political party, or so one would presume. Every single member of Congress should have been present at the moment of silence event to honor the men and women who followed their oath to protect and serve the members of Congress. They were true to their pledge to protect them.

The Republicans who stayed away shamed themselves — yet again — with their denial that the world witnessed a direct assault on our Constitution.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

‘Law and order’ president? Really?

This might be mixing metaphors, but the “law and order” president is proving to be all hat and no cattle.

Donald Trump today has pardon two men who took over a public wildlife refuge in Oregon, creating a standoff. They were convicted of a felony, sentenced to prison and now the president has commuted their sentence.

According to CNN.com: Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son Steven Hammond were granted executive grants of clemency by Trump, according to a White House statement. The father-son duo are cattle ranchers and were convicted in 2012 of committing arson on federal lands in Oregon.

“Justice is overdue for Dwight and Steven Hammond, both of whom are entirely deserving of these Grants of Executive Clemency,” the statement read.
The Trump White House took aim at the Obama administration as well, adding that it filed an “overzealous appeal” that led to the two men’s five-year prison sentence: “This was unjust.”
These clowns destroyed public property. Their sentence wasn’t “unjust.” Their arrest then prompted the standoff in the Steens Mountain area of eastern Oregon at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Yep, the “law and order” president keeps demonstrating his belief in the “rule of law.” Such as when he pardoned former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio after he had been convicted of violating a federal court order requiring him to stop profiling Hispanics in some attempt to curb illegal immigration.
Arpaio hadn’t even been sentenced for the felony, but he got a pardon anyway. Then the vice president, Mike Pence, praised Arpaio for standing up for the “rule of law.”
The president doesn’t believe in “law and order.” He believes in appeasing his political base. That’s what he did with this latest pardon.
Disgraceful.
national news

‘Law and order’ boast gets doused by pardon

Donald Trump promised to be “the law-and-order president,” which harkened back to the call issued in the late 1960s by Richard Nixon’s campaign for the presidency.

The way I see it, though, Trump’s pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio douses the president’s law-and-order pledge bigly.

Arpaio once served as sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz. He made a big name for himself by his tough policies on illegal immigration. He would racially profile individuals he assumed were entering the country illegally; he would detain them, often in brutal conditions.

A federal judge ordered Arpaio to cease that round-up policy. He refused. The judge put him on trial. The sheriff was convicted. Oh, and then he lost his re-election bid along the way.

How does this comport with the president’s pledge to be the law-and-order guy? It doesn’t.

The president stuck his thumb in the eye of the federal judicial system. He, in effect, said the rule of law doesn’t apply. The pardon clearly is within the president’s realm of power. Some arguing that the pardon might be illegal; I won’t go there.

A pardon’s legality doesn’t necessarily make it right. In this case, it pulls precisely against the pledge the president made to emphasize law and order.

By flouting the rule of law, therefore, the president has declared war as well on any semblance of order.

legal news

‘Law and order’ pledge takes a back seat

I can’t take credit for posing this question, but I’ll pass it on here.

How does a “law and order” candidate for president of the United States fail to appoint a single federal prosecutor after firing all of those who hadn’t resigned already when he took office?

The question comes from the New York Times editorial board.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/opinion/us-attorneys-trump.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Donald Trump got elected president partly on his pledge to battle international terrorism. He vowed to combat the “scourge” of drugs. He promised to prosecute and deport immigrants who are here illegally. Who, then, carries the president’s agenda forward? It would be the federal attorneys assigned to represent judicial districts throughout the nation.

As the Times editorial notes: “United States attorneys are responsible for prosecuting terrorism offenses, serious financial fraud, public corruption, crimes related to gang activity, drug trafficking and all other federal crimes.”

They aren’t on the job. Trump emptied all their offices. He’s been busy with, um, other matters related perhaps to the “Russia thing” that just won’t go away.

The Times does posit a possible reason for the president’s inability to find prosecutors: “It’s possible that Mr. Trump is having a hard time luring competent, experienced candidates to work for an administration mired in perpetual chaos and widening scandal. Since Mr. Trump considers loyalty the highest qualification for federal office, that might be. But United States attorney is a highly coveted job under any president, and there should be no shortage of people eager to be considered.”

But … who out there would be “eager to be considered” for a job in a judicial system that isn’t working?