Tag: law

The Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI are in trouble. As more information comes to light about how the church, under Vatican orders, shielded priests that molested children, more lawsuits are being filed against them. In particular is a lawsuit filed in Kentucky seeking class-action status against the Vatican itself.

VATICAN CITY – Dragged deeper than ever into the clerical sex abuse scandal, the Vatican is launching a legal defense that it hopes will shield the pope from a lawsuit in Kentucky seeking to have him answer attorneys’ questions under oath.

The response by the Vatican is, to say the least, predictable:

Court documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press show that Vatican lawyers plan to argue that the pope has immunity as head of state, that American bishops who oversaw abusive priests weren’t employees of the Vatican, and that a 1962 document is not the “smoking gun” that provides proof of a cover-up.

But, buried in the story, is that the Vatican also plans to use the “torture” defense.

“If Pope Benedict XVI is ordered to testify by a U.S. court, foreign courts could feel empowered to order discovery against the president of the United States regarding, for example, such issues as CIA renditions,” Lena wrote in a 2008 brief.

During the George W. Bush administration, Republicans were working to achieve perpetual GOP dominance of our government. The Department of Justice was politicized and stocked with individuals, like Monica Goodling, willing to hire only those loyal to the GOP. Other government agency officials, like Lurita Doan, wondered how their agency could assist during elections to ensure continued dominance. But, eight years of scandals and lies by the Bush administration ended those dreams with electoral landslides in 2006 and 2008 by the Democratic Party.

The political party that ran on the slogan “Country First” has decided that they really don’t like our country, or its democracy, now that they are out of power. Republicans are blocking committee hearings from occurring in the Senate. Republican Rep. Gohmert (R-TX) is introducing a Constitutional amendment to eliminate public senatorial elections. The GOP is filibustering every piece of legislation, mandating that the Democratic party needs 60 votes to govern, then crying how it should be higher if 60 votes are garnered.

James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 48, “They seem never to have recollected the danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote in his “Notes on the state of Virginia”, “All the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary, result to the legislative body. The concentrating these in the same hands, is precisely the definition of despotic government.”

Given the tactics used by the GOP in order to maintain their dominance of our government, but worse, their tactics once they hold no power, is there any doubt that their form of governing is the very definition of tyranny?

The state of South Carolina continues to disappoint its citizens from its elected politicians and its state law enforcement division down to its media.  Politician’s in South Carolina simply have no fear of being held accountable, and thus, continually take actions from openly lying to its citizens to brazenly breaking the law.  

The only accountability these politicians fear is that they will lose their elected positions.  That accountability, however, rarely happens as voters are continually left uninformed about the actions of these politicians by a media unwilling to damage the dominance of the GOP in the state.

The most egregious example of this circle of corruption stemmed from the arrest of Republican State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel.  Thomas Ravenel was elected to office in 2006 and had been office six months when he was arrested for the purchase and distribution of cocaine by the FBI.  What makes this case so egregious is what it actually took for Thomas Ravenel to be held accountable for his actions, and, what his accountability turned out to be for his actions.

The election of 1994 was a referendum against Democratic rule.  The House saw a 54 swing in votes from Democratic to Republican.  The Senate saw an 8 seat swing from Democratic to Republican.  It was an election where Republican politician’s promised, through the “contract with America”, that members of Congress would be held to the same standard as the rest of the country.  America responded to that promise.  

By 2006, America came to the realization that Republican’s had broken that promise.  The lies from the Bush administration, about the secret energy task force, the Iraq war, spying on American’s, and torture, had finally taken its toll on the GOP with voters.  In the 2006 election, the power of Congress again changed hands because a political party had lost its credibility with the public.

The 2008 was a continuance of the 2006 election for the fact that the Democrats in Congress seemed unable to govern with the slim majority they had gained two years earlier.  The excuses were that they didn’t have the votes, they didn’t hold the Presidency, and without those things, they simply could not govern against the GOP.  Voters responded by giving the Democratic Party the majorities necessary in Congress and the White House.

Now, it is the Democratic Party that is again facing a loss of credibility with the voters, and, it started with President Obama’s decisions and actions that, once elected, were contrary to what was promised on the campaign trail.

We know now that our nation, the one that our founding fathers fought for, is over.  That democracy, the will of the people to decide their fate, is over.  

The Supreme Court, with its corporate judges, has spoken.

A corporation can “legally”, and directly, buy our government, our Presidents, our Congress, and our elected judges with unlimited cash.

But, it is so much worse than people think…

As we wait to hear President Obama we already know that he will be increasing military troops in Afghanistan. We now need to hear just what the plan is now going to be, i.e. Exit Strategy, once a mainstay meme of the so called Strong on National Defense GOP. Even a certain State Governor called on the meme: “Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is,”  – George W. Bush, Texas Gov., 1999

But that was before they increased the hatreds and thus possible enemies towards us a thousand fold and for the coming decades!  

Caught the first piece earlier today, lays out similar to what many in our country have been saying for years, especially the recent years, and similar to other countries that are supposed to be leaders on this planet.

Whose foreign policy is it anyway?

But first we have the release of a scathing report from the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, {46 page PDF}  How we failed to get bin Laden and why it matters today

As I’ve said in a few posts, the past week of the hearings,  the picture coming out was our administration then especially, and others, weren’t focused on bin Laden, al Qaeda nor the Taliban who were harboring them in Afghanistan, their almost complete focus prior to 9/11, as to that region, was a growing want to have regime change in Iraq, that became the total focus on the same day as 9/11, as has been noted by Condoleezza Rice mentioning Saddam as a possible suspect behind the 9/11 attacks or supporter of al Qaeda, which he never was.

Here is an analysis of the released report: