Today’s rant is brought to you by Stephen L. Hall.
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Ordinarily, I am much more comfortable discussing ideas than people, focusing upon principles rather than positions. Sometimes there arises a threat so imminent, destructive, and terrifying that the normal rules of decorum must be abandoned for the health, security, and existence of our republic. When multiple positions and policies together evince an utter and complete contempt for the very foundations of law, the Constitution, and even the English language, that danger must be confronted.
The existential danger to our republic is Loretta Lynch, our current U.S. Attorney General appointed by President Barrack Obama and confirmed by a Republican, establishment lead, Senate. As Attorney General, she is merely a menace to society; however, she has been mentioned as being on Obama’s short list to replace the towering, intellectual, giant on the Supreme Court which was Antonin Scalia; and would likely be on any “progressive” president’s short list as well.
Item 1: There must be, in any nation, a distinction between the citizens of that nation and foreigners. It is the very basis of the concept of a nation-state. There must also be a distinction between those who follow the law and those who do not. Ms. Lynch has testified “during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing that she thinks illegal aliens have the same right to work in America as American citizens do.” (emphasis added)
When pressed on other issues directly related to that very issue, she evaded those issues by stating that she hadn’t studied the issue enough to state an opinion. Those issues? Whether those illegal aliens could sue over employment discrimination regarding that very employment to which she affirms they have a right. And speaking of the rights of these very people, whether they had a civil right to citizenship and amnesty as her predecessor, Eric Holder had stated. So she declares that illegal aliens have a right to work, but hasn’t bothered to study those issues of rights directly associated with said work.
Another bizarre part of her statement was overlooked by the author in that article, which was even more frightening. Her statement, “Senator, I believe the right and the obligation to work is one that is shared by everyone in this country, regardless of how they came here.” You have an obligation to work, whether you want to or not, whether you need to or not. An obligation to work!
Item 2: Ms. Lynch’s opinion that you are obligated, or can be forced, to work for the government extends directly to the case involving Apple, Inc. and the FBI demanding the courts compel Apple to build a way to break their own security protocols. She calls this “[i]industry and government working together” and a “collaboration of government and private industry”; demanding “that tech must help”.
By Loretta’s reasoning, every person has an obligation to work and corporations must build things for the state. How is this different from slavery, but that the forced work is for the state? Such a flagrant enslavement of corporations to the state flies in direct contradiction to the 13th Amendment, as discussed in a previous post. Certain commenters speculated that Apple was normally inclined to aid and abet the state totalitarian left and that their resistance to this doctrine was merely token at best, a ruse at worst.
They may have been correct. With such an obvious violation of the 13th Amendment, what assertions does Apple present? They maintain that the order threatens to violate the 5th, 1st, and 4th Amendments. Their 5th Amendment claim, Loretta correctly points out is evaded because they are a third party, so there is no potential for self-incrimination. Why assert such a straw man argument and avoid the obvious, clear, Constitutional violation if not to seek to lose in court?
“She acknowledged that getting to the information locked in the smart phones of suspected criminals and terrorists has thrust government and the private sector onto entirely new terrain, but praised the law for its ‘wonderful elastic quality’ that made it applicable to current legal issues.” (emphasis added) Loretta revels in bending the law and the Constitution. She even calls this entirely new terrain complying with the law even though there is no such law.
To what end does she seek to enslave us? So that the Justice Department can “with the UK . . . create a framework for UK authorities to subpoena information from US coffers on British citizens under investigation . . . .” In other words, to abandon US sovereignty and effectively allow foreign courts to operate on US soil and order US agencies to execute foreign laws.
Item 3: Another severely troubling aspect of Loretta Lynch’s legal perspective is “her enthusiastic embrace of civil asset forfeiture, which often deprives perfectly innocent people of their property.” What is civil asset forfeiture? It is best summarized in the article:
“Charge someone with a crime and the burden of proving guilt is on the government, but confiscate property under civil asset forfeiture and the government keeps the spoils unless the owner is able to prove his innocence. That is not the way our system of justice is supposed to work.”
This idea is best illustrated by the example cited in that article where a small business wholesaling candy and snack food items were merely suspected because they deal largely in small amounts of cash, had their account entirely confiscated in the amount of $446,651.11. How do you fight a civil forfeiture after the government has taken all of your money with which you could even hire a lawyer? What happens if there is not actually a case to try?
“Shockingly, in the two-and-a-half years since the seizure, the government has not filed a civil forfeiture action in court – it has just sat on the money and refuses to give it back. This total disregard of the Hirsch brothers’ due process rights means that they have never had a day in court to challenge the seizure and demonstrate their innocence.” Institute for Justice.
Law enforcement officials justify this by claiming that “they need the additional resources that seizures give them.” That is like justifying theft by the thief claiming they needed the extra cash. Come to think of it, that also describes all leftists. As U.S. attorney, “Ms. Lynch has used civil asset forfeiture in more than 120 cases, raking in some $113 million for federal and local coffers.”
Item 4: Because the Justice Department, under President Bill Clinton, successfully used civil RICO laws to attack the tobacco industry, Loretta Lynch has referred the idea of using those same RICO laws to attack the fossil fuel industry to the FBI. RICO stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations and is designed to enable the government to go after mobsters and mafia bosses by attacking their wealth in civil court.
Much like the civil asset forfeiture mentioned previously, RICO allows the government to attack citizens financially and economically. RICO, designed to go after organized crime, has been far more often used to attack corporations and businesses based on incidences classified as fraudulent. However, being civil rather than criminal the litigants do not have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, merely by a preponderance of the evidence. Leftists always seem to like to lower standards, especially when it disadvantages others.
The RICO claim appears to be that the fossil fuel industry not only independently funds research about climate change but falsifies the findings of the research to defraud the public. “They argue that scientists supported by oil companies are corrupt, but why is a pro-global warming scientist receiving funds from a pro-global warming organization any less corrupt?”
“The intent could not be clearer: the state should suppress any questions about the reliability of climate change findings or data. In other words, a court should be invited to silence one side of a public policy debate.” The Closing of the Liberal Mind
I like the statement by the author of this article, “This represents a breathtaking corruption of the law.” But that statement also applies to every one of the items listed. There is a disturbing pattern of flagrant corruption of the law and all of these are tied to Loretta Lynch, as the U.S. Attorney General, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States.
The sheer authoritarianism of Loretta Lynch is astounding if you combine these four instances together to get a general idea of her philosophy of the law. Your labor is owned by the government, your property can be taken virtually without recourse, you are viewed no better than a trespasser in your own country, and the state can bankrupt you at will if you disagree with their political agenda while labeling you and your opinions a criminal fraud.
Together, it is obvious that Loretta believes there is no limit to the authority of the government. Something else, the cost of all these actions are borne by the citizen, the government attorneys risk nothing in these court cases. “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” Thomas Sowell.
Think that is disturbing? Three of these points were known and confirmed in testimony before the Senate in her confirmation hearing before a Republican Senate. Any one of these opinions should have been an automatic disqualification from holding public office because she advocates positions clearly and plainly in contradiction to the Constitution and the law. She was confirmed.
She was mentioned as one of the possible candidates President Obama might nominate for the Supreme Court, which is why I conceived of this article. Since then, a different, but equally authoritarian, candidate, Merrick Garland, has been proposed. If such a person expressing tyrannical, oppressive, and unconstitutional opinions of the power of the state can pass the advise and consent of Congress for the office of Attorney General, then obviously they would be approved as a Supreme Court Justice, the standards are not any different.
If someone like her can pass Congressional muster, someone equally as totalitarian would certainly pass. Congress approves of people who see no limits on government power. You have no more rights than an illegal alien or a slave in their eyes. That is not an exaggeration, it is their openly expressed opinion, worded slightly differently.
I titled this article The Sword of Damocles because Damocles’s sword hung over the head of his servant to remind him that the servant’s life was in the hands of his king. Loretta Lynch has shown that she believes your life is in the hands of the state. Do you see the sword hanging over your head suspended by a thread?
