MAAT

We shouldn't be stackin poles, we should be getting them gators!

(Swamp People)

THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

There is some interesting language in this Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The so-called Equal Protection Clause, which appears at the end of this FAIRLY new Amendment to our constitution (language that had never before seen the light of day in any nation), just states that we, the citizens of the United States are entitled to Equal Protection under the law.

I just was struck by two different stories; one of an individual matter, the other more of a societal approach.

At the very end of last year, Shaun Goodman left a bar in Olympia, Washington in his Ferrari and led police on a high speed chase that approached 100 mph at times before crashing into two cars, jumping the curb and eventually careening into the side of a house. An unsuspecting passenger who had accepted a ride from Goodman was forced to leap from the moving car as it slowed down approaching an intersection.

Goodman’s punishment is a far cry from Washington State’s sentencing guidelines for DUI offenders. According to the court system’s most recent DUI sentencing grid, anyone found with a BAC above .15 (Goodman’s was .16) and with two or three prior offenses (Goodman had six), the mandatory minimum jail time is 120 days. The minimum sentence may not be overturned “unless the court finds that imprisonment of this mandatory minimum sentence would impose a substantial risk to the offender’s physical or mental well-being.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/05/18/3438970/affluenza-dui-protests/

My take on all of this?

Look, you hire fifteen experts to demonstrate that BAC tests are bullshite and then you have real cop experts take a look at the records to demonstrate that somehow the chain of custody papers are all falsified and then you make real attempts to keep out 'priors' from the trial evidence catchel and then you pay off judges or cops or whoever and then....

TAIBBI

But that conflates different issues. Do we give all these companies a pass for robo-signing? For mass perjury? Do we give them a pass for subprime mortgage fraud? Do we give rating agencies a pass for giving out phony ratings? That doesn’t make sense in terms of helping the economy become more functional and more able to serve the needs of everybody. All it really does is allow people to get away with crimes.

This subject has been hammered to death but Taibbi just keeps on keepin on!

I mean that 25 years ago or 35 years ago one could label Matt as some undercover commie since, as a child, he lived in Moscow whilst his daddy covered Russian news for his publisher.

And the right wing blogs underline this fact even today. Hahahaha

Of course the one thing Taibbi learned over there was that there was no freedom of press; kind of like here only worse. Hahahah

I just recall that I went nutso (which is really an anomaly) when I discovered that a few months following the bailout of the banks, almost the same amount of the bailout monies equaled the goddamn bonuses of the thieves that began the entire mess known as the Great Recession!

I have written about Taibbi's take on American Justice so many times, but the focus of the link has been on Geitner and …

Anyway

This stupid bastard is facing five years or more in prison for making maryjane pot_brownies.

I think I caught up on this story with DailyKo's, but damn.

Even the more affluent blogs like to say that no Wall Streeters went to jail and yet we have Madoff and a host of others who did, in fact, go to prison—forever and ever.

We (that is US) do send bad rich guys to prison, from time to time.

TIME AFTER TIME

That's all I got, I do not feel like dragging this out except that rich people all around the globe will eat better and reside in better abodes and sleep with more women and receive better health care and pay for better lawyers (along with experts) and...

Basically the rich just live better lives.

Homer tells us this and the Bible tells us this and Chaucer tells us this and Life Magazine (for chrissakes) tells us this.

All the legislation anyone could come up with tell us this.

I just think that we should face the hypocrisy in all of this.

Rich people live better than the rest of us.

And the rest of us live much better than the very poor of us.

Otherwise, what good can come of being rich?

(Paid for by the biggest repub CPAC on the web)

I mean we all have to make a livin, right?