QUICK HIT #6

      I’ve just finished watching OJ’s parole hearing, the hearing and the small army of talking heads chosen by MSNBC to comment. Curiously, all agreed on one item. The State of Nevada chose to punish O.J. Simpson for the California murders when it sentenced him to 33 years for an armed robbery, first offense. Supporters of the Goldman and Brown families pronounced the state’s actions righteous. Experienced defense lawyers, by contrast, cited the dangers of allowing the government to punish a defendant after an acquittal. But each acknowledged the excessive nature of the sentence.

      For some reason, as I followed the very predictable chatter, I found myself thinking of James Comey. Despite the FBI Agents and Assistant AG’s from the Justice Department agreeing unanimously that no case against Hillary Clinton existed, Comey decided to punish her anyway. His press conference was bogus from the beginning. I invite readers to do a Google-Image search for “classified documents”. You will find hundreds of examples, each with a header on the first page identifying the document as classified, secret, top secret, etc. Comey, in examining roughly 60,000 emails, did not find a single email containing a document so-marked. Instead, he told us, the investigation had turned up 20 (out of 60,000) emails that discussed a classified matter somewhere in the body of the document. In his opinion.

     Was Comey’s opinion shared by each of the FBI Agents assigned to the case? How about the Assistant AG’s who examined the FBI’s findings? And then there’s Hillary’s staffers and Hillary, herself. Did she or any of her staffers challenge Comey’s determinations?

     This is why we have trials, folks. This is why we place the facts before neutral bodies called juries. This is why we allow defendants to challenge the evidence. This is why we don’t allow cops to punish. And make no mistake, James Comey, as Director of the FBI, was a cop. Highly-placed, true, but still a cop. He was not, for instance, a prosecutor, a juror, or a judge – he just played all those parts on TV. For the benefit of Donald Trump.

     There are countries (including Russia) all over the world that allow cops to punish. Cops are freely able to detain individuals without charge, to inflict physical abuse, including torture, to finally release or murder their victims. No messy prosecutors, no judge, no jury. And this isn’t about a left-right, progressive-reactionary divide. This is about tyrannical regimes where dictators guard their power with brute force. Mess with me and I’ll kill you.

      Sabotage the Democrat? Help elect a man whose every instinct is totalitarian? Thanks, James.