Certainly that has been much spilled on the Left about Town Clerk Davis “not following the Law” (and yes, much discussion on the Right as well, tempered with religious liberty), yet as this from the OC Register points out, it is under this Leftist administration, the Rule of Law for those in power seems to have been diminished in the light of that Party’s name and hyper-partisanship that is existent right now (emphasis mine):
The most disturbing aspect of the scandal around Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her tenure as secretary of state is not the former first lady’s penchant for secrecy. . . .What’s truly unsettling is that it has been widely taken as read among both the media and the general public that Mrs. Clinton will likely avoid serious legal consequences for her behavior because the Justice Department is ultimately answerable to President Obama – and Democrats will not use the instruments of government to destroy one of their own. Whether that eventually proves true, the sentiment itself reveals a troubling trend in American politics. . . .
Already, her aide-de-camp Huma Abedin (wife to pervert Anthony Weiner, disgraced Congressman who texted naked pictures of himself) has been summarily cleared by Obama’s DOJ on a number of counts – you really think her boss is going to be indicted? How about the IRS and the cover ups over the Lois Lerner’s targeting of the TEA Party? Or Fast and Furious? Or now, the EPA’s toxic mistake at the Gold King mine release of 3 million gallons of mine waste to the Animas river, used for irrigation and potable water – anyone even going to get fired for this?
I doubt it – to the winner goes the political spoils or so it seems.
And now, political ideology trumps anything else for this Administration. Push the envelope by any means possible regardless of authorizing statutes allow action. When in doubt, make stuff up and make a chain of illogical, say it often enough, and then present it as Truth.
While this trend has been at work for decades – you can thank both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton for hastening the decline – it has reached escape velocity during the Obama years. The Justice Department, for example, already took a pass on prosecuting Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the scandal in which conservative groups were singled out for special scrutiny by the federal government on the basis of their political beliefs. If there’s anything that ought to be a matter of consensus in American politics, it’s that holding the reins of power doesn’t give you carte blanche to turn the power of the state against your partisan rivals. Yet Ms. Lerner, having done that very thing, doesn’t seem to be much worse for the wear.
This hands-off trend isn’t limited by any means to the DOJ. Consider the current debate over the nuclear deal with Iran. By any reasonable reading, the agreement should have been presented to Congress as a treaty, requiring a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate to take effect. The White House, however, has refused to classify it as such, leaving Congress to haggle its way into an arrangement whereby the president can have his way with the support of just one-third of either house of Congress. . . .
It is just utterly amazing, baffling, irritating, and despondent – that in the name of Party, anything is possible. And sadness, frustration, and anger abounds when I see the Republican Party in DC basically going along either out of incompetence (e.g., the Corker bill that made both the Senate and the Constitution invisible on the Iran Deal if you discount all the BS and concentrate on how the process is SUPPOSED to work and the results thereof).
And the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is bragging that this fiasco is actually a GOOD thing:
MITCH: I’ve said we’ll be happy to take up any bill that enjoys enough cosponsors to override a presidential veto. Otherwise, this vote stands. And this is going to be a defining vote for the 2016 election.
Yeah, sure thing – praising yourself for LOOSING and being outmaneuvered? Seriously? Either you all are incompetent or in cahoots. Frankly, the rise of Trump is directly attributable to that self-congratulatory attitude – those outside of DC only care the promises that were made during the campaign and absolute LACK of results. The Beltway may disparage Trump but the folks out here is one large difference – their failure vs his success. And the perception is that within their failure to stop Obama (the #1 reason why the House / Senate have their majority) is a reason that they will NOT keep those majorities – too many promises given with little to show for them.
It will be a defining moment, that’s for sure, but not according to what the DC Republican collective brain fart thinks it will be.
That’s the organizing precept of this era in American politics: The rules apply until they put those in power at a disadvantage. Because we’ve arrived at this point incrementally, perhaps we’re not conscious of how sweeping the transformation is. So let’s be clear about what’s at stake: This is a wholesale abandonment of the foundational American principle of the rule of law.
All the Socialists wanted, the far Left of the Democrat Party, was to be ensconsed in the seat surrounded by all the levers of power. The latter, btw, having built up over the 80/90 years by BOTH Dems and Repubs who have neglected to follow not just the letter of the Constitution but the spirit as well. And as that has happened, well, anything can then be rationalized as “for the public good”.
Except that history has shown us that it always has ended up badly and with many of the ordinary people (who will ALWAYS be subject The Law – but not the beneficiaries of The Rule of Law) will end up, no longer, as equal before The Law.
