Mistral Dawn's Musings: The Rewards Of Corruption...

Who Is Mistral Dawn?

Mistral Dawn is a thirty-something gal who has lived on both coasts of the US but somehow never in the middle. She currently resides in the Southeast US with her kitty cats (please spay or neuter! :-)) where she works as a hospital drudge and attends graduate school. Taken By The Huntsman is her first effort at writing fiction and if it is well received she has ideas for several more novels and short-stories in this series. Please feel free to visit her on FaceBook or drop her a line at mistralkdawn@gmail.com

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

The Rewards Of Corruption...

Hey Everyone!! :-)

I've got a little more of Alyce's adventure to share with you, today! Enjoy! :-)

Excerpt from Answers From Alyce:
"If I remember correctly, this particular bit of distracting nonsense," I gestured towards the podium where the cookie elf robot was still yapping away. "came not long after it became clear that our current President would be appointing the judge who will likely be the deciding vote on whether or not the President can be tried for the crimes he has apparently committed, or even if the investigation into them should continue."

Squid-boy made a loud honking noise followed by a buzzing squeal. "Excuse me?"

"Yep. The part of our government you left out of your 'Committee For Assigning Blame' is the judicial branch. The head of the judicial branch of our government is our Supreme Court. It's the highest court in the land and makes rulings on what laws are in line with our Constitution and what laws can't be enforced because they violate our Constitution. It's part of the system of checks and balances the people who set up our government came up with to keep any one branch of government from becoming too powerful. Unfortunately, in spite of their best efforts, we've managed to do a pretty good job of mucking it up."

"Is that why your President was allowed to choose who will judge his crimes?" asked Yax.

Shrugging, I said, "The President always nominates Supreme Court Justices and the Senate always confirms or doesn't confirm those nominations. If the Senate confirms the President's nomination, the judge is appointed to the Supreme Court. Currently, there are nine seats on the Supreme Court, but that's a number that can change. There have been fewer seats on the Supreme Court in the past, and Congress can change the number, if they want to. Our current President is under investigation for multiple criminal offenses, some of which even include treason against our country. But the Senate allowed him to nominate, and then confirmed the nomination, of a judge, who has now been appointed to the Supreme Court, who stated in the past that his opinion is that a President can't be indicted and shouldn't be investigated while in office. And when some Senators attempted to question him about whether he thought a President could pardon himself for a crime he was convicted of or if a President could pardon someone else who had been convicted of a crime to keep that person from testifying against the President or otherwise cooperating with an investigation against the President, the judge refused to answer the questions."

The tall alien's jaw fell open and he stared at me, while his shorter companion went into a buzzing, clicking jig. When he had recovered himself, Squid-boy exclaimed, "This is what your people consider 'checks and balances'?"

I sighed. "No. It's not. And this is why principled journalists are so vital to society and why it's so frustrating that our media isn't doing the job it's supposed to do. If they were, they would talk about this kind of blatant corruption in our government non-stop. But, instead, some of them don't talk about it at all, and those that do just mention it in passing and then move on to other news. There's no real focus on it, no in-depth explanation or analysis of what this means for the country, or what regular citizens can and should do to keep such corruption from being rewarded."