THE VERDICT

January 2025

This is a national disgrace and a national tragedy.

It's official. America will have its first convict President, and at the same time we no longer have the Rule of Law. The Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, is a one party court, firmly doing the Republican Party's bidding. If it is corrupt at the top, it is corrupt the whole way down.

Indeed, it's amazing that the Court didn't just create an argument to throw the conviction away - four Republican "judges" wanted to, but two actually held to the principle that the criminal justice system, which determines guilt, ends not with the jury's finding but with sentencing. Nonetheless, Trump is above the law, so there was no punishment. This is the fault of the New York judge, one more dagger in the heart of Lady Justice. But that's what he did. He should have sentenced Trump to prison, the typical felon punishment, and then suspended incarceration pending appeal. Trump's a criminal. He shouldn't get any favors.

The fact that Trump's cult wants him to be above the law does not mean that the judge should make it so. Rather, if judges from the Supreme Court down don't defend the law, then there is no law. It's a joke; a farce.

Trump's not the only one, of course. The billionaires and their lesser plutocrats break laws every day and get away with it. One aspect of what are termed "third-world nations" is that their jails are known to have "back doors." In rare circumstances the rich may be arrested, but they always pay bribes and walk out the back. American justice is now truly third world, to match the fact that we are about to have a tin pot despot. God help us. Indeed, the country is ill - tens of millions of its citizens are mentally ill, and it now has corruption that matches anywhere on earth.