Paris Hilton goes to jail, but not Libby?
Posted by Frugal on July 3rd, 2007
The fanfare on Paris Hilton going to jail was all over the TV. Just when I thought everyone is equal before law, Mr. President Bush again demonstrates how executive branch of the government has gone excessive. Libby, an aide of vice president Cheney, was sentenced to two and half years of prison term plus $250,000 fine because he leaked Valerie Plame’s CIA identity. But President Bush relieved Libby from his prison term, and left the fine intact.
Coining the term WMD to cheat the legislative branch of Congress into going into Iraq war, overriding the decision from judicial branch on the prison term, stripped away the basic human right for detainee on habeas corpus, and with the help of legislative branch of Congress, passing a law to grant himself all immunity from war crimes (see the video below):
The president of USA is becoming like almost an emperor now. The three branches of the government: executive, legislative, and judicial are supposed to have a proper check and balance. It looks like our country is nowhere close to where the founding fathers have envisioned.
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July 3rd, 2007 at 9:24 am
Are you kidding or simply trying to get a rise out of people (it worked!)? Don’t you recall the numerous issues regarding commutations and pardons granted by our last President (Bill Clinton)? Please have some historical perspective. The right of the President to grant a commutation or pardon is one of the powers the Founding Fathers envisioned to protect the executive branch from the political vendettas that we all love to hate.
All that said, please don’t let this site turn into another political opinion page– stick to what we are here to read (please). Thanks
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:59 am
Wow – I really hope this is just an attempt to pull people offsides.
Either way – Libby wasn’t fined “because he leaked Valerie Plame’s CIA identity”. Richard Armitage leaked her identity.
July 3rd, 2007 at 11:32 am
It’s his blog, I say write what you want. If someone doesn’t like it, don’t reed.
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Libby was never charged with or indicted for leaking anyone’s name. He was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice dealing with the process of the investigation. It is a shame when someone normally calm and intelligent as yourself gets caught up in the lefty hate-fest and starts spreading factual inaccuracies. That is to say while I strongly disagree with the rest of your analysis, it is your opinion that you are entitled to have. Just make sure you get your facts straight; it makes you look silly and ignorant when you don’t.
July 3rd, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Frugal can post whatever he wants. He’s still mostly on topic. Nobody complained about the endorsement of Ron Paul and that’s certainly a politican thing, an endorsement. Frugal may be many things, but I would be hard pressed to put him in the liberal camp.
July 3rd, 2007 at 8:33 pm
So we got five posts on this…Three state how silly and out of touch this post was, which it is and the other two pull the 5th grade, “don’t read it, if you don’t like it” angle…
hmmmm.
I really have to old back with the garbage about ‘founding fathers didn’t envision this’ comment…Damn, it’s really hard too.
Back to personal finance, I hope.
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Right, you guys are very objective. Because someone points out that our C-student elected ‘leader’ is corrupt, as if it needed pointing out, he’s scorned as being a leftist liberal. Come on. Let’s not forget that he’s a draft dodger (Texas Air Reserve No Show), a drunk for much of his life, a complete business failure (Harken, and USA of late), and excessively anxious to carelessly extend military and financial sources in unnecessary global conflicts. I’m an old-school Randian/Greenspan capitalist, and I am not averse to global conflict, so I know better than to thumbs up some idiot who has no ethics and no direction for this country just because he calls himself a republican. What a discrace for the party, yet you people still defend him. Are you that desparate? It’s as bad as the democrats that defend the Clinton scandals. Come on, people.
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Hey, guys,
I think you’re too serious. I have never said that everything I post here is always factually correct or politically correct or whatever definition you want to give to “correctness”. But I do say that I always try to make an effort to be correct given my available tiny amount of spare time.
I guess that there is a reason that people say that you should never talk about religion or politics.
I think it’s important for everyone including me to be honest and take a stand for what one believes in. This is a free country, and everyone including you or me is entitled to his or her opinions. If our opinions are all the same, then we don’t need to vote anymore, right?
Frankly, I am happy that not everyone here share the same opinion as mine, because if we all agree, then there cannot be a democracy.
And if I am wrong, I will never hesitate to correct myself. I think that attribute is more important than being always “right” and “pleasing”, don’t you think?
Enough said. I don’t feel the need to defend my opinion or anyone else’s here. I only hope that everyone keeps an open mind. And I only have 1 vote, same number of vote as yours. That is truly a great thing about democracy, whether you’re a C or A student, or whether you have a lot of money or a lot of debt. I only lament that not enough people exercise their rights, and not enough choices are given to voters.
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:46 pm
In case you miss the message, here is the cut & paste from “Feedback/Contact” page from this site:
By the way, thanks to those who points out the inaccuracies in my post. When I find some time after I have enough sleep, I will read up the details.
Regards to everyone.
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
It’s fairly obvious to me that this is the worst president of my entire life. Which makes me optimistic, because we can only get better presidents from here.
I’d never thought I’d adopt the old Republican motto, but we need to have less government and taxes.
July 4th, 2007 at 5:18 am
I am surprised at the comments, stating hey, clinton did so Bush is okay to do that. Well there are few things which Clinton did, they were
1) Increasing the credibility of United States acorss the world
2) Gaining respect from all the countries in the world
3) Made the sick economy inherited from Bush senior to the vibrant economy
4) Unemployment rate at historical lows
5) Net wealth increment for middle class families
6) Turned the economy from deficit to surplus.
7) His popularity inspite of Monica scandal, never dropped as low as the current president…
So why are those comparisons not made? I have actually found that almost all of the republicans ( watching shows like O’Reliey), when they don’t have constructive argument, goes on to the defense and says Clinton did that too…. Again an example of cherry picking the information, not getting the actual context, well should not be a surprise, as republican’s defence has always been that hey clinton did that…thinking logic can never go beyond that…i find republicans to be more obsessed with Clinton than democrats are…:-), may be they will vote for Hillary this time (inspite of having 10 candidates, none fits the profile of president)
July 4th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Yeah, no kidding. What is this “Clinton did it so it’s OK for Bush” garbage? I thought Bush was supposed to be an IMPROVEMENT on Clinton. Everybody touted him and how he was going to bring morality back to the White House. I’m still waiting for that to happen.
By the way, not every Democrat was enthralled with the way Clinton behaved, nor every liberal for that matter. In fact, he is not what I would call liberal. I think the only reason the GOP hated him was that so many of them were from blue-blood families and here was this Arkansas hick who literally pulled himself up by his bootstraps… and people LIKED him. Oh no, we can’t have that. But with what he did with welfare and trade agreements and environmental issues, he’s one of the best Republicans the Democratic Party ever had.
And I’d still rather have him back in office than put up with the Shrub another year and a half.
July 4th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
bla bla bla
July 5th, 2007 at 6:05 am
Libby, by his actions, hasn’t killed anybody. Paris, the tramp, is on a death train, and by being so public about it, will kill herself and hundreds, if not thousands, of impressionable young girls who may idolize and imitate her drug use and indiscriminate sexual activity. The celebrity-idolizing media is complicit in this, too.
When you grow up, you will realize what an injustice this investigation and prosecution was. Your hard earned tax dollars, up to 50 million, pissed off and paid to the government’s special prosecutor and investigators to prove nothing. I’m old enough to remember Whitewater and the millions wasted there. You were probably chasing poo in college then.
Stick with stocks.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Your blog is interesting until you start parroting over-the-top left-wing propaganda. I personally prefer the financial websites that steer clear of political viewpoints. Regardless of your politics, I think you’d be better served by just discussing personal finance and investing on this blog and politics on a different blog.