America is Under the Influence

Each time an American takes a seat in front of a newscast they are literally taking a seat at the bar and being served by U.S. mainstream media bartenders shots of fear, imaginary crisis and political idol worship. Many citizens leave their television drunk and mentally impaired, unable to discern a lie from the truth. After the media has mentally conditioned Americans, pollsters question Americans on what they think of President Obama's handling of the imaginary crisis. Sadly, President Obama is forced to address the apparition to limit political damage, thwart continuing attacks by opportunistic political opponents, and sooth imaginary fears of Americans brought on by the media hype machine. Unfortunately, the other party flips the script when their President is in office. In the past three months the media has grossly misrepresented and overplayed the threats of ISIS and Ebola --- portraying them as crises of epidemic proportions. Inflating these imaginary crises in the media has inflated fear in the psyche of the American public and impaired their ability function normally. The American mainstream media has become dedicated servants of government interests and money and are one of the most radical institutions in the world.

ISIS has not launched or even attempted to launch a single attack on the homeland, yet when President Obama takes appropriate steps to degrade and marginalize their capabilities to function and stunt their growth without risking American soldier's lives he is unfairly criticized. Soldiers are Americans too and their lives need to be carefully considered before exposing them to unnecessary risk. For Americans to think that the United States can use brute force to change sectarian cultural divisions that has existed for thousands of years is radical thinking. The country has been there and done that! This type of unreasonable thinking has destabilized the balance of power in the Middle East. Although Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator, he did not present an imminent threat to U.S. interests at the time boots were put on the ground in Iraq and thousands of soldiers lost their lives. Then there is talk of the "lone wolf" terrorist attacks and self-radicalization of Americans to commit such attacks. There are a wide spectrum of radical ideologies unaffiliated with Islam and the Internet provides an effective communications medium to deliver that propaganda. Disturbed individuals (lone wolves) who are not associated with ISIS commit all sorts of radical acts in the United States every day. Mr. Vann in Gary Indiana certainly had radical views when he raped and killed numerous woman. Timothy McVeigh possessed a radical anti-government ideology when he bombed the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. There are plenty of radical elements in the American justice system.

Darren Wilson was a lone wolf who was radicalized by a national law enforcement ideology that condones shooting and killing unarmed black men and protecting government official’s excessive use of force. Ferguson Prosecutor Robert P. McCullough radically departed from the conventional process employed against the average citizen to only present the most incriminating evidence to the grand jury to gain an indictment --- instead he chose to present all evidence, including exculpatory evidence that will benefit Wilson and decrease the probability of him being indicted. The disingenuous mainstream media bartenders served up a cocktail to that legitimized McCullough in the eyes of the public when he should be maligned for showing preferential treatment to Wilson that is not customarily given to the average citizen who kills someone. Some in the media have disproportionately portrayed McCullough's actions as being thorough and fair because he claims that all evidence will be presented to the grand jury and has agreed to open up those proceedings for public consumption. McCullough comes across as a self-serving coward who doesn't have the integrity or moral courage to personally bring an indictment against Wilson. McCullough gives Officer Wilson the benefit of the doubt that he was not malicious or negligent in the use of his weapon. Why aren't all citizens given the same benefit of the doubt McCullough is giving to Wilson --- that they in acted in good faith or with innocent intent? Are we supposed to praise McCullough's double-standard? The citizens in Ferguson are protesting that Wilson not only killed Michael Brown by firing an excessive number of shots, but a special grand jury process being afforded Wilson that is never provided to the average citizen. The Ferguson community and the grand jury has been victimized by a rogue prosecutor and illegitimate process. We have reached a tipping point in many communities regarding the secrecy of the grand jury process and unchallenged prosecutors manipulating grand jurors and spinning the presentation of evidence to fit their personal agenda. McCullough says he will release evidence presented to the grand jury, but standalone evidence without the context in which prosecutors presented it to grand jurors is insufficient to quell the deep distrust in the process. The entire grand jury transcript and all evidence presented needs to be released, only redacting personal information of witnesses so the public can evaluate the credibility of the entire process, including the prosecutor's overall presentation and questioning of witnesses. The media has failed to be sufficiently critical of the special grand jury process employed by McCullough but has focused on the reaction of a victimized community. Radical abuse of the grand jury process is not isolated to Ferguson; it is ubiquitous throughout the country, including Colorado.

In the IRP6 case in Colorado, there was irrefutable physical evidence that the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office abused the grand jury process by illegally gained access to church and parishioner banking records. When the IRP6 defendants requested the grand jury subpoenas that Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Kirsch alleged were used to obtain the records, Judge Christine M. Arguello refused to release them after vigorous opposition from Kirsch. When the IRP6 alleged that Judge Arguello coerced them to testify during a bench conference and requested the unedited transcript to prove their allegations, Kirsch opposed the release of the transcript then Judge Arguello denied access. When the IRP6 tried to obtain the transcript from clerk's office, that portion had suspiciously disappeared. Why would the Denver Post, Gazette Telegraph, or national news outlets refuse to report or question how the government illegally gained access to the banking records or how, in the heavily computerized 21st century, a single bench conference where defendants allege judicial misconduct occurred is the only missing portion of a transcript of a 17-day trial?

The answer: It does not support the government's interest or agenda. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, specifically Judges Baldock, Hartz and Holmes, circled their crony wagons to protect corrupt actions of Judge Arguello, U.S. Attorney of Colorado John Walsh and Assistant United States Attorney Matthew T. Kirsch. The IRP6's wrongful conviction and imprisonment of six innocent men, doing justice or upholding the Constitution are of absolutely no concern to the judicial community. The propaganda disseminated by the media that the United States has the best justice system in the world is the epitome of a radical ideology. There are absolutely no facts to support that the U.S. has an exceptional justice system. The media has become nothing more than a front group organization that purports to represent an independent media while its actions are akin to a state-run media controlled by an oligarchy comprised of government and big business.

American Exceptionalism is an ideology that the United States way of life is qualitatively different than other countries. This ideology is espoused by many political leaders and propagandized by the mainstream media that the United States is markedly superior and therefore requires them to be a leader to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the United States is very unexceptional in many areas, especially egalitarianism, which is one of the pillars of American exceptionalism. Egalitarianism is the belief that all men are equal in intrinsic worth and are entitled to equal access to the rights and privileges of their society. The United States justice system is supposed to protect the rights and privileges guaranteed under the Constitution, but they are failing miserably. The United States has become the king of over-criminalization and mass incarceration and police, prosecutors and judges are routinely running roughshod over citizens and their constitutional rights. A video documentary should be produced about prosecutors and judges that is titled "Abuse of Discretion Gone Wild". Prosecutors and judges are cloaked in absolute immunity and can violate constitutional rights with impunity because they are backed up by crony appellate judges who are as depraved as they are. A very political Supreme Court of the United States hears less than one half of one percent of cases which leaves a wrongly convicted citizen whose rights have been violated with virtually no options for redress and many times on the receiving end of an extremely harsh sentence imposed by judges with no conscience. America has achieved excellence in building more prisons than schools and filling them up at an alarming rate. Maybe that explains why American students have fallen behind other countries in educating their children and why the United States houses 25% of the world's prison population. This is hardly exceptional. Other countries have much lower recidivism rates but the media continues its propaganda campaign that the United States has the best system in the world.

As one of the IRP6, I am a witness that your proof of innocence and constitutional rights means nothing to evil, insouciant, win-at-any-cost prosecutors like U.S. Attorney of Colorado John Walsh and his cohort in crime, AUSA Kirsch. Their constitutional violations and government conduct were so egregious that it garnered the attention of multiple retired federal judges, one of which was the Honorable H. Lee Sarokin (Retired, 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals). Sarokin was so disturbed that he wrote a 6-part series about the IRP6 case on the Huffington Post titled "The Case of The Missing Transcript". Sarokin is highly-respected in the legal community. He is an Ivy League graduate with from Dartmouth and Harvard Law and was appointed to the District Court in New Jersey by President Carter and to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals by President Clinton. Irrespective of Sarokin's stellar credentials and the prominence of the Huffington Post, the Denver Post, Gazette Telegraph and national media outlets refused to print anything about Sarokin's commentary and other legal experts who have spoken out regarding the injustice to the IRP6 and the misconduct of government officials. The Denver Post and Gazette did not hesitate to print whatever the Government wanted concerning the raid on IRP Solutions and about the conviction of the IRP6. You hear constant criticism from the U.S. media denouncing other countries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea concerning their lack of a free press, while they hypocritically carry propaganda favorable to the government and substantially omit coverage of governmental abuses of power on citizens. Americans need to get news from multiple news sources such as the Internet, magazines, radio and even foreign media outlets to validate for accuracy. The spiked news cocktails being served by American media bartenders loyal to government and big business are inflating fear in many Americans and impairing their judgment. Americans will never know the truth if the news is skewed to only support special interests and money.