By Michael Collins

(Washington, DC) Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich just got 14 years in prison. He wheeled and dealed to leverage contributions and other favors based on his position as governor. He was indicted by former special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (who tanked the Valerie Plame case).

Maybe it was the former governor's colorful (and to some vulgar) language captured on audio tapes or his brash style. Regardless of the motives, the time, money and attention wasted on his indictment and trial stands in stark contrast to the crimes never prosecuted, crimes that resulted in death, unnecessary illness and suffering, and the loss of trillions of dollars caused by the perpetrators of the current economic crisis. (Image: michaelpickard)

While prosecutors pick easy targets like Blagojevich, serious crimes go unprosecuted.

President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney lied about the basis for invading Iraq. As a result, they are responsible for the deaths of soldiers resulting from that invasion and occupation.

These two were the architects of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation. Bush and Cheney told us that Iraq presented an imminent danger to the United States. The proof of that assertion was provided to Congress as evidence to approve military action. The intelligence community provided the White House with a National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's danger. The White House forwarded it to Congress and made it available for inspection by every member before the votes that authorized the war on October 10 and 11, 2002.

We know for sure that the following line from the original NIE was deleted before the proof of Iraq's danger was provided by the White House:

"Iraq probably would attempt clandestine attacks against the U.S. Homeland if Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable, or possibly for revenge." NIE, 10/2002

This sentence is critical. Let's accept all the false assertions about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq's threat to anyone, the United States included. If the intent of Bush and Cheney was to protect the United States, they would have recommended against an invasion based on this evidence. The fear of an actual attack or the desire for "revenge" after an attack were the two scenarios offered that would spur an attack on the US by Iraq.

The deletion of this critical sentence proves that the White House intended to go to war without regard to the risk to the nation.

This deliberate deception leading to war formed a central part of the analysis that lead one of the greatest prosecutors in our history to conclude that George W. Bush was criminally responsible for the deaths of the US soldiers committed to war based on a lie. The charge Bugliosi offered is embedded in the title of his book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.

Any prosecutor in the hometown of any fallen soldier can bring murder charges against Bush and Cheney. None have, despite the fact Bugliosi outlined the case in great detail in his book.

Bush and Cheney are free to enjoy their lives (as it were).

But Rod Blagojevich will be locked up for 14 years for doing what most politicians do.

The corporate officers and board of directors of the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) and the same officials at every financial institution that used the MERS mortgage contract for home sales committed massive mortgage fraud.

Over 65 million home sales in the US utilized a standard mortgage agreement from MERS, a creation of the big banks and the Mortgage Bankers Association. At the opening of that contract, this or similar language appeared in these agreements:

"MERS is Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. MERS is a separate corporation that is acting solely as nominee for Lender and Lender's successors and assigns. MERS is the mortgagee under this Security Instrument. MERS is organized and existing under the laws of Delaware, and has and [sic] address and telephone number …" Christopher L. Peterson, University of Cincinnati Law Review, Summer, 2010, pdf p. 18

The contract language says that "MERS is the mortgagee." A mortgagee is an "entity [e.g. bank, mortgage bank] that lends money to a borrower for the purpose of purchasing a piece of real property." MERS never lent a dime to anyone, yet this language appeared in each tens of millions of home mortgage agreements. The corporate officials at the big banks and MERS knew this was a lie. (MERS made it easy to sell mortgage backed securities - subprime derivatives - since there was no need to register a change in the real lender, subprime mortgge backed securities were sold all over the world).

The representation by the big banks and other lenders that MERS was the lender was a lie. The foreclosure filings involving MERS contract language were based on that lie. The homes awarded to the banks that used these contracts are ill gotten gains, collected without any basis in law other than the complicity of a court system that ratifies patently illegal contracts.

The people that brought us the current financial crisis (truly a depression) are the same people who got away with mortgage agreements based on outright lies. They were never prosecuted, ever had to repay anything, never even apologized.

But Rod Blagojevich will be locked up for 14 years for doing what most politicians do.

Former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Christine Todd ("Christie) Whitman allowed 9/11 first responders to work at the WTC site in New York City knowing that the pollution at the site was highly toxic.

The Inspector General for the EPA issued a report barely a year after 9/11. He found that:

"EPA's early public statements following the collapse of the WTC towers reassured the public regarding the safety of the air outside the Ground Zero area. However, when EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air was “safe” to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement. At that time, air monitoring data was lacking for several pollutants of concern, including particulate matter and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)." Office of the Inspector General, EPA, August 21, 2003, p. 5

A Centers for Disease Control scientist warned Whitman on September 12 that there were real dangers from toxins coming from the WTC site. Undeterred, Whitman said "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York … that their air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink." (September 18, 2011)

PCB's are highly toxic. Those who responded heroically to the 9/11 aftermath were sacrificed to the desire to "get things going again" on Wall Street. Christie Whitman is still walking around, unindicted for her role in this callous charade.

But Rod Blagojevich will be locked up for 14 years for doing what most politicians do.

President Barack Obama authorized a death sentence for a US citizen without an indictment or trial. The citizen was assassinated recently.

In January 2010, a New York Times article revealed that the Obama administration assumed the right to name and target suspected terrorists for assassination by "military or intelligence operatives overseas." According to former Obama National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, "being a citizen doesn't spare" anyone from assassination if unnamed government officials operating in secret that citizens with the label terrorist. Forget official investigations by law enforcement, indictments by the Department of Justice, and a trial. You're dead at the hands of your government if you make the death list.

One of those tagged was killed in September. Regardless of the rationale for the target's placement on the secret hit list, as a citizen he had a right to the legal due processes guaranteed to every citizen in the Bill of Rights.

As a former professor of constitutional law, President Obama knows that the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says that " No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury." No doubt, he also knows that the Sixth Amendment is clear that "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed."

President Obama ordered the death of a US citizen and thus failed to do what he swore he would do: "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Is anyone suggesting that the president be held to account legally for this death?

But Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois who supposedly tried to sell the right to replace Obama in the Senate, will be locked up for 14 years for doing what most politicians do.

We live in a lawless nation.

END

Permission granted to reproduce this article with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

Also see: An Interview with Vincent Bugliosi - Part 1 - Part II: Lawless Nation: The Executive Branch - Congress; ForeclosureGate: the Mandatory Cover Up

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