Constitution

St. Paul City Attorney John Choi has a 1 for 10 (or 1 for 34, depending on how you look at it) record in RNC misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor convictions; only Sean McCoy, a Montana street medic, was convicted on a single charge out of 10 defendants and 34 charges brought to trial thus far.  Judge Edward Wilson sentenced McCoy last month to a $50 fine plus an additional $31 in costs for the conviction on one count of Public Assembly Without a Permit.  Yesterday, McCoy and National Lawyers Guild attorney Bruce Nestor filed a motion asking the court to order a new trial.

“Experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms [of government], those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

Thomas Jefferson, 1779

In the aftermath of 9/11 the Bush administration and many Democrats crossed a constitutional Rubicon. By both presidential directives and legislation, constitutionally protected rights have been restricted and/or abolished, and the constitutionally mandated ‘separation of powers’ between the executive and legislative branches of government has been erased by presidential fiat.