Marc Rainer's Blog, page 2

Book 5 is coming soon

Book 5 in the Jeff Trask crime drama series, “Death Votes Last,” should be released next week!

"Organic" writing.

I have never taken a creative writing course. "We can tell," some critics might say. I don't care. I recently attended a writer's conference. My first. It gave me flashbacks to my academic equivalent of 'Nam.

While I never took a creative writing course, I've taken dozens of lit classes. Basically, all of them. I soaked them up like a proverbial sponge, and they helped to balance out my GPA at the Air Force Academy to keep me on the Dean's List so I could leave on the weekends. An engineering course was a C; a literature course was an A, the GPA would stay at a 3.00 as long as I balanced every core curriculum math/science/engineering C with a history or lit A. I graduated with 216 hours and a 3.02. My system worked.

My flashback had to do with an American lit professor. He had quite a resume, and had even served as an editor for a quite famous American author. The guy was totally obsessed with symbolism and deep, hidden meanings; if the book had none, it was worthless.

We discussed Hemingway. A lot. He loved "The Old Man and the Sea" because he saw a lot of symbolic religious conflict in it. "Fine," I said. I told him that the real majesty of the book was that he could read it for that and torture himself all night about it, while a twelve-year-old could read it and enjoy the tale of an old fisherman finally catching his dream fish, only to have the sharks take it away from him. Both readers - and a host of others in between - could love the read. He told me that I was missing the point. I told him that I hadn't missed it, I had simply refused to allow HIS point to ruin the book for me. I did not get my A in that class.

In the recent conference, I had the pleasure of hearing a speaker talk about "organic writing." As he spoke, I found out that he was talking about the very process and techniques that I use in writing my books. I won't claim that it's instinctive for me, but I will say that it's the result of reading a lot of great books, and taking a little something from each of them. Dialogue, plot twists, character development, etc. (That was a sentence fragment. In fiction dialogue, it's actually allowed.) Did I actually learn anything in the lecture? Only that the creative writing professors had a name for what I do: "organic writing." I don't think that I'll let that fact ruin the writing for me, either.

Book 4 is out!

"A Winter of Wolves" is now available in paperback from Amazon.com!

The Case for an Independent Department of Justice

(1) A half-century of scandals. The following is a list of just some of the controversies surrounding the politically-appointed attorneys general over the last five decades. Neither political party has had “clean hands” during this period. Any neutral review of this history compels the conclusion that the removal of the office of the Attorney General from the president’s cabinet (and influence) is long overdue.

- Richard Nixon’s Attorney General from 1969-1972, John Mitchell, was sentenced to prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, and was disbarred by the State of New York. The Watergate affair also resulted in the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre,” in which Nixon dismissed special prosecutor Archibald Cox, resulting in the protest resignation of Attorney General Elliot Richardson. Richardson had replaced Richard Kleindienst, who had replaced Mitchell when Mitchell resigned to work on Nixon’s re-election campaign. Kleinidenst had also resigned in response to the Watergate scandal.
- Janet Reno, Bill Clinton’s Attorney General from 1993-1998, authorized the disastrous siege and assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, which resulted in 76 deaths, including many women and children. Reno’s involvement in Waco is particularly disturbing when one considers that she also oversaw the investigation into the Ruby Ridge incident of 1992. While Ruby Ridge occurred before Reno took office, she approved investigation findings that resulted in what has been called a “whitewashing” of the government’s involvement in the FBI sniper killings at the scene. (The government ultimately settled a civil suit by the victims’ survivors, paying millions, but admitting no wrongdoing.)
- Reno also authorized the armed seizure of six-year-old Elián Gonzalez, returning him to Castro’s Cuba even though his mother had died at sea seeking a free life for her son in the United States. Reno’s DOJ leaked incorrect and defamatory information to the media concerning Richard Jewell in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. She rejected calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate allegations regarding illegal campaign financing donations to the Clintons by John Huang.
- Alberto Gonzalez, George W. Bush’s Attorney General from 2005-2007, presided over the dismissal of several United States Attorneys for purely political reasons. When faced with the controversy, he attempted to disavow knowledge of the process, and tried to blame his actions on career attorneys within the Department of Justice. Records released by DOJ afterward suggested that his claims of non-involvement were false. He was forced to resign under pressure.
- Eric Holder, Barrack Obama’s first Attorney General, was appointed to the office despite having been a member of a law firm which had defended Guantanamo terrorists, a matter which should have arguably disqualified him from presiding over related legal issues while AG. His department’s attempt to prosecute Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska had to be dismissed because of discovery obligation violations, and DOJ attorneys working for Holder and supervising the prosecution tried to pin the blame on local federal prosecutors in Alaska.
- Holder’s so-called “Smart On Crime” initiative resulted in the early release and/or reduced sentences for hundreds of convicted felons, many of whom were large-scale drug traffickers. One inmate benefitting from an early release as a result of this initiative, Wendell Callahan, is charged with murdering his former girlfriend and two of her children in Columbus, Ohio.
- Holder’s tenure oversaw the ridiculous Operation Fast and Furious, which resulted in the sale of hundreds of firearms to Mexican drug traffickers and cartel members. The murders of many victims on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border were traced to weapons sold during the operation. When Congress demanded a complete disclosure of DOJ records regarding the scandal, Holder refused to release them, and was held in contempt of Congress in a bipartisan vote. It should be noted that Holder was supposedly cleared of any wrongdoing after an investigation by the DOJ Inspector General, but the partisan nature of that investigation makes its validity subject to question.
- Despite having taken an oath to enforce the laws of the United States, Holder refused to prosecute banks for financial crimes, declaring them “too big to fail,” issued policy directives instructing federal prosecutors not to enforce some federal laws prohibiting marijuana trafficking, watered down the enforcement of immigration laws, and refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. In November of 2013, a resolution was introduced in Congress seeking Holder’s impeachment. He resigned in 2014, citing personal reasons.
- Holder was replaced by current Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who has come under fire for her notorious meeting on the tarmac with former President Bill Clinton, at a time when Clinton’s wife and foundation were under FBI investigation for numerous criminal violations.

(2) A relatively easy fix. Despite the misperception that any modification of the position of the Attorney General somehow implicates the Constitution, such is not the case. The office of the Attorney General was created by an act of Congress in the Judiciary Act of 1789, and the Department of Justice was created by yet another act of Congress in 1870. Accordingly, another act of Congress could move the position and the department, change the terms of their operation, or even abolish both. Making the department an independent operating agency, led by an Attorney General reporting to Congress, with a term—like the Director of the FBI—of ten years, overlapping presidential administrations, would greatly reduce the political influence of the executive branch, and would arguably obviate any need for the appointment of any special prosecutor to investigate wrongdoing.

(3) Political influence infecting all levels of the federal justice process. The Department of Justice, while certainly not the largest fiefdom in the federal kingdom, is extensive. In addition to the headquarters bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., there are ninety-four United States Attorneys with offices in their respective districts throughout the country. The recent, increased attempts by both parties to politicize the department have resulted in a political class of supervisors at “Main Justice,” and have increasingly politicized decisions by United States Attorneys in their respective districts. At the local levels, these decisions result in the protection of senators and congressmen from fellow Republicans and Democrats, and attacks—in the form of indictments—directed toward members of the opposing party.

(4) Career prosecutors; not political hacks. Approving the appointment of an Attorney General by a super majority of Congress (either two-thirds or three-fourths) could ensure bi-partisan approval of neutral, career prosecutors interested in doing the right thing for a fixed term of years, without any need to defer to any president or either party. Allowing the Attorney General to appoint Main Justice supervisors and United States Attorneys—subject to approval by Congress—could have the same effect at the level where most prosecutorial decisions are made. In a better world, the Department of Justice would return to its intended missions: the enforcement of the nation’s laws without political bias or interference.

The Comey Conundrum

When FBI Director James Comey announced that he would NOT recommend prosecution of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for violation of the Espionage Act (Title 18, United States Code, Section 793), he made a decision based upon political considerations, and NOT based upon principles of criminal law or justice.
Subsection (f) of the statute reads:

Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
There are five key points to be made in analyzing the Director’s very flawed decision:
(1) Mr. Comey essentially wrote subsection (f) OUT of the applicable statute in the Clinton email investigation.The Director’s explanation that he had worked all his life to “decriminalize negligence” and thereby would not recommend prosecution was nothing short of ridiculous. It should be first noted that Mr. Comey offered no such examples of his “life’s work,” and it is doubtful that there are any. There has always been prosecution of criminal negligence at every level of our legal system, and with good reason. Negligent homicide by reckless driving is one common example that should come readily to mind. Starting a fire in a fireworks stand, resulting in an explosion and death of a customer or employee, would be another. Intent to kill is not required for conviction in either case for obvious reasons. The negligent actions taken are so inherently reckless as to endanger human life, and are therefore included in virtually every state and federal criminal code as punishable offenses. It must also be noted that Mrs. Clinton’s unguarded emails may have similarly resulted in at least one death—that of an Iranian scientist who was executed by Iran as a spy after his name surfaced in one of the emails on Clinton’s unprotected private server.

(2) While he may have exercised prosecutorial ‘discretion’ in some of his prior posts as an Assistant United States Attorney or Deputy Attorney General, Mr. Comey was not a prosecutor at the time of the email scandal investigation. He was and remains the nation’s chief investigator, sworn to uphold the laws of the country as written by Congress, and he was neither sworn nor entitled to re-write those statutes to his own satisfaction. While there are undoubtedly some examples of investigative discretion in our system, most are relegated to petty offenses, such as warning tickets for minor speeding violations. At the offense level where Mrs. Clinton’s offenses are found, such decisions are reserved to a prosecuting authority; they are NOT left to investigators.

(3) When Mr. Comey took the unprecedented step of revealing the conclusions of his investigation prior to submitting those findings to the Department of Justice, and of delivering an excoriation of Mrs. Clinton’s negligence to the public, he characterized her actions as “extremely careless,” words used in trial jury instructions to explain the very meaning of the phrase “gross negligence” used in the statute. He thereby confirmed that his investigation had revealed proof of guilt, but chose to issue a pardon instead (another action he had no authority to take.)

(4) In defending his action, Mr. Comey fell back on a bad habit of his, one for which he has actually been congratulated in the past. While acting as Deputy Attorney General, when he didn’t like a memo he received supporting parts of a terrorist surveillance program, he referred to it dismissively as “fatally flawed,” and said, “No lawyer reading that could reasonably rely on it.” When another seasoned attorney replied that he had relied on the memo, Comey’s response was, “No good lawyer,” a remark which earned him praise from those opposing the program under scrutiny. Similarly, when Comey presented his findings in the Clinton investigation, he preemptively declared that “no reasonable prosecutor” would indict on such evidence, a claim subsequently challenged by those as credentialed as Rudy Giuliani, and Joseph diGenova, former United States Attorneys for, respectively, the Southern District of New York and Washington, D.C. In both instances, Comey put NOTHING on the table to substantively defend his decisions. He resorted instead to insulting, ad hominem attacks on anyone who would dare to disagree with his imperial decisions—decisions that could NOT, after thorough review, be defended in any other fashion.

(5) Some have theorized that this was a conscious decision by Comey to take no action because he believed that the decision to be made—in essence, to disqualify Mrs. Clinton from the presidency—was one properly reserved for the voters. In so deciding (if, in fact, such was his decision), his action was much more in line with the hand-washing of Pontius Pilate than with the wisdom of Solomon. The Constitution’s system of checks and balances inherently recognizes that there are times when voters, being human, will make mistakes, and elect public officers who—also being human—will violate the laws of the nation or the Constitution itself. Here, Comey was not even dealing with an elected official, just one on her way to a nomination. If our system falters or ultimately collapses, those such as Mr. Comey (and, arguably, Chief Justice Roberts in the Obamacare decision) who are charged with providing the checks and balances contemplated by the Constitution—but who could not find the courage to apply them—will have to answer to history.

Lunacy

Those currently in government - on both sides of the proverbial aisle - seem hell-bent on unleashing hell on the American populace. The administration continually criticizes and tries to limit police forces, thereby tacitly encouraging those on the mental fringe to murder officers, and we've had a record number of such attacks. Their "Smart on Crime" initiative is releasing thousands of convicted felons back to the streets, and they'd let more go if they could. Meanwhile, those with a libertarian streak are urging the passing of even more ridiculous legislation to free "non-violent drug offenders." The myth of "mass incarceration" of such offenders is making the rounds in support of these proposals. I've never seen ANY defendant convicted in federal court on simple possession charges. Many criminals ARE inside for possession with intent to distribute (PWID) cases, arising from a search warrant execution at their residence following undercover buys in which the bad guys sold their poison to police undercovers. The police then find the mother lode from which those sales were made, and the possession with intent to distribute case is then filed based upon the amount of dope found. Anyoner who believes that such sales of heroin, meth, and/or cocaine are "non-violent" offenses hasn't visited a morgue (as I have far too many times) to see the result of such crimes. Remember also that the police always know more than they might be able to prove in a court of law, thanks to the intimidation - or even elimination - of potential witnesses, especially in our inner cities where entire neighborhoods are terrorized by gangs. This means that while defendant X might not be charged with the three murders he's committed, the police and prosecutors CAN (and, thank God, do) hit him with every drug charge that they CAN prove in order to get him off the streets. Remember that Al Capone, for all his sins, only took a fall on a tax case. Maybe we should have been releasing all tax offenders in the '30s because their offense of record was non-violent.

Audiobooks

I'm very proud to announce that the Jeff Trask novel series has been selected for conversion to audiobooks by Cherry Hill Publishing. The first book in the series, "Capital Kill," is now available, and "Horns of the Devil," and "Death's White Horses," will bw produced in the near future.

Texas gunboats

The Texas Highway Patrol gunpoints mentioned in my third book, "Death's White Horses," were the subject of a report on Sean Hannity's program last night on Fox News.

Third book in the series . . .

featuring federal prosecutor Jeff Trask, "Death's White Horses,"is now available in Amazon.com's kindle store.

Death's White Horses

The third book in the Jeff Trask crime drama/legal thriller series is now available in paperback on Amazon; kindles should be available in a couple of weeks.