Comments on: White House Responds To Rubashkin Petition

By: DaasTorahKulah613

DaasTorahKulah613 — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:42:50 +0000

There is a mitzva in the Torah of pidyon shevuyim, reedeming captives from jail. Rabbanim have stated that redeeming R’ Shalom Mordechai falls into this category because of the gross injustice of what the government did to him by going after him in every way possible. This includes bringing military helecopters to aid in a raid so massive in size that it was unheard of that eventually brought him to bankruptcy. It includes citing him for tens of thousands of offenses including one that was never used to prosecute someone since it was enacted as law over 100 years ago! It includes threatening prosecution against potential purchasers of the company to ensure that the company would not remain solvent, so that when the bank suddenly called in the loan for immediate repayment and refused to negotiate an almost complete payment offer that one of his friends of R’ Shalom Rubashkin was willing to give the bank on the spot, the government had a ready-made case of multi-million dollar “bank fraud” because of the alleged loss of the bank – and it was made as large as possible because the bank pumped in as much money as possible before the bankruptcy and then was unwilling to accept any type of negotiations to allow for the eventual full payment! It includes their sudden decision to drop all charges because there was no longer any reason to pursue the charges for which the military style raid claimed as the reason to attack the company because they now had a more serious offense with which to charge him, yet he could not defend himself from all the terrible occusations made against him at the trial. It includes having one the people involved in bringing him down sitting as judge. It includes having this judge upon whom serious allegations of judicial misconduct in the case arose judging the very case in which she herself was being accused of the allegations during the first appeal. It includes the fact that it was arranged for this same judge to sit in with two of the three judges of the second appeal for almost ten hours immediately before the case. It includes the fact that although the heartrending appeal was very successful in terms of their strong presentation of the gross injustices involved; furthermore, one of the judges noted that the sentense seemed overly harsh, yet during the private deliberations not provided to the defense, some unknown factors influenced the appeal judges to make an about face and state in the ruling that the original ruling was actually very lenient!

Therefore, doing whatever one can to redeem R’ Shalom Rubashkin from what amounts to almost a life sentence certainly falls into this category. Whether or not the current administration decides to be responsive to the outcries of hundreds of thousands of people voiced both through the petition and by dozens of congress members and numerous Attorney generals and correct the injustice by using the executive branch to provide the necessary checks and balances that are provided in the Constitution, should strongly determine which candidate they should vote for next November, and thereby fulfill the mitzvah of pidyon shevuyim through their vote.

By: shlepper

shlepper — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:38:41 +0000

Please don’t overreact! The WH did NOT exclude a pardon!!!
All the WH is saying is that they cannot intervene with the judicial system, and that is (officially) true. You want the WH to call the Supreme court to demand the release??!!
Do not bad mouth the president, because the pardon is of course on the table. You think he ain’t got any brains? But the official letter has to be this way. A pardon is definetly not ruled out.

By: cdkra

cdkra — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:25:14 +0000

I sent the following email to http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Re: Petition at the “We The People” site
“Call an Investigation into Allegations of Prosecutorial & Judicial Misconduct in the Case of Sholom Rubashkin.”

To Whom It May Concern:
I don’t understand this response. We did not petition to the Whitehouse to do the actual investigation.
We understand your policy of not being involved aor comment on juristrictional matters.
Please read our petition more carefully. We asked you “TO DIRECT THE ATTORNEY GENERAL TO
INVESTIGATE”. and we ask again: We don’t expect you to comment on the actual case, we just ask to respond that you hear the concern of over 50,000 civil citizens and has “DIRECTED THE
ATTORNEY GENERAL TO INVESTIGATE” and let “HIM” comment on this.
Thank you

By: aries2756

aries2756 — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:43:24 +0000

As I said earlier the way to handle this is to bombard the White House with 50,000 and more emails and phone calls demanding that the petition be addressed.

By: Homeless

Homeless — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:42:56 +0000

It’a all OUR fault for not donating enough at the fund-raisers. How do you expect Mr. Nat Lewin to attempt at even a half decent defense for a measly $800/hour?
I highly doubt that everyone is stupid enough to be duped and believe that this is all on the up and up. Forget the White House and Obama. It has nothing to do with them and I think we all really know that. Let’s be honest even if it means admitting our shameful behavior. There was and still is a HUGE (hidden) agenda here. SMR and family and friends were railroaded by some very greedy people (pl.) and very few of us in the know (myself included) and those that simply figured it out logically (ditto) yelled about it. This shameful compliance seems to be too commonplace with us these days (but maybe it’s OK since it has all been foretold as great signs). Every novice lawyer or wannabe (including Lewin) knows that a little remorse (even if just for show) goes a long way and works much better than arrogance (which almost always adds to the sentence – as it did in this case as well). But then again, there’s less money with this approach.

By: lechaim

lechaim — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:32:25 +0000

One more thing – when the WH saw that we were getting too many signatures they raised the amount needed to 25,000. So we more than doubled it. Now we got an official response that the WH can’t respond! Yay! >>>>>BUT…. There are petitions that got a response (not that it is worth anything) and they didn’t have close to the required 25,000!
see https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/response/fair-tax-%E2%80%93-national-sales-tax-increases-tax-burdens-middle-class-families

By: lechaim

lechaim — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:02:45 +0000

The gibberish in the email was an intentional non-answer as some commented. They played with us from the onset and never had any intention or obligation of doing anything that wasn’t perceived as furthering their policies and politics. The WH gained all our emails and basic info though for their data base so they can use or abuse it at will. Thanks to Obama’s policy of making things transparent ie. our privacy being transparent.

I guess we all felt like we wanted to do something and that this might actually be something.
Ein lanu al mi lismoch ela avinu shebashmaim.

By: mwpres

mwpres — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:55:56 +0000

Friends,it seems like we’re not “getting” it. As #22 said, “Signing wasn’t a waste of time. It was a great kiddush hashem to see how yidden do anything to “maybe” get another yid out of his plight.” However all this nasty, sometimes ridiculous, rambling in most of the rest of the comments is not just a waste of time, its counter-productive. It helps foster an atmosphere of Chillul Hashem and break down the achdus and Kiddush Hashem we worked so hard to create.
The reason they won’t address the petition is clearly stated both in the Terms of Agreement on the site and in the response. There is nothing unclear. In fact, it tells us what to do to address the problem. Instead of all this griping, why aren’t we petitioning the appropriate authorities listed in the response? Why aren’t we getting the same dozens of legislators, politicians etc. to write to the asppropriate investigatory agencies, instead of the White House?
Incidentally, if you haven’t realized it by now, it seems that there’s very little this whole “We The People” site can do other than earn some political brownie points for Obama (possibly). As of this morning there’s no less than 9 new petitions addressing the responses to the petitions, and we all know that those are a total waste of time. If they didn’t respond the way they wanted the first time, why would that change with a new petition? The fact is, those petitioners don’t want to accept a polite “no” to their request. As Yidden we know very well that even our most fervent tefilos are sometimes answered with a “no”. Why should we expect more from the White House?
Please let’s stop this useless ranting and spend our time continuing to make serious hishtadlus on behalf of R’ Sholom and other yidden in need.

By: WIY

WIY — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:06:50 +0000

Untying*

By: WIY

WIY — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:05:54 +0000

tryinghard
WADR Matir Assurim has nothing to do with prisoners. The Bracha is a thank you to Hashem for undying our limbs which were “bound” while we slept in bed. We thank Hashem that we can sit up and stretch. (Don’t believe me check out an artscroll or see a peirush on tefillah)