A Shield of the People

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Darrell Castle talks about the law and how vital it is to the people of any free nation to be protected by the law from the abuse of those in power.

A SHIELD OF THE PEOPLE

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 8^th day of March in the year of our Lord 2024. I will be talking about the law and how vital it is to the people of any free nation to be protected by the law from the abuse of those in power. The law must serve as a shield of the people if we are to be any different from dictatorial regimes, 3^rd world corrupt regimes, and the like. Lawfare is not a shield but a weapon to be used by those in power against those considered to be without power or at least without the protection of law.

One often hears the term lawfare, but many or most people wonder what that term means. They don’t understand its literal meaning and therefore they don’t understand why using the law as a form of political warfare is destructive of the rule of law and reduces our form of government to tyranny.  I have traveled this world from one end to the other throughout my lifetime but I have always been glad to get home. Whether in a 3^rd world war zone or a glamorous capital I am always glad to see America where the law protects me and I have rights that cannot be arbitrarily abused or disregarded.

The term lawfare doesn’t make sense because it seems to be two words of opposite definition cobbled together. It indicates violence whereby the parties to a dispute, usually two or more nations, fight each other with their very existence at stake. Law and warfare are opposites and should not exist as one but today, unfortunately, they do. For purposes of this report, I will define lawfare as the use of law and the legal process to destroy political and ideological enemies but law, standing alone is the opposite because it is a way to settle disputes peacefully without resorting to violence.

Whether you have personally been to a war zone and witnessed war’s destruction, its indiscriminate violence, or you have only seen it in pictures and films, you are aware of it and you know how horrible it is. I wonder if you know that a society can be destroyed by the misuse of law just as it can be destroyed by bombs and bullets. The law can destroy people, their reputations, their careers, their financial and emotional well-being, and their ability to pursue normal peaceful lives. The law can be used to bankrupt people, keep them defending themselves in court for years while the press goes about its business of supporting corruption and destroying the reputations of the innocent.

I’m a lawyer by profession having practiced law in the courts of my city for more than 40 years so I submit to you that I know something about how it works. In the best of circumstances, the law can be a shield against the guilty whether in criminal court where people’s freedom and even their lives can be taken from them or in civil court where damages, normally monetary can be imposed against them. This is all done according to strict rules discovered and implemented over centuries and judges are supposed to be well schooled and determined to enforce and abide by those rules to ensure fairness.

None of that is true when the law becomes lawfare. The users of that weapon are so convinced that their position is correct that the ends justify the means. They know what the result should be and by their hand will be before the court proceeding ever starts. It is one thing to have a mistake due to mistaken identity whereby a person is thought to be the one but through evidence is later found to not be the one. In lawfare that is not only not the case but often lawfare is used to convict of a crime that did not even happen. It’s one thing to be misidentified and convicted of bank robbery but in our case it’s not just misidenity, there was no robbery to accuse anyone of. The people who use, pervert, and corrupt the system in this manner have a little power and they will keep it if they have to destroy our entire system of law and justice in order to do so. They have an ideological agenda and the law is just another weapon in their arsenal to achieve that agenda.

So, the law is damaged and the system degraded, so what? A system of protection for people has been denounced in the minds of the people and their confidence has been destroyed. They doubt the law, and they doubt the system upon which the law is based, but so what if my enemies have been destroyed and my objectives achieved? Lawyers, prosecutors, and judges scour the pages of lawbooks going back sometimes 100 or 200 years looking for anything they can use as lawfare and they also have thousands of new pages being added constantly that hardly anyone has even read.

Most importantly today, lawfare is being used against any legitimate journalists that still exist. Legitimate in today’s terms means they are willing to pursue the truth even if it makes the power structure appear to be corrupt, or weak. There aren’t many true journalists left, but when one is found or when one reveals himself, he has to be protected like an endangered species. Such a journalist, I submit is Steve Baker, now with The Blaze News service, a Glenn Beck company.

Steve was not with the Blaze on January 6^th now more than two years ago, but he has since joined that company. Journalists report the truth of the story they are following or at least that’s what they are supposed to do. That fateful day of January 6^th the story was inside the capitol building so that is where Steve went. There were more than 60 journalists in the capital building that day including a reporter for the New York Times who went in through a window as the 5^th person in and certainly ahead of Steve. None of the other journalists have been arrested except for Steve and a Trump supporter from Alabama and it took more than two years for the DOJ to get around to Steve.

He was told to report to the Dallas field office of the FBI last Friday morning to be arrested and booked on four misdemeanor charges. For your information a misdemeanor is one where the criminal sanction is less than a year in confinement so they are often called 11/29 charges or 11months and 29 days. He received instructions to come to the Dallas field office of the FBI wearing shorts and flip-flops to make it easier for agents to place him in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs, and leg shackles. He was not apprised of the specific misdemeanors with which he was to be charged because they told him they were afraid he would post them on X.

What was this man’s crime that required such treatment? Was he a violent and dangerous offender that had to be kept from the public, no that is not it. Supposedly he went to the Capitol building on January 6^th. He was there not as a rioter or insurrectionist, but as a member of the press. He went into the building and took pictures, took videos, and made notes about what he saw happening. He did not destroy anything, he did not steal anything, he did not chant, sing, or make a speech. He did what good reporters are supposed to do by recording the facts. There is a lot of video and photographic evidence to prove that.

The Blaze noted that according to Steve’s attorney, it was not until Steve began publishing news articles about January 6^th on the Blaze that he found himself targeted by the Department of Justice. His reporting challenged the official storyline that we are expected to accept because that’s what the power structure says happened. His reporting tended to be embarrassing to those who preferred that the public accept a different view of what happened that day. Steve contends that the reason for his arrest can be tied to corruption at the top levels of the Capitol Police, and that information, he says, comes from his confidential source.

“They know where all the bodies are buried. They know who buried them. They know who’s sleeping with who—they know everything, and they are the personal security guards of Congress. That’s why they are so powerful.”

The court in D.C. at which he must appear on March 14 made the charges available to the Blaze. They said he approved of the incidents of January 6^th and was heard to remark that he wished he had access to Nancy Pelosi’s computer. It seems that journalists out of political favor, not members of the royal court, do not have the luxury of comedy today.

Steve was interviewed on the Blaze and I will give you some brief words from that interview. The Blaze brought up to Steve the idea that prosecutors across the country refuse to prosecute violent criminals and refuse to demand bail for them and yet they put you, a misdemeanor defendant, in leg chains. Steve’s answer:

“Well, let’s start ourselves with the bigger question, and work our way to the answer. This is the first time in history, since January 6^th, that the FBI is even involving themselves in misdemeanor offenses and misdemeanor defendants. And swatting misdemeanor defendants. With 50, 20, 25 agents, swatting misdemeanors. The FBI has never done that, in their history, until ordered to do so, by Merrick Garland’s DOJ after January 6^th.”

Steve went on to say that when he asked his attorney why they are doing this to me his attorney said you know why. You have been poking them in the eye for three years. This is retribution. The Blaze said if they’ll do it to Trump, you don’t think they’ll do it to you? Steve pointed out the selective prosecution because they counted more than 60 journalists inside the building but only one other Journalist was charged and that was a reporter for a TV station in Mobile Alabama and he worked on the Latinos for Trump Campaign. He had only a misdemeanor charge but the judge put him in prison for 8 months.

It is really evil to destroy people’s lives that way but we already know the character of these people. I am personally very grateful that I am still free to write the things about them that I often do. Sometimes I wonder why they let me continue the Castle Report but I was told by a journalist friend who was canceled off social media that it is because my audience is not big enough to be a threat to them. So, I suppose that is my new goal to build my audience to the point that they say we’ve had enough of him. Not many other news services, including conservative ones are talking about Steve and what the DOJ and the FBI are trying to do to him and his family. The attacks on Steve are really attacks on all of us and I hope everyone listening or reading this understands that is the case.

 In conclusion, I will leave you with a few words from the Blaze.

 “And it is a given that the mainstream media will rejoice over this development. After all, they believe that Baker, the Blaze, and anyone who does not bend their necks to lick the right boots deserve what they get. CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, The Washington Post, and all the rest will enjoy the show and use it as a dire warning about the dangerous MAGA Republicans and Christian nationalists lurking among us. What these people forget is that once you start licking boots, you have no choice but to keep licking whether you like the taste of shoe polish or not.”

Finally, folks, as I keep trying to tell you, this is not about Donald Trump. The people who support Trump are simply giving the middle finger to the establishment with their one vote. They realize, as I do, that once you decide to lick boots you can’t stop. Your only option is to continue obeying orders. You have given up your right to hold or express a thought contrary to the narrative. Those on the left who may support this madness fail to realize that they are in as much danger as the rest of us.

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.