RESEARCH:

President Bush, in granting clemency to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, said that the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and his family "suffered immensely." The president wanted to end the suffering and said that the 30-month prison term handed down by a federal judge was "excessive." Of the 16 defendants sentenced in 2006 only for the specific charge of obstruction of justice, which was one of the four felony charges Libby was found guilty of by a jury in March, the average sentence that the defendants received on that charge alone was 31 months in prison.

As a family, we celebrate legal and sustainable immigration and strongly oppose illegal behavior like identity and tax fraud committed by foreigners illegally in the country; and the abuse of tax-paid services to which they are not entitled. The cost of direct services to illegal aliens in California is $10.5 billion annually, which makes my family’s share of this theft of our tax dollars approximately $1,200, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.From the first day, illegal aliens need to feed themselves, so they must falsify or steal a Social Security identity (there are 11 million stolen identities annually) in order to secure work. According to the U.S. Labor Department, 40 percent of illegal aliens and their employers commit tax fraud by not reporting income.

Rarely are the employers of illegal immigrants prosecuted for hiring undocumented workers. An Ottsville mother believes "those who break the law must be punished.A Guatemalan man didn't have a valid driver's license when he drove his car into the path of Steven Ketterer's motorcycle at a Tinicum intersection two years ago. He didn't have a valid Social Security number, nor a registration for the Toyota Corolla that crashed into and killed the 24-year-old Ottsville man.

Judge Michael Sauer had specifically ordered that Hilton, who violated her probation by driving with a suspended license after a drunken driving conviction, not be allowed to serve her 45-day sentence at home with electronic monitoring. Since Hilton was sent to her Hollywood Hills home on Thursday, the public outcry the apparent kid-gloves treatment given to her case is reaching a deafening level.

Unable to scrounge together the $165 he needed to repay a loan to buy sheep, Nazir Ahmad made good on his debt by selling his 16-year-old daughter to marry the lender’s son. “He gave me nine sheep,” Ahmad said, describing his family’s woes since taking the loan. “Because of nine sheep, I gave away my daughter.”Despite advances in women’s rights and at least one tribe’s move to outlaw the practice, girls are traded like currency in Afghanistan and forced marriages are common. Antiquated tribal laws authorize the practice known as “bad” in the Afghan language Dari — and girls are used to settle disputes ranging from debts to murder.

MY DEFINITION:

Justice: When immoral behavior goes unpunished or an imbalance of power is abused.

*Determining whether the behavior is moral or not is circumstantial. When in doubt, however, the more stringent path generally ensures justice.