While Americans celebrate the 4th of July with fireworks and parades, our President and Vice-President continue to grind their heels into the fabric of what our Founding Fathers sewed together in 1776. American Democracy was to be a lived ideal where everyone—leaders and peoples alike—was to be equal under the law. In many ways the experiment has failed—consider persons of color and immigrants in America today—but our judicial system is constructed to right those wrongs.

So how is it that the two most powerful men in America are blatantly living above the law and getting away with it? Where are the consequences they should be facing? Where are the checks and balances that are guaranteed in our U.S. Constitution? Where is the peoples’ outrage?

You'll forgive me if I find it hard to celebrate this day with the patriotic fervor it deserves.