The Sunday Wash. Post has an excellant article on the Justice Department Scandal, interviewing former Ala. Gov. Seigelman -- now free on appeal after waiting in jail for more than a year for a TRANSCRIPT!
Dan Abrams of MSNBC made this Karl Rove Political Purge -- the Gov. was indicted on orders from Washington to keep him from running successfully for a second term and Rove let his phone call be overheard by a whistleblower -- a cause. Then 60Minutes ran the story -- and it was blacked out on the Republican-owned Alabama CBS affiliates. (Remember when that sort of thing would have cost a broadcasting license?)
Oddly, this -- like most of the Injustice department Scandals -- is somewhat under-covered in the Star.
I heard a political philosopher discussing our problem. He said that our Founding Fathers could have anticipated an arrogant, imperial President, an invertebrate Congress -- even a supine Supreme Court. But they could never have anticipated a press that would care more about Brittany's wardrobe than the Bill of Rights.
More dangerous than the Islamofascists are the Bushofascists. 9/11 may have been our Reichstag Fire.
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7 comments:
Phil, Phil, Phil....
Lets clear a few things up.
First, he is not free on appeal. He is free on an appeal bond, there is a difference, and I would think that a high priced lawyer would know that difference.
Second, the investigation was started in 1999. Who was AG then?
Third, the Reichstag fire? I always knew you were a blowhard, but until recently, I didn't know you were a closet "truther".
Evidently you didn't read the article, Craig, but Phil didn't make it easy for you by posting a link. Here it is. The conspiracy against Siegelman is alleged to have occurred in November 2002, not 1999 like you said. There is no doubt that recently the Justice Department has been used as much as possible by the White House to further political and/or personal agendas. Remember the 900 FBI files that the Clintons just had to have? The Bush crew is only less discrete about its misuse of the system.
Phil, that is interesting that the CBS affiliates blocked it out - the same thing happened to coverage of Ron Paul on some of the big shows (only in select areas of the country). The MSM is essentially completely subjugated to the will of the moneyed interests. As Franklin said, "Freedom of the press is limited to those that own one."
It has long been a complaint of mine that the KC Star seems to be written for 2nd graders. Their frequent refusal to treat serious subjects is frustrating.
I'm glad to see that you are calling out fascism where you see it but you have to agree that the forces driving fascism spring from business and not government. Profiteers care not which party controls the political machine, just so long as it is able to be bought.
The difference, Gentle Readers, is that the Bushies have taken the natural right-wing tendencies of the professional Justice Department staff -- FBI or US Atty --(Face it: Damn few liberals or libertarians go into law enforcement as a career, and law enforcement self-selects against them for advancement.) and it has institutionalized those tendencies into an active policy of using the Justice Department to create a Permanent Republican Majority.
That is why Seigelman was so important a target: He had demonstrated the ability to win the governorship of a Red State and was threatening to do it again.
Previous administrations had sometimes abused the Justice Department assets primarily to get embarrassing dirt on opponents. That was what the Clinton staffer was doing. It was improper, and the press rightly roasted the White House over it.
What this Justice Department has done is far different and much closer to how Putin operates: Having gained control of all three branches of the Federal government, it proceeded to undermine the ability of the Dems to recover by a calculated assault of "investigation" and indictment (often on the most trivial cases -- like the Dem. Pittsburg coronor using the office fax machine) -- all calculated both to create an image of Democrat corruption and to imtimidate both officeholders and contributors. (E.G. a number of persons who contributed to Gephardt in 2004 or Claire in 2006 were "interviewed" by FBI agents and even subpoenaed to a Grand Jury -- a tactic clearly intended to discourage future contributions. Of course, the US Atty's office did not hold a news conference to announce that tidbit.)
This is a very sophisticated abuse. Each of these phoney "investigations" and indictments -- unlike Members of Congress' misdeeds -- are usually treated by the press as a local or regional story. They seldom make the natinal news. So the ONLY way to discover the policy was by someone taking the thousands of hours needed to research over the internet.
Of course, the Justice Dept COULD release actual records and memos, but chooses not to do so.
Without the internet, it might well be impossible, and Rove would have gotton away with it. Obviously, the media in general was slow to recognize the problem until Gonzales foolishly overplayed his hand by firing all those US Attys who were unable to stomach what he wanted: A level of political abuse so great that Todd Graves choked on it and resigned! Many -- like The Star -- are still reluctant to see the dangerous reality. They don't want to think of federal law enforcement as politically corrupted. Who does watch the watchers?
As for 9/11 being our Reichstag Fire? The statute that allowed Gonzales to permanently replace fired US Attys without Senate confirmation was PATRIOT II. Bradley Schlozman was the first appointment under that provision. The Bushies did not crash planes into the towers, but they sure used the fear to their advantage.
"The Bushies did not crash planes into the towers, but they sure used the fear to their advantage."
Thanks Phil, I still don't agree with you, but that is at least a more reasonable statement.
Lance,
You are correct, in my haste to point out Phil's errors I was a little vague (tried your link, it didn't work). I have read up on this subject though, from more than one source. The point I was trying to make is that Siegelman has been investigated, on and off, since 1999, so he has been on the DOJ radar long before Alberto Gonzalez was a household name. So Phil's claim that he was investigated, tried, and convicted simply because he was a Democrat is highly suspect. Maybe he was just crooked. That makes a lot more sense than the conspiracy theory that Phil is trying to imply.
Which is why the statistacal evidence of political prosecutions is so damning!
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