A good friend of mine told me they take their blood pressure medicine and watch Faux News every night. When I asked why they would do something stoopid like that, they replied because forewarned is forearmed and so they would know how and what righty's think (now there's an oxymoron for you). Prior to tuning in to the Faux News Talking Pundit Heads I started to pour a stiff drink of my favorite alcoholic beverage, but I didn't want my preception to be, cough, cough, impaired :). So, armed with an arsenal of sock bombs to throw at the TeeVee if needed, I settled in for an evening of watching Faux News. This is my report;
Only in Hannity's America. The highlight of Sean's show was reporting the Supermax Prision in Denver, CO tried to ban terrist Abib AckmanMohamed Mumbo Jumbo from reading President Obama's books because they were deemed a "terrist threat".. Yadda, yadda, blab, blab, blah, blah. Two sock bombs.
On the Record with Greta Von Sustern with Lil Lindsey Graham on Judge Sotomayor's confirmation hearing. Lil Lindsey said he didn't know if he was going to vote for Sotomayor or not because of her "radical statement about abortion". Ralph Hallow from The Washington Times talking about Sarah Palins' plan to campaign for republicans and democrats (what democrat would want Sarah Palin to campaign for them and why?). Former Congressman Rick Santorum (r. PA) bashed Palin's almost son-in-law Levi Johnson, and defended Sarah Palin against the mean old media attacks. ( I wonder why Greta didn't ask him about the racist pool in Philly?). The only interesting story was about the Penguin Love Triangle where *gasp* same sex female penguins were a couple who even hatched an egg together until a male penguin appeared and made one of them ungay. 4 sock bombs.
Unreality check with Bill O'Rielly. He's still hating on Michael Jackson and Chris Brown with some Louis Farrakkan thrown in for good measure. Everyone who disagrees with him or questions him is either a moron or a pin head (where have we heard that before?). Speaking of things we've heard before, check out the God, Global Warming and Obama talking points. Race and the Supreme Court , according to BillO, the real deal is Sotomayor is the product of a system that celebrates her minority status and has created doubts about her ability to be fair, if she turns out to be another Ruth Bader Gingsberg we are in big trouble. Rut Roh! Karl Rove just made an appearance! Rove said congress wasn't briefed because the program was just an idea not a program and they didn't tell Congress because they might leak it to the New York Times, it's about protecting Nancy Pelosi and protecting our country in a time of war.
I can't take it anymore. I'm going to have a stiff drink after I deplete my sock bomb arsenal.
And we wonder why the rightwing is so misinformed?
Weeall, what do you know? While the country and the media were(ahem) distracted by Michael Jacksons' memorial service yesterday, Karl Rove was taking mini steps towards a frog march. I wonder if there was any waterboarding involved?
A hearing from the full 11th Circuit Court of Appeals was Don Siegelman's last chance to have his convictions overturned short of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Attorneys for Siegelman and Scrushy had asked the full 12-judge court to review the appeal. The court's refusal was posted on its Web site Friday.
Siegelman attorney Vince Kilborn said he believes the Supreme Court would be particularly interested in reviewing key questions: whether prosecutors proved at trial that there was a "quid pro quo" agreement between Siegelman and Scrushy and if U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller erred by not telling jurors such an agreement is required in federal bribery cases.
"This case has drawn national attention. I believe this is a case that will be of interest to the Supreme Court," Kilborn said.
Related: Special prosecutor Nora Dannehy interviewed Karl Rove today. Dannehy is investigating charges that political considerations led to the firing of several U.S. Attorney's during Bush's second term.
They've been asking him to come for years, but Karl Rove is finally going to talk to the House Judiciary Committee about political meddling with the Department of Justice. Former White House Council Harriet Miers is also included in the deal.
Under the agreement, Mr. Rove and Ms. Miers will provide depositions and sworn public testimony about the firings, but the scope of their testimony will be limited to the dismissals and closely related issues.
Moreover, the two former Bush officials will not be asked about their conversations with Mr. Bush on the subject or their discussions with other members of the White House counsel’s office.
The committee will also be able to ask questions about the case of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat who has said he was victim of a politically motivated prosecution, possibly involving administration officials.
Personally, I don't think Karl Rove would recognze the truth if it slapped him in the face in broad daylight, but at least he'll be on the record. Just as exciting is what's going on in the Senate Jucidiary Committee. Chairman Pat Leahey and other Democrats are pushing for a "truth commission" using congressional oversight to dig into the goings on of the Bush administration. Republicans argue that such a commission might immunize people and impede future prosecutions. The Leahey part of Rachel Maddow's segment starts at about 3:55 in the video.
So, the Republicans don't want to just investigate Bush wrongdoers, they want to prosecute them, too? Sen. Leahey says "Be careful what you wish for, that may be what you get." I say the Democrats have the other guys right where they want them and it's time to cave and let the prosecutions begin.
It isn't normally a holiday I celebrate but I'm looking forward to Groundhog Day this year. Why? Because I relish the thought of Rove squirming in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Well, not the whole committee. Rove is just being deposed on Groundhog Day, but it's a start. And you know what they say, the longest journey starts with a single step. Step by step, Karl Rove draws nearer to justice.
If Karl Rove thought congressional Democrats were going to let bygones be bygones, just because one of their own now occupies the White House, he was mistaken.
... Rove could always appear before Congress and claim executive privilege for any questions he didn't want to answer. Or he could invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination to avoid answering questions.
... If Rove fails to appear, which doesn't appear likely based on what Luskin said, he could be charged with contempt of Congress. But the Justice Department would have to prosecute him and, of course, the Bush Justice Department wasn't about to do that.
Is Rove slick enough to make a deal with the Obama DoJ? Because the Obama folks get to decide if Bush's executive privilege still holds for Karl and if he doesn't show up they're the ones who would prosecute him for contempt. So, does he have enough high level GOP friends left to deliver anything the Obama administration would care about? Eric Holder's confirmation is about the only thing I can think of that would be big enough -- would Rove's pals continue to hold that one up on his behalf?
Just another example of how indispensable Jon Stewart and the Daily Show are, catching things the media don't. McCain and Palin (indeed, the entire GOP establishment) have been bashing Obama as a "socialist" the past few days for having the audacity to propose raising the top tax rate from 36% to 39% while giving working folks (95% of the rest of us) some relief. The only problem: Stewart dug up footage of McCain making the exact same argument a scant eight years ago.
Stewart: "Now you can argue that this country has dabbled in socialism ever since the income tax was introduced, and that calling Obama's plan 'socialist' is a cynical ploy that even McCain realizes is a bankrupt tactic. Or, should I say, realized."
Audience member: "Why is it that someone like my father who goes to school for 13 years gets penalized in a huge tax bracket because he's a doctor."
McCain: "I think it's to some degree because we feel obviously that wealthy people can afford more."
Audience member: "Are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism?"
McCain: "Here's what I really believe: That when you reach a certain level of comfort, there's nothing wrong with paying somewhat more."
Stewart: "That, of course, is the late socialist leader John Mccain. I believe he passed away during the Republican primaries. He will be missed."
Does the name Jeff Larson sound familiar? It should. Larson is the Karl Rove protégé who's a principal in the robocalling firm of FLS Connect (the "FLS" stands for Tony Feather, Jeff Larson, and Tom Syndhorst, all veteran Republican political operatives). Larson's firm is the same one that launched the scurrilous robocalls against John McCain in 2000, and that McCain has now hired to make robocalls connecting Barack Obama to Bill Ayers. He's also well known in Minnesota for leasing his basement apartment at a steeply discounted rate to embattled Republican Senator Norm Coleman. Evidently, Larson also has quite the eye for women's fashion. Even hateful liberals would have to admit that Palin dresses awfully nicely.
As to the charge of redistribution of wealth, I have to admit to not understanding why the State of Alaska is not involved in this discussion as it has the clearest redistribution of wealth in the nation. This year every man, woman and child in Alaska will receive over $3000 in a redistribution of wealth from taxes on oil production.For a family of four, this will total over $13,000. One might tempt to call this redistribution of wealth a rebate, but for it to be a rebate, one must have, at least theoretically, contributed to the tax to begin with. However, there is no such contribution on the part of Alaskans. It is a simple transfer of wealth from the oil companies to Alaskans regardless of need. The citizens of Alaska pay no income or sales tax to support their government.It might be one thing to use the revenues to fund state government, but it is somewhat another thing to take the reserves from that tax and simply distribute it to the citizens of Alaska. The State of Alaska clearly makes it living off the taxing of a single industry, oil.
State court administrators say eligible voters across Alabama are wrongly being denied the right to vote because of a legal opinion by Gov. Bob Riley's office concerning felony records.
The Administrative Office of Courts said Wednesday that, based on information provided by Riley's legal aides, people have been stricken from voter rolls and refused registration when they are actually eligible to cast ballots.
The office blamed the problem on a mistake by Riley's office in listing which criminal convictions disqualify residents from voting or registering to vote.
Riley's office denied doing anything wrong and said the opinion at the heart of the dispute was correct. Court administrators said the practice went on for months, but the number affected wasn't known.
The 358-page report said that White House officials were more involved in the firings than the administration initially admitted, but that investigators were impeded from resolving questions about the White House's actions because several former White House aides, including former presidential adviser Karl Rove, refused to cooperate.
Siegelman has claimed that Rove played a role in pushing for his prosecution, a claim that federal prosecutors in Alabama have denied.
"The report makes plain that, at a minimum, the process by which nine U.S. attorneys were removed in 2006 was haphazard, arbitrary and unprofessional, and the way in which the Justice Department handled those removals and the resulting public controversy was profoundly lacking," Mukasey said, according to AP.
It is unlikely that the Justice Department report will have any direct impact on Siegelman's appeal of his conviction, which is scheduled to be heard by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta in early December.
But as evidence of political meddling in the operations of the Justice Department by the Bush White House mount, Siegelman's claims of being targeted for political reasons start to sound more plausible.
Almost since the scandal broke early last year, there have been clear signs that the plan to fire U.S. attorneys as a means of advancing the Bush administration's political goals was being driven by the White House. That impression has been strengthened as top current and former White House officials, including Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, have consistently stonewalled efforts to look into the matter.
The OIG investigation was no exception. As the report notes, Miers, Rove and several other Whte House officials refused to talk to investigators, and the White House wouldn't provide internal emails or documents relating to the firings. Perhaps the most crucial of the documents denied to OIG was a memo, written in March 2007, which contained the results of an internal White House investigation into the firings, conducted by associate White House counsel Michael Scudder. Scudder had interviewed top DOJ and White House officials, including Rove, and had compiled a timeline that "appeared to contain information we had not obtained elsewhere in our investigation," according to the OIG report.
I trust the judgement of California Congresswoman Barbara Lee. She was the only one with the courage and the judgement to vote against the Afghanistan invasion and the Iraq invasion. She and other progressives voted against the bailout. Afro-Netizen: post a copy of her floor statement explaining why she and other progressives voted NO to the bailout.
So there is no question that we are confronting an economic and financial crisis.
“But I’m convinced that this bailout plan is not the solution to this mess.
“First, it does little to address the underlying problem – the foreclosure crisis. We need a moratorium on foreclosures and bankruptcy reform to help people stay in their homes.
“Second, this bill should be paid for by the high-flying industry that created this problem. $700 billion should not be given to Wall Street and the Bush Administration unless those who cause this mess pay for it. We should also prohibit the tax deductibility -and my bill the Income Equity Act (H.R. 3876) would do this across the board - of executive compensation in any company where the highest paid corporate officer is paid more than 25 the times the pay of a bailed-out company’s lowest-paid worker.
“And third, we need an economic stimulus package to deal with the crushing reality of the recession that is hitting people hard and growing every day.
“I cannot vote to reward those predatory and subprime lenders who are creating such havoc in the lives of millions of Americans.
NCRC is persistently arguing that Congress cannot pass legislation bailing out Wall Street that does not include rescuing our communities too with:
Loan Modifications – Foreclosure prevention efforts should take the form of broad scale loan modifications styled after the Home Owners Loan Corporation of the 1930s, such as NCRC’s proposed Homeowners Emergency Loan Program (or HELP Now), about which NCRC’s John Taylor wrote in the Spring 2008 issue of Shelterforce.
Anti-Predatory Lending Provisions—Congress should enact protections for homeowners to ensure that unfair and deceptive lending practices do not again lead to a foreclosure crisis. Sen. Christopher Dodd’s Homeownership Preservation and Protection Act of 2007 should be added to the current proposals.
Bankruptcy Reform—Congress should amend bankruptcy law to allow judges to modify the terms of primary mortgages, as is currently allowed for investment properties.
I would also add a call for a national foreclosure moratorium to stop the bleeding and give all the hard-working counselors throughout our country the time they need to work through loan modifications for the borrowers, who have been victimized by their own federal government having ignored their plight while Wall Street profiteered from their abuse
In an earlier diary I posited that neocons were parasites that look for a weak host to feed on while they do their devilment. It would appear that Sen. McCain is the latest host for these vile folks. So, is this a Freudian slip? Or is it workin' the plan...
As I've watched the slow-burn over Palin coming to a rolling boil, I noticed that it's the Republicans who change the construct of the conversation whenever a simple direct question about Palin's qualifications are asked. Boy that Rove is good, but it seems that the curtain is pulled back and everyone can see this nonsense for what it is. Personally, I think the choice is a slap in the face by Rove and others to Sen. Olympia Snowe, Sen. Susan Collins, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Sen. Lisa Murkowski and the Republican women from this list of those currently serving in the House. The neocons and the Christian Right actually feign indignance when the American public (those here and abroad) ask the most basic question first - 'what about those already serving in Congress?' WOW.
While some in the Alabama delegation were partying with the Poarch Creek Indians last night - a beautiful event, by the way, others from Alabama attended an event at the Convention Center highlighting New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
Madison County's Pam Miles reported that former Governor Don Siegelman received a warm reception from everyone at the event. Delegates from many different states recognized him and wished him luck.
But some of the most interesting exchanges of the evening took place between Govenor Siegelman, Congressman John Conyers, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker Pelosi spotted Siegelman in the crowd and made a beeline for him, greeting him with a big hug. During conversation, Pelosi told Siegelman that, when Congress convenes in September, there won't be any more playing around with the Bush Administration:
"We will hold Rove in contempt."
Well, that sounds great, but do they have the backbone to enforce it? That's the far more important issue. Still, the fact that she brought it up herself and stressed the point does give us cause for hope.
In a similar vein, Congressman Conyers assured Siegelman:
"We're not done with him yet."
Cause for celebration? Or yet another ray of hope that turns into a big disappointment?
Cross Posted at Left in Alabama Living in Karl Rove's Alabama is a bit like reading Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass. Up is down, tall is short, the innocent are guilty, the guilty are not even investigated. And higher education, supposedly a bastion of liberal thought in most of the country, answers to the beckoning call of conservatism.
I know about that last part firsthand, having been fired from my job at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) apparently because I dared to write a blog that is critical of the Bush Justice Department.
My research indicates that people connected to Rove are responsible for my termination. And UAB is engaging in a coverup that is positively Rovian, even Nixonian. Perhaps the biggest absurdity comes when you compare UAB's handling of my case to a previous blog-related employment incident.
As it turns out, I'm not the first UAB employee to get into hot water because I write a progressive blog. In fact, I'm not even the first person in my former office to get in trouble for writing a progressive blog.
My friend and former colleague Doug Gillett stepped in some doo-doo four years ago when our local right-wing rag, The Birmingham News, "broke" a story that Doug occasionally wrote on his blog and engaged in other political activity while at work. Doug's blog at the time had the not-so-subtle title "George W. Bush, Will You Please Go Now," and Doug did volunteer work for the John Kerry campaign.
Apparently Doug made an enemy in the GOP camp--imagine that--so some slimeball "outed" him in the local press. And The Birmingham News actually considered it a story--writing two articles and an editorial about it.
By the way, Doug has wised up and pretty much taken politics out of his blogging. His current effort, "Hey, Jenny Slater," is mostly about college football and hot French broadcasters.
Now Doug almost certaily was in violation of UAB policy and might have violated state ethics law. But UAB imposed some type of discipline--a written warning, I would guess--and he still works at the university. In my view, that was the correct result, and UAB actually maintained a level head throughout the proceedings.
So how in the heck does one explain my termination when you consider that:
* Doug was blogging at work, and I was not;
* Doug was engaged in political activity at work(according to UAB's definition), and I was not;
* Doug clearly violated UAB policy, and I did not;
* I was discharged without warning, and Doug was not.
Here's the best explanation I can think of: Karl Rove's Alabama is different in 2008 than it was in 2004. When Doug's "incident" arose, the massive corruption of the Bush administration was not widely known.
My blog started in June 2007 and kicked into high gear last fall, just as Congress was beginning to investigate the Don Siegelman case and other apparent political prosecutions. Heavy scrutiny started to fall on two Alabama U.S. attorneys--Alice Martin in the Northern District and Leura Canary in the Middle District. That kind of pressure, I suspect, caused "loyal Bushies" to lash out against a certain troublesome blogger who, they discovered, happened to work at a state university.
And UAB reacted, the blogger has learned, because Alice Martin is holding a hammer over the university's head in the form of a research-fraud investigation that she can reopen at any time.
Here's another big difference between Doug's case and my case. Doug wrote a lot of unflattering opinion pieces about GOP types, which I'm sure they didn't like. But I imagine they can handle that kind of stuff pretty easily. I, on the other hand, did a lot of citizen journalism, reporting on wrongdoing by lawyers, state judges, and Justice Department officials--reports that weren't to be found in the mainstream press.
Quite a bit of the wrongdoing that I have reported on my blog rises to the level of criminal activity. And that's not so easy for the GOPers to shrug off, particularly when you consider that we could have a legitimate Justice Department come January 2009.
One final thought to consider: We progressives at times tend to turn Karl Rove into a multipurpose boogeyman. But I'm not blowing smoke when I suggest that people connected to Rove are responsible for my termination. Rove personally shaped Alabama's Republican-dominated state courts. Rove's henchman, Bill Canary, probably has supported or anointed all of the key GOP power players in the state. It's not an accident that Canary, as reported by whistleblower Jill Simpson, referred to U.S. attorneys Alice Martin and Leura Canary as "his girls." He and Rove almost certainly were responsible for their rise to power.
And the bad guy at the heart of my personal tale of legal woe is an Alabama attorney named William E. Swatek. His son, Dax Swatek, just happens to have worked for Bill Canary and served as campaign manager for Alice Martin and Governor Bob Riley.
Something tells me that Dax has been none to pleased to see my coverage about his daddy, who has a 30-year history of sleazy activity in Alabama. And Dax probably hasn't been pleased that I've been among the numerous bloggers and journalists who have revealed Alice Martin for the political hack that she truly is.
Combine an agitated Dax with an agitated Alice, mix in their ties to Rove through Bill Canary, and you get a concoction that spells unemployment for yours truly.
But we at Legal Schnauzer are not setting on our hands. We've uncovered a number of documents that show how Dax Swatek and other Rove acolytes do their dirtywork in Alabama. We know about the information that caused UAB to cave in to GOP pressure. Our reports on that information are coming soon.
I've wondered for some time now if Democrats have the spine needed to take advantage of Republican corruption at the ballot box.
On the national stage, I've yet to hear Barack Obama make an issue of the corruption that grips the Bush Justice Department. One of Obama's surrogates even suggested it might be best for Democrats to let bygones be bygones. We wouldn't want to upset white conservatives by showing that loyal Bushies have been operating mini gulags that would have made Stalin proud.
This concern about a lack of boldness from Democrats came to mind here in the Deep South recently. It appears that the Democratic candidate for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court is unwilling to spotlight the gross corruption at the heart of last fall's 8-1 ruling that overturned most of a $3.6 billion jury verdict against ExxonMobil:
The dissenting vote in the ExxonMobil case came from the court's lone Democrat, Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb. Alabama desperately needs Paseur to join Cobb so that we can begin to reverse the damage that has been done by the campaign "wizardry" of Karl Rove, Bill Canary, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the 1990s.
Turning Alabama courts into a Republican playground was Karl Rove's first major success outside of Texas, and it vaulted him onto the national scene. If Rove had not succeeded in Alabama court races, we probably never would have had the George W. Bush administration, Al Gore would be completing his second term right now and . . . well, the world would be a heckuva lot better off.
So it's important that Democrats around the country understand just how important Alabama state court races can be. Our courts were the "canary in a coal mine" that signaled the "Dubya Disaster" was right around the corner. A return to health for our nation could be signalled by a Deborah Bell Paseur victory in November--hopefully, to go along with a Barack Obama win.
In fact, Paseur reminds me of Obama in some ways. I don't think there is any question she is far superior to her Republican opponent. She has strong support from women's groups and law enforcement and has made a number of common-sense proposals for improving the operation of Alabama courts. But she seems reluctant to pull the mask off the eight Republicans on the state Supreme Court who got away with the ExxonMobil heist.
Just how bad was the ExxonMobil ruling? This gives an idea:
The post at the link above includes a link to the full ExxonMobil ruling, and Cobb's dissent is in the last 25 pages. The Cobb dissent is worth reading because it provides a blueprint for the kind of up-front public statements that Democratic candidates need to be making in the face of massive GOP corruption.
Former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman has pushed for his fellow progressives to make the ExxonMobil ruling a major campaign issue.
It looks like the Legal Schnauzer blog, and the story of my unlawful termination at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), has gotten a fellow Alabama blogger quite unsettled--so much that he was compelled to unlease his inner attack dog.
Dan Roberts, who operates the blog Daily Dixie, has decided that I am mentally unstable and need to seek professional help:
I have followed Roberts' blog with some regularity, and from reading his bio, he appears to be a fairly mainstream fellow. I wasn't aware that he has expertise in psychology and mental health:
It's curious that he would publish what could charitably be called an "attack piece" on me. For one, Roberts seems to be fairly middle of the road politically. Two, when I've checked out his blog, the posts tend to be brief, a few sentences. Never seen him write anything as long as the trash job on me. Three, he has me on his blogroll, and I have him on mine; I'm used to being attacked, but this one came from an unexpected source. Strange.
I can't pretend to read Roberts' mind and understand his motivations, but I did find it interesting that his piece totally avoided the facts related to my legal situation.
In a recent Daily Kos diary, which was cross posted at Left in Alabama, I laid out pretty much the entire story--in one place, for the first time:
I also noted at the end of that diary that my research is yielding some interesting clues about who is behind my termination at UAB. I wasn't blowing smoke about that. Public records that are readily available reveal the clues, and I imagine certain GOPers in the state know such a paper trail exists.
Perhaps the single biggest reason I've been targeted by Alabama right wingers is that my background in journalism gives me a better-than- average ability to find information. Corrupt people, of whatever political persuasion, hate it when they know someone is on to them. I've been on to the corrupt GOPers who control our state for some time, and that's why they came after my house and my job.
I don't mean to say that Roberts is a right winger. In fact, my impression is that he's a middle-of-the-road sort. Perhaps he unwittingly has been used by someone. (On second thought, maybe he's not as middle of the road as I thought. I just noticed that a contributor on his blog is Mike Ball, a Republican state representative. The blog includes an ad for State Representative Cam Ward, another Republican. Ward, by the way, represents part of Shelby County, where I live, and almost certainly is well acquainted with the corrupt GOPers who rule the Shelby County Courthouse in Columbiana.)
It's interesting that Roberts' attack job came just a few days after my "backstory" piece had laid my whole saga out in one place.
Roberts' post probably doesn't merit a detailed analysis. But some of the tactics he uses are interesting:
* Avoid the facts--Roberts makes no mention of the facts related to my legal case. Is he incurious or simply too lazy to acquaint himself with the basics of a subject to which he devoted a lengthy post? Also, he makes no mention of the facts--matters of public record--regarding certain people in the Legal Schnauzer saga. For example, it's a fact that the guy who started all of this--my neighbor Mike McGarity--has an extensive criminal record. It's a fact that McGarity's lawyer, William E. Swatek, has been disciplined three times by the Alabama State Bar, including a suspension of his license, and been tried in criminal court for perjury. It's a fact that Bill Swatek, through his son Dax, has ties to the state and national Republican power structure. Dax Swatek has served as campaign manager for both Alice Martin and Bob Riley. Dax Swatek used to work for Bill Canary, who has a close association with Karl Rove. Finally, it's a fact that multiple Republican judges in Alabama state courts repeatedly ruled contrary to law in my case, favoring Bill Swatek and his client. I would be glad to meet up with Roberts, or anyone else, and go to the Shelby County Courthouse so I can show them the public file and point out how the case was butchered.
* When you do deal with facts, misstate them--Roberts finds it hard to believe that Shelby County officials, U.S. attorney Alice Martin, Governor Bob Riley, and even Karl Rove would take time out from their busy lives to destroy my life because I "criticized them on my blog." First, I've never said that Bob Riley and Karl Rove personally have used their time to help destroy my life. But it's undisputed that Bill Swatek, through his son Dax, has direct ties to Riley, Rove, and their political network. I don't think it's a stretch to say that people in those networks have come after me. As Roberts states, a lot of people have criticized Riley and Rove. But they are not the key characters in my story. The key characters are Bill Swatek and Alice Martin and certain state Republican judges who happen to be corrupt--and this includes the GOPers who dominate our Court of Civil Appeals and the Alabama Supreme Court. When it comes to Bill Swatek, Alice Martin, and Alabama state judges, I've not just been a blogger; I've been a citizen journalist, reporting facts that have not been reported anywhere else. And these facts reveal criminal behavior--which, if control of the U.S. Justice Department changes hands come January 2009--could be the subject of a federal investigation. These folks, I'm sure, could handle "criticism" from me. It's the facts I've reported that has them worried.
* When you have no basis for a legitimate critique, question your target's mental health--This one is as old as the Internet itself. Actually, I'm sure it predates the Internet, but it's become a staple of life on the Web. Pick out most any forum or chat room, and you will find people questioning one another's sanity. It's the lazy man's way out, and Roberts evidently is happy to take that route.
If Roberts really is interested in mental health, he might want to check into some of his readers. I didn't know about Roberts' post until I received the following comment from someone who chose to remain anonymous:
Pretty obvious, huh? But in the eyes of the law, they should receive equal treatment. Yesterday tryan pointed out that the standard for conviction appears to be different. Alaska Sen. Stevens (R - Bridge to Nowhere) was not charged with bribery because such a charge "requires proof of a specific quid pro quo" while the Siegelman jury was instructed that "NO SPECIFIC QUID PRO QUO WAS REQUIRED" for a bribery conviction.
Today, we witness more evidence that Ted Stevens is not Don Siegelman, and the two are not equal in the eyes of the law. Ted Stevens is running for reelection and asked that his trial begin soon so as not to interfere with the election. In 2006, Don Siegelman was running for governor and he also wanted his trial to begin well before the primary election in June. One delay led to another, and another and Don Siegelman's trial didn't begin until May 1st.
Siegelman was indicted on October 26, 2005. His trial began about 6 months later and he was convicted June 29, 2006 -- three weeks after the Democratic primary.
Ted Stevens was indicted last Tuesday, July 29 and his trial is set to begin on September 24 -- only 2 months later. Do the wheels of justice turn more quickly if you're a Republican?
Actually, I hope the justice system works as it should for Stevens -- no political delays, no conspiring, just a fair trial with justice at the end of it. That's what every American should expect from our legal system, but what Don Siegelman and too many others have not received.
David Fiderer has written a good piece at Huffington Post about the alleged emails between members of the Siegelman jury, during the trial and during deliberation, and what the Court and prosecutors did when made aware of them. It's well worth the time to read it for yourself.
Anyone who has ever served on a jury knows that the folks in charge are extremely picky about communication with anyone about the case. They tell you not to do it and, as I recall, they threaten you with serious legal consequences if you talk about the case outside of school, so to speak. When the issue of the juror emails was raised back before Don Siegelman was sentenced, I thought there would surely have to be a new trial. But no, Judge Fuller said it was not a problem and had no impact on the outcome, etc., etc. and so forth. As I recall, Siegelman's defense team wasn't even successful in getting the court to order the preservation of the electronic records involved so that the issue could be revisited during the appeal -- which has dragged out an unconscionably long time.
Now, more information has come to light about these emails, which may or may not have been genuine. They involved two jurors, one of whom was the foreman. These were the only two jurors who spoke publicly after the trial.
Mooncat's condensed version is something like this: 1) Paper copies of the purported email exchange were snail-mailed to the defense counsel and a number of other people. 2) Defense counsel raised a ruckus. Unbeknownst to the defense, the government asked Postal Investigators to determine if the paper copies of the emails were genuine or forged. Apparently the Post Office was tasked with this because it was now snail mail, not email. 3) Eventually, the Postal Inspector decided they were forged. 4) This was shared with the Judge and the prosecution but not with the defense. 5) The Judge ruled that everything was hunky dory and proceeded with sentencing Siegelman.
How did they determine that the email's were forged? Did the postal inspector go to the ISP provider and subpoena the records? Apparently not, which makes the whole investigation suspect. And of course the information absolutely should have been shared with the defense so they could have asked these relevant questions at the time. The whole thing has a bad smell.
That's all bad enough and embarassing for the DOJ and the Court, but here's the part that I find really disturbing -- Hendrix and Langer are the two jurors mentioned above. Emphasis mine.
Both dismissed any notion of rifts among jurors, even though the jury itself had twice notified the judge that it was deadlocked. Both insisted that it was simply a matter of needing sufficient time to adequately evaluate each of the charges against each of the four defendants.
Other jurors saw it differently. Here's how one juror, in a sworn affidavit, describes the deadlock vote:
"Five for guilty, five for not guilty, and two undecided. The jurors 100% not guilty were [redacted]. Two jurors had hostile words at each other and at this time, the foreman [Hendrix] slipped a note to the judge without our knowledge and told him that we were deadlock.
[Hendrix's private note said that some on the panel were being "lackadaisical."]
"The judge said that he could keep us until the next 4th of July and we needed to have a unanimous decision. Our whole objective changed at that point after nine days, we felt he applied extreme pressure on us to get us to make a unanimous decision. We all decided to agree with whoever was in charge so we could leave and go home. I told everybody I was through deliberating - do whatever you want to do. Just tell me which way I should vote so I can go home. Thestake of the two men's lives were totally irrelevant at this point for all of us, and we had a more pressing objective in mind - just to leave and go home for good. We did not vote our conviction. We voted based on the pressure applied by the judge."
In a post-trial hearing into allegations of juror misconduct, seven other jurors admitted knowing that Hendrix and Langer had used information not available to the other jurors, which they used to direct the discussion and push the holdouts into voting guilty.
They wanted to go home, so they caved to pressure from the jury foreman. How embarassing for the members of the jury and how embarassing and shameful for our system of justice. Where is Henry Fonda when you need him?
More than 127 thousand people petitioned the House Judiciary Committee to hold Karl Rove in contempt and send him to jail. Tuesday Brave New Films, People for the American Way, Campaign for America’s Future, and The Nation delivered the message to Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA).
Karl Rove has devoted his life to destroyingpolitical rivals. In the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, Rove is accused of influencing U.S. Attorneys in two districts (through his friend Bill Canary –husband of Leura Canary in AL’s Middle District.). Rove brought down Siegelman through trumped up charges…trumped up according to 52 former state attorneys general. The GOP couldn’t beat the most successful Democratic politician in recent Alabama history. So instead, at Karl Rove’s direction, the Bush Justice Department used U.S. attorneys to cook up a false criminal case against Siegelman in order to hand the Governor’s Mansion over to the Republican Party.
It’s no surprise that Karl Rove puts politics before due process, democracy and civil rights. That’s why even when faced with a subpoena from Congress, Rove has refused to testify. Unlike Don Siegelman, Karl Rove is breaking the law.
Rove believes that he is not only above the law, but that he controls it. He’s wrong.
He's also hosting Two for Tuesdays because he's going to host a fundraiser for John Cornyn in El Paso. It just wouldn't be fair if we didn't have him come raise some funds for Rick Noriega.
Since this is an Alabama blog, Donate your increments of $2 to Josh Josh Segall -Read this diary about the race posted yesterday if you haven't already.
Daily Kos readers have had a number of helpful suggestions for my fledging diary. I've already incorporated several suggestions and plan to start a diary under my real name--as a DK reader suggested.
I agree that using my real name would clear up confusion, and I have no problem being up front about my story. When you are writing about corruption by public officials, transparency is critical, and I've used my real name at the Legal Schnauzer blog from day one.
Alas, DK requires a one-week wait to post on a new diary, so I will remain Bama Blazer for a while longer. But to be clear, I am Roger Shuler, the Alabama blogger who was fired at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) for writing a blog that dared to criticize the Bush Justice Department.
Speaking of DK readers, one asked about what you might call my "backstory," the path that led to my firing at UAB. It goes back almost 10 years, which makes it a long story. But let me give you a condensed version:
It starts with my wife and me being the victims of a crime--criminal trespass, third degree. That's about as minor a crime as you can have; in Alabama it's a "violation," which is not even a "misdemeanor."
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It isn't normally a holiday I celebrate but I'm looking forward to Groundhog Day this year. Why? Because I relish the thought of 
