Recently in Law Category

I have my doubts about this nation after reading a couple of seemingly unconnected stories that probably wouldn't have been written if we had a functional federal government. I have no doubt whatsoever that if a McCain administration is sworn in next January, all hope for justice in this country is lost. I'm not too sure an Obama administration will have the cojones to do the right thing either, even if John Edwards is appointed Attorney General -- but that would be a good start.

I absolutely agree with John Cole's observation that Congress is a "Joke." Their decision to put on a useless "charade" by holding impeachment hearings (or should that read, <quote> "impeachment" </quote>) while electing not to vote on any findings they may make is the epitome of "farce." That so many spineless men and women could be gathered together, all sworn to uphold the Constitution they so casually disregard on a daily basis, is simply astounding. No wonder they have such a pathetic and historically low approval rating.

To put it in perspective, with Congress at 14% the Worst President Ever is twice as popular as Congress -- with good reason. They are Teh Suck!

It's embarrassing enough that if I were Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio Congressman who submitted the Articles of Impeachment against President Bush, I would withdraw them and go on a spree of of the most disruptive procedural nonsense to ever hit a legislative body since the Albanian U.N. delegation would read the complete text of "new" speeches by their fearless leader, Enver Hoxha, into the record of the General Assembly three full years after the dictator had died -- even though they didn't tell anyone.

Of course, a useless protest is simply useless, and America really doesn't care much about what Kucinich does, and expects the bizarre from him. (When the wacko right goes off the deep end, they get a good-looking guy like Rick Santorum to do it, not some twerp like Dennis the Menace, but that's another story.) Since the the White House still is a sanctuary for felons and Congress has abdicated it's moral and legal authority, as long as we wish to stay within the system we as citizens have no other recourse than the (other) last bastion against tyranny -- the courts.

Here in Ohio, the best efforts of one of our Representatives to call the administration into account having been thwarted, again, we're turning to the judiciary, with Karl Rove at the top of the list of people to indict. With cooperation from the Ohio Attorney General and John Conyer's (useless) Judiciary Committee, Cliff Arnebeck, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case of King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell, is proceeding with a suit and commencing "targeted discovery" to prove that the 2004 election was stolen, and they're looking for heads to role as the Ohio Attorney General took the leash off the litigators.

One of the more delightful and interesting quotes comes from Arnebeck, concerning what he expects to discover as the stay is lifted: "[W]e anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio"...

[snip]

Arnebeck said that the Attorney General's office said they were ready to begin the investigation of the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, and Arnebeck said he submitted a great deal of material to them, including "Bob's [Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman's] book on what happened in Ohio, documentation of the exit poll discrepancy, [and] John Conyers' report to the Congress which was the factual basis for the challenge to the electoral votes of the Ohio vote in January of 2005."

About a month later, the Attorney General's office contacted Arnebeck and asked him, "Who do you want to indict?"

Arnebeck explained that the AG's "concept of looking at this from a criminal standpoint was not to convene a grand jury and cast the net broadly and use the grand jury process to investigate and narrow the focus into the question of who may have tampered with those votes. But rather they wanted us to come to them with a more focused case." [all emphasis mine ~ Mark]

Here's the skinny. The perjury trap being set in the civil case is one way this thing might end up nabbing these guys. it worked against Clinton. But that's too obvious. Since the Federal Office of Special Counsel is as hopelessly politicized as the rest of the Justice Department, the Inspector General is just as useless, and the harbinger of Fitzmas can only do so much at one time, it's only fitting that States and local citizenry take matters into their own hands.

State politics plays its part here as well. Ohio's new Attorney General Nancy Rogers was appointed at the end of May to replace Marc Dann, just elected in 2006 and resigned under the cloud of a sexual harassment scandal. If her office
undertook a Grand Jury investigation targeting the conspirators in the State and National GOP along with the computer companies that supplied the tainted election machines suspected of stealing the 2004 predidential election and the programmers who rigged them it would instantly devolve into a media circus and the November special election for Ohio Attorney General would become a referendum on Diebold, Ken Blackwell and Karl Rove. (We'd probably still win, but why ask for trouble.)

If some well intentioned (and funded, which I intend to look into) citizens are willing to carry the water on this through the end of the year and get the ball rolling, and the AG's office gave them the green light, they can blaze a trail though the forest of corruption. This is just as heartening as the idea that George Bush could be indicted for murder by some brave county prosecutor who follows the case laid out by Helter Skelter author Vincent Bugliosi

In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, Bugliosi presents a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting the war in Iraq. Bugliosi sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence that President Bush took this nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses—a war that has not only caused the deaths of American soldiers but also over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women, and children; cost the United States over one trillion dollars thus far with no end in sight; and alienated many American allies in the Western world.

I've heard at least one prosecutor on Thom Hartmann's program promise that he would bring such charges if and when a soldier from his jurisdiction ends up in Arlington. More from the civil case as reported by Brad Blog:

Hold letters have been sent to the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, asking them to hold documents relating to their activities to use corporate money to influence the Ohio Supreme Court elections. Another hold letter was sent to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking that he advise the federal government to hold emails from Karl Rove.

Arnebeck said "We think [Rove] is an individual who has been at the center of both the use of corporate money to attack state Attorneys General and their elections and candidates for the Supreme Court and their elections in the states, and also in the manipulation of the election process.

"We expressed concern about the reports that Mr. Rove destroyed his emails and suggested that we want the duplicates that should exist [be put] under the control of the Secret Service and be sure that those are retained, as well as those on the receiving end in the Justice Department and elsewhere, that those documents are retained for purposes of this litigation, in which we anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio."

[snip]

We believe there is clear evidence of a coordinated campaign in which Mr. Rove is involved [. . .]

Now this wouldn't be a corruption investigation if there wasn't a McCain connection. At the center of the subpoena wish list, Arnebeck is going after Republican website developer and information manager Michael L. Connel, the Bush/Cheney IT guy in both 2000 and 2004, who was doing work for the State of Florida in 2000 and Ohio Sec. of St. in 2004, who also wrote the firewall for the U.S. congressional computer system. Mr. Connel is now in charge of Senator McCain's IT program (presumably showing the old codger how to log onto the Googles).

Arnebeck's own expert on computer fraud, Stephen Spoonamore says,

"In the 2004 election, from my perspective, on any of the programs we run for any of my credit card clients, the results from the 14 counties, those are the sort of results that would instantaneously launch a credit card fraud investigation or a banking settlement investigation."

Spoonamore's reference to the "14 counties" refers to the so-called "Connelly Anomaly" in which down-ticket candidates got more votes than John Kerry. The name comes from the candidacy of C. Ellen Connelly, an African-American woman who was running for the Ohio Supreme Court in 2004. She was endorsed by pro-choice and civil rights groups, and was relatively unknown to Ohio voters, in addition to being vastly outspent by her opponent in the campaign. Yet, somehow, Connelly got scores of thousands more votes than did John Kerry at the very top of the ticket.

Arnebeck said that "if you adjust for the [Connelly] anomaly or that situation, it's enough votes to have changed the outcome of the election. So the focus of our efforts, in cooperation with the Secretary of State, would be to find out who is responsible for that."

[snip]

"Certainly if that happened at one of our banks, you could be arrested."

[snip]

"None of us [the American people] really want to confront the fact that there appears to be an extremely coordinated effort by a very small group of people to rig elections and take control of the executive branch."

"You can spend all day every day looking at this stuff and saying, 'Well that would certainly launch a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn't when it comes to our vote.' Why?"

You can also spend every day looking at this stuff, and it can just drive you nuts. No wonder there was more digital ink spilled last week in reaction to a cartoon than any of the latest travesties committed in our name by our government. We as a nation are just about burnt out by these crooks.

If it's any consolation, the GOP itself is burnt out -- on itself -- resorting to bribing it's members to fill time on the House floor making useless speeches to their useless selves. They can't wait for a new government either, even if they're hopelessly outnumbered.

At least the 105 128 of you (thanks Larry), including my representative Marcy Kaptur, who stood firm against the lawless imperialism of the Bush administration and voted no on giving the Telecoms immunity in the FISA bill. (The yeas and nays are here, HT Hilzoy.)

Thanks as well to the sole republican brave enough to buck his party and vote against this travesty as well, Timothy V. Johnson (R-Illinios-15).

This vote effectively split the Democrats in half, 105 128 patriots who stood up for the rule of law against 128 105 capitulators, including the leadership, Pelosi, Hoyer, Emannuel. Those 105 128 are going to need all the help they can get. I'm not sure the Act Blue idea of punishing those who followed the leadership's cue is as important as supporting those who did the right thing -- cuz they're going to need it.

Or maybe they're just in safe enough seats they can afford to hold the liberal line. I know that the core Northern Ohio progressives, (Kaptur, Kucinich, Tubbs-Jones) are in no real danger of losing their seats, and Blue Dogs like Zack Space, a Democrat in a very conservative district, was never going to go along with anything that even hinted he was "soft" on terrists. None of this should be a surprise.

The reason is simple. other than the bumper-sticker mentality that has been mastered by the fear-mongering GOP, this issue simply doesn't resonate with the public at large. They don't know, like you should, why FISA matters so much.

Since all signs still point towards another wave election, and possibly a '32 type realignment, funding the liberal wing of the party may not be all that productive right now, but it's advance thinking (as the blogosphere always seems to do), putting in place a new framework to push for new leadership, or at least a new direction for 2010, and remaking the very sole of this nation by 2012.

Maybe that's even too short-sighted. The GOP spent 40 years institutionalizing the politics of fear and loathing.

I probably am conditioned by the loathing to loath sending up challengers against every Democrat who won't toe our progressive line as Glenzilla and the Kossacks advocate. My reflexes are even more attuned against dis'ing the party's nominee for his silence -- since just six months ago my rallying cry was Silence Is Betrayal.

John Edwards, recalling MLK's message of resistance to war:

As he put it then, there comes a time when silence is a betrayal -- not only of one's personal convictions, or even of one's country alone, but also of our deeper obligations to one another and to the brotherhood of man.

That's the thing I find the most important about the sermon Dr. King delivered here that day. He did not direct his demands to the government of the United States, which was escalating the war. He issued a direct appeal to the people of the United States, calling on us to break our own silence, and to take responsibility for bringing about what he called a revolution of values.

A revolution whose starting point is personal responsibility, of course, but whose animating force is the belief that we cannot stand idly by and wait for others to right the wrongs of the world.

And this, in my view, is at the heart of what we should remember and celebrate on this day. This is the dream we must commit ourselves to realizing.

To quote words even more familiar, while the Democrats struggle to gain a true majority, one both filibuster and veto proof, before they can solidify their gains, while they are still vulnerable enough not to take the progressives for granted . . .

If not us, who? If not now, when? ~RFK

Support the 105 128, and fight the capitulators. You want to send a message? This is how.

Could there be a more heinous villain in the popular mind than Osama bin Laden? No.

And/But the debate rages: if he should be captured alive, would he, should he, be accorded habeas corpus rights or not?

History (and the American tradition) would teach us an important lesson and provide us with a useful guide -- if we would only listen.

On March 5, 1770, a tense situation due to a heavy British military presence in Boston boiled over to incite brawls between soldiers and civilians, and eventually led to troops discharging their muskets after being attacked by a rioting crowd. Three civilians were killed at the scene of the shooting, and two died after the incident.

Samuel Adams, a patriot and founding member of the Sons of Liberty, called the incident a "plot to massacre the inhabitants of Boston" and used it to rouse fellow colonists to rebellion. It worked: the shots fired that day are widely considered to be the initial battle of the American Revolution.

Who, then or now, could defend what the British soldiers did that day?

...[N]o lawyers in the Boston area wanted to defend the soldiers, as they believed it would be a huge career mistake. A desperate request was sent to John Adams from Preston, pleading for his work on the case.

Adams, who had everything to lose and nothing to gain (his political career was just beginning), nevertheless took the case because he believed that even the most hated criminal is entitled to a legal defense.

He was a masterful lawyer and mounted a successful defense of the accused. As a result of his skill, all but two of the soldiers were acquitted. The others were convicted of a reduced charge of manslaughter.

In his closing argument to the jury, Adams (a masterful orator) said something that, if he is ever honored with a memorial in Washington DC, should be engraved in stone for future generations of Americans -- and all people -- to remember forever:

Facts are stubborn things...Whatever our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence...The law is, on one hand, inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners. But on the other hand, it is deaf, deaf as an adder to the clamors of the populace.

John Adams, founding father, patriot and president, is speaking to us now, you and me, and our children, and our childrens' children -- if we would only listen.

For those who refuse to grok what Publius put so well at Obsidian Wings, without Habeas Corpus, you could dress anyone up in a false nose and throw them on the fire, even if you're lying about being turned into a newt.

It's bad enough that we've got a bunch of Texas Torquemadas and other assorted war criminals shoving bamboo under the fingernails of terrorists, but some of these guys weren't terrorists, yet they got the fifth degree anyway. They had no way to show that someone strapped a carrot to their face and a funny hat, let alone the chance to prove they weighed less than a duck. 

And that ain't right.

When the War Crimes Trials commence, you know these bastards now calling us pansies and having a September 10th mindset (wa'ev) will file for a Habeas Corpus writ.

Every single one of them . . . at least the one's Bush doesn't pardon.

by shep

So ABC News breaks the story on April 11, 2008: ”It's revealed yesterday that the top officials in our Government, with the knowledge and approval of the President of the United States, planned, down to the detail, how the U.S. would illegally torture detainees.”

And their lead story on April 12, 2008 is: the out-of-context sentence by Barack Obama:”So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

(For anyone who isn’t a partisan asshole or obsequies establishment mouthpiece, the quote in its entirety): “But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

So where does the breaking news that President George W. Bush approved as his Vice President, Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet, Secretary of State, Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft sat around in the White House and directed the violation of federal and international law in directing the specific, serial torture techniques to be used on un-convicted US detainees appear? Nowhere. That information was disappeared, just as the detainees were in US/CIA government hands.

[Cross-posted At Dispassionate Liberal]

(Cross posted at Daily Kos where it made the "Recommended Diaries" list)

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the Bush administration's domestic spying program.

The justices' decision Tuesday includes no comment explaining why they turned down the appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU appealed the case because the lower court said that the plaintiffs couldn't prove they had been spied on. The government said they couldn't reveal whether or not they had been spied on because it would compromise state security.

That's pretty much the definition of Catch-22.

So one more pillar of the American Constitution knocked away by the Bush Supreme Court.

Doesn't it make you feel all tingly?

Say what you will about Keith Olbermann, but he calls it the way he sees it. And in the dismal years of the Bush-Cheney regime, no one nails them better than KO.

It is bad enough, sir, that you were demanding an ex post facto law that could still clear the AT&Ts and the Verizons from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive and blatant collaboration with your illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass e-mail.

But when you demanded it again during the State of the Union address, you wouldn’t even confirm that they actually did anything for which they deserved to be cleared.

“The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America.”

Believed? Don’t you know? Don’t you even have the guts Dick Cheney showed in admitting they did collaborate with you? Does this endless presidency of loopholes and fine print extend even here? If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it! There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend.

You’re a fascist — get them to print you a T-shirt with "fascist" on it!

by shep

And it isn’t just made of Republicans.

19 Senate Democrats, led by the miserable Jay Rockefeller, enabled by the mendacious Harry Reid just voted:

”…to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration's years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans. The long, hard efforts by AT&T, Verizon and their all-star, bipartisan cast of lobbyists to grease the wheels of the Senate -- led by former Bush 41 Attorney General William Barr and former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick -- are about to pay huge dividends, as such noble efforts invariably do with our political establishment.”

--Glen Greenwald

As Dan Froomkin puts it: “"isn't that the very definition of a police state: that companies should do whatever the government asks, even if they know it's illegal?"

Why yes it is. It is also the exact definition of the word fascism when what the government asks infringes on the rights of the people to benefit “the state”.

Greenwald again:

”…a large number of elected Democrats vote in favor of the radical Bush agenda for a very simple reason: they believe in it. Despite the glorious "D" after their name, their views are materially indistinguishable from the defining ones of the Bush faction on the key issues. A huge portion of Congressional Democrats are members of the corrupt, bipartisan Beltway political establishment first, and everything only follows that, and they thus embrace and support the values of that establishment.”

Progressives have their work cut out for them. After we rout Republicans from the White House and the Congress, progressive will still have their work cut out for them. Purging Joe Lieberman from the party was a good step. And another Bush Dog Democrat was sent to another fat cat lobbying job by progressives supporting Maryland’s Donna Edwards, against the full force and might of Nancy Pelosi and the “corrupt, bipartisan Beltway political establishment,” wing of the Democratic Party.

I know who’s next on my wish list. Just don’t make me move to Delaware.

[Cross-posted on Dispassionate Liberal]