Michigan's Prosecutorial Sex Saga Continues

A right-wing,  Rove Republican, and conservative part of Michigan is still being rattled by the former Holland City Attorney's misconduct.

Last year,  we wrote about Carl Gabrielse (pictured) , the former Holland, Michigan City Attorney who reduced a drunk driving charge of a female defendant in exchange for sex in a courthouse jury room. In April, he was sentenced to six-months in jail for his outrageous and depraved misconduct.

Now, the rape victim is suing the City of Holland and Gabrielse. The Grand Rapid Press reports:

The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, alleges the 31-year-old Gabrielse committed assault and battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It also claims the 23-year-old victim's constitutional rights were violated. Gabrielse, who offered the woman a plea deal in exchange for sex, was sentenced to six months in jail in April for third-degree criminal sexual conduct and misconduct in office.

Alleged Wife-Beating Suspect Goes on the Offense

Jim Cochran, the Chairman of Fair Finance, the Indianapolis company that allegedly duped and mismanaged $200 million from Ohio investors, is now trying to protect his reputation.

His partner and the CEO of Fair Finance, Timothy S. Durham, a big shot Rove Republican donor, has been saved from criminal prosecution by embattled U.S. Attorney Timothy M. Morrison of the Southern District of Indianapolis, another Rove Republican appointed by the Rove Bush Cheney Administration.

Cochran, who made headlines after being arrested for alleged domestic violence against his wife, (mug shot at left) has now gone on the offensive against Fair Finance's bankruptcy trustee.

The Indianapolis Business Journal reports:

 Cochran, who’s ensnared in that same criminal investigation, lets it fly in response to allegations by Brian Bash, Fair’s bankruptcy trustee, that he and other insiders duped the investors, a largely blue-collar lot who purchased unsecured notes with interest rates as high as 9.5 percent.

Bash “utterly fails to identify even a single alleged misrepresentation made by Mr. Cochran,” Cochran’s attorneys said in a filing. Bash relies on “vague and conclusory allegations ... apparently adopting an alchemist’s strategy that repeating the word misrepresentation enough times will magically transform these allegations into a fraud claim.”

Bash counters in a court filing that he provided plenty of particulars to beat back Cochran’s motion to dismiss, especially given that the discovery process, which will unearth additional information, hasn’t begun.

Possible Vindication in Alabama?

Breaking News

A respected Democratic political leader and a former health care business owner who were scalped by the Rove Republican Racket are seeking vindication from the political persecution they suffered during the Rove Bush Cheney years. The Birmingham News reports tonight:

Former Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals today to toss out all charges against them, arguing that money Scrushy gave Siegelman's 1999 lottery campaign could not be considered a bribe. The U.S. Supreme Court in June sent the case back to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to review in the wake of a recent order from the high court limiting the use of the "honest services" fraud statute in public corruption cases.
   

The Supreme Court in a case involving disgraced Enron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling curtailed prosecutors' use of the honest services fraud statute, saying it can be applied only in cases involving bribes or kickbacks. A jury convicted Scrushy and Siegelman on charges that Scrushy bribed Siegelman for a seat on the state Certificate of Need Review Board with $500,000 in contributions to Siegelman's lottery campaign.
   

Lawyers for Siegelman and Scrushy wrote in their court filings that there is a significant difference between giving money to someone personally and giving money to an issue advocacy campaign. "Siegelman was not paid anything. The prototypical bribe involves a pay-off," lawyers for Scrushy wrote. "The Eleventh Circuit should dismiss all charges against Governor Siegelman, based on Skilling. That would be the correct legal outcome, based on the law as the Supreme Court has explained it," Siegelman lawyer Sam Heldman said this evening.

Indiana Republicans Refuse to Refund Retirees

Embattled U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Indiana Timothy M. Morrison let his Republican pal, Timothy S. Durham, a once pompous Hoosier multimillionaire, skirt away after mismanaging over $200 million of investors' money, most of it from Ohio retirees.

Over $1 million  of the $54 million Durham loaned himself in the scheme went to Rove Republican campaign coffers in Indiana.

After being called on to refund the money, Republican have weasel-worded themselves out of refunding the money with legal gimmicks and double-speak.

The Associated Press reports:

Asheesh Agarwal, an attorney who represents Daniels' Mitch for [Indiana] Governor campaign committee and his Aiming Higher political action committee, said he stood by a statement last week that the organizations do not intend to refund money already spent. "Based on what we know now, it is not out of the question that some of the money could be returned, but we need to see more than a letter from an attorney," Agarwal said in the statement. "In fact, if a court finds wrongdoing, and these funds were the source, a refund of any remaining dollars would be appropriate."

Republican [Indiana] Attorney General Greg Zoeller, who received $11,000 in donations from Durham, said his campaign treasurer created a segregated account for the money. "The reason I did this was to balance my respect for our legal system's presumption of innocence with concerns from my role protecting consumers that there may be future actions that might possibly involve restitution to investors," Zoeller said in an e-mail. "I did receive a letter from the bankruptcy trustee but intend to continue to hold these funds until the U.S. Attorney's Office completes their investigation," Zoeller said.

FBI Agent Threatens FBI Agent

Our blog has repeatedly questioned the trustworthiness of some FBI agents, many of whom worked with the Rove Republican Racket to persecute political opponents.

The Associated Press reports from Dallas tonight a bizarre case showing how messed up J. Edgar Hoover's former bureau truly is:

The FBI says it has arrested one of its own Dallas agents and charged him with threatening a federal law enforcement officer. An FBI statement issued Wednesday says Special Agent Carlos Ortiz Jr. was arrested Wednesday at the bureau's office in Dallas. He faces a charge of threatening to assault or murder a federal law enforcement office on account of the performance of official duty. Robert Casey, the head of the Dallas FBI office, says Ortiz was fired after a personnel inquiry. The former agent is scheduled to make an initial appearance in federal court in Dallas on Thursday. The FBI declined to discuss Ortiz's work history or the arrest. No attorney information was available from online federal court records, and a U.S. Attorney's spokeswoman in Dallas said she was unaware of the case and declined to comment.

Until Birotte Splits Us Up!

The Obama-appointed U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, Andre Birotte, Jr. loves headlines, especially headlines boasting about the awful work he and his crew are doing in Southern California.

In June, Birotte's office applauded the continued persecution of Pierce O'Donnell, a prominent Los Angeles Democrat targeted by the Rove Republican Racket, over some irregular campaign contributions made to John Edwards' failed presidential bid in 2004.

Earlier this year, Birotte looked like a complete buffoon when he tried to escalate the profile of a sushi restaurant that served endanged whale and boost his ever-growing ego. He was harpooned.

Now comes the most ridiculous news story yet! The Associated Press reports this afternoon:

A Mexican-born actress and her musician husband lied about their marriage to immigration officials so she could stay in the U.S., a federal prosecutor told prospective jurors Tuesday. In his opening statement, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney James Left showed a picture of Fernanda Romero  [pictured] and Kent Ross on their wedding day but said the appearance was deceptive. "There was a real ceremony but nothing else about it is real," Left said. "It was a sham marriage."

Romero, a singer, actress and model who has attained moderate fame in her homeland, and Ross, a musician and manager of a pizza delivery business, have each pleaded not guilty to charges of marriage fraud and making false statements. If convicted, they could each face a maximum prison sentence of five years. The couple sat next to each other wearing black suits and wedding rings on their left forefingers.

 And politicians are worried about Arizona? Shame on Andre! Shame on him!

"Immense Relief" in Kansas

The backlash against the Rove Republican Racket persecution of political opponents and its use of the broad Honest Services crime statute has come  now come to fruition.

In Kansas last Friday, just hours after Barry Grissom (pictured) a new, Obama appointed U.S. Attorney took office, the case against two men who have endured two-trials, a third one in the works, saw a seven-year nightmare come to an end. As readers recall, the dishonest "Honest Services" crime was severely narrowed by the U.S. Supreme Court this past June.

The Associated Press reports:

A federal judge Friday dismissed all charges against two former Westar Energy executives who were accused of looting the Kansas utility, granting a request by prosecutors that came just hours after the state's new U.S. attorney was sworn in. Former Westar chief executive David Wittig and his top strategy officer, Douglas Lake, were charged with conspiring to inflate their compensation from the Topeka-based company and taking steps to hide their actions. A third trial date for the men, who were forced out of Westar in late 2002, was pending. Their first trial ended in a hung jury and a conviction in their second was overturned.

"I credit the Justice Department for recognizing how flawed this case was," said Patrick McInerney, an attorney for Lake. McInerney said a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling narrowing the scope of the "honest services" law — which made it a crime to "deprive another of the intangible right to honest services" — crippled the government's case against Wittig and Lake. The high court's ruling in the case against former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling found that theft of honest services is only relevant in cases involving bribes and kickbacks.

Lake, 60, of New Canaan, Conn., and his family have been living with the charges for more than seven years. "It was an immense relief," McInerney said of his client's reaction upon learning of the motion to dismiss. "It vindicates him and what he has said since the very beginning of this that he is innocent. He committed no crime and at long last it has been recognized."

Will Paddy Boy Exit Stage Right?

The intense fallout against once esteemed U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (pictured) over his legal and professional failure to successfully prosecute former Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is growing.

As readers may recall, before the Blago verdict, we reported about Fitzgerald's Assistant U.S. Attorney who was involved in prosecutorial misconduct and allowed a government witness to testify falsely. In addition, we raised the profile of a controversial developer who accused Fitzgerald's staff of wanting him to lie on the stand. When he refused, the developer allegedly was framed and charged with obstruction of justice charges.

But the fallout on Blago is coming from conservative, national, and traditionally Rove Republican publications.

Having failed to secure a conviction on 23 of 24 charges filed, a Wall Street Journal editorial published today called for Fitzgerald's resignation or removal:

Blagojevich may or may not be corrupt, though he has repeatedly proved his stupidity. In any event, Mr. Fitzgerald’s legal team failed to persuade a jury that Blagojevich was guilty of racketeering, conspiracy, wire fraud, extortion, kickback schemes and a litany of other crimes, despite five weeks of argument and testimony that included incriminating selections from thousands of wiretapped phone calls. The defense did not call a single witness. The jury also deadlocked on four charges against Blagojevich’s brother, while his chief of staff earlier copped a plea.

If Mr. Fitzgerald doesn’t resign of his own accord, the Justice Department should remove him—especially after such other recent examples of prosecutorial bad faith or bad judgment involving Blackwater contractors in Iraq, the forgotten backdating accounting scandal and the late Senator Ted Stevens. Prosecutors have vowed to retry Blagojevich this fall on the other 23 mistrial counts. But if he really is guilty, then incompetence alone is grounds for Mr. Fitzgerald's removal.

Blago and Lying to the FBI

Yesterday's stunning news that former Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (pictured right) was not convicted on 23 of the 24 counts he was charged with was a tremendous setback to the Rove Republican Racket, federal prosecutors, and esteemed U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

But there's a bigger story to this. In knee-jerk fashion, prosecutors vowed to retry Blagojevich. The Chicago Tribune reported:

Moments after a rare setback, a chastened U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald was acting nothing like the swaggering prosecutor who just 20 months earlier proclaimed he had arrested a sitting governor to stop a political crime spree. He would not take questions from reporters about his office's failure to convict former Gov. Rod Blagojevich on 23 counts against him, winning a guilty verdict only on a single count of lying to the FBI, among the least serious of the charges he faced.  Instead, Fitzgerald vowed to retry the case, then quickly ending his news conference.

The real "political crime spree" and bigger story here is the charge Blago was convicted on: lying to the FBI.

Lying to federal agents, or not telling the whole truth, has been a favorite tool of the federal government to bring in  innocent people, some with no criminal records, and force them to plead out or fry bigger fish.

FBI agents visit and interview people and draft up what are called 302 reports.  A 302 report (sample pictured left) is used to summarize an interview conducted by an FBI agent. Depending on the agent's interpretation, some interviewees may end up as criminal defendants.

Most interviewees believe the FBI is just doing its job and are never told they should have a lawyer present. Their own words, or misinterpretations and misspeak, can be used against them in a court of law.

The Rove Cheney Bush Administration succeeded in using this slight-of-hand tactic. Like the Honest Services Fraud Crime was, lying to the FBI became a stretched-beyond-the-limits weapon to prosecute political targets.

Seattle's Lost Luggage

Post 9/11, the Rove Republican Racket increased the scope of intrusive government with the Patriot Act, Honest Services Crime, and other law enforcement tools that caused Americans to lose some liberty and privacy all in the name of "national security."

Besides a huge and enormous growth in national security and secret intelligence operations, the most visible change Americans have seen is at the airport: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The TSA screens us, forces us to remove our shoes, and place our laptops in a screening basket.

Now comes the news today from Seattle. The Post Intelligencer writes:

A security supervisor at Sea-Tac International Airport has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $20,000 worth of items from checked luggage. Randy Pepper, a 50-year-old Spanaway resident, pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges related to the string of thefts, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office at Seattle. Hired by the Transportation Security Administration in 2007, Pepper was fired in July 2009 after the thefts were discovered. In pleading guilty, Pepper, a supervisory transportation security officer, admitted to taken money and jewelry from luggage he was inspecting at Sea-Tac. Authorities began investigating Pepper after another TSA employee reported seeing him removing items from luggage. According to the statement, most of the items stolen by Pepper could not be recovered because they were melted down.

And we are to trust TSA officers or their supervisors who testify against alleged "criminals?"

The meltdown of federal law enforcement officers, from the TSA to the DEA to the FBI, has grown out of a culture blessed by the Rove Cheney Bush Administration with this motto: be arrogant, be in absolute control and screw anyone who gets in your way.

U.S. Attorney "Very Pleased" with Political Persecution

Andre Birotte, Jr., the Obama appointed U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, has an ego bigger than the Golden State.  Last winter he ended up with fish sauce all over his face when he tried to pump up his national profile in a case involving a Sushi restaurant that served endangered whale. His ego-driven sideshow was quickly harpooned when the restaurant immediately closed down as a self-imposed punishment.

Now Birotte is supporting the Rove Republican Racket's continued persecution of Democratic operative and famed trial lawyer Pierce O'Donnell (pictured). O'Donnell was accused of funneling money to John Edwards' 2004 presidential campaign by having friends and family donate to the campaign. O'Donnell later reimbursed them.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the charges were tossed out last year by U.S. District Judge S. James Otero, who ruled that the conduct described by prosecutors in their indictment did not violate the federal law under which O'Donnell was charged. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel disagreed in June. As a result of the ruling, the charges were reinstated and the case was ordered back to Otero's court.

When the federal appeals court reinstated the charges,  Birotte's office claimed to be "very pleased" with the ruling.

How "pleased" should Americans be that an Obama-appointed  prosecutor is supporting the Rove Racket's purely political prosecution of O'Donnell?

To support the notion that O'Donnell was being singled out by the Rove Republicans, his lawyers presented prosecutors with 21 illegal campaign contribution cases they said were handled administratively by the Federal Elections Commission, even though most involved larger amounts of money and more egregious conduct than what was alleged in O'Donnell's case, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Without a doubt, Birotte should receive another black-eye and his ego fed to the political shredder.

Morrison's Million Dollar Smoking Gun

We have been puzzled why Bush-leftover and Acting U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Indiana Timothy M. Morrison has vigorously prosecuted a small-town Democrat but let a high-profile Republican donor, Timothy S. Durham,who allegedly swindled over $200 million  from Ohio retirees, completely off the hook.

Earlier this month, the trustee for the bankrupt Fair Finance Company, the entity in which the "high-risk" fraud occurred, announced he had traced $54 million of the money as a loan to Durham. And in that trace, there laid the smoking gun: $1 million of the money was spent by Durham on Rove Republican candidates, mostly in Indiana, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

Will the Hoosier Republicans return the money? Will Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a Bush and Rove square dancer who wants to be President, man up and refund the money he received from his Republican pal? Will Morrison finally get off his rear and prosecute Durham?

Death of a Targeted Former U.S. Senator

Breaking News:

Former U.S. Senator of Alaska Ted Stevens (pictured) was killed in a plane crash in Alaska.

Stevens was targeted, prosecuted, and convicted by the Rove Republican Racket in 2008. He lost his re-election bid that same year.

After the Obama Administration took over the reigns of government, a "horrified" U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder vacated the conviction in April of last year and launched an investigation into gross prosecutorial misconduct by federal prosecutors, who withheld evidence from Stevens' defense team.

His death brings an unofficial close to one of many disturbing and political persecutions of the Rove Bush Cheney era.

Return of the Tomato King

We're happy to be back and we start where we left off: the Rove Republican Racket's unfair prosecution of the so-called "Tomato King" of California, Frederick Scott Salyer.

As we reported last month, the federal government is in a steaming bowl of hot tomato sauce for obtaining evidence via illegal means, including the theft of internal corporate documents and tomato paste by a turned-FBI informant who was on Salyer's payroll.

The prosecutorial misconduct has not gone unnoticed and now Salyer's friends and family are rallying behind his ridiculous political prosecution.

Tonight, the Sacramento Bee reports:

Lawyers for indicted tomato king Frederick Scott Salyer are renewing their efforts to spring him from the Sacramento County Jail on bail, this time by having his friends and family put up their homes as an assurance that he will not flee the country if he is released. In a motion filed in federal court in Sacramento, Salyer attorney Malcolm Segal states that Salyer's "family and longtime friends have rallied to his support and trust him not to flee."

Together, they have offered to put up $2 million in cash and property as collateral to ensure that Salyer will remain in this country and stand trial on bribery, racketeering and other charges. Federal prosecutors have repeatedly opposed Salyer's release on bail, arguing that he has access to millions of dollars and is a flight risk, especially because he faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison if convicted.

Returning Monday

We have been on summer break, but we'll be back next Monday. We hope you, our readers, have had a sunny and fun summer.

Stolen Tomato Paste and Docs Shake Feds

With eight years of dirty tricks and loose laws under their belts, agents of the Rove Republican Racket in the FBI have mastered the art of deception.

Now comes the case out of the Central Valley of California that has shaken the reputation of the FBI and federal prosecutors.

In an undercover operation started in 2006, the feds targeted the so-called "Tomato King," Frederick Scott Salyer. Salyer is the heir to one of the largest agribusinesses in California.

The feds filed 20 charges of mail and wire fraud last February. But yesterday, his defense team struck back hard.

The Salinas Californian reports:

The defense motion is potentially the most damaging counterattack in one of the biggest prosecutions ever against the nation's food industry. Legal experts say case law is clear that the government cannot encourage an informant to steal documents it can legally get for it-self, nor can it acquiesce in such conduct by knowingly accepting the documents. "By the time Manuel's efforts were complete, he had conducted more than 40 illegal searches over a period of 18 months with the complicity and participation of [FBI Special] Agent [Paul] Artley, viewed many thousands of documents and had surreptitiously taken and delivered to the FBI well over a thousand private documents, computer printouts, e-mails, tomato paste samples and other proprietary information," Segal wrote. Manuel became an informant in August 2006 after federal agents searched his home and, in return for his help, the government allowed him to defer a guilty plea to an unrelated crime, work off his prison time and continue receiving his $200,000 salary from Sal-yer, said Segal. The defense accuses Artley of directing or encouraging Manuel to take evidence against Salyer without a search warrant.

No One Would Stop Them

For over 16 months now, our blog has posted stories about the Rove Republican Racket, the web of political operatives headed by Karl Rove that turned the U.S. Department of Justice into a political arm of the Republican Party.

Using the dishonest "Honest Services" crime to lock away Democrats and other political opponents, the Rove-Bush-Cheney Administration's DOJ hacks consistently engaged in prosecutorial misconduct or other unsavory practices to bring fear and intimidation into the political process.Some of those practices backfired.

Now the mainstream media are picking it up.

Titled "Judicial System Takes a Hit," Michael Hiltzik, a Los Angeles Times business columnist, (pictured) wrote a piece over the weekend about the prosecutorial misconduct in the Broadcom back-dating case, which was staged in the heart of Republican country: Orange County, California.

The  judge in the case chastised the prosecutors for a "shameful campaign" to intimidate witnesses and obtain unjustified convictions. 

Hiltzik's column has a revealing quote from a legal expert on why the renegade Republican prosecutors have consistently broken the rules to jail opponents:

"In the post- 9/11 years, a lot of prosecutors got emboldened to go as far as they could and play as dirty as they could, figuring that no one would stop them," Bennett Gershman of Pace University law school, the author of a legal text on prosecutorial misconduct, told me. "Judges seem to have become emboldened by what they see the prosecutors doing."

 Amen, Brother Gershman!

Silicon Valley's New DA Under Fire

The Queen of the Rove Republican Racket in the Silicon Valley, Dolores Carr, narrowly lost her re-election bid in June. As readers recall, she spurred a boycott of a sitting judge after the judge had lambasted prosecutorial misconduct in Carr's office.

Now the incoming prosecutor is under fire by Carr's friends for his own prosecutorial misconduct.

The San Jose Mercury News writes:

The prosecutor who narrowly won the race for Santa Clara County district attorney has been flagged for misconduct by an appellate court for the second time in his career — though in both cases the panel found the errors "harmless" and upheld the underlying criminal convictions.

The 6th District Court of Appeal this week found that Deputy District Attorney Jeff Rosen violated a judge's order in a 2008 trial by disclosing to a jury that a man on trial for rape had a criminal background. Nine years ago, an appellate court found Rosen erred in a different case — also by divulging evidence that could bias the jury against the defendant, despite orders from a judge not to do so.

Rosen's political opponents Thursday seized on Wednesday's decision by the appellate court as proof that the prosecutor who will replace first-term District Attorney Dolores Carr in January is unethical — and a hypocrite to boot for attacking Carr's ethics during the contentious campaign.

Katrina Killers and the Cover-up

We have focused extensively on corrupt prosecutors, unethical U.S. Attorneys, and renegade law enforcement officers.  The Rove Republican Racket inspired a generation of arrogant and incompetent attorneys and officers of the law.

The Rove-Bush-Cheney Administration's biggest domestic failure was the response to Hurricane Katrina.

But even more troubling were the alleged actions by six police officers (pictured) after the hurricane hit.

But now, under the era of Obama, justice is being sought. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports:

Six current or former New Orleans police officers were charged in a sweeping federal grand jury indictment Monday that accuses four of the men of shooting unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge several days after Hurricane Katrina and all six of them of plotting to cover up what they knew was an unjustified attack. The charges, unsealed Tuesday, are the culmination of a two-year probe by the federal government, the third investigation into the hugely controversial events that took place on the bridge on Sept. 4, 2005. The first inquiry, led by police, found no wrongdoing by officers. A state grand jury convened to look into the matter charged seven officers with murder, but the case later fell apart.

Since the fall of 2008, federal investigators have been in charge of Danziger, and earlier this year, prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice broke the case wide open, showing their hand through a series of guilty pleas from officers who acknowledged the bridge shootings were unjustified and that police had conspired to cover them up. The indictment charges the rest of the officers involved in what prosecutors have termed a "bad shoot" and the alleged coverup that followed.

Stunning Defeat for "Race War" Alabama Governor

Alabama Governor Bob Riley, a Rove Republican,  has made it a cornerstone of his last year in office to target African-Americans and their jobs by using his Gestapo to shut down a local government-backed casino in the heart of the Blackbelt: Greene County, Alabama.

We wrote about Riley's Race War earlier this month.

Riley is working with a left-over Bush appointed U.S. Attorney to chill free speech and intimidate casino operators, Democrats, and African-Americans (which they like to call "Negroes" or worse down in backwards Alabama.)

Yesterday, Riley was handed a stunning loss: his hand-picked successor for Governor,  Republican Bradley Byrne, lost! Amazingly, Byrne lost in a run-off after having won a plurality in the first round of voting in early June.

The racist assault on Greene County has obviously backfired but the economic damage has shaken Alabama.

This week, Riley had the audacity to send a mobile "unemployment" office to Greene County.

Today's Tuscaloosa  News writes: 

The arrival of the industrial relations department with its mobile Career Center is in response to the recent raid on Greenetrack by Gov. Bob Riley's Task Force on Illegal Gambling. The task force, with the aid of the Alabama Supreme Court, removed more than 800 electronic bingo machines from Greenetrack and about 375 people lost their jobs at Greene County's largest employer. Luther W. “Nat” Winn, president and CEO of Greenetrack, said he was insulted by the Career Center's arrival in Eutaw, a move he believes was orchestrated by Riley and his administration. “Greenetrack employees signed up for their unemployment ... the day Bob Riley's task force put them out of a job,” Winn said. “And if Bob Riley wants to help the people of Greene County, then he needs to send them jobs with comparable wages to what they were making at Greenetrack, along with benefits.”

Targeting Protestors in Santa Cruz

With the Patriot Act in hand, U.S. Attorneys from the Rove Republican Racket love to call political opponents terrorists or corrupt.

In Santa Cruz, California a few animal rights activists were targeted by over-zealous federal prosecutors, but the case was dismissed on Monday.

Although prosecutors want to target these activists again, we suspect the four protestors aren't high-paying Republicans.


The San Jose Mercury News reports:

A federal judge on Monday dismissed the indictment against four animal rights activists accused of a violent protest at the home of a UC Santa Cruz researcher more than a year and a half ago, but attorneys involved in the case estimated the legal battle is far from over. U.S. District Court Judge Ronald White, who heard arguments on the motions to dismiss the case a month ago, sided with the activists in a 14-page ruling issued Monday. "...(T)he indictment fails to allege the facts of the crimes charged with sufficient specificity," the judge's ruling stated.

Joseph Buddenberg, Maryam Khajavi, Nathan Pope and Adriana Stumpo were arrested in February 2009 and charged with interfering with animal enterprise - a violation of a federal law - and conspiracy. Attorneys for the four filed motions this spring that challenged the indictment, stating in court documents that the allegations were too vague and failed to outline the criminal behavior the group is accused of taking part in. "The reason the indictment was so sketchy is because the government didn't want to put it out there in public that these people are accused of being terrorists for picketing," said Robert Bloom, attorney for Buddenberg. " ... It's not a crime to picket. Nobody has committed a crime in this case."

"Serious Fault" with U.S. Prosecutors

As you most likely know, Roman Polanski, the famed film director (pictured) who has been under house arrest in Switzerland, was not extradited to the U.S. today.

Although Los Angeles County prosecutors and U.S. State Department spokesmen are attempting to say  the Swiss let a sex offender off the hook, the truth is the Swiss let Polanski go because U.S. prosecutors failed to turn over documents.

The decision was not based on the merits of the case. It was based on prosecutorial negligence.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

In its decision Monday, the Swiss Justice Department said it could not exclude the possibility that the extradition request was "undermined by a serious fault" because the U.S. had failed to turn over certain documents. Specifically, the Swiss wanted to determine whether the 42 days Polanski had already spent in a Los Angeles jail would have been considered sufficient time served for having sex with a minor. Also, Swiss authorities said that until 2009, the U.S. had not filed any extradition request against Polanski "for years," even though it knew he had bought a house in Switzerland in 2006 and was a regular visitor there. That gave the director a reasonable expectation that he was not under threat of arrest and deportation from there. "Roman Polanski would not have decided to go to the film festival in Zürich in September 2009 if he had not trusted that the journey would not entail any legal disadvantages for him," the Swiss justice department said.

Nevada's Feud

The Rove Republican Racket like all Republicans want to be  the "most" law and order officials in the country.Without a tough "law and order" persona, the Republicans would feel naked.

In Nevada, where Republicans and Libertarian Ron Paul freaks control the desert outside Las Vegas, a feud between two lawmen has gone ugly and has gone national because of a well-written piece in The Wall Street Journal.

PAHRUMP, Nev.—Like a scene from a Western movie, the two top lawmen here are settling their scores in public. In May, a Nye County sheriff's deputy arrested the district attorney. The sheriff, Tony De Meo, alleges that the D.A., Robert Beckett, was misusing public funds. According to Mr. De Meo, public money had gone to supporting the local cheerleading squad, led by the D.A.'s wife, and to make a family friend's car payments. No charges have been filed, in part because Mr. Beckett, the D.A., refuses to charge himself.

Meanwhile, Mr. Beckett appointed a special prosecutor to investigate possible abuses of power by the sheriff's office and other public officials. Mr. Beckett claims that arresting him was part of an effort to sabotage his re-election. Mr. Beckett ended up running last among five candidates in the Republican primary. 

Read more here.

Alabama's New Race War

If there is one thing the Rove Republican Racket  hates worse than prominent Democrats are economically independent African-Americans.

In backwards Alabama, Republican Governor Bob Riley has teamed up with the Republican-packed Alabama Supreme Court, and the U.S. Attorney in Montgomery, a left over from the Bush era, to shut down  and seize electronic bingo machines in Greene County, a heavily black and economically poor area of Alabama in the heart of the Black Belt.

African-Americans have been arrested for voicing opposition to Riley's New Race War.

To date, no dogs or water hoses have been used by Riley and his henchmen.

The Associated Press reports:

Sixteen protesters who refused to leave the Greenetrack casino in west Alabama during a night-long standoff were arrested Thursday as state police entered to seize more than 800 electronic bingo machines. Alabama Public Safety Director Christopher Murphy said the 16 had been blocking the entrance to the casino at Eutaw for 12 hours after the Alabama Supreme Court cleared the way for state troopers to conduct the raid. One of the protesters, Democratic state Sen. Bobby Singleton of Greensboro, told WBRC television they wanted to demonstrate their opposition to Republican Gov. Bob Riley's gambling task force. Protesters contend Riley is wrongly closing a major employer in the poor, rural county.

Morrison Negotiates a Deal with Republican Pal

With embattled Acting U.S. Attorney Timothy M. Morrison of the Southern District of Indiana doing nothing for eight months and in fact protecting his Republican friends, the FBI finally did something! Finally!

The FBI seized a valuable car collection from former top-Republican donor Timothy S. Durham who allegedly swindled more than $200 million from Ohio retirees. Maybe these poor folks can start recovering something.

(Durham is pictured with his Bugatti Veyron that sells for more than $1.5 million.) 

Morrison, who used his office recently to prosecute a small time city clerk for embezzling $369,000 over three years, has not lifted a finger against Durham who swindled 542 TIMES MORE MONEY. Why? Politics. Durham and Morrison are Republicans and the former city clerk was a Democrat.

Read the article below. Interesting to note how Durham's attorney could easily negotiate an agreement with Morrison. But then again, they're old Republican pals.


The Indianapolis Business Journal reported last week:

Beleaguered Indianapolis businessman Tim Durham on Wednesday voluntarily turned over a Bentley Flying Spur, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and other high-end rides to the FBI, a move that sets the stage for the cars to be sold by a bankruptcy trustee.  The FBI late in the afternoon was collecting 15 vehicles from Durham’s Geist Reservoir mansion and another three from his home in Los Angeles.

“Today, the FBI is a towing company,” said Larry Mackey, a criminal defense  attorney representing Durham. “We pushed them down the driveway, and the FBI has taken them away.” Mackey said the FBI began gathering the vehicles after he negotiated an agreement earlier in the day with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and a bankruptcy trustee. Under the pact, Durham voluntarily turned them over in return for assurances that proceeds from their sale would go toward mitigating losses suffered by investors in Akron, Ohio-based Fair Finance Co., a Durham-owned firm that collapsed last fall and now is being liquidated.

Happy Independence Day!

We wish our readers a safe and Happy 4th of July!

What's Karl Rove doing?

We end the week with a question we've been wondering: what's Karl Rove doing? And we ask in the political sense.

Answer: Raising money. Lots of money.

The Rove Republican Racket hopes to get a foothold come November.

The Associated Press reported yesterday:

A conservative activist group says it raised more than $8 million in June to help conservative candidates and causes ahead of midterm elections in November.American Crossroads and its new affiliate, American Crossroads GPS, hope to raise more than $50 million by Election Day. Both groups are associated with former Republican White House aides Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.Both groups are tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations operating under somewhat different rules. Major donors to American Crossroads must be disclosed in public reports filed with the IRS.

Torture Cop Found Guilty in Chicago

The Rove Republican Racket targeted Democrats and put them behind bars for crimes they didn't commit. In Chicago, a rogue top cop tortured young black men and put them behind bars for crimes they didn't commit.

 Now comes justice.

The Associated Press reported this week:

A decorated former Chicago police lieutenant accused of suffocating, shocking and beating confessions out of scores of suspects was convicted Monday of federal perjury and obstruction of justice charges for lying about the torture of suspects. Jurors deliberated for parts of three days before finding former Lt. Jon Burge guilty. Burge, who did not react as the verdict was read, faces 45 years in prison when he's sentenced by U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow.

Burge's name has become synonymous with police brutality and abuse of power in the country's third-largest city. For decades, dozens of suspects — almost all of them black men — claimed Burge and his officers tortured them into confessing to crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder. Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan released four condemned men from death row in 2003 after Ryan said Burge had extracted confessions from them using torture.

Judge Removed and Barred in Georgia

Who says some judges aren't ignorant, rude, and unprofessional?

Here's an amazing news story of a high-school educated probate judge, Kenneth E. Fowler (pictured), in rural Georgia who got sacked this week.

Law. com reports:

 The Supreme Court of Georgia on Monday ordered the permanent removal of a Twiggs County probate judge from the bench and barred him from ever holding or seeking judicial office. In an 11-page ruling, the court unanimously found that Twiggs County Probate Judge Kenneth E. Fowler had violated the state's judicial canon of ethics and that his conduct "shows that he is simply unwilling to live up to his legal and ethical responsibilities as a judge." 

The high court also dismissed Fowler's contentions that any judicial misconduct in which he may have engaged stemmed from unintentional errors and a lack of legal education. Fowler has a high school education, which is all that the state mandates for probate judges in its less populated counties. Instead, the Supreme Court found that Fowler had demonstrated judicial incompetence, disregarded the law, taken actions that eroded public trust and confidence in the judiciary, engaged in behavior inappropriate for a judge and showed a lack of judicial decorum and temperament.

"His ignorance of the law is inexcusable, and his abuse of his judicial office unacceptable," the court opinion stated. "Indeed, we cannot expect that members of the public will respect the law and remain confident in our judiciary while judges who do not respect and follow the law themselves remain on the bench."

Tossing the Key Away in Michigan

A federal appeals court struck down the decision to release the final five so-called Michigan Militia members. Once a hot issue, the national media has ignored the story since the case started to crumble.

U.S. Attorneys under the Obama Administration are following the steps of Rove Republican Racket and arresting people because of their political views and hateful speech. 

The Associated Press reported:

Five members of a Midwest militia charged with conspiring to rebel against the government and use weapons of mass destruction will remain in jail while awaiting trial, an appeals court said Tuesday, reversing a decision by a federal judge. Each man is dangerous and "no conditions of release will reasonably assure the safety of the community," two judges on the three-judge panel said. During a series of raids in late March, authorities arrested nine members of a southern Michigan group called Hutaree. The government claims they were scheming to kill a police officer, then attack law enforcement who attended the funeral, in the first steps toward a broader rebellion.

Over prosecutors' objections, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts had said they could await trial at home under strict conditions, including electronic monitors. The government later dropped its opposition to releasing four but took her decision on the other five to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Defense lawyers say the men legally possessed weapons and that any talk of killing people was simply stupid, hateful speech with no specific targets planned.

Can of Worms Explodes

Our friends at Pittsburgh Post Gazette  have opened a delicious can of worms and the Rove Republican Racket should begin to sweat.

It appears U.S. Attorneys from around the country were racking up frequent flyer miles at the expense of Uncle Sam.

Even the Main Justice blog site has picked up the story.

The Post Gazette writes:

Mary Beth Buchanan spent more than half of her eight years as U.S. attorney in the Western District of Pennsylvania on the road, racking up at least 347 trips that cost taxpayers more than $450,000. Ms. Buchanan, a Republican who stepped down in November, a year after a Democrat won the White House, and other U.S. attorneys often were permitted to sign off on their own travel and then get rubber-stamp approval from the Executive Office of United States Attorneys. In March, however, the Department of Justice under the Obama administration changed those regulations after reviewing travel by all 93 U.S. attorneys. The department now requires approval for out-of-district travel from the director or deputy director of the executive office. "The previous policies and procedures were admittedly inconsistent," said department spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz. "Changes to the process were made to ensure full compliance with departmental travel policies and procedure and to strengthen controls and oversight of U.S. attorney travel."

The change of regulations is not the story. The real story is where, why, and when did these Rove Republicans travel? Was it political work? Were they justified in traveling so much or were they sightseeing at taxpayer expense?

It's time for the Congressional Oversight Committees to issue subpoenas and make these free-spenders pay.

Supreme Court Disbowels Honest Services Law Half-Way

Breaking News:  U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on Rove Republican Racket's strongest weapon to incarcerate Democrats: the "Dishonest" Honest Services Crime.

 The LA Times hits it on the head:

[I]t is often the least sympathetic defendants who end up seeking and winning redress from the U.S. Supreme Court. In this case, Skilling challenged one of the laws used to convict him, which allows people to be prosecuted for fraud for "depriving another of the intangible right of honest services" — an ill-defined concept that has been taken to mean, in effect, the failure of politicians or corporate executives to act in the best interests of their constituents, shareholders or customers. The law, Skilling argued, was impermissibly vague and left too much discretion to prosecutors.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed — up to a point — ruling that the law went too far and setting a specific limit on its application. Although the justices declined to invalidate the law, preferring to "construe" it rather than "destroy" it, they did conclude that it fails to adequately define the behavior it prohibits. Instead of overturning the law, they limited its application to cases in which the fraud involves kickbacks or bribery paid to a third party.

It would have been preferable if the court had overturned the much-overused law entirely and left it to Congress whether to rewrite it. But the decision correctly identified the flaws in the law, which was so broadly worded that any businessman or politician who deceived his company or constituents about almost anything could be snared. Fraud and corruption must be vigorously prosecuted, but this law allowed prosecutors to make criminal charges out of questionable but not necessarily illegal activities; ultimately, the law meant whatever a judge or prosecutor decided it meant. Justice Antonin Scalia was right that the law "invites abuse by headline grabbing prosecutors in pursuit of local officials, state legislators and corporate CEOs who engage in any manner of unappealing or ethically questionable conduct."

Closing the Book in Northern Mississippi

With the headline, "Scruggs Investigation Over," and sub-headline, "Closing Book in Bribe Scandal," the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion Ledger declared the Rove Republican Racket's largest and most famous  investigation and prosecution of some of the wealthiest Democratic boosters ever is finally over. 

Dickie Scruggs, the once famous and one of the wealthiest trial attorneys in Mississippi, and his Democratic friends were cleverly set up and stupidly ate the bribery bait of a questionable state judge, who happens to be a Republican. Scruggs and friends were prosecuted and all of them went to jail.

Jim Greenlee, the former Bush-Rove appointed U.S. Attorney of the Northern District of Mississippi, prosecuted Scruggs and friends. Greenlee, who left in disgrace and scandal last January after being involved in a racial profiling case, used the power of his office to investigate, intimidate, retaliate against, and scare other prominent Democrats, even some innocent folks associated with Scruggs.

But Greenlee is gone. Gone with the winds of change.

So, finally yesterday, those left behind in Oxford saw the light: no evidence and no political support. Thus, with newly discovered courage, they closed the politically-charged investigation.

The Ledger writes:

Federal prosecutors have ended their criminal  investigation into political operative P.L. Blake in the judicial bribery scandal that imprisoned former trial lawyer Dickie Scruggs, according to those close to the probe. The decision to drop the case involving Blake means  the federal investigation into Scruggs and others officially has ended. Contacted about the decision, Blake's attorney, Doug Jones of Birmingham, confirmed the matter involving his client had been closed, saying prosecutors declined to prosecute.  "We obviously are very pleased," he said, adding that he felt with a fair review of the evidence that  prosecutors would make the right decision.

Judicial Record "Rife with Error"

Although we have no sympathy for sexual predators, we also have no sympathy for judges that railroad a conviction and trample on the rights of the accused.

A decision by a Texas Court of Appeals shows how the rights of  the accused were tossed aside in a case from Mineola, Texas, even though there was sufficient evidence to convict the perverts without having to engage in prosecutorial or judicial misconduct.

Luckily for us, the two sexual predators will be re-tried.


KMOO radio reports:

The 14th [Texas] Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of Patrick Kelly and Jamie Pittman  on Thursday and ordered that the two men be retried. Writing the opinion for the court in Pittman's case, Justice Tracy Christopher said the trial court "permitted the State to try [Pittman] for being a criminal generally, rather than for the offense for which he was indicted." In Kelly's case, Christopher calls the record, "rife with error." The opinion accused the trial court, overseen by District Judge Jack Skeen, of adopting "ad hoc" rules, that "operated to assist the State in proving its case, while impeding [Kelly's] ability to defend himself. Christopher did note that the evidence in Kelly's case is, "legally sufficient" to support the conviction.

Lone Star Judicial Misconduct?

The Rove Republican Racket likes to be tough on Democrats and others they perceived as criminals. Before George W. Bush became Idiot-in-Chief, he was Governor of Texas, a state known to execute people like flies.

Now a Rove Republican Judge in Texas is being ripped to shreds for her alleged judicial misconduct in Texas. The Associated Press reports:

The top criminal judge in Texas was left waiting Friday to find out if a disciplinary panel would recommend her removal from the state's eminent death-penalty court after charges she closed her courtroom to a death row inmate's last-minute appeal. Judge Sharon Keller declined to comment after a five-hour hearing before the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, where state investigators argued she is "not the right person" to lead the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals if she can't admit to wrongly turning away a condemned inmate's attorneys the night of his execution. The panel adjourned without a decision and offered no timetable for a ruling. Keller, a Republican elected to the court in 2006, faces five counts of judicial misconduct.

"She is the public face of criminal justice in the state of Texas," said Mike McKetta, the attorney leading the state's case against Keller. "She has violated a mandatory principal, a duty of her office, in one of the most time-sensitive and irreversible circumstances."

More Trumped-Up Charges in Michigan

The Rove Republican Racket used politics and hysteria to throw political opponents in jail. Now, sadly, the Obama Administration is doing the same in Michigan.

As we reported last month, Obama's U.S. Attorney in Detroit has thrown the book at nine members of the so-called "Michigan Militia," which is made up of right-wing nutballs who appear to be weekend paintball/gun-shooting enthusiasts.

With federal prosecutors scrambling, the case has been crumbling and four members have since been released from custody.  A district judge wanted to release all nine members because the evidence was weak, but the feds appealed. Five members still sit in prison awaiting the appeal court's decision.

Earlier this month, the three-panel appeals court heard the arguments. The La Crosse Tribune reported:

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Moro Nesi told the judges that the indictment against David Stone, which charges him with conspiracy to commit sedition, includes counts of making and attempting to make illegal explosive devices. Nesi also said Stone led training sessions on how to use the weapons. "He led these occasions and he was the one on more than one occasion using the illegal explosive devices," she said, adding that Stone talked of killing people. Stone's attorney, William Swor, denied that Stone built explosive devices and said the prosecution had no evidence to back that up. He also said Stone has "no criminal or violent history of any kind."

Even though it appears none of these defendants have had a real criminal or violent history, the politics of lynching these so-called "extremists" has caused the feds to only scramble in the wrong direction. On June 2nd, the feds filed more ridiculous and trumped-up charges. The Associated Press reported:

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday filed additional weapons charges against several Midwest militia members who are accused of conspiring to wage war against the United States. The new indictment alleges possession of illegal machine guns or short-barrel rifles by the group's leader, David Stone, sons David Stone Jr. and Joshua Stone, and a fourth man, Joshua Clough.

Ticket-Fixing Illinois Judges

Who says judges, prosecutors, and other law enforcement officials DON'T think they're above the law?

The Rove Republican Racket created an atmosphere of elitism during the Rove-Bush-Cheney Administration that impaired the impartiality of the U.S. Department of Justice and trickled down to local prosecutors and judges.

Both judicial and prosecutorial misconduct have risen in the past decade and today we share a story from the Land of Lincoln, the capital of the State of Illinois. The Springfield State Journal Register reports:

A pair of Sangamon County judges are suspected of fixing a traffic ticket, and the case has been turned over to the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board, which could result in discipline ranging from reprimands to removal from the bench. Associate Judge Judge Robert Hall on June 7 dismissed a Leland Grove ticket issued a month earlier to the 16-year-old daughter of Associate Judge Christopher Perrin. Police say the teen failed to heed a road-closed sign.

Hall initialed a court document indicating the state’s attorney’s office had moved for dismissal, and the docket on the circuit clerk’s website shows the ticket was dismissed for insufficient evidence. However, the docket also shows that no prosecutor was present when the case was dismissed, and State’s Attorney John Schmidt confirmed Tuesday that his office did not seek the dismissal. Schmidt said he told presiding Judge Patrick Kelley of the problem last week, as soon as a prosecutor discovered it while reviewing dockets. In a written statement, Kelley said Hall dismissed the case of his own accord after speaking with Perrin.

Morrison's Hypocrisy is 542 Times Greater

Acting U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Indiana Timothy M. Morrison, a Bush leftover, has shown his enormous political hypocrisy today.

As a Rove Republican Racket member, Morrison looked the other way when high-donating Republicans from Indiana fleeced and robbed Ohio retirees of over $200 million in an alleged Ponzi scheme. Morrison let the Republican masterminds of this scheme keep their cash and assets and even hold an Estate Sale.

Now comes news today that Morrison has used the full weight of his office to come down on a city clerk in Brownstown, Indiana who padded her checks and was overpaid $369,000 in a three and a half period.

Mind you, a crime is a crime is a crime.

However, why would Morrison so aggressively prosecute a small town city clerk who was using the extra cash to pay for the treatment of a mentally ill and drug addicted child (who has since died) but on the same hand let two nouveau-riche Republicans completely off the hook even though they allegedly SWINDLED 542 TIMES MORE MONEY than the clerk?

Well, you see, the city clerk was a Democrat.