Don't Leave Home Without It

Breaking News from Florida

Members of the Rove Republican Racket in the Sunshine State aren't sleeping well tonight, especially Marco Rubio (pictured), the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

The Miami Herald reports tonight:

Federal law enforcement agencies have launched a criminal investigation into the use of American Express cards issued by the Republican Party of Florida to elected officials and staff, according to sources familiar with the probe. The U.S. attorney's office in Tallahassee, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service are all involved in the probe, which grew out of the state investigation into former House Speaker Ray Sansom. He was indicted on criminal charges that he stashed $6 million in the state budget for an airplane hangar for a friend and campaign donor.

In the federal case, Sansom and others could be charged with making false statements on their tax returns and tax evasion. Coming in a high-stakes election year, the investigation could expose the inner-workings of a party that has dominated state government and raked in millions of dollars from lobbyists and special interests.

Meanwhile, in a separate inquiry, the IRS is also looking at the tax records of at least three former party credit card holders -- former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, ex-state party chairman Jim Greer and ex-party executive director Delmar Johnson -- to determine whether they misused their party credit cards for personal expenses, according to a source familiar with the preliminary inquiry.The IRS opened the so-called ``primary'' investigation into Rubio, the leading Republican candidate for Florida's open U.S. Senate seat, and the two state GOP ex-officials to see if there's enough evidence to support a full-fledged criminal probe, according to a source familiar with the IRS examination.

Judicial Misconduct: 949 Phone Calls with Prosecutor

Who says judges and prosecutors don't conspire together or have ex parte communications? The Rove Republican Racket perfected that practice.

Now, a local judge (pictured)  in Broward County Florida is in hot water for describing her relationship with a prosecutor as less than close.

The Sun Sentinel reports:

[Judge Ana] Gardiner is accused of failing to disclose that she had a "close personal relationship" with then-prosecutor Howard Scheinberg while he was prosecuting a death penalty case that she was presiding over. She is also accused of displaying a "lack of candor" when the [Judicial Qualifications Commission] questioned her about their relationship in 2008. Gardiner said they had a social relationship. Phone records later obtained by the commission showed the two exchanged 949 phone calls and 471 text messages in a 155-day period during Omar Loureiro's first-degree murder trial.

Loureiro conviction was tossed out and a retrial ordered.

Political Manipulation at the Highest Level of Government

The Miami Herald had an interesting story Tuesday about how government operatives smeared, spied-on, and then manipulated government Inspector General reports about a fellow government agent for political purposes.

What is bothersome is that this occurred at the highest level of government involving the U.S. Department of State, the CIA and the DEA.

Later, Karl Rove and his henchmen became great manipulators of the U.S. Department of Justice. They successfully targeted, prosecuted and incarcerated Democrats and others who didn't toe the political line.

Who says it cannot be done? Who says Big Brother can't mess with you? Who dismisses the fact that the Rove Republican Racket operated viciously from California to Maine?

Read this, drink your coffee, and think twice, three times about it.

An unhappy federal judge on Tuesday approved a $3 million settlement with a former narcotics officer who said the CIA spied on him overseas. The approved settlement caps a 16-year fight for former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Richard A. Horn and California attorney Brian Leighton. It also leaves the judge grumbling over how the government handled the long-secret case. It does not appear that any government officials have been held accountable for this loss to the taxpayer," U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth wrote. "This is troubling." Driving his point home, Lamberth further noted that "there is disturbing evidence in a sealed motion that misconduct occurred in the Inspector General offices at both the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency." After noting that the case "has already consumed too much time and too many resources for everyone concerned," however, Lamberth agreed to drop potential disciplinary proceedings against CIA officials. He'll formally do so once he has been assured that the allegations have been referred to congressional intelligence committees and the inspector general offices.

Read the full story here.

Florida Fumble

The Rove Republican Racket has stretched the law, used the dishonest "honest services" law, and bent situations to put decent people behind bars, usually Democrats.

An interesting case in Florida that highlights how government prosecutors lie and manipulate the system made the headlines yesterday. Although the victim of prosecutorial misconduct is a convicted cop killer, the point of the story is how many prosecutors arrogantly believe they are above the law.

From the Palm Beach Post:

The Florida Supreme Court today threw out the death sentence of convicted cop killer Paul Beasley Johnson because “the record here is so rife with evidence of previously undisclosed prosecutorial misconduct that we have no choice but to grant relief.”

In October, Gov. Charlie Crist ordered Johnson to be put to death by lethal injection in November.

The high court stayed the execution and heard oral arguments on the case in which Johnson was convicted of going on a drug-induced killing spree in Polk County in 1981. Johnson was convicted of murdering three men, including a Polk County Sheriff’s deputy.

In its ruling today, the court found that prosecutors intentionally got a jailhouse informer to get information from Johnson, take notes and give the notes to investigators. Prosecutors then lied about their role in soliciting the information at Johnson’s trial in 1981.

At a later trial in 1988, a different prosecutor used the same testimony that helped persuade the jury to hand down a 7-5 vote in favor of the death penalty, the court ruled today.