Snowed Out

Due to the severe blizzard conditions in Washington, DC, our blog has failed to post regularly. We are back at work although our friends in government will return tomorrow.

Who is this Contractor?

The Neilson saga of Northern Mississippi is possibly creating an even larger web of lies. 

The public relations war between disgraced former U.S. Attorney Jim H. Greenlee (pictured) and indicted FBI Agent Hal "The Canary" Neilson has escalated.  Last week, when discussing the secret property partnership Neilson allegedly had in a building and for which he was indicted, we pointedly asked:

How did Greenlee's office learn of Neilson's financial interest in the building?

Now an answer has been given in an article in The Oxford Enterprise:

Sources also say that Neilson’s part ownership of the FBI building was discovered after a local contractor tipped off the U.S. Attorney’s office.

So now we ask: Who is this local contractor? What is his relationship with Greenlee's staff? Does he have some connection to the other three partners of the property deal?

Greenlee looks like he set Neilson up, recused himself, and then kicked the ball over to Louisiana (which eventually indictedNeilson).

And now, are we to believe the U.S. Department of Justice's entire investigation is based on the allegation of a single building contractor?  How did he know? 

This smells dirty. Real dirty. Mississippi dirty.

Kentucky Woman

Sue Schmitz, the former Democratic State Representative of Alabama and grandmother, reported to prison on January 28th. She is serving a 30 month prison term at a minimum-security prison camp for women in Lexington, Kentucky.

Her political crime? Being a Democrat during the Rove Bush Cheney era. What was she convicted of? The silliest of non-crimes: doing little or no work for a nice salary. Problem was her salary was funded in part by federal funds. Karl Rove and friends said, "Gotcha!"

Throwing Honest Services Fraud Away

The Rove Republican Racket's favorite legal weapon of choice, the "honest services" fraud law, is being tossed over the side of the bridge by federal prosecutors.

The Chicago Tribune reported last week:

With a U.S. Supreme Court decision looming on the disputed "honest services" fraud law, federal prosecutors Thursday revised their indictment against former [Illinois] Gov. Rod Blagojevich, restructuring the charges without altering the specific allegations against him. Prosecutors added eight counts that mirror other charges in the indictment but that don't rely on honest services fraud. That way, if the Supreme Court limits or tosses the controversial law, prosecutors can simply drop those counts and proceed to trial as scheduled on June 3. The newly added counts, based on other statutes, would ensure Blagojevich would still face the same allegations — that he sought to improperly profit from his office, including by trying to sell a vacated U.S. Senate seat.

As reader's know, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has ripped the dishonest "honest services fraud" law to shreds saying that someone who calls in sick to go to a ball game would be guilty of a crime under this law. Across the country, during the Rove-Bush-Cheney years, Democrats and other political operatives were tossed in jail based on this vague and harmful law. Maybe the dozens of political prisoners sitting in federal prisons around the country will see freedom soon.

Neilson Sings like a Canary

The Mississippi Canary has begun to sing.

Let the hemorrhaging begin! Greenlee and his racist, corrupt, unconscionable, and unethical stooges deserve to be publicly humiliated.

As details emerge, it looks more and more like FBI Whistleblower Hal Neilson was set up and retaliated against by Rove Racket Republican and former U.S. Attorney Jim H. Greenlee of the Northern District of Mississippi.

With the headline "Greenlee was out to get me," the Daily Journal reports:

FBI agent Hal Neilson’s professional troubles apparently began some five years ago, when he says he discovered a U.S. attorney’s office investigation for “no reason” into nearly 150 north Mississippi residents of Middle Eastern origins and then later questioned the handling of the Mississippi Beef Plant investigation. When Neilson reported his concerns, he asked his employer for protection against retaliation. At that time, he was the FBI’s resident agent in Oxford. As of today, he reportedly has never heard a response.

Neilson’s accusations come from his own e-mail to Mississippi’s congressional delegation months ago and other documents supplied to the Daily Journal, though not by him. In the messages, he voices his concern about his job and why he believes his relationship with Greenlee fell apart starting about 2004. Chiefly, Neilson points to his opposition to the so-called Convenience Store Initiative, which involved the Middle Easterners, and internal pressure about the beef plant case.

After leading the [Beef Plant] effort for about a year, [Neilson] was removed from the investigation and told by his supervisor that Greenlee complained the case was at a standstill. Neilson apparently told his supervisor that any holdups were due to attempts by the U.S. attorney’s office to steer the investigation.

Neilson, who was indicted last month on a property scheme, states in documents obtained by the Daily Journal:

“A subsequent FBI Inspection investigation followed and found absolutely no wrongdoing on my part,” Neilson’s e-mail said. A few months later, Neilson wrote, he learned he was under investigation about a 2005 investment and its financial disclosure – which bypassed the FBI to the Department of Justice’s inspector general and the Baton Rouge, La., U.S. attorney. Neilson told the congressional delegation he received an “oral” OK from the FBI to make the investment, and offered to take a polygraph and leave the area to get away from the situation.“It has cost me my lifetime savings for my four children’s college education and more,” he noted. “I have just one year left to retire and am concerned if I will even make it.”

We alluded to this scheme last week as Greenlee and friends attempted damage control.  Now the mainstream media has confirmed it.

Sing. Sing a song. Sing out loud. Sing out strong!

h/t NorthMissCommentor

Morrison's Continued Negligence

Embattled Acting U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Indiana Timothy M. Morrison is sweating a little more under the collar.

Last week, hundreds of defrauded investors of an alleged Ponzi scheme, most of them retirees, attended a town hall meeting in Wooster, Ohio regarding the company Fair Finance.

Morrison, a Rove-Bush-Cheney Republican appointee, has protected the kingpin of this alleged fraud, Timothy S. Durham, who is recognized as one of the biggest contributors to the Republican Party of Indiana and to the current Republican Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels.

Morrison has kept a tight lid on everything.

A local television station in Indianapolis reports:

"I have not received one piece of information from Fair Finance," said one woman, echoing the sentiments of dozens of other people. Those in the meeting, mostly older investors, trusted Fair Finance with their investments. The FBI raided Durham's business in Ohio and his office in Indianapolis in November. "What are you doing with our money? Where are you putting it?" said another woman. "Are you investing it in something else?"

In reality, Morrison has done nothing and has let Durham and associates keep their cash and even hold estate sales as investors worry sick.

One investor, so worried sick, died because of the Morrison's negligence with the Fair Finance fraud case.

It's time U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the U.S. Department of Justice overtake this case and banish Morrison to a dunce's corner.

Goodbye Jim!

Embattled and disgraced U.S. Attorney of the Northern District of Mississippi Jim Greenlee served his last day in office yesterday.  But it ain't over, yet!

Greenlee, one of the Rove Republican Racket's most loyal members racially targeted innocent convenience store owners for having Islamic-sounding names, offered a "sweet deal" of immunity to a corrupt DA named Ed "Pied Piper" Peters, handed out a secret six month (book-writing?) contract to his lying and "retired" Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Dawson, and finally, retaliated against FBI whistleblower Hal Neilson for betraying his loyalty to Greenlee.

Now that he is a private citizen, Greenlee will most likely be deposed over his immunity deal to the Pied Piper Peters that let Peters keep $425,000 of a $1 million bribery pay-off. Peters claimed he had losses.

Patsy R. Brumfield, a Mississippi journalist, reported last week:

Attorneys for attorney Roberts Wilson of Oxford will ask former State Auditor Steven Patterson under oath questions in their quest to get the federal court to turn over $425,000 to Wilson in the aftermath of the Scruggs et al prosecutions. Wilson claims he is owed the money, which allegedly is what’s left of former D.A. Ed Peters’ fees related to his help against Wilson’s lawsuit v. Scruggs, presided over by then-Judge Bobby DeLaughter in Hinds County.

The questioning, called a deposition, is set for Feb. 24-25 at the Federal Prison Camp at Montgomery, Ala., where Patterson is serving his sentence for his guilty plea in the case in which he and others were accused of attempting to bribe Circuit Judge Henry Lackey of Calhoun City. Wilson also has asked to do the same with others accused of knowledge about these cases.

Justice, even in backwards Mississippi, shall prevail.