Daily Nonsense

In yet another travesty of justice by Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the Justice Department officials implicated in the illegal hiring practices issues can rest easy tonight.  They no longer have to fear prosecution from Still President Bush’s tool, Mikey Mukasey.

Stating that "not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime." Mukasey gave hope to Alberto Gonzales and his group of cronies that persecution prosecution wouldn’t soon follow.  And for the next 160 days, that’s probably true.

Can you believe that the highest law enforcement officer in the nation (that’s Mukasey, eh) said (and in public) that not every violation of the law is a crime?  I was under the opposite impression for some reason, that laws defined crimes.  I wonder how that defense might go over the next time I’m tagged for a parking violation?

It’s also interesting to note that none of the NeoCon, Christian, anti-abortionist employees who were the spawn of the illegal hiring practices will be fired or reassigned.  I wonder what might have happened if the Democrats had benefited from this type of abuse of privilege.  Would they still have jobs after a Mukasey ‘investigation’?  I think not.

Mukasey: No prosecutions in Justice hiring scandal

By MARK SHERMAN

The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 12, 2008; 12:13 PM

NEW YORK — Former Justice Department officials will not face prosecution for letting improper political considerations drive hirings of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Tuesday.

Mukasey used his sharpest words yet to criticize the senior leaders who took part in or failed to stop illegal hiring practices during the tenure of his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales.

But, he told delegates to the American Bar Association annual meeting, "not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime. In this instance, the two joint reports found only violations of the civil service laws."

Other intrusions of Bush administration politics into department hirings and firings remain under investigation. Mukasey said he is awaiting reports on the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the hiring practices in the department’s civil rights division.

The political controversies prompted Gonzales’ resignation last year.

An internal investigation concluded last month that for nearly two years, top advisers to Gonzales discriminated against applicants for career jobs who weren’t Republican or conservative loyalists.

The federal government makes a distinction between "career" and "political" appointees, and it’s a violation of civil service laws and Justice Department policy to hire career employees on the basis of political affiliation or allegiance.

Yet Monica Goodling, who served as Gonzales’ counselor and White House liaison, routinely asked career job applicants about politics, the report concluded.

Mukasey, who once served as a federal judge in New York, said the Justice Department has taken steps under his leadership to prevent a recurrence of the hiring scandal.

"I have made repeatedly clear…that it is neither permissible nor acceptable to consider political affiliations in the hiring of career department employees," Mukasey said.

If the problems were to recur, Mukasey said he is confident department employees would speak up.

That did not happen during Gonzales’ tenure, he said. Gonzales appeared unaware of the political hiring process outlined by Goodling and his then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, the report said.

"There was a failure of supervision by senior officials in the department. And there was a failure on the part of some employees to cry foul when they were aware, or should have been aware, of problems," Mukasey said.

The ABA has been at odds with the Bush administration on a range of issues, including treatment of prisoners suspected of terrorist ties and the need for a federal law to shield reporters from subpoenas.

Mukasey said that on the issue of politics in his department, there was no disagreement with the lawyers’ group.

"Professionalism is alive and well at the Justice Department," he said.

Some candidates for career Justice Department jobs who were excluded because of politics could be invited to apply for new positions, Mukasey said.

He also ruled out firing or reassigning those who were hired under the now-discarded evaluation process.

"Two wrongs do not make a right," he said. "People who were hired in an improper way didn’t themselves do anything wrong."

[Thanks, Washington Post]

I want to be shocked.  I should be shocked.  But I’m actually just weary of the same executive privilege bullshit that seems to spew out of the white house like vomit at a fraternity house toga party.

Still President Bush has decided that the interview conducted by a special prosecutor with Still Vice President Dick Cheney regarding the public unmasking and humiliation of a CIA covert asset is privileged information.  Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, call this newest White House legal reasoning “ludicrous”.

I second that observation and call the entire presidency ludicrous.

My only hope is that despite the best efforts of Pelosi and the rest of Congress, Bush and Cheney will eventually be indicted, prosecuted, convicted and raped in prison.

Bush Hides ‘Plame-gate’ Testimony

Tuesday, 05 August 2008
by Jason Leopold

In the latest twist in the “Plame-gate” scandal, President George W. Bush has asserted executive privilege to block release of Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview with a special prosecutor about possible criminal violations in the leaking of a CIA officer’s covert identity.

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, promptly denounced the White House legal reasoning as “ludicrous,” noting that executive privilege covers advice that an aide gives the President, not responses to legal questions posed by a prosecutor about a possible crime.

Bush applied his broad assertion of executive privilege Wednesday at the request of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who earlier had rebuffed congressional requests for interviews conducted with both Cheney and Bush about the disclosure of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity.

“I am greatly concerned about the chilling effect that compliance with the [House Oversight] Committee’s subpoena would have on future White House deliberations and White House cooperation with future Justice Department investigations,” Mukasey wrote in a letter to Bush on Tuesday.

Since becoming Attorney General in December 2007, Mukasey has balked at investigating crimes allegedly committed earlier by Bush administration officials – from torturing detainees to arranging political prosecutions – a "no-look-back" approach that drew criticism from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In reaction to Bush’s assertion of executive privilege, Waxman said “we are not seeking access to the communications between the Vice President and the President. We are seeking access to the communications between the Vice President and FBI investigators.”

The California Democrat also noted that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald told the committee in a July 3 letter that Cheney had met with the FBI voluntarily and knew his answers could be disclosed at a public trial.

“Mr. Fitzgerald told us that ‘there were no agreements, conditions and understandings’ that limited Mr. Fitzgerald’s use of the interview in any way,” Waxman said. “This unfounded assertion of executive privilege does not protect a principle; it protects a person.”

Waxman also accused Mukasey of applying a different standard for a Republican administration than was applied to its Democratic predecessors.
“Ten years ago,” Waxman said, “Attorney General Janet Reno, provided the Committee the FBI interviews of both President Clinton and Vice President Gore. Mr. Mukasey decided that a different rule should apply to Republican presidents than to Democratic presidents."

Actually, the Bush administration’s resistance to releasing the responses from a President and a Vice President in a criminal proceeding contrasts with precedents for both parties, including the appearances of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton before various special prosecutors.

Waxman’s committee was scheduled to vote Wednesday to hold Mukasey in contempt for refusing to comply with the Cheney subpoena. However, Waxman postponed the vote after Bush’s assertion of executive privilege.

Long-running Scandal

The “Plame-gate” affair dates back to 2003 when Valerie Plame Wilson’s husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, went public with the fact that he had undertaken a fact-finding trip to Niger which had disproved President Bush’s claim that Iraq had sought to buy yellowcake uranium from the African nation.

As Wilson was going public with his knowledge of the Niger falsehood, Bush administration officials began leaking the fact that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and had a hand in arranging Wilson’s trip to Niger.

The leakers included Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, White House political adviser Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff.
Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA employment was revealed in a July 14, 2003, article by right-wing columnist Robert Novak, effectively destroying her career. Two months later, a CIA complaint to the Justice Department sparked a criminal probe into the identity of the leakers.

Initially, Bush professed not to know anything about the matter, and several of his senior aides, including Rove and Libby, followed suit. However, it later became clear that Rove and Libby had a hand in the Plame leak and that Bush and Cheney had helped organize a campaign to disparage Wilson by giving critical information to friendly journalists.

In a statement Wednesday, Wilson said the "fact that the Attorney General is recommending the assertion of executive privilege reveals that this Department of Justice is as beholden to the White House as that run by former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.”

In October 2005, Libby was indicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. At Libby’s trial in 2007, his attorney, Theodore Wells, told jurors that Fitzgerald had tried to build a case of conspiracy against Cheney and Libby, and that the prosecution believed Libby may have lied to federal investigators and to a grand jury to protect Cheney.

“Now, I think the government, through its questions, really tried to put a cloud over Vice President Cheney," Wells said.

Rebutting Wells, Fitzgerald told jurors: "You know what? [Wells] said something here that we’re trying to put a cloud on the Vice President. We’ll talk straight. There is a cloud over the Vice President. He sent Libby off to [meet with New York Times reporter] Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. At that meeting – the two-hour meeting – the defendant talked about the wife [Plame]. We didn’t put that cloud there. That cloud remains because the defendant obstructed justice and lied about what happened."

Libby also told the FBI that it was "possible" that Cheney instructed him to disseminate to the press information about Plame’s identity.

[Thanks, Atlantic Free Press]

On September 26, 2002, freedom loving United States Immigration and Naturalization Service agents detained Mahar Arar as he waited for a connecting flight to Montreal.  He had just flown in from Tunisia.

In the first know act of "extraordinary rendition" to be conducted on American soil, Mr. Arar was deported to Syria where he spent the next year being interrogated and tortured by Syrian and American intelligence officers.

Three members of the House Judiciary Committee recently petitioned US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, to appoint a special counsel to investigate the incident.  Citing the need for the special counsel to "show the U.S. government was willing to conduct a fair investigation into serious allegations of wrongdoing.", the reasonable request was contemptuously dismissed by Mukasey as unwarranted "at this time."

I wonder why these Democrats continue to pursue these futile attempts at justice?  As long as there is a Republican in the White House with tools and lapdogs holding our highest offices of trust, Justice will not be served.  Maybe we can revisit the whole question in 178 days.

Arar special counsel unwarranted: U.S.

JAMES VICINI, Reuters
Published: Thursday, July 24

WASHINGTON – Attorney-General Michael Mukasey said yesterday he had rejected a request from lawmakers that an outside special counsel investigate the case of a Canadian taken off a plane in New York and sent to Syria, where he says he was tortured.

Mukasey said under questioning at a House Judiciary Committee hearing that he did not believe that a special counsel was warranted "at this time."

Maher Arar, a Syrian-born software engineer, was taken into custody by U.S. officials during a 2002 stopover in New York while on his way home to Canada and then deported to Syria because of suspected links to Al-Qa’ida.

Arar says he was imprisoned in Syria for a year and tortured. His case has become a sore spot in U.S.-Canada relations.

Three committee Democrats sent a letter July 10 asking Mukasey to appoint an outside special counsel to investigate and prosecute any violations of federal criminal laws.

They said a special counsel would ensure the investigation is thorough, impartial and independent, and would show the U.S. government was willing to conduct a fair investigation into serious allegations of wrongdoing.

Two lawmakers who sought the outside investigation, including committee chairman Representative John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, criticized Mukasey’s decision.

Conyers said Mukasey had continued the "unfortunate tradition" of refusing to appoint a special counsel not only in the Arar case, but also for President George W. Bush’s warrantless surveillance program and for the CIA’s use of waterboarding for terrorism suspects.

Representative William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, cited testimony last month that U.S. officials may have sent Arar to Syria, rather than Canada, because they knew of the likelihood of torture.

[Thanks, Montreal Gazette]

Here is an example of why we will never be able to work out peaceful resolutions in the Middle East. We just don’t think the same way about things.

Take the case of Gillian Gibbons, an English teacher working in Sudan. She was working on a project with her 7-year-old students that focused on animals. One of her students brought in a stuffed teddy bear. Gillian asked the students (remember, they are 7 year olds!) to pick a name for the toy and after some discussion they chose Muhammad.

The resulting brouhaha has made national news, strained the relations between Great Britain and Sudan and brought tens of thousands of protesters out into the streets. Armed with sticks, clubs and knives the protesters are demanding that Gillian be put to death….for allowing her students to use one of the most common mens names in the whole region on a class teddy bear.

I’ll repeat that for those of you who don’t get it…….. The protesters want Gillian put to death because they contend that she demeaned the prophet by allowing the use of his name for a teddy bear.

Whatever happened to religious tolerance (if the religion card can actually be played here)? What ever happened to basic human kindness?

Are these protesters serious? You decide:

All Google News stories related to the incident are here -> LINK

Selected reading:

• Sudanese call for teddy bear teacher’s death @ NY Daily News
• Teddy row protestors demand death @ The Guardian
• Sudanese protesters demand death for teddy teacher @ Reuters Canada

A jury of her peers has found that the woman accused of downloading and sharing copywrited material across the internet is guilty and has ordered her to pay $220,000 in restitution.

This verdict was met with shocked disbelief.  As one lawyer put it, “A verdict of $222,000 for infringement of 24 song files worth a total of $23.76?” he asked. “It is an outrage, and I hope it is a wake-up call to the world that we all need to start supporting the defendants in these cases.”  This is the sentiment of New York lawyer Ray Beckerman; writing in the Recording Industry vs The People blog,  he called the verdict “one of the most irrational things I have ever seen in my life in the law.”

Jury Orders Woman to Pay $222,000 for Illegal Music Sharing

A Minneapolis woman has been convicted of illegally downloading and sharing copyrighted music over a peer-to-peer network.

Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld
Friday, October 05, 2007 10:00 AM PDT

A federal jury in Duluth, Minn., on Thursday ordered a Minneapolis woman to pay US$220,000 to six music companies for illegally downloading and sharing copyrighted music over a peer-to-peer network.

The 12-person jury said Jammie Thomas must pay $9,250 for each of the 24 songs that were the focus of the case. In their complaint, the six music companies that sued her had claimed that Thomas had illegally shared a total of 1,702 songs over the Kazaa file-sharing network, but they chose to focus on a representative list of 24 songs.