Entries Tagged 'Politics' ↓

The Soviets would be proud. Central American dictators of decades past would be proud. Dictators the world around have nothing on what our government is capable of in corrupting the basic principles and foundations on which this country was founded. Many times before I have written about Don Siegelman’s case. You remember, the former Democratic governor of Alabama who was indicted, convicted and jailed in a case so full of holes, you could fill the Albert Hall. (Siegelman is currently free on bail pending yet another appeal, meanwhile Sen. Ted Stevens’ case has been dropped by the Department of Justice; for prosecutorial misconduct.) From the look of things, Attorney General Holder could spend the entirety of Obama’s first term just reviewing prosecutorial (and judicial) misconduct in political prosecutions over the last 8 years.

A group called “Project Save Justice” has created an hour-long film entitled, “The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove” detailing the prosecutions of hundreds of people around the country based almost completely on political affiliation and involving dozens of corrupted prosecutors and judges. The film shows how widespread this problem became throughout the Bush years and how the actions of the parties involved have created a calling card of sorts for Karl Rove. The politicization of the Justice Department is a scary, scary prospect and it is not fiction. This stuff happened and real peoples’ lives were destroyed because of how they voted. You can watch the film below, which includes commentary by Scott Horton, a professor, civil rights attorney and editor for Harpers Magazine.

Horton describes how the mainstream media was used in many of these cases to convict the target of an investigation in the court of public opinion often before prosecuting the case in court. This PR game is nothing new, but when case after case shows the systematic use of the media by the prosecution to try and convict, something is seriously wrong (actually, this is a crime). Innocent people are in jail or even worse, dead because of these prosecutions and save for a story here and there about the most vocal victims of this campaign (i.e. Gov. Siegelman), the mainstream media has remained silent. I knew political prosecutions had become more widespread over the last 8 years, but I had no idea how widespread. But this is precisely why often low-level political activists in the Democratic party were targeted… Sensationalism in the media is what sells and only on a hyper-local level will the prosecution of a state legislative fundraiser be reported. Actually, you are more likely to find 10 minutes of your evening “news” broadcast dedicated to the latest health scare (remember Anthrax?) or the price of gas, then a report on innocent member of your government being sent to jail because of how they vote.

I am more apt to listen to the conspiracy theorists than I am the mainstream view. Perhaps this is partially due to my father being a journalist or even the fact that both of my parents are baby boomers, but I’ve always had a good, natural dose of reality and skepticism. This holds true with political elections, assassinations and business deals. But it also holds true of such things like a banking system that has collapsed and is now trying to right itself.

This week Bill Moyers interviewed a former senior regulator during the Savings and Loan scandal who is now a professor at the University of Missouri, William K. Black. Black had a lot to say and although Moyers seemed to be surprised by some of it, I doubt much of what Black said was news to Moyers. How do I know? Why should we believe Black when he says the financial collapse was caused by the same people who are still in power at these banks along with the people in government pretending to regulate the aftermath? He describes this massive cover-up in detail, alleging favoritsm for banks while kicking the auto industry to the side. (On a side note, I don’t think for a moment some of the same crap isn’t happening with the auto industry, but not on the grand level it is with the finance sector.) First, a look at some of his charges:

BILL MOYERS: What did AIG contribute? What did they do wrong?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: They made bad loans. Their type of loan was to sell a guarantee, right? And they charged a lot of fees up front. So, they booked a lot of income. Paid enormous bonuses. The bonuses we’re thinking about now, they’re much smaller than these bonuses that were also the product of accounting fraud. And they got very, very rich. But, of course, then they had guaranteed this toxic waste. These liars’ loans. Well, we’ve just gone through why those toxic waste, those liars’ loans, are going to have enormous losses. And so, you have to pay the guarantee on those enormous losses. And you go bankrupt. Except that you don’t in the modern world, because you’ve come to the United States, and the taxpayers play the fool. Under Secretary Geithner and under Secretary Paulson before him… we took $5 billion dollars, for example, in U.S. taxpayer money. And sent it to a huge Swiss Bank called UBS. At the same time that that bank was defrauding the taxpayers of America. And we were bringing a criminal case against them. We eventually get them to pay a $780 million fine, but wait, we gave them $5 billion. So, the taxpayers of America paid the fine of a Swiss Bank. And why are we bailing out somebody who that is defrauding us?

BILL MOYERS: And why…

WILLIAM K. BLACK: How mad is this?

BILL MOYERS: What is your explanation for why the bankers who created this mess are still calling the shots?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, that, especially after what’s just happened at G.M., that’s… it’s scandalous.

BILL MOYERS: Why are they firing the president of G.M. and not firing the head of all these banks that are involved?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: There are two reasons. One, they’re much closer to the bankers. These are people from the banking industry. And they have a lot more sympathy. In fact, they’re outright hostile to autoworkers, as you can see. They want to bash all of their contracts. But when they get to banking, they say, ‘contracts, sacred.’ But the other element of your question is we don’t want to change the bankers, because if we do, if we put honest people in, who didn’t cause the problem, their first job would be to find the scope of the problem. And that would destroy the cover up.

BILL MOYERS: The cover up?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Sure. The cover up.

BILL MOYERS: That’s a serious charge.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Of course.

BILL MOYERS: Who’s covering up?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Geithner is charging, is covering up. Just like Paulson did before him. Geithner is publicly saying that it’s going to take $2 trillion — a trillion is a thousand billion — $2 trillion taxpayer dollars to deal with this problem. But they’re allowing all the banks to report that they’re not only solvent, but fully capitalized. Both statements can’t be true. It can’t be that they need $2 trillion, because they have masses losses, and that they’re fine.

These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed, Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed, not because…

Black goes on to make many more accusations about corruption, fraud and massive deception at the highest levels of government and industry. But why should we believe him? What is the smell test for conspiracy theories? When it comes to political assassinations, how much proof do we need before we start to believe the conspiracy theorists? What about financial and political fraud and corruption? If these accusations aren’t true, why would a distinguished professor risk his career and more just to say these things?

According to Wikipedia:

Slander per se

The four (4) categories of slander which are actionable per se are (i) accusing someone of a crime; (ii) alleging that someone has a foul or loathsome disease; (iii) adversely reflecting on a person’s fitness to conduct her business or trade; and (iv) imputing serious sexual misconduct (especially the chastity of a woman). Once again, all you would have to prove is that someone had published the statement to a third party. No proof of special damages is required.

Fraud is a crime. Black has made public statements that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, the heads of Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and many others have committed serious crimes. If this ISN’T true, wouldn’t you expect to see the slander lawsuits flying? Or at least some statements out of the halls of Washington and Wall Street condemning these accusations? Wanna bet they are silent in the coming days? Black hasn’t said that any of them have engaged in any serious sexual conduct (especially, the chastity of a woman), just fraudulent misconduct fucking with the chastity of America and the heart of capitalism. I, for one, believe every word he said.

Update: Glenn Greenwald has posted his own bit on the Moyers/Black interview as a part of a wide-ranging discussion about senior Obama officials’ involvement in this debacle. Well worth the read, here.

Why is Chris Matthews such a panty waist? I’ve asked this question many times before and yet somehow I’m still surprised when new evidence of his fresh disposal is found. Thanks to TPM for this little clip where Matthews discusses how the Justice Department has dropped the charges against Senator Ted Stevens due to prosecutorial misconduct… Well, sort of. That is why the charges were dropped, but apparently Tweety Bird thinks the charges should have never been brought! Oh, and apparently Sen. Stevens is no longer the senior Senator from Alaska BECAUSE of these now dropped charges, according to this blithering idiot.

Well, Mr. Matthews – Just to clarify a few points: Sen. Stevens was already convicted last fall for not reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from an oil executive (normally we would call this a bribe, but somehow in this country the crime is just not telling anyone about the bribe, not the bribe itself). And to say that the charges should have never been brought? That is not at all what the Justice Department has said, rather that the charges held merit but that the prosecution failed to share evidence with the defense, thereby screwing up the case. On a related note though, perhaps Matthews should be more concerned with another politician whose re-election bid and political career WERE affected by prosecutorial misconduct, politicization of a trial and a whole other list of crap. Don Siegelman, the former Democratic Governor of Alabama has another appeal pending to try and have his charges dismissed, but he lost his re-election bid years ago because of this crap. Any mention from Matthews on this lately? Some of his other colleagues at MSNBC are a bit better, but so far only when it is convenient. Siegelman was interviewed by TPM regarding these comparisons and you can read that here.

Continuing on my previous post about anonymity and blogging, I came across some related news this morning in catching up on my RSS feeds after a brief vacation. The MudFlats is a political blog in Alaska written by a local person who cares about the issues concerning her city, state and nation. A patriot who decided, for her own reasons, to share her opinions anonymously. At least until she happened to piss off a local politician. Alaska State Rep. Mike Doogan made it his mission to out the MudFlats blogger and has apparently succeeded in doing so. I’m not sure even he knows what he has accomplished, other than to apparently piss off his political base and endanger his career, but he did it anyway. Despicable indeed. Well, the blogger has responded with a very well written post on how she feels, some of the history behind it and this very good segment I’d like to share:

“If he were around, we could ask the “anonymous blogger” of his day, Benjamin Franklin what he thought about this.  Using the “screen name” Mrs. Silence Dogood, Franklin was able to put out thoughts and ideas that were weighted on their own merits, not attached to a particular person.  Sometimes it’s easier, if you don’t want to think, to attack the person, rather than the idea.  I think Franklin would heartily approve of anonymous bloggers.

So, it seemed odd to me that Mr. Doogan was seemingly more focused on the messenger, than on defending his position, or even better, apologizing to people whom he had insulted.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Last week Frontline explored the details behind our national debt, what it means and some of the tough choices we now face in a program entitled, “Ten Trillion and Counting”. I have embedded the program below. It is reported by Forrest Sawyer and well worth the time to explore.