Ed's Opinion

SARAH PALIN: REVEALED: THE EMPRESS HAS NO CLOTHES: RONALD REAGAN IN FEMALE FORM.

2008-09-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

SARAH THE SHAPE SHIFTER

Sarah Palin is a charismatic persona much like Ronald Reagan. She is articulate an uses words with clever allusions to bring home her ideas just as Ronald Reagan did. “Hockey mom,” “thanks but no thanks” “put the governor’s jet on E-bay” “I fired the cook” conveys that she a government cost cutter and a rugged, self reliant individualist like Reagan.

He also conveyed these ideas to Americans who thought we could go back to the simpler values as depicted in cowboy movies. We are people from the rugged West where men are men and women are women and by God we know the difference. We are not from the Eastern cities with political corruption and loose morals. Our values are the values of the founding fathers and the pioneers. was the inference to be drawn.

She has the simplistic views of the world just as Reagan did who spoke of his ideal as “America is a bright shinning city on a hill.”(Perhaps his most effective allusion the ideal it embodies could mean anything to any one, but probably it is mostly associated with Heaven on Earth.) There is always a right and wrong that can be clearly perceived with no shades of gray. Good and evil are clear to the average person. ( Mr Gorbachev tear this wall down." to prove the USSR was not on the side of evil.) And God is always on our side because we are guided by faith in God. This was his mantra and doesn’t it sound familiar in the words of the McCain-Palin campaign. They both must have the same speech writers.

Reagan was also guided in by his views that free markets will always end in the best possible result for all people. Democracy will always win out when free men vote their conscience. Government should be small and less obtrusive. Taxes should be reduced to support only the basic functions of government which are police work and national defense. Social programs like Social Security and Medicare sap the strength of America and make people weaklings. People should be rugged individualists.

How many pictures did we see of Reagan on his ranch, poetically named Rancho Del Cielo, in cowboy clothes doing ranch chores like chopping wood or riding a quarter horse.

This ranch was purchased for $527000.00 by the Reagan’s on the advice of their tax and financial advisors in 1974 when he was Governor of California. In 1998 it was sold to a conservative group called the Young America’s For Freedom, headquartered outside Washington, for approximately five million. An approximate ten fold increase in value, much of it due to the improvements the government paid for so it could be used as the Western White House. The exact price seems to be a secret but it had been listed by the Reagan’s for 5.95 million with no takers. Pete Wilson tried to have the Federal government buy it as a memorial for five million. Reagan’s more savvy acolytes nixed that as counter to all Reagan stood for and would ruin his public image. While he had the ranch, beside it being an investment and a tax deduction, it always seemed to lose money as a “business” perhaps it was the cost of the real ranch hands who kept the place up before the government took over this expense. It also gave him great copy for his public persona as a rugged cowboy from the West standing on his own two feet without government assistance. Bush Jr. has tried to use the same public relations ploy with his Crawford Ranch without the same success.

The Young America’s Foundation is preserving Reagan's ranch as a living memorial to Ronald Reagan and his ideas and ideals. In the recent past it also sponsored a “Gala and Dinner” in honor of Ann Coulter. Need more be said?

Now we see Sarah Palin depicted as a rugged individualist, frontier type mom. She has five kids, shoots, skins and eats Moose, runs Alaska as a cost cutter and ruthless maverick eliminating pork and corruption. She levied a windfall tax on the oil companies so she could pay every Alaskan an extra $1200 in addition to the $2000 they already get from oil revenues. Who paid for that? We did. The oil companies are geniuses at passing wind fall taxes and other taxes on to the end users: the American People.

Conservative Republicans are supposed to be against raising taxes. They are unless they aren’t paying them and the little guy is.

She got rid of the governor’s jet. Listing it on E-bay was surely a public relations stunt that didn’t work and it was ultimately sold to a private entity for $500,000.00 loss.

Much has been said about the “bridge to nowhere” as being an example of pork barrel spending on an unneeded project. First she was for it, however when a Washington taxpayers group publicized it as a prime example of pork barrel spending and it was about to be killed she changed horses and was against it. The Reaganesque phrase “thanks but not thanks,” made at her acceptance speech was a deception.

More importantly Alaska, while she was governor, received the funds earmarked for the bridge to be used for other “necessary projects” like the road leading up to the “bridge to no where” which has been built. So the bridge itself appears to be on a back burner waiting for a more opportune time. One wonders what the other necessary projects were that the money went for and why they weren’t designated as an ear mark in the first place?

Palin presents herself in the same way as Reagan but as a rugged individualist living in the wilds of Alaska, hunting and eating moose when she actually lives in a suburban city located 35 miles from Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. It has approximately 350,000 people in its metropolitan area which includes her home town of Wasilla.

If she’s a rugged individualist then all the other suburban housewife’s who take their children to little league and go to a national park for a vacation are also, with or with out lipstick. In any event are hockey moms nobler than little league moms or any other mom who takes her children to after school sports like basketball, track or swimming? Perhaps hockey is a sport more likely to be played in one of the contested states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado or Pennsylvania and some clever speech writer made the reference for the undecided women in those states.

In case you are wondering, 98% of Alaska is owned be the Federal Government so the entire state it is close to being a national park and Alaska receives more Federal tax dollars per capita than any other state. So one could argue it is a true welfare state. So much for the myth of rugged individualists who are purer than city folk because they live in a small town.

This rugged individualist theme of one who communes with nature is a recurrent theme in Republican politics. It is an appeal to the more atavistic among us who yearn for a simpler time while actually the world is becoming more complex due to technology, economics and population growth. The U. S. is being globalized. The cowboys didn’t have to deal with nuclear weapons, AIDS, Asian flu, credit bubbles and world poverty to name a few things. This image is good for cutting taxes and benefits for those less rugged or can’t stand on their own two feet like our seniors, disabled and disadvantaged citizens.

Regan didn’t like paying taxes especially since he was in a higher bracket due to his movie and public relations work. Lowering taxes is always a Republican campaign theme like Palin saying she is a cost cutter and thus eliminating the need for taxes. Just like Reagan, Palin is for shifting taxes to some one else to pay. In her case it was those American’s who must buy gasoline to live and work. Reagan had the discredited Trickle Down Theory of economics. If you lowered taxes on the rich they will create more investment capital. By the rich he meant those large corporations and individuals in the top 5% of taxpayers like himself. The benefits of increased investment by the rich would result in more jobs for the workers, who pay the bulk of taxes anyway, which would result in more revenue through withholding from their wages.

Palin is a bright, new, charismatic, articulate woman on the outside but inside she harbors the tired old policies of deregulation against the public interest as we have seen recently in the sub prime crisis and its aftermath, shifting taxes onto the middle class and away from the wealthy, elimination of programs that benefit all Americans by creating a healthy and stable middle class. The middle class is the basic foundation for American society. It pays the taxes, its sons and daughters serve in the military, it consumes the goods and services that make the economy go, and its labor and intellect makes America go. If any class in America should be protected it is the middle class. Palin’s philosophy of government doesn’t do this.

In the coming months, hopefully the fact the empress has no clothes will be revealed in the debates and in the media.

WILL MCCAIN BE ABLE TO PUT LIPSTICK ON HIS FLOUNDERING CAMPAIGN?

2008-09-10T10:11:00.000-07:00

The Candidate And Washington "Reformer" On The Steps Of Congress.

His Campaign Now That He has Made Concessions To The Christian Right.

McCain's campaign was going nowhere until he named Sarah Palin as running mate in the Vice Presidential Slot. Granted that Sarah Palin is not a pig. She is a pretty, telegenic, charismatic and eloquent hockey mom. The question is will she add the lipstick to his tired old campaign as an alleged reformer of her own party?

McCain is seventy two and there are many questions about his mental and physical capacity to be president with all the physical vigor and mental acuity it will require at those times when the buck will stop at his desk for a decision.

Sarah Palin is no Cheney or is she? Well not in terms of experience and she is not likely to be the eminence grise behind the Presidency as Cheney was or is. However what she lacks in experience she makes up for in poise and confidence, but more and more it is turning out that she has pushed McCain’s candidacy further to the right on gun control, pro- life- anti Roe V. Wade issues, tax cuts, energy and Christian Right values. She is certainly not a moderate.

While she talks about alternative energy sources her main focus is on more drilling in the United States and particularly in Alaska. She doesn’t believe Global Warming is man made so green energy is low on her list of priorities. She has the typical conservative ideas on solving the energy crisis i.e. more drilling now some alternative fuels and hopefully some new technology will turn up to make the problem go away.

Sarah Palin is merely the tired Republican right under a young face. She is not a new force for meaningful change but just McCain’s sop to the Christian fundamentalists and the right he needs as his base in this election. Those are the people who rally to her appearances on McCain’s stops where once he could hardly fill a small arena but now he has crowds flocking to see and hear Palin.

They are not Hillary’s women supporters but female fundamentalist Christians. Previously the Republican right was skeptical when McCain said he would appoint judges who would overturn Roe v.Wade. Now they believe him. She has added the lipstick to his campaign. She is new blood but with still the same old tired Republican/Conservative ideas under a bright young face campaigning as a reformer. Her new face is not necessarily political change or reform it is merely a new person harboring the same Republican rightist principles. In the case of Sarah Palin’s new face it covers a heart that is farther to the right and harder than most Republicans.

This not a new thing with the Republican strategists when their policies and ideas fall on their face with the majority of Americans they reach down for an unknown charismatic personality from nowhere and push him or her forward as the answer to all America’s problems. A reformer who will change the party’s ways. Bush was such a person. Yet when he gained office under the most tenuous conditions he brought into office with him the old guard of lobbyists and business managers to run the government under the same old tired policies of limited government, a big military, less business and environmental regulation and fewer taxes for the upper one percent of taxpayers.

John McCain calls himself a”reformer” but he has been the quintessential Washington insider for over twenty five years supporting the Republican agenda during that time. His Wikipedia page lists his net worth as over forty million dollars and his wife, who owns the Budweiser distributorship in Phoenix, is reputed to be worth more than one hundred million dollars.

One wonders how you accumulate forty million dollars on a naval officers pay and a politicians pay.

McCain defines the dividing line between middle class and rich as someone earning five million dollars. That is a person in the top .01 percent of wage earners. Obvious he is so far removed from the average middle class family that he has lost the common touch he may have once had as a naval pilot.

He has voted with Bush the vast majority of the time and some critics say at least ninety percent of the time. Occasionally he would remonstrate at some earmark or administration proposal but nothing serious. His main claim to fame as a “maverick” is the McCain Feingold campaign finance bill which has been ineffective. Republicans still get their money from lobbyists and business. Obama has seemed to break the Democratic mold of support from unions, trial lawyers and liberal celebrities by raising his money on the internet in small individual donations. He may be the first democratically financed president. Dean touched on this means of campaign finance until he was derailed in Iowa in 2004 by a hostile media.

Remember he also voted for all of Bushes ultra conservative federal judge nominees both for the appellate bench and the Supreme Court and he would give us more of the same if elected. So he has no record to run on except the Bush record of the last eight years which he would essentially continue if elected. However espousing the policies of Bush on Iraq and taxes will not get him elected so he has to call himself the candidate for “change” and “reform.”

When this campaign theme is not effective or believable in comes the new face of Sarah Palin who will “reform” Washington. This is almost laughable because as Vice President she has no power and for most of her life she has backed the Republican right.

Who would really run the government in the sad event of a McCain victory? It would be the same lobbyists and business types drawn from the same pool that ran the Bush government and bureaucracy. McCain is too old and Palin is too inexperienced and unsophisticated to do it herself and as said she has no power and will be relegated to the sidelines doing PR work with the many women’s organization whose meetings require an administration speaker.

McCain says he is going to reform health care with the help of private industries meaning the big insurers, that’s funny since they are the reason why forty percent of Americans lack health insurance. These are people the insurance companies don’t want to insure because they are at the bottom of the risk pyramid or lack the funds to buy their expensive plans.

McCain would let Social Security and Medicare die as big business doesn’t like a competing plan that works and holds them up to comparison. Thus Republicans are trying to sabotage Social
Security and Medicare by underfunding while giving massive tax reductions to big business. These two programs comprise the greatest social successes in the last fifty years for America

He would reform education with charter schools instead of the bolstering public education which is the back bone of the country and another Americaan success story. Public School teachers are unionized to protect themselves from meddling politicians who run on reform platforms for changing the schools although they never taught or administered. It is just a cheap shot at the school unions who mainly support democratic candidates.

Also he attacks trial lawyers who support mostly democratic candidates and therefore are not a part of his Republican base.

He would “reign” in the trial lawyers who in many cases are the last resort of Americans to gain a hearing before a judge or jury who are empowered do something about the inequities in the system.

Can McCain use Sarah Palin to put lipstick on his tired pig of a campaign falsely alleging he is for “change” and that he will kick the rascals out that he has worked and voted with for twenty five year years? I think not because he is one of the rascals and Sarah Palin is a sham candidate considering that McCain first wanted Joe Lieberman, then former Governor Rudd of Pa. (a battle ground state) but they were nixed by McCain's campaign operatives because both these men were pro choice. These men would have also made his candidacy appear more centrist . Milt Romney was rejected because he has taken conflicting positions, first pro choice and then pro life so his operatives (think future plumbers) turned to Palin a last minute desperate gamble to put life in his campaign and a sop the fundamentalist Christian right.

Change candidate or reformer? This spin is an out right falsehood.

HOW WALL STREET AND THE BANKS MADE A SUCKER OUT OF ALAN GREENSPAN AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HE TOOK AN OATH TO PROTECT.

2008-08-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

THE TRUE BELIEVER IN FREE MARKETS AND NO REGULATION

Gerald Greenspan: A true believer in free markets was betrayed by his convictions. The sub prime and the related financial crisis, an unlikely event but still possible, was allowed to occur due to leverage, greed and most of all the failure of the Federal Reserve under Chairman Greenspan to use its power to regulate the sub prime market in particular and the mortgage market in general.

Barney Frank(D)MA has said that Congress passed legislation allowing the Federal Reserve to regulate the mortgage industry in the Nineties. However, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, a diehard free market advocate, refused to use the regulatory powers of the Fed even to curb fraud in mortgage lending much less to set out guidelines for sub prime lending. The subsequent sub prime mortgage crisis and the spread of this crisis throughout the banking system has nearly brought down the system he was appointed to protect.

Greenspan has answered his critics by saying the role of regulation has been tried before and it doesn’t work. Further he has also stated that he was not fully cognizant on the extent of the bubble until 2007. These statements from a man of the sophistication of Greenspan don't ring true.

Wikipedia discusses the controversy noting as follows:

“On March 17, 2008 Alan Greenspan wrote an article for the Financial Times Economists’ Forum entitled “We will never have a perfect model of risk“, in which he argued: “We will never be able to anticipate all discontinuities in financial markets.” He concluded: “It is important, indeed crucial, that any reforms in, and adjustments to, the structure of markets and regulation not inhibit our most reliable and effective safeguards against cumulative economic failure: market flexibility and open competition.” The article attracted a number of critical responses from forum contributors, which consists of some of the world’s leading economists (including two Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winners, Edmund Phelps and Joseph Stiglitz), who, finding causation between Greenspan's policies and the discontinuities in financial markets that followed, criticized Greenspan mainly for what many believed to be his unbalanced and immovable ideological suppositions about global capitalism and free competitive markets. For example, one forum contributor, Paul de Grauwe, wrote: “Greenspan’s article is a smokescreen to hide his own responsibility in making the financial crisis possible. Greenspan, who was at the helm of the most important monetary institution in the world, failed to take his responsibility to supervise the financial markets blinded as he, and his colleagues, were by a belief that markets and bankers know better than governments.” Other notable critics included J.Bradford Delong, Alice Rivlin, Richard Werner, Christopher Whalen, Michael Hudson, and Willem Buiter."

On April 6, Greenspan responded to his critics in a follow-up article entitled, “A response to my critics,” in which he rigorously defended his ideology as applied to his conceptual and policy framework, which, among other things, prohibited him from exerting real pressure against the burgeoning housing bubble or, in his words, "leaning against the wind," (which became a catchphrase used during the discussion). Greenspan argued, "My view of the range of dispersion of outcomes has been shaken, but not my judgment that free competitive markets are by far the unrivaled way to organize economies." He concluded: "We have tried regulation ranging from heavy to central planning. None meaningfully worked. Do we wish to retest the evidence?"

The Pundits at Wikipedia further stated as follows follows:

“In the wake of the sub prime mortgage and credit crisis Greenspan admitted that there was a Bubble in the US housing market in 2007 and (forecast) "large double digit declines" in home values larger than most people expect." However, Greenspan also noted, “I really didn't get it until very late in 2005 and 2006.”

Again Greenspan hung himself with his own words:

“In a speech in February 2004, Greenspan suggested that more homeowners should consider taking out Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMS) where the interest rate adjusts itself to the current interest in the market. The Fed's own funds rate was at an all-time-low of 1%. A few months after his recommendation, Greenspan began raising interest rates, in a series of rate hikes that would bring the funds rate to 5.25% about two years later. Hence, Greenspan's recommendation came at a time when interest rates bottomed out making it a particularly bad time to take out an ARM. A triggering factor in the 2007 sub prime mortgage financial crisis (was the) many sub prime ARMS that reset at much higher interest rates than what the borrower paid during the first few years of the mortgage.”

And again Greenspan is quoted as saying in an April 2005 speech:

"Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as sub prime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants. Such developments are representative of the market responses that have driven the financial services industry throughout the history of our country … With these advances in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers. … Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in sub prime mortgage lending; indeed, today sub prime mortgages account for roughly 10 percent of the number of all mortgages
outstanding, up from just 1 or 2 percent in the early 1990s."

^{These positions were followed by the disastrous sub prime market collapse in March of 2007. Where was the invisible hand that moderates markets and prevents things from becoming outright disasters? Was the invisible hand a figment of Adam Smith’s and John Locke’s imaginations? It works under some conditions but the forces in play during the sub prime rise and collapse, namely low global interest rates, securitization of mortgages, investor and lender fraud and an insatiable demand by financial institutions, pension funds and others for these devices whose risk was wrongly assessed by the rating firms gave Wall Street the opening to manipulate and overwhelm the skeptics and opposing market forces.}

^{This is a prime example and a refutation of Greenspan's and others belief that a free market will always right itself. Now belatedly the Federal government is bailing out mortgage lenders, investment banks and even fraudulent borrowers and lenders with taxpayer’s money and lo and behold the Fed has begun to regulate the mortgage industry.}

^{Free markets don’t always work as in the present instance where it was manipulated by Wall Street. Therefore and in some cases the government must step in and regulate for the good of all. The great question is when to regulate and how much to regulate not no regulation at all. That’s what we pay bureaucrats like Mr. Greenspan to know and his blind advocacy of free markets in this case only begot license and fraud in the market to the detriment of the American people.}

^{The lesson Wall Street will take away from this catastrophe is: We Can Be as Profligate And In Many Cases Fraudulent As Possible And If It Threatens The Financial System the United States Government Will Bail Us Out.}

Karl Rove, Harriet Miers And Joshua Bolton On The Horns Of A Dilemma. As Is White House Counsel Fred Fielding.

2008-08-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

On July 31, 2008 Judge Bates of the Federal District Court found that former Presidential Counselor Harriet Miers and present Chief Of Staff Josh Bolton must appear before the House Judiciary Committee and answer questions and produce documents about the politicalization of the Justice Department, the firing of the nine U.S. Attorneys and presumably who Monica Goodling, Justice Department liaison with the White House, was liaising with when she was vetting Assistant U.S. attorneys and other people at Justice along political, religious and sexual orientation lines. Obviously she was too young and too ignorant to commit the gross injustices and crimes she did without the direction of a more devious and corrupt mentor.

Judge Bates found that there is no blanket Presidential Executive Privilege Immunity and the House Judiciary Committee could subpoena White House personnel for questioning and production of documents on their activities while in office. Indeed there are no laws justifying the conduct of these White House employees. They can appear and either invoke the Fifth Amendment Privilege against self incrimination or possibly assert the Presidential Privilege again. However Judge Bates has said this objection only applies in extreme cases as in national security and not in the present case.

Karl Rove also failed to appear and give testimony saying he was protected by Presidential Privilege. The Judiciary Committee has voted to request a contempt citation for him. Currently the request is waiting for Nancy Pelosi to call a full vote by the House on a contempt citation as was done in the Miers and Fielding cases. Presumably after Judge Bates’s decision she will if Rove doesn’t appear and testify.

Attorney General Mukasky who was appointed and approved by Congress on the promise that he would clean up the Justice Department refused to criminally enforce the Miers and Fielding citation. Thus the matter went to Federal District Court on civil contempt grounds. Rove raised the same privilege on the issue of the politicization of the Justice Department and other matters and failed to appear as required on the same basis as Miers and Bolton.

Miers and Bolton may appeal the judge’s decision. However if they do, and the appellate court rules against them after the Bush administration has left office they will not be in a position to seek a presidential pardon.

However Bush may pardon them anyway for any crimes they may have committed while in office when he is about to leave office and before a ruling. This would be politically explosive and whether he will do this remains to be seen. It could be seen as a gross disregard and contempt for the rule of law as seen in the Watergate case.

It would also be an admission of wrongdoing by his White House and it could be grounds for the appointment of a special prosecutor by who ever is the new attorney general to delve into Bush's his own conduct in the controversy.

Chairman Conyer's has already sent letters to the lawyers for Rove, Miers and Bolton for compliance with the court's order.*

The ball is in Miers, Bolton and Rove's court as to whether they will appear and testify or appeal.

* Full text of the order:

ORDER

Upon consideration of [16] defendants’ motion to dismiss and [14] plaintiff’s motion for partial summary judgment, the oppositions and replies thereto, the various amicus briefs filed in this matter, the entire record herein, the hearing on June 23, 2008, and for the reasons identified in the Memorandum Opinion issued on this date, it is hereby

1. ORDERED that defendants’ [16] motion to dismiss is DENIED; it is further

2. ORDERED that plaintiff’s [14] motion for partial summary judgment is GRANTED IN PART; it is further

3. DECLARED that Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena from plaintiff; and Ms. Miers may invoke executive privilege in response to specific questions as appropriate; it is further

4. ORDERED that Joshua Bolten and Ms. Miers shall produce all non-privileged documents requested by the applicable subpoenas and shall provide to plaintiff a specific description of any documents withheld from production on the basis of
executive privilege consistent with the terms of the Memorandum Opinion issued on this date; and it is further

5. ORDERED that the parties shall appear at a status call in this matter at 9:15 a.m.on August 27, 2008.

SO ORDERED.

/s/
JOHN D. BATES
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Date: July 31, 2008

KARL ROVE DEFIES CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENA

2008-07-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

THE PHANTOM

Wonder Why Karl Rove Doesn't Want To Testify?

Karl Rove Deliberately Failed To Appear Before A House Judiciary Subcommittee On July 10, 2008 After Being Supboened To Appear. The Ball Is Now In Chairman John Conyers' Court To Request A Criminal Contempt Of Congress Citation And For Enforcement by The Bush Justice Department. Enforcement By Attorney General Mukasky Is Unlikely To Happen Since He has Already Refused To Enforce Similar Citations Against Harriet Miers And Fred Fielding Alleging That The Parties Had Claimed Executive Privilege And That Therefore No Crime Had Been Committed. Rove Is Refusing To Appear On Similar Grounds. See:

Attorney General Mukasey Proves Himself As Feckless And Lacking in Integrity As Gonzales. He Refuses to Carry Out Statutory Duties
[Monday, May 05, 2008]

Movie Review: TRUMBO: DOCUMENTARY FILM. RATED B.

2008-07-08T22:46:00.000-07:00

DALTON TRUMBO

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AND PRODUCERS STILL TURN THEIR BACKS ON TRUMBO FILM AND THE ISSUES SURROUNDING THE BLACKLIST.

This film although raising issues central to our democracy seems to have been produced on a shoe string, despite the appearance of many prominent actors, probable at their own expense, to read Dalton Trumbo’s letters and words.

The subject of course is the blacklist and how it was used to destroy the Hollywood Ten by denying them the right to work. Trumbo blamed the studios and producers for not standing up to the House Un-American Activities Committee by not blacklisting those who refused to declare whether they had ever belonged to the Communist Party and name others whom they were aware of being members.

Trumbo, ever the idealist and child of the Great Depression, had been a member of the Communist Party USA in 1943 when Russia was an American ally in the war against the fascist powers in Europe.

In 1947 Trumbo refused to answer questions by raising the First Amendment Freedom Of Speech clause as protecting him from disclosing his political ideas and beliefs. He also refused to take the Fifth Amendment Right Against Self Incrimination on the grounds he had committed no crime.

Of course the Smith Act, passed in 1940, made it a crime to advocate the violent overthrow of the government. This Act was passed for the criminal prosecution of Communist Party members. So Trumbo was between a rock and a hard place. If he testified he was guilty of the Smith Act and if he didn’t he was guilty of Contempt of Congress. In his case he was convicted of contempt and spent eleven months in prison.

The sad part was that he was unemployable because of the blacklist. The picture depicts the consequences of the blacklist on Trumbo, his wife and children and also the others who were blacklisted.

Ironically J. Parnell Thomas the chairman of HUAC at the time was convicted of fraud and served time in the same prison as some of the Hollywood Ten.

Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Lane, Liam Neeson, David Strathairn, Josh Lucas and Donald Sutherland appear in the picture and read Trumbo’s eloquent letters and writings expressing his feeling about the matter.

One of the most salient parts of the movie is a scene from Spartacus which was based on Trumbo’s script. The Roman general tells the conquered slaves if they will identify Spartacus they would not be crucified. Where upon each of the slaves stands and says he is Spartacus.

The Smith Act is still on the books and has never been declared unconstitutional so lest you think the issues raised in this film are in the past the problem is still with us. Thus a man’s ideas as opposed to his acts can still make him a criminal.

This picture could have had wider appeal and had a wider release if it had better financing and marketing. It seems the powers that be in Hollywood would prefer this low budget documentary to briefly flower and die on the art house circuit and then go away as it is a testament to the Studio’s and producer’s failure to stand up and be counted when the chips were down. This is occurring when millions see fantasy CGI action pictures while a film addressing real abuses of power by the government is seen by a few thousand.

All and all it is a film worth seeing because just as Trumbo and hundreds of others lost their freedom and financial well being in the Forties and Fifties it can happen again and probably is right now under the Bush Justice Department. This is particularly true when you consider some of the things that have been done under the Patriot Act and the way the Bush Justice Department has used the Rico Law on perceived political enemies.

Scott McClellan Stops By The House Judiciary Committee On His Book Tour.

2008-06-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D Mich.)

Scott McClellan Voluntarily Appeared Before House Judiciary Committee And Testified About The Valerie Plame Leak. Doesn’t Think Bush Was Involved, Cheney He Doesn’t Know If Involved. Basically It Was A Book Promotion.

On Friday, June 20, 2008 Scott McClellan appeared before the House Judiciary Committee voluntarily and testified under oath as to his knowledge about the leak of C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame’s name to the press. He testified he didn’t believe President Bush either knew or was involved in the leak. As to Vice President Cheney’s role he didn’t know the extent if any. He referred to Patrick Fitzgerald’s statement that the conduct of Scooter Libbey , Cheney’s aide, cast a cloud over the Vice President’s office. Fitzgerald was the prosecutor in the Libbey case.

Libbey was convicted of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI but not for the disclosure of Plame’s identity to the press.

McClellan testified that the White House and the Vice President have not been forthright in disclosing the details and motivation for the Plame disclosure.

While concurring with the validity of the House Judiciary Committees investigation into the firing of the U.S. Attorneys and the Plame leak he had nothing of a substantive nature to add to the investigation

Basically he seems to have been given an opportunity to publicize his book.

John Conyers Jr. (D Mich) Chairman Of The House Judiciary Committee "Invites" Scott McClellan To Testify On What He Knows About Valerie Plame Leak.

2008-06-17T14:46:00.000-07:00

Scott McClellan, Delivering The Daily Spin

In former presidential spokesperson Scott McClellan’s recent book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception he discusses the Valerie Plame affair, over which Scooter Libbey was convicted of one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned Plame’s identity and whom he told. Now Chairman Conyers has invited McClellan to testify under oath before the House Judiciary Committee. In a press release Representative Conyers said “In his book, Mr. McClellan suggests that senior White House officials may have obstructed justice and engaged in a cover-up regarding the Valerie Plame leak. This alleged activity could well extend beyond the scope of the offenses for which Scooter Libby has been convicted and deserves further attention.”

Representative Conyers further said "I find Mr. McClellan's revelations about attempts to cover-up the Valerie Plame leak extremely troubling. Particularly disturbing is McClellan's assertion that he was specifically directed by Andy Card to 'vouch' for Scooter Libby after the investigation had begun, which, if true, could amount to obstruction of justice beyond that for which Mr. Libby has already been convicted.”

McClellan may have made a mistake in trying to front run the Bush Administration’s final days with a tell all book criticizing the administrations management of the news.

The letter inviting McClellan to testify on June 20^th 2008 is usually a precursor to a subpoena if the “invitee” fails to agree to appear and testify.

Karl Rove Subpoenaed To Testify Before House Judiciary Committee On Politicization Of The Justice Department And The Prosecution Of Governor Seigelman

2008-06-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

Citizen Rove. Why Is He Afraid To Testify Under Oath?

After refusing to appear voluntarily, Karl Rove has been subpoenaed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the politicization of the Department Of Justice and the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman . Previously it was noted in an Article entitled “WILL MUKASEY APPOINT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR OR IS HE ANOTHER GONZALES?” posted Tuesday, April 01, 2008 as follows;

"Siegelman after serving nine months in Federal Prison has been released on bond by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals pending resolution of his appeal. This conviction and others is under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee for the practice of targeting Democrats by the Bush Justice Department. Jill Simpson a Republican attorney who had worked for Mr. Siegelman’s opponent in the 2002 election, which Siegelman lost by 2300 votes, has given a sworn affidavit stating that an associate of Karl Rove had assured her that Mr. Rove and two U.S. Attorney were “going to take care of Mr. Siegelman.” Forty four states attorneys general signed a petition urging the Judiciary Committee to investigate the prosecution, conviction and detention of Mr. Siegelman in that there were allegations of jury tampering and other irregularities connected with his trial and conviction.”

Rove has been subpoenaed to testify before the Committee on July 10, 2008. Rove who is a private citizen is represented by Robert Luskin Esq. of Patton Boggs LLP. Previously Harriet Miers, the former Presidential Counselor and Fred Fielding Bush’s Chief of Staff were subpoenaed and failed to appear on a similar issue. The Attorney General refused to enforce the subpoenas by a criminal contempt action and the matter is now the subject of a civil contempt suit filed in Federal District Court. They are being defended by the Justice Department under the theories of Executive Privilege and Separation Of Powers . Rove through his attorney has claimed the same protections.

I t now remains to be seen if Rove will appear or like Miers and Fielding, not appear at all, not even to refuse to answer question on the basis of privilege.

Executive Privilege is an unlikely defense. No allegation was made in correspondence between the Committee and Mr. Luskin that Mr. Rove’s testimony was related to advice given the President and therefore it is doubtful the privilege would apply. The Separation Of Powers defense is weak and not well taken.

Also even in instances where Executive Privilege might apply there is a balancing test weighing the need for privilege over the need for the information to formulate necessary legislation.

These defenses, in the immortal words of John Nance Garner, (are) "not worth a warm bucket of piss."

However, Mukasey and the members of the Federalist Society on the bench will protect him. If not then Bush will pardon him.

Mr. Rove could finally face justice for his actions if Obama is elected President and a new Attorney General is appointed. However as said Bush will pardon him before leaves the White House.

Movie Review: RECOUNT (HBO Television Movie) The Story Of The 2000 Florida Election. Gore Lost Florida Long Before The Election In Nov 2000. Rated B

2008-05-30T21:17:00.000-07:00

" I'm still going to be Cruella de Vil.", Katherine Harris. Well she called something right.

This film written by Danny Strong and directed by Jay Roach is about the 2000 Florida recount. The election was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore in favor of George W. Bush by a five to four vote along party lines. The film stars Kevin Spacey , as Ron Klain, Gore's demoted chief of staff who rises to be in charge of the confrontation; Bob Balaban, as Ben Ginsberg the Bush campaigns chief counsel; Ed Begley, Jr. as David Boies a lawyer who handles the appellate work for the Democrats; Laura Dern, the Florida Republican Secretary of State; John Hurt as Warren Christopher, Democratic eminence grise who abandons the field because of a family illness; Denis Leary, as Michael Whouley, chief Gore field operative; Bruce McGill as Mac Stipanovich a Republican operative ( akin to a Nixon plumber) and Tom Wilkinson as Jim Baker, The legal and tactical chief of the Bush side. Baker filed a federal action early on based on the theory that Bush's civil rights had been violated that was the basis of the later appeal to the Supreme Court. Irony of ironies.

The premise of this film is that the Florida vote was too close to call because of the flawed mechanical counting machines that were ineffective in resolving a difference of less that .05 percent between the candidates. Because of this the U.S. Supreme Court decided the election along party lines which should have been decided by the will of the voters.

Scalia, Thomas, O'Conner, Kennedy and Rehnquist, all Republican appointees, were in the majority while Ginsberg and Breyer, Democratic appointees and Souter (by George H.W. Bush) and Stevens, Republican appointees where in the minority. The kicker was that three of the majority, Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist were previously on record as holding that elections were the province of the states and state law. In this case the majority limited their ruling to the facts in this case. Therefore the holding cannot be cited as precedent. This gives rise to the inference that this was a political decision not a legal one.

The film reveals many fascinating facts. Katherine Harris had Mac Stipanovich in her office advising her how to manage the conflict in Bush's favor. She is painted as a vacuous Republican without the intellectual, moral and ethical qualities to carry out the duties of a Secretary of State. Laura Dern's characterization of her is over the top as is Tom Wilkinson’s depiction of Jim Baker as a Republican strategist who is willing to take to the streets in order to win the election. It is revealed that Baker was a Democrat until age forty when his first wife died and he became a George H.W.Bush supporter. Baker comes off as the astute strategist who sees that the dispute will ultimately end in the Supreme Court where the Republicans had many friends. Boies the Democratic lawyer believes that the matter will be settled in the state courts on settled legal principles.

We see Republican operatives, flown in on an Enron jet, mob the Miami-Dade election offices to shut down a hand recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. Republican public relations experts call in colorful characters to parade the Bush mantra of “no recount” in front of the cable and network cameras massed outside the Florida Supreme Court. Bob Dole and other Republican leaders are seen on talk shows and the news condemning the recount because it was "impossible" to discern a voters intent by hanging chad or dimpled ballots.

The film explains that dimpled and hanging chad on punch ballots are not always the fault of the voter. Problems arise because there is a build up of chad from prior voters in the machine that prevent subsequent voters being able to fully detach the chad signifying their vote. However in a hand recount it can be discerned that the voter intended to punch a chad signifying a vote for a particular candidate. The Republican effort was to prevent a hand recount at all costs.

Gore lost Florida long before Election Day because Secretary Of State Harris purged twenty thousand African-American voters from the rolls for allegedly being a convicted felons or having a name similar to a convicted felon. This was not learned until the excluded persons went to vote. Also there was no recourse by that time. Now if a person’s right to vote is challenged he is allowed to complete a provisional ballot and then have the matter adjudicated. The way Harris purged the rolls no one knew until he or she showed up to the polls that they had been purged and there and was no way of submitting a tentative ballot and having the issue adjudicated.

So Harris excluded twenty thousand and Blacks by fiat with no right of recourse if a mistake had been made. In the film a black minister named Willie Williams was prevented from voting because his name was similar to William Williams an allegedly convicted felon. What the real status of these persons was no one knew because an outside software company was hired by Harris for millions of dollars to conduct the purge of registered voters. How the twenty thousand voters would have voted is unknown except African Americans tend to vote Democratic. Harris comes across as so unethical and partisan that the purge was obviously done to benefit the Republican side. (In 2004 Jeb Bush ordered 48000 thousand persons purged as felons. However this was stopped by lawsuits before the election.)

Gore also had to contend with Ralph Nader who received ninety thousand votes most of which would have gone to him if Nader was not a third party candidate. However this fact was not discussed in the film

Finally voters in Palm Beach County cast six thousand votes for Pat Buchanan which even he said must have been a mistake because of the confusing butterfly ballots. The county is heavenly populated by retired Jewish Democrats who would not have voted for conservative Buchanan except for the fact of the confusing butterfly ballot.

Thus Florida should have been a Democratic state if the aforesaid forces had not come into play allowing the matter to be decided on a partisan basis by the conservative justices of the Supreme Court. The hand recount had been stopped by the Supreme court while they considered the matter and then the Court declared there wasn't enough time for a recount to be accomplished within the Florida statutory deadline which effectively decided the election for Bush

This result occurred despite the fact that Gore won the national popular vote.

This film will probably be released to DVD later for those who don't subscribe to HBO

FILM REVIEW: UP THE YANGTZE: ANOTHER GREAT LEAP FORWARD BY CHINA? RATED A.

2008-05-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

The Chongqing Metropolitan Area, Midway Up the Yangtze, Is Home To 30.9 Million People.

In 1958 Mao Zedong initiated the Great Leap Forward wherein he conceived that

China

could advance economically by making the communes responsible for economic development. Thus we saw peasants trying to increase steel production in back yard foundries. The plan failed.

Another economic plan which Mao supported was the Three Gorges Hydroelectric Project which will be the largest in the World when completed in 2011. The dam will be five times larger than Hoover Dam. This film deals with the consequences of the project on the people and environment along the Yangtze.

First this film is beautifully photographed and if you thought the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze and its surrounding areas were rural and agricultural think again. The river is a super highway for industrial barges and ships ferrying commerce up and down the river from the many factories and industries along its 6300 kilometer length. Numerous excursion boats, ships and other boats are also seen navigating the river. There is very little sunlight in this film as pollution blots out the direct rays of the sun most of the time.

I am not sure whether to call this film a documentary, a docudrama or by some new designation because it also depicts a sixteen year old Chinese girl, Yu Shui, born of illiterate, peasant squatters who farm a marginal plot of land at the rivers edge. The jerry built shack that houses her mother, father and younger brother and sister looks to be well below the lowest flood level.

The Yangtze has flooded its banks on numerous occasions. Most recently, in the summer of 1998, it over flowed its banks causing 3,004 deaths, 14 million homeless and $24 billion in economic loss.

Yu Shui has finished middle school and she wants to go to high school but the family has no money for her education. In fact she needs to work to help support the family. To this end she reluctantly takes a job on the river cruise ship Victoria as a dish washer. The cruise line caters to western tourists who are on an oxymoranic “Farewell Cruise” before the new dam raises the Yangtze 175 meters. Yu Shui is assigned the name Cindy apparently for the convenience of the tourists. Her family’s life and her life are intimately photographed and so we are not sure how much is staged for the camera and how much is real and spontaneous.

We learn from Yu Shui’s father that he was the son of a minor bureaucrat before the revolution and that after the fall of the Nationalist Government his father was denounced as a counter revolutionary. As to the father’s ultimate fate we are left in the dark other than to learn that his wife starved to death in the famine of 1960. The year the Great Leap Forward ended in failure.

We never learn why Yu Shui’s parents are illiterate in a communist state where education is supposed to be available to all unless they were excluded because of the grandfather’s politics. Another thing that is not explained is why there are three children in Yu Shui’s family when China has a policy of one child per family. Does this fact account for the family’s economic status? We also learn that the father was a “coolie” working on the Fengdu docks before he took up subsistence farming and that his job was lost because of the rising river. Later in the film we see the father working as a laborer on the river’s embankments.

There is another person featured in this film named Chen Bo Yu who is given the name “Jerry”. He is nineteen, handsome, self centered and speaks English. He is a male “little emperor” from a one child middleclass family who can afford to educate him. He is assigned to work directly with the tourists on the cruise which means he receives tips. He also runs afoul of the management when it is learned that he solicits tips from the passengers.

Later in the film Jerry gives and impromptu speech for the camera that all he cares about is money and that he doesn’t want work for the older passengers as they don’t tip as well as the middle aged tourists on the boat. Still, later he is let go at the end of the trip for his attitude but he doesn’t care because his family will send him to college. Why both he and Yu Shui must pay for their education in a socialist state is left unstated. It may be that education is based on competitive testing or political connections and that those who fail to be accepted in a state school can buy an education at a private school.

In the end we see Yu Shui’s family laboriously drag their shabby belongings by hand and push cart to a run down apartment where they have been resettled. The river rises and their small plot and shack disappears. Yu Shui returns to her lowly position as a dish washer on the cruise ship. The best she can hope for is to learn enough English so she can be assigned to the dinning room as a waitress and earn tips.

This film is about the monumental changes that have and are taking place in China and the social consequences to the people. The film is ambivalent as to whether it is a good thing to inundate the Three Gorges Area, an area of greater significance in cultural and environmental terms than our Grand Canyon.

The film is prefaced by this quote from Confucius: "By 3 methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection which is noblest; second, by imitation which is easiest; and third, by experience which is the bitterest."

Thus we will have to wait and see whether the destruction of the natural beauty of the Three Gorges area and the dislocation of two million people is worth the electricity and flood control the dam will bring.

Political Opinion: Attorney General Mukasey Proves Himself As Feckless And Lacking in Integrity As Gonzales. He Refuses to Carry Out Statutory Duties

2008-05-05T22:47:00.000-07:00

DOES THE RULE OF LAW HAVE A CHANCE IN WASHINGTON?

On February 28, 2008 House speaker Nancy Pelosi Sent Attorney General Mukasey a letter requesting that he order the U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to enforce the House Resolution citing Harriet Miers and Jeffrey Bolton for criminal Contempt of Congress.

Ms. Miers, a former Counselor to the President and Mr. Bolton, White House Chief of Staff, were cited by a House contempt resolution for failure to respond to subpoenas for Mier’s testimony and for Bolton to produce documents concerning the Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the dismissal of 7 U.S. Attorneys.

The dismissed U.S. Attorneys alleged they were dismissed because they refused to bring invalid actions against political candidates for corruption and for voter fraud. The 7 U.S. Attorneys had previously been appointed by the Bush Administration and now were being dismissed mid- term for refusing to bow to political pressure from the White House to indict candidates adverse to the administration or bring voter fraud cases to inhibit Democratic turnout in close elections.

Mukasey wrote back to Speaker Pelosi that he would not order the U.S. Attorney to enforce the House Resolution because the parties in question claimed executive privilege and therefore a crime had not been committed.

Neither Miers nor Bolton had appeared before the Committee and claimed the privilege on a question by question basis or provided a privilege log listing the document and stating the grounds for application of the privilege. This is a statutory procedure to claim testimony or documents as privileged.

Miers and Bolton’s failure to appear in person and their claim of executive privilege, by letter, as to all communications including ones between the White House and the Justice Department or the White House and third parties is clearly not covered by executive privilege. Communications between Ms. Miers and the President may be privileged depending on the nature and type of communication. No allegation was made in correspondence between the Committee and the White House that the subpoenaed documents or testimony was related to advice given the President and therefore it is unlikely the privilege would apply.

Also even in instances where the privilege might apply there is a balancing test weighing the need for privilege over the need for the information to formulate necessary legislation.

Mukasey has a statutory duty to enpanel a grand jury for the investigation and enforcement of a Congressional Contempt citation.

In refusing to honor the citation at the request of Speaker Pelosi he is in violation of the law and probably himself in Contempt of Congress.

Thus he is a feckless lackey of the Bush Administration like Gonzales.

The House Judiciary Committee thorough the House General Counsels office has filed a Civil Contempt Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief against Miers, individually and Bolton as custodian of White House records. The case is filed in the Federal District court for the District of Columbia and Assigned to Judge John D. Bates who was appointed to the Federal bench in 2001 by George W. Bush.

Prior to his appointment Bates served as a Deputy Counsel to the discredited Kenneth Starr in the Whitewater Investigation. Further he dismissed Valerie Plames civil suit for damages against Cheney, Libby, Rove and Armitage for the disclosure of her identity as a CIA agent. This despite the Supreme Court ruling that even a sitting president could be sued civilly in the Paula Jones case. She sued Clinton for sexual harassment.

The disgraced Kenneth Starr used the discovery in Jones’s case as support in his witch hunt against the Clintons. Starr proved himself to be a man without self respect or integrity in that matter. Mukasey and Bates appear to be other diehard Bush loyalists cut from the same cloth as Starr. .

Thus the partisan fecklessness continues in the Justice Department and apparently in the judiciary. The members of both bodies are sworn to impartially uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States.

It looks like it will be a long time before the subpoenas will be enforced or the rule of law will prevail in this matter.

Political Opinion: ABSOLUTE PROSECUTORIAL IMMUNITY VERSUS QUALIFIED IMMUNITY.

2008-05-05T22:37:00.000-07:00

ABSOLUTE PROSECUTORIAL IMMUNITY VERSUS QUALIFIED IMMUNITY.
Which protects the public, innocent accused and the prosecutorial community?

Numerous cases have revealed that prosecutors have been guilty of concealing exculpatory evidence presenting false evidence or other practices that deprive the accused in a criminal case of his due process rights under the 5th and 14th Amendments. When exposed this usually results in a reversal of the conviction and release of the wrongfully convicted from jail. Of course if the defendant has been executed then exoneration is meaningless.

However the Supreme Court in Imbler v. Pachtman has ruled that prosecutors have absolute immunity even when they knowingly present false evidence at trial or suppress exculpatory evidence at trial. This leaves them to be disciplined on some occasions by their state bar.

Absolute prosecutorial immunity only attaches when it is intimately connected with the trial of a case. For instance it does not attach when a prosecutor is assisting the police in investigatory functions or in activities not directly involved in the trial of a particular case. It is not based on the job title, prosecutor, but on the function the prosecutor is performing namely intimately trying a particular case. Intimately is a word used by the courts to describe when absolute immunity attaches usually during the trial of a particular case

Recent civil cases against supervisory prosecutors for damages due to a failure to set standards or office procedures for the protection of constitutional rights of the accused are not accorded absolute immunity but may have qualified immunity.

This occurred in Goldstein v. Van De Kamp, where the Los Angeles County District Attorney and his chief deputy were sued for failure to set up an index to alert prosecutors of all relevant information to each prosecution including promises made to jail house informants in return for favorable testimony.

Goldstein served twenty four years in jail on a conviction for murder based on the testimony of Edward Floyd Fink a notorious jail house snitch who had received numerous reduced sentences in the past and in Goldstein’s case had been promised favorable treatment on a pending case for testifying that Goldstein had confessed to him while they were incarcerated together in the Long Beach, California city jail.

Ultimately Goldstein won his freedom on a writ of Habeas Corpus when it came out that Fink had perjured himself by denying that a promise of favorable treatment had been made or that he had received such treatment in the past for similar jail house “confession” testimony.

Fink was well known by the Long Beach police and other prosecutors as a jail house snitch but allegedly not known by the deputy district attorney handling Goldstein’s case.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Goldstein’s suit for civil damages against the District Attorney and his chief deputy could proceed since their failure to set up a proper index disclosing a witness’s status and the promises made to him or her was administrative and not intimately connected to the Goldstein prosecution. Therefore Goldstein’s right to due process had been violated. This case has been appealed to the Supreme Court which has placed it on its calendar of cases to be heard.

However it will only hear the issue of qualified immunity as it relates to administrative duties and not absolute prosecutorial immunity.

It seems that there should not be absolute immunity for a prosecutor who either deliberately or with wanton disregard for the truth or falsity thereof offers false evidence or suppresses relevant evidence in a criminal trial.

The policy reason given for absolute immunity is that it would require prosecutors to spend too much time defending themselves civilly and thus take them away from their main prosecutorial functions. This argument sounds hollow. This is particularly true in the light of recent studies such as the Benjamin Cardozo Law School Innocence Project which found that based on DNA studies 154 innocent people have spent time in prison. In many cases the convictions of the innocent were the result of prosecutorial misconduct.

Prosecutors should only be accorded qualified immunity in all cases even those functions intimately connected with the trial of a particular case.

In doing so decent hard working prosecutors as well as the innocent will be protected from by those who would build a career and reputation on the conviction of the innocent using false evidence or suppressing relevant evidence.

A notorious case of prosecutorial misconduct in recent years was that of Michael Byron Nifong. Nifong charged white, Duke Lacrosse players with the sexual assault of a black woman who was working as an escort, prostitute, and stripper. At the time he was running for district attorney in a county with a large black population

Nifong was later disbarred and dismissed as a prosecutor after it was determined that he never interviewed the accuser who changed her story at least six times, used photographs for identification that only depicted Duke Lacrosse players and failed to timely provide defendants with exculpatory DNA evidence.

The three Lacrosse players ultimately charged spent over three million dollars defending themselves against the false accusations which also had national and international publicity. Had the players not had the resources to defend themselves as is the case in so many prosecutions Nifong might have gotten away with his conduct perpetrated to help his election as district attorney.

He did win election as district attorney but has been since dismissed. He now has taken bankruptcy to avoid the consequences of a civil suit brought by the falsely accused. He may not have absolute prosecutorial immunity since many of his actions were administrative or investigative and not intimately related to prosecution of the Duke players.

However his case shows how a corrupt prosecutor can suppress evidence or manipulate evidence to enhance his reputation and electabilty over his honest opponents. Nifong is a good example of how a corrupt prosecutor can advance his career by the prosecution of the innocent and a defining reason why there should be no absolute prosecutorial immunity

Movie Review: DECEPTION: A NEO NOIR THRILLER. FLAWED BUT WORTH A LOOK. HUGH JACKMAN, EWAN MCGREGOR, MICHELLE WILLIAMS. RATED B.

2008-05-04T18:55:00.001-07:00

Deception is a neo noir thriller. Staring Ewan McGregor as a Jonathan an outside auditor who reviews the books of large law and financial firms on Wall St. Hugh Jackman plays Wyatt Bose who poses as a lawyer at a firm being audited. Michelle Williams, the love interest, plays a beautiful woman that Jonathan meets through a sex club. Jonathan unwittingly becomes a member of the club through Wyatt’s deception intended as a trap to coerce Jonathan to do his bidding.

The cinematography by Dante Spinotti is excellent. It is shot in a bleached color for the modern noir effect seen before in The Game and Fight Club. The acting is excellent. The direction is good by Marcel Langenegger . The picture is technically good. However it is understated at times perhaps deliberately but it doesn’t work.

First it runs into trouble with the plot. It is slow at points but worse these characters don't act like people so we don’t completely suspend our disbelief. This is especially true with an ambiguous and contrived ending. However noir thriller fans will enjoy the effort and see what could have been. It should be judged against the genre and not against the absurd action or lowlife comedies that seem to glut the screen and vacuum up movie revenue. It is worth seeing for what it attempts.

Another problem is that Michelle Williams, we don’t learn her characters name until late in the film, is too beautiful and fragile to make a convincing femme fatale even in the dénouement at the end of the film or as a member of a sex club. Charlotte Rampling is cast as a member of the sex club and she is obviously much older than the other club members.

Usually the edits or cuts in thrillers are rapid and sharp to keep the viewer on edge to the point of disorientation and to make it difficult to piece the puzzle together until to the end or when the viewer is driving home or maybe even the next day. Well this film doesn’t have that rapid fire style and you know early on Michelle Williams is going to part of the deception. If they name the film Deception you know there will be a deception and not just the one Wyatt pulls on Jonathan at the beginning of the picture.

Perhaps the film would be more cohesive if Michelle Williams took the Jackman part, then she would certainly be a femme fatale like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, and you wouldn’t need the part she plays. It would make for a tighter more tense screen play or another (Maggie Q is in the film in a minor part) woman could play her part and Jackman could be a policeman. I digress too far. The picture has a lot of talent in front of and behind the camera and is worth a look. I rate it a B for effort.

Political Opinion: WILL MUKASEY APPOINT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR OR IS HE ANOTHER GONZALES?

2008-04-01T16:56:00.000-07:00

The Bush Justice Department targeted Democratic Politicians For Investigation or Prosecution Seven To One Over Republicans.

A recent study by two academics from the University of Minnesota, Donald Sheilds Ph.D and John F. Craigan, determined that of 375 investigations/ prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys since 2001 of candidates or elected officials 298 involved Democrats, 67 involved Republicans and 10 involved Independents.

One case was that of the Don Siegelman ex-Governor of Alabama who was indicted and convicted of bribery, mail fraud and conspiracy for accepting a campaign contribution of $500,000 to pay off a remaining debt on a campaign to establish a state lottery to fund public schools. He later appointed Richard Scrushy, the donor, to the state hospital licensing board.

Siegelman after serving nine months in Federal Prison has been released on bond by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals pending resolution of his appeal. This conviction and others is under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee for the practice of targeting Democrats by the Bush Justice Department. Jill Simpson a Republican attorney who had worked for Mr. Siegelman’s opponent in the 2002 election, which Siegelman lost by 2300 votes, has given a sworn affidavit stating that an associate of Karl Rove had assured her that Mr. Rove and two U.S. Attorney were “going to take care of Mr. Siegelman.” Forty four states attorneys general signed a petition urging the Judiciary Committee to investigate the prosecution, conviction and detention of Mr. Siegelman in that there were allegations of jury tampering and other irregularities connected with his trial and conviction.

Concurrent with this investigation is the investigation into the firing of
7 U.S Attorneys in 2007 under suspicious circumstances. The exact circumstances were never admitted by the Administration but it appeared that they were fired for failing to indict Democratic politicians in sensitive elections.

The White House says it can’t find 140,000 emails sent or received on the official White House email system by Karl Rove before he resigned. The Republic National Committee says it will not recover the emails that Karl Rove and other White House personnel sent or received under a separate illegal non- governmental email system operated by the RNC in the White House. The emails would likely reveal the facts about the pressuring of the 93 U.S Attorneys for political purposes in elections. If they would exonerate the Administration they would have been produced in response to the Judiciary Committee’s subpoenas long ago.

Normally, Presidents appoint U.S. Attorneys at the beginning of their term and the attorneys remain at their post for at least four years or are reappointed at the conclusion of the next election cycle. Amendments in the 2005 Patriot Act sponsored by the Administration allowed the Attorney General to replace dismissed U.S. Attorneys without approval by the Senate for unlimited periods. This provision of the Act has since been deleted when Congress found out what the Administration was up to.

Before The amendment vacancies filled by an interim attorney could last just 120 days before a nominee had to be approved by the Senate or a replacement was appointed by the Federal Court in the District were the attorney was going to serve on an emergency basis until a candidate was confirmed by the Senate.

Obviously this clause in the Patriot Act was an attempt to appoint U.S. Attorneys with out approval by The Senate by Gonzales, Rove and Bush. One wonders that if the seven dismissals in 2007 were for failure to prosecute political rivals of the Administration or Republican candidates for office what the 86 other U. S. Attorneys had done or were doing to please Gonzales, Rove, Miers and Bush so as to avoid dismissal.

Harriet Miers the former counsel to the president is refusing to appear and testify before the committee on the subject of political pressures and interference with the selection and duties of U.S. Attorneys although she has been subpoenaed to do so. Fred Fielding the new Counsel to the President is claiming executive privilege on her behalf.

Normally subpoenaed witnesses appear and claim the privilege in person. The matter is now on its way to the courts for a decision.

It is obvious that crimes of obstruction of justice and malfeasance are likely to have been committed by Alberto Gonzales, Karl Rove, Harriet Miers and probably others. Therefore a special prosecutor should be appointed by Attorney General Mukasey and a grand jury impaneled to determine what crimes have been committed and to charge the responsible parties.

Political Opinion: ELIOT SPITZER : WAS HE TARGETED BY HIS ADVERSARIES?

2008-03-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

EXACTLY WHO WINS AND LOSES? THE COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS.

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…” Jesus Christ.
It seems Eliot Spitzer may be sinner but he was not offered forgiveness or succor by the flacks and mob that relished the downfall of such and able and powerful man. Many of those who condemned him were guilty of their own sexual misadventures like Bill O’Reilly at Fox News. He was one of the loudest and longest to condemn.

Spitzer had been a very effective Attorney General who brought many suits against the powerful. These included actions against fraudulent practices in the banking, securities and insurance communities. As a result billions of dollars were returned to average citizens and small investors or paid as fines. Thus he had many powerful enemies. Then he ran as the Democratic candidate for the Governor of New York and won by sixty-nine percent of the vote. This win and his past work as a hard charging Attorney General against the misdeeds of the rich and powerful made him a contender for higher political office such as Vice President or possibly President.

One wonders why a bank would find cash transactions over a number of years allegedly totaling $80,000.00 so unusual in a place like New York, the financial capital of the world. The exception here being that the account belonged to a man they knew to be an adversary to unlawful and fraudulent banking practices.

The bank's questions were not bought to his attention for an explanation like any good bank would do with a valued customer. Instead it was turned over the Internal Revenue Service for investigation. The IRS finding no violation passed it on to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York. The result: 6000 wire taped conversations on an escort service that received about $16000 of Spitzer’s money. The taps allegedly revealed some of the money was used by Spitzer to pay for an escort. This service was naïve enough in these days of the Patriot Act to require clients to transfer money to an offshore bank account. A complaint was filed against the escort service referring to a client number nine. Spitzer’s identity as client number nine was leaked to the NY Times and later the escort’s name came out as she was compelled to testify in court. No one has identified the leaker.

Strangely, no other client’s name has been revealed or leaked and there must be hundreds if not thousands of them. One wonders what all the 6000 wire taped conversations revealed, not just the ones related to Spitzer which found there way so easily into the press.

Was Spitzer targeted as a strong democrat to be destroyed by the Bush appointed U.S. Attorney? That office was upstaged and embarrassed by the work of Spitzer as the State Attorney General. Many of the actions could have been bought by the SEC or the U.S. Attorneys office if the Bush Justice Department was interested in protecting the public. There was a score to settle here as well as the opportunity to cripple a strong democratic candidate.
EXACTLY WHO WINS AND LOSES? THE COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS. Read more...