Yes We Can!

With just four days left before the 2008 presidential election, now is a good time for some inspiration.

And I can think of no better place to find it than with "Yes We Can," a new song and video about the Barack Obama campaign, by contemporary Jewish artist Stacy Beyer.

I had never heard of Beyer, but she evidently has been around a while, producing three CDs. Here is a page about her from CD Baby. And here is a profile with some biographical information.

Another video of the same name was released back in February to considerable attention on the Web. It's a hip-hop tune, based on one of Obama's speeches.

The new song was writtten by Beyer and features soaring, gospel-tinged vocals. To my untrained ears, it's a terrific piece of work, and I plan to learn more about Beyer's music.

Check out "Yes We Can:"

Has Karl Rove's Terror Campaign Worked in the Deep South?

After I wrote yesterday about the race for a seat on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, a disturbing question came to mind:

Has Republican strategist Karl Rove succeeded with his long-running campaign to intimidate Democratic candidates for statewide offices in the Deep South?

In his seminal reporting on the Bush Justice Department, Scott Horton of Harper's magazine has raised numerous important points about the motives behind political prosecutions, such as the Don Siegelman case in Alabama and the Paul Minor case in Mississippi.

Two points, in particular, are rattling around in my head at the moment:

* The goal behind the Mississippi prosecution apparently was to dry up a key source of financial support for Democratic candidates. Paul Minor, an attorney who had become wealthy from bringing successful litigation against the asbestos and tobacco industries, was one such donor--in Mississippi and beyond. Minor was a major supporter of John Edwards' presidential campaign, and Horton has reported that Bush strategists had fingered Edwards as the most likely threat to Dubya's re-election in 2004. That evidently helped make Minor a target for the Bush DOJ--along with state judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield, who had received Minor's campaign support. Minor, Teel, and Whitfield all are in federal prison for crimes that, as we have shown in an extensive series of posts here at Legal Schnauzer, they did not commit. The message? If you give to Democratic candidates in a deep red, Deep South state, you will come to regret it.

* The goal of the Alabama prosecution apparently was to eliminate a Democrat who had a troubling habit of beating Republicans in statewide elections. Siegelman had done it four times--in races for secretary of state, attorney general, lieutenant governor, and governor. Rove and Co. evidently decided, "By God, he's not going to get re-elected as governor." And they used a federal investigation, and disappearing vote totals overnight in heavily Republican Baldwin County, to accomplish that goal. The message? If you are a Democrat who beats us at the ballot box in a deep red, Deep South state, we will make you pay.

Those messages came to mind after I wrote yesterday that Presiding Judge William C. Thompson, a Republican, is almost certainly going to be re-elected to his seat on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals--even though he is demonstrably corrupt. I know Thompson is corrupt because I had an appeal before him in 2005, and Thompson swept the unlawful trial-court judgment under the rug by issuing a no-opinion affirmance.

Thompson appears to be a shoo-in for re-election because Democratic challenger Kimberly Drake has not been able to put up much of a fight. My post drew the following response from Robert Sullivan, Drake's campaign manager:

To quickly and briefly respond to the Legal Schnauzer blog, we’re putting up as much of a fight as we can, given our resources.

Thompson does lead Drake in campaign contributions--this is Alabama and a Democrat will always face an uphill battle. He is a beneficiary of the same backers as Shaw (Greg Shaw, running for Alabama Supreme Court) and is another product of Rove’s gaming of Alabama’s elections.

However, Kim has TV spots scheduled to appear this week, as are some radio spots. She has given interviews with several newspapers and a radio station. She also appeared at the judicial fundraiser and candidate forum at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

In the mean time, Drake is still a mother of three and a lawyer, while Thompson has time to fritter away.

We are also reaching out to Christians, who are unhappy with Thompson. Politics makes for strange bed fellows.

This is not over.

I hope Sullivan is right, and I didn't mean to imply that Drake isn't doing the best she can do. In fact, she has two sure votes here in the Schnauzer household, and I encourage all Alabamians to vote for her.

My main point was this: Bill Thompson needs to be booted out of office, and it's a crying shame that the Alabama Democratic Party could not help a candidate (either Drake or someone else) put up a serious fight. For two or three years now, I've been trying to tell Alabama Democratic leaders that I can prove the all-Republican Court of Civil Appeals is corrupt--and I've been willing to go public with it. But Democrats have not been able to take advantage, and as a result, Bill Thompson almost certainly will get another six years on the bench.

But back to Karl Rove: Is it possible Democrats could not give Thompson a fight because they were afraid to do it, even afraid to win?

Why would Kim Drake, or any other Democrat, want to solicit significant donations, and why would any donor want to give? Look what happened in the Paul Minor case next door in Mississippi!

Why would Kim Drake, or any other Democrat, want to push too hard for victory? My God, what if she actually won? Look what happened to Don Siegelman!

As we sit here now, just a few days from the November 4 election, we know that a Democrat has a pretty good chance of winning the White House and taking back the Justice Department from Republican criminals. But neither Drake, nor any other Democrat who might have run against Thompson, knew that at the outset.

If I had been in their shoes, knowing what had happened in the Siegelman and Minor cases, I might have given Bill Thompson a free pass, too.

Hopefully, next Tuesday will be a red-letter day for Democrats--and for justice. And hopefully, Rove & Co. someday will pay big time for the crimes they have committed.

But for now, Rove's legacy of threats and intimidation still has teeth. And it shows in the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals.

Alabama Is About to Re-Elect a Corrupt Appellate Judge

Several Alabama races are shaping up as doozies next Tuesday, particularly three for seats in Congress and one for a spot on the Alabama Supreme Court.

Democrats appear to have decent shots in all four races.

The same cannot be said for another important race, one that affects everyone in Alabama. And that's a shame because the Republican incumbent is corrupt.

We're talking about the race between Presiding Judge William C. "Bill" Thompson and Democratic challenger Kimberly Harbison Drake for a spot on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals.

Thompson is bidding for his third term on the court. Drake, who worked as a registered nurse before becoming a lawyer, has barely put up a fight. According to a recent item in The Birmingham News, Drake has raised about $8,000, almost half of that from herself. Thompson has raised about $277,000.

Drake will definitely get my vote. But according to The Birmingham News, she has only four years of experience as a lawyer and relatively little financial clout. That means she has little chance of winning.

And that's too bad because Thompson doesn't deserve another term on the bench. What he deserves is a term in federal prison.

Why would I say such a thing about a fine Alabama jurist? Because it's fact. And Thompson is not even a clever crook. He leaves an ample paper trail, which I am holding in my hands at this moment (while I type with my nose).

How do I know Thompson is a crook? Because I had a case before him--an appeal of the lawsuit that is at the heart of this blog.

The case was styled Roger Shuler v. Mike McGarity, appeal from Shelby County Circuit Court (CV-00-1248). It was Appellate Court Docket Number 2040161, and the "decision" on it was released June 24, 2005.

Here's a brief summary of what led to the appeal. My next-door neighbor Mike McGarity (he of the eight criminal convictions) sued me for malicious prosecution and conversion after I filed a complaint against him for criminal trespass, third degree (which is a violation, not even a misdemeanor). During the criminal trial, McGarity unwittingly confessed to the crime, but District Judge Ron Jackson still found him not guilty. That unlawful acquittal allowed McGarity to turn around and sue me.

(Memo to future crime victims: If the person who victimizes you is acquitted, he can turn around and victimize you again--in civil court. The tort is called malicious prosecution, and most citizens have no idea this can happen to them if they are victims of a crime. What a country!)

McGarity's lawsuit would have needed to improve drastically to reach the level of frivolous. But his lawyer (William Swatek) has a son (Dax Swatek) who "consults" for a number of GOP politicos and has ties to Karl Rove. That means Bill Swatek, even though he has a 30-year record of corrupt and unethical activities in the legal profession, can get away with virtual murder in Alabama courts.

That's why Circuit Judges J. Michael Joiner and G. Dan Reeves made a boatload of unlawful rulings that caused the lawsuit to go to trial--when, by law, it could not possibly go to trial.

The trial resulted in an unlawful judgment against me in the amount of $1,525--an amount neither McGarity nor his lawyer ever tried to collect until I started writing this blog, outlining the corruption I had witnessed in the case.

Bill Swatek conspired with Shelby County Sheriff Chris Curry to get a bogus writ of execution issued against me. First, they threatened to seize our cars. Then they threatened to seize our house--and did indeed get a bogus sheriff's deed placed on my share of our home.

But when neither of those threats caused me to quit blogging, someone went after my job. And that's why I was fired from UAB on May 19.

As you can see, bad judicial rulings have consequences.

What does all of this have to do with Judge Bill Thompson? Well, the appeal in my case was assigned to him. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that almost every ruling by the trial judges was wrong.

As a rough guess, I would say the trial judges probably made 25 to 30 unlawful rulings in the lawsuit against me. But really only two issues mattered; if Joiner or Reeves had gotten those correct, all of their other bogus rulings wouldn't have been necessary. The two issues involved summary judgment and McGarity's amendment adding a claim for conversion. We will briefly address those two issues in a bit.

But for now, let's just say you don't have to be a certified Legal Schnauzer like me to know that the trial judges butchered my case--and the judgment against me had to be overturned on appeal. Anyone with the ability to find a law library, ask for the pertinent material, and read simple declarative sentences could figure it out.

Heck, Chucky the Ground Squirrel, who spends his days joyously digging tunnels in our backyard, could have gotten this appeal right. But Judge Bill Thompson couldn't get it right.

And it's not because Thompson is stupid. I've seen decisions Thompson has written, and when he's so inclined, he can write serious, legitimate stuff.

But Thompson and his four Republican colleagues on the Court of Civil Appeals were not inclined to dispense justice in my case. They were inclined to protect a member of their "home team," Bill Swatek, from facing the consequences of having filed a fraudulent lawsuit.

So what did Thompson do? He took Rule 53 of the Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure and used it in an abusive and unlawful fashion.

What is Rule 53? It allows justices on the Supreme Court and Court of Civil Appeals to issue no-opinion affirmances--but only under specific circumstances.

They can affirm a trial-court ruling, without issuing an opinion, only if "the court, after review of the record and the contentions of the parties, concludes that the judgment or order was entered without an error of law." (Rule 53 contains a number of other elements, but for our purposes, this is the one that applies.)

Well, as I stated earlier, my case was riddled with errors of law. And I will prove that here in a bit. Suffice to say that Judge Bill Thompson could not lawfully issue a no-opinion affirmance in my case. But he did it anyway.

And I'm hardly the only Alabamian to receive this kind of corrupt treatment. A prominent Montgomery lawyer tells me he hears from colleagues all the time who've seen their clients cheated by bogus no-opinion affirmances, effectively sweeping unlawful trial-court rulings under the rug.

I mentioned earlier that Thompson deserves a prison term. I wasn't joking about that. For a state judge to knowingly and repeatedly make unlawful rulings, and to use the U.S. mails or wires in the process, is a federal crime. It's called honest-services mail/wire fraud.

Under the Bush Justice Department, of course, Thompson wasn't remotely worried about being found out. Perhaps that will change if we get an Obama administration.

Regular readers of this blog know that I enjoy being an "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer" of sorts. But you might not know that I also enjoy being a pseudo social scientist from time to time.

So let's conduct a little experiment. I will e-mail "Justice" Thompson, remind him briefly of the facts in appeal number 2040161, and ask him to explain (in writing) how he arrived at a no-opinion affirmance in my case.

I will publish my e-mail here at Legal Schnauzer and inform Judge Thompson that I will also publish his reply--word for word. Then we will wait to see what kind of reply, if any, I receive.

Can we smoke out a corrupt Alabama judge? Let's give it a shot.

Ohio Woman, 89, Becomes My New Hero

By now you've probably heard of Edna Jester, the 89-year-old Ohio woman who was arrested last week when she refused to return a kid's football that had come flying into her yard.

Police in Blue Ash, Ohio, a Cincinnati suburb, finally came to their senses and dropped the petty-theft charges. But before they did, Mrs. Schnauzer and I had a chance to read about Jester and say, "Jumping junipers, this is like our life on rewind."

The parallels between the Jester case and what we've experienced here in Birmingham, Alabama, are remarkable. And while we are sorry about the headaches Jester has endured, we are pleased that her situation has brought national attention to the issue of thoughtless parents and clueless kids who abuse neighbors of all ages.

Before we compare the two cases, let's check out the Smoking Gun's piece on Edna Jester, which includes the actual "criminal" complaint. You will notice that Jester was charged with violating section 2913.02A1 of the Ohio Revised Code. You can check out the section here.

Without going into too much detail, it seems clear that, under the law, Jester did not "deprive" anybody of anything. She made it clear that she didn't want the football and was more than happy to give it back if the kids/parents would keep it off her yard in the future. On top of that, the ball landing in her yard probably gives her consent to exert control over it. I know of no law that prevents someone from picking up an object off their own lawn.

It's hard to imagine what kind of ding-a-ling police officer ever OKd her arrest on this. I hope Jester finds a rugged lawyer and files a kick-ass lawsuit against the police chief and the idiots at city hall who hired him. It also would serve the kids' parents right if they got nailed with a lawsuit, and Jester certainly would have legal grounds to do it.

Let's look at the Jester case and the Schnauzer case.

Jester has lived in her small, one-story home for 59 years. Paul and Kelley Tanis and their five children moved in seven years ago. The Tanis kids and their friends had repeatedly thrown and kicked objects into Jester's yard and come onto her property to retrieve them. Jester had repeatedly asked the kids and their parents to keep their things, and themselves, off her property.

Under the law, Jester had every right to make such a request. In fact, she was going above and beyond in trying to be an understanding neighbor. If Ohio law is like Alabama law on criminal trespass, and my research indicates the law is pretty standard in all states, the kids and any parents who came on Jester's property without being licensed, privileged or invited to do so were committing a crime. Ms. Jester didn't have to ask them to stay off her yard. She could have gone to the nearest courthouse and sworn out a criminal complaint.

She also could have filed a lawsuit against the trespassers. Whenever an object came onto her yard, the person responsible for it landing there committed a civil trespass--even if said person did not enter Jester's property to retrieve it.

Anyway, the law was on Jester's side in every respect. And yet, she got arrested! And this happened after she tried to solve the problem, without turning it into a legal matter, by asking the kids and parents to respect her property rights.

Those requests apparently fell on deaf ears. So when the kids were playing in the street, and the football landed next to Jester while she was gardening in her front yard, she picked it up and refused to give it back. "That's my only way of getting through to these children," Jester said.

Actually, as I noted above, that is not the only course of action she had. But under the circumstances, it was a reasonable and lawful thing to do. And I know because I've been there.

My wife and I had lived in our house for nine years when Mike McGarity and his wife and two kids arrived next door in December 1998. McGarity and his son, along with other kids and parents, essentially turned their front yard into the neighborhood playground--which, of course, was fine with us. But they also tried to turn our adjoining front yard into a playground, routinely kicking and throwing stuff onto our yard and coming to retrieve it. And that was not fine, particularly since McGarity had acted like a jerk toward us almost from the moment he moved in.

Like Ms. Jester, I repeatedly asked told McGarity and the kids to stay off our property--and to keep their stuff off our property. McGarity threatened to sue me for "harassment."

This is probably one difference between the Schnauzer and Jester stories. While Tanis evidently is a pretty thoughtless individual, I see no indication that he has a criminal record. McGarity has at least eight criminal convictions in his background, we discovered later, and that explained a whole lot about his behavior.

We took a few steps in our situation that Jester evidently did not take in hers. I phoned an attorney acquaintance, who told me McGarity and the kids were violating criminal law. The lawyer wrote McGarity a letter to explain the law and reiterate that he and the kids were to stay off our property--and that they would receive no further warning.

When McGarity trespassed again on multiple occasions, we swore out a criminal complaint. We also could have filed a complaint against the kids with the juvenile intake officer in our county. And we would have done that, but McGarity himself was the first person to trespass after receipt of the written warning.

McGarity's unwillingness to simply respect our property rights led to a criminal case, a lawsuit (by him against me), numerous crimes by lawyers and judges (as reported on this blog), the unlawful "auction" of our house, and the loss of my job. In fact, this blog never would have happened if we had not been treated like dirt by a crappy neighbor, just the way Jester was in Ohio.

The Jester case led to national attention for an 89-year-old woman who didn't need the headaches caused by thoughtless neighbors.

What is it about some modern parents that makes them incapable of understanding that the people who live around them have property rights? And what makes parents incapable of teaching their children to respect other people's property rights, whether the neighbor is 89 or 29?

What are some simple steps that semi-thoughtful parents can take to prevent these problems--which are easily prevented? And what steps can law-enforcement officers take to cut these problems off at the pass before they wind up on court dockets?

More on that coming up.

Universities Sell Their Souls--At a Very High Cost

A growing body of evidence, which we will be laying out here at Legal Schnauzer, indicates that a large donor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) probably played a central role in my unlawful termination.

But my former employer is hardly alone in selling its soul. And taxpayers who help fund public universities should be asking hard questions about the power big donors exert over the supposedly pristine world of higher education.

Consider another Alabama institution, Auburn University, which is about 100 miles to the east of Birmingham, near the Georgia border. Auburn is building a new student center, which will replace the Foy Student Union.

The old building was named in 1978 for James E. Foy, a much loved dean of students who retired that year and now is 92 years old. Many alumni and students--not to mention the Foy family--want the new building to maintain the Foy name. They say the name has become synonymous with the student union at Auburn.

But the university plans to sell naming rights for the new building to the highest bidder. And the price tag is hefty. If you have a spare $25 million sitting around, you can have your name on the new Auburn student union.

Let's imagine that Auburn finds a donor named Bud Schwartz to cough up $25 million and get his name on the new student union. What kind of power will Mr. Schwartz wield on campus? What if Mr. Schwartz disagrees with a certain professor's politics and wants him fired? What if Mr. Schwartz isn't pleased with a certain administrator's religion and wants her fired? What if Mr. Schwartz has concerns that a black student could be named homecoming queen and wants to make sure that doesn't happen?

Based on my experience at UAB, our mythical Mr. Schwartz could get his way on all of these issues at Auburn. And Auburn, like UAB, is a public institution that takes taxpayer dollars and is supposed to follow federal law--not Mr. Schwartz' whims.

Let's consider Oklahoma State University. That fine institution a few years back essentially sold its entire athletic program to oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens.

After OSU received a $165 million donation, it seemed like a good idea to rename the school's football facility T. Boone Pickens Stadium. When Pickens wanted to make sure he had his own water boy in place as athletics director, it seemed like a good idea to hire Mike Holder. When former basketball coach Sean Sutton somehow ran afoul of Mr. Pickens, it seemed like a good idea to send Coach Sutton packing.

But guess what happened on Oklahoma State's road to Athletics Heaven? Old T. Boone drove his pickup into a ditch.

Funds for OSU athletics were invested in a hedge fund that Pickens controlled. And with the Bush economy going in the tank, Pickens' fund has taken a drastic turn for the worse, losing $ 1 billion this year.

Sane minds at OSU had encouraged the university to place a significant portion of the funds in safe accounts. But T. Boone wouldn't hear of it. And now it appears that virtually all of the money is gone.

Athletics programs at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Kansas now are struggling because big donors have gotten into hot water.

So listening to the guy or gal with big bucks does not always work out so well in higher education. That's a lesson that folks at UAB apparently have yet to learn.

No Matter What Happens on Tuesday, Tough Times Are Ahead

Like many progressives, I'm hopeful that Barack Obama will actually prevail in next Tuesday's presidential election. Having seen Republican corruption up close here in Karl Rove's Alabama, I still think it's possible the GOP will find a way to steal the election. But watchdogs like Mark Crispin Miller and Brad Friedman give me hope that progressives have wised up and won't let it happen it again.

Also, I'm hopeful that an Obama administration will be able to get us back on a healthy track. But the Bush-Cheney cabal is leaving our country in a mess, and no matter what happens next Tuesday, tough times are ahead.

Just listen to a couple of respected editorial voices.

Joseph Galloway, of McClatchy Newspapers, has encouraging words on the electoral front. He says a blowout might be coming for the GOP. "Here's a prediction for you, for them: McCain and Palin will go down to defeat by 15 to 20 points, and they'll take a heap of Republicans down with them."

But Galloway is quick to add some sobering words: "The financial collapse and the painful fallout that's stalking the nation won't be righted overnight. . . . Hard work, sacrifice and suffering lie ahead. It could take a decade or more to repair all the damage Bush, Dick Cheney and all their henchmen in prison, out of prison and on their way to prison have done to our economy, our military, our standing in the world, our Constitution and to civil discourse, common decency, and competent government."

Caroline Baum, of Bloomberg News, has an even more stark assessment. Things are so bad, she says, that the winner might wish he hadn't won.

The "ticking time bomb" for the federal government, Baum writes, is entitlement spending. And neither candidate has offered much of a vision for dealing with Medicare and Social Security.

"I feel sorry for whoever wins the presidential election on Nov. 4," Baum writes. "He faces a colossal mess. The housing bubble is still deflating, with no end in sight. The unemployment rate is rising, making consumer loans of all descriptions--mortgage, auto, credit card--vulnerable to rising delinquencies. . . .

"The next president of the U.S. will be handcuffed by events and constrained by deficits. He'll be playing defense. And he won't have a deep bench to work with."

Part of me would like to see McCain try to deal with a mess that his own party has largely created. Things might get so bad that middle-class white Americans would finally get over the race-based fears and resentments that cause them to automatically pull the GOP lever.

But our country can't afford that. And on the personal front, the Schnauzer household is not buttressed with a cushy trust fund that would allow us to ride out the storm.

So let's hope that Obama wins, and he surrounds himself with smart people who don't mind telling us the painful truths we need to hear. And let's hope we have enough steel in our spines to make the sacrifices and tough choices that will be necessary in order to put us back on solid ground.

In SchnauzerLand, Obama's the Man

We already have analyzed The Birmingham News' endorsement for president. So let's look at a more important topic--our endorsement here at Legal Schnauzer.

Regular readers probably will not be surprised to learn that everyone in SchnauzerWorld--Mrs. Schnauzer, our Tonkinese cats Baxter and Chloe, Chucky the Ground Squirrel who rules our backyard, and yours truly--wholeheartedly endorses Barack Obama.

Why? We think he has a chance to be a good, maybe even a great, president. We think his temperament and judgment far surpass McCain's at a time of crisis. And given our experiences with corrupt Republicans here in Alabama, it would taken Dirty Harry Callahan, threatening us with "Magnum Force," to get us to pull the GOP lever.

Even if we thought Obama had "mediocrity" written all over him, he would still get our vote. And that's because we consider this a one-man race, given that McCain has disqualified himself on numerous fronts:

* The Guilt by Association front--We are coming off eight years of probably the most incompetent and corrupt administration in American history. McCain shares a party label with George W. Bush and voted with him 90 percent of the time. Verdict: McCain is disqualified.

* The Karl Rove front--The "architect" of the Bush disaster has been Karl Rove. Has McCain distanced himself from Rove? Nope. His campaign largely is run by Rove acolytes, with King Karl himself playing a supporting role. Verdict: McCain is disqualified.

* The War and Economy front--The two biggest issues of the moment are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the economic meltdown. McCain consistently has been wrong on both. He supported the boneheaded decision to go into Iraq, draining resources from the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan. McCain has been even more wrong on the economy. His chief economic advisor was former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, whose legislative handiwork largely led to the current crisis. In fact, the lead segment on 60 Minutes Sunday night, "The Bet That Blew Up Wall Street," was about the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which fueled the economic collapse of 2008. Who was the primary author and sponsor of this legislative trainwreck? Why, "Foreclosure Phil" Gramm. Verdict: McCain is disqualified.

* The Physical and Mental Health front--John McCain is 72 years old and has had multiple battles with a deadly form of skin cancer. Even when he is healthy, he is famed for his hotheaded nature. And anyone who reads this bizarre interview with reporters from Time magazine must wonder if McCain is on firm ground emotionally. Substantial evidence suggests this man has no business running for president, much less being president. Verdict: McCain is disqualified.

* The Vice Presidential front--McCain's choice of Sarah Palin might go down as the most goofy political decision in American history. Palin probably was overachieving by becoming mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. In addition to her lack of experience and curiosity, she brings loads of ethical baggage. We all should be grateful that Palin has given us Tina Fey's spot-on impersonation. But the thought of Palin being anywhere near the White House should scare the beejeebers out of all Americans--at least those who have beejeebers. Verdict: McCain is disqualified.

* The "This Party Needs to be Fumigated" Front--The Republican Party, in its current form, is so rife with corruption and so disconnected from morals and ethics that it needs to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. A functional, coherent, respectable Republican Party is important to our democracy. But the party right now is so infested with Karl Rove types that it serves only as a threat to our democracy. The GOP is like a house that is so riddled with termites that it needs to be demolished. And the best way to do that is to give it a serious electoral spanking. Until that happens, the GOP will continue on a path that has brought us a dysfunctional justice department and an economic system on the verge of collapse. Verdict: McCain is disqualified.

On an issue near to our hearts, Obama offers hope that our corrupted Justice Department will be restored to a place where "justice" really means something. John McCain, by intentionally hiding Alabama Governor Bob Riley's connections to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has shown that he is not likely to do a thing about a justice system that is in tatters.

Finally, there are many other positive reasons to vote for Obama.

And an Alabama newspaper has actually endorsed him, proving that not all of our news outlets have their heads firmly planted up their rectums. Yes, the Tuscaloosa News says Barack Obama is the far superior candidate, and it states the case quite eloquently.

Obama is 47, cool under fire, a brilliant speaker who can rally an audience. His choice of Sen. Joe Biden, a respected and experienced hand in government, as his running mate showed solid judgment and maturity. Obama's temperament was a major consideration in our endorsement.

He has a vision — unity, cooperation, healing and transformation — that most Americans share. He wants to re-orient the country to empower ordinary people, not just its wealthy voters, big corporations or Washington lobbyists. He wants to make government a helpful ally, not a suspicious monitor. He wants to replace swagger and bombast with genuine concern for rights and well-being.

Most analysts agree he cannot deliver on all the things he has promised. Neither can McCain. But just pointing this country in the right direction — the path laid down by Obama's agenda — will be a welcome change. We urge voters to embrace it.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Siegelman Interview Reveals the True Nastiness Behind GOP Corruption

Don Siegelman never dreamed that he actually would be convicted and sent to prison on corruption charges, according to an article about the former Alabama governor in GQ.

"I never thought for a minute that I was going to be convicted," Siegelman tells reporter Brett Martin. "We knew where this prosecution was coming from. We knew the political motivation. I was confident that the truth would come out—so confident, in fact, that we didn't put any witnesses on the stand because we didn't think there was any evidence."

Siegelman goes on to make some profound statements about the nature of evil and the harsh realities of prison:

Do I believe in evil? Do I believe that Karl Rove is evil? I do. I don't mean that he was necessarily raised to be evil. But I think that, like Caligula, he turned himself into an evil ruler. He has subverted democracy and, by the way, done a great disservice to the Republican Party. I hear that more and more—like the former head of the Alabama Republican Party, whom I ran into at the airport in Washington lately. He told me, "I told them they should have stopped at [defeating you in] the election." Yes, I think there are evil people in the world, and I think Karl Rove is one of them.

How stark is life in a federal prison? Listen to Siegelman:

I was taken to a maximum-security prison in Atlanta. No daylight. Food served through a little slot in the door. No exercise. I stayed there for three weeks, and then I was flown to a facility in New York, then Michigan, then Oklahoma City before ending up in Oakdale, Louisiana. During this time, my wife and family were not notified where I was.

Time is viewed totally differently in prison. When you're free, you want the day to last as long as possible. You want to savor every moment. In prison, it's just the opposite; you want to get rid of days as fast as you can. I couldn't help but think about the people whose execution dates I had set when I was attorney general and that I'd upheld as governor. I said a quiet prayer that I had made the right decisions, because I knew then that the justice system was not infallible.

How important is it that Rove and others are held accountable for their corrupting influence on the U.S. justice system? It is essential, Siegelman says, that future Roves think twice before attempting to manipulate the justice system for political reasons:

If (Rove is) not held in contempt, it will send a clear signal that there are two systems of justice in this country: one for the rich and powerful, those connected to the White House, and one for the rest of us. When we get subpoenaed, we have to show up.

That's the only way we're ever going to reinstate people's belief in our government, in our democracy: clearing the air about what happened at the Department of Justice. We're not guessing that this stuff happened; we're not speculating that it might have happened. We know it happened. And if Rove doesn't pay, what are all those followers of his, the young people who want to be like him, going to think? If he's held in contempt, it sends the message that their time might be next. It may not stop 'em, but maybe it will slow them down.

What jumps out the most about this compelling interview? For me, it's the comment Siegelman received from a Republican who said he told Rove & Co. they "should have stopped at [defeating you in] the election."

What do we learn from this comment?

* This Republican, and probably others, cling to the notion that Bob Riley "defeated" Siegelman in the 2002 Alabama gubernatorial election. In reality, substantial evidence suggests that the '02 election was stolen when vote totals in Baldwin County changed overnight. (The story has been covered on a number of respected Web sites, but it has been largely ignored in the mainstream press.) Republicans are noted for playing fast and loose with the language, and this appears to be another example of it.

* It apparently is a poorly kept secret in Republican circles that Rove & Co. were out to get Siegelman. This GOPer flat-out tells Siegelman that he knew about the plot and counseled against it. How many other insiders knew about it, and when are they going to be called to testify before an authoritative body?

* Rove & Co. are prone to overreach, and I know about this firsthand. Siegelman's airport companion says he told his Republican cohorts they should be content with having "won" the election--that pushing for a prosecution of Siegelman would be going too far and could lead to big trouble. Did they listen? Nope. Could they wind up in big trouble? We can all hope.

Similar behavior has taken place in my Legal Schnauzer case. And keep in mind, the "bad guys" in my story have direct ties to Rove. The corrupt attorney who filed a bogus lawsuit against me (William E. Swatek) has a son (Dax Swatek) who worked for Bill Canary. And Canary, of course, is a close associate of Rove.

Just as in the Siegelman case, we are talking about gold-plated Rovites here. And did they overreach? Well, they could have stopped at costing my wife and me thousands of dollars. They could have stopped at causing a bogus lawsuit to go to trial, when by law, it could not go to trial. They could have stopped at threatening to seize our cars and home.

But no, they had to cost me my job at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where I had worked for 19 years.

What will be the cost of their overreaching? That remains to be seen. But if I have anything to do with it, it's going to be high.

Frail Grasp on the Big Picture

Let's continue our travelogue through the Eagles' brilliant Long Road Out of Eden. To my untrained ears, this is one of the best CDs of the past 10 years and it shows that a band that has been around since 1971 still has serious musical chops.

In fact, I would like to put a copy of the CD into a time capsule so folks 100 years from now can understand, through the magic of music, the absurdities of life in the Age of Rove.

A favorite cut from the CD is "Frail Grasp on the Big Picture," a Don Henley-Glenn Frey composition that is one of the funkiest numbers the Eagles have ever done. It is a long way from the country rock that marked the band's early years.

Henley is the Eagles chief lyricist, and he is known for rants about the greed, selfishness, and cluelessness that permeate postmodern America. Henley gets right to the point in "Frail Grasp:"

Well, ain't it a shame
About our short little memories
Never seem to learn
The lessons of history

We keep making the same mistakes
Over and over and over and over again
Then we wonder why
We're in the shape we're in

The scene shifts to a bar where "good old boys" are munching on peanuts and talking politics. Unfortunately, it's an exercise in futility:

They think they know it all
They don't know much of nothing
Even if one of 'em was to read the newspaper
Cover to cover
That ain't what's going on
Journalism dead and gone

Henley then turns personal, counseling a "love-drunk friend" who doesn't seem to understand the basics of real relationships. This guy's living in a "hormone dream" and just wants to "get some snoggin done:"

All your romantic liaisons don't deal with eternal questions like:
"Who left the cap off the freakin' toothpaste?"
"Whose turn to take the garbage out?"

Finally Henley skewers religion--or at least the way some of its adherents have bastardized faith in postmodern America. And he does it as a haunting church organ provides the backdrop:

So we pray to our Lord
Who we know is American
He reigns from on high
He speaks to us through middlemen

He sheperds his flock
We sing out and we praise his name
He supports us in war
He presides over football games

And the right will prevail
All our troubles shall be resolved
We put faith above all
Unless there's money or sex involved

This song should be released as a single. But something tells me it would rile a few folks up. Hopefully, it would make even more folks think a little.

Here's a version of "Frail Grasp" from YouTube. This features a regular guy playing along to the song on a snazzy looking drum kit. I don't know the first thing about the technique of playing drums. But this guy looks like he can play them pretty well. Enjoy.

McCain in the Membrane: A Southern Fishwrapper Keeps Its Head in the Sand

When I picked our copy of the The Birmingham News off the driveway this morning, I noticed a front-page promo that indicated the paper was making an endorsement in the presidential race.

For just a moment, a bizarre thought crossed my mind: "Given that descendants of William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater recently endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president, is it possible that our sorry excuse for a local newspaper might actually show some forward thinking for a change?"

Answer? Nah.

As I should have known, the News endorsed Republican John McCain--and used some remarkable "logic" in the process.

The News concedes that the idea of an Obama presidency might be "thrilling." And it admits that Obama was right about the signature issue of the past eight years--the war in Iraq.

"To Obama's great credit, he opposed the Iraq invasion while McCain, and this editorial board, supported it. He was right, and we were wrong."

But the News then says that it endorses McCain largely because of his support for the surge, which "paved the way for a real 'Mission Accomplished' years after the fact."

Let me see if I have this straight: The News admits the war in Iraq never should have started. But it endorses McCain because of his support for a strategy that never should have been needed in the first place? Makes lots of sense.

The News is so desperate to endorse a Republican, one who has run one of the worst campaigns in memory, that it pulls out two of conservatism's favorite bogeymen--unions and Roe v. Wade.

An Obama presidency might actually help unions prosper, the News fears. This kind of garbage actually has traction here in the Deep South, and that is rich with irony.

Our region is noted for its passion for college football, an activity that usually takes place on Saturdays. Stadiums across the South are packed on fall Saturdays, and why is that? Well, it's largely because Saturday is an off day for many people. And that's because we have a five-day work week. And we have a five-day work week because of unions.

If Republicans had their way, and we'd never had unions, we would all be working seven days a week for as many hours as management demanded. College football, if it existed at all, would be played on vacant sandlots.

And of course, the News has to be worried about Roe. Let's see, we've got the biggest foreign-policy screwup in our nation's history and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the News is worried about the right of women to make their own health-care decisions?

Here's a thought for editors of the News and other conservatives who obsess about Roe: Abortion is not a problem in our country; it's a symptom of a problem.

The problem is unwanted pregnancy. That is what leads to the vast majority of abortions. And what leads to unwanted pregnancy? The vast majority of women who seek abortions are unmarried. So by definition, unwanted pregnancy is driven largely by sex outside of marriage.

And who pushes for most sex outside of marriage? I'm going to take a wild guess and say guys/dudes/fellows/hombres. And when's the last time you heard a conservative talk about the responsibility that guys have for the abortion problem?

Regardless of what happens with Roe, the abortion problem is always going to be with us as long as guys behave in sexually irresponsible ways. The key to reducing the abortion rate to almost zero is to teach guys to take responsibility for the ramifications of their sexual behavior.

So The Birmingham News calls itself a "pro life newspaper" and bases its presidential endorsement partly on that issue. That, of course, is an easy thing to do.

Actually doing something about unwanted pregnancy is not so easy. The News and its conservative brethren evidently don't want to make the effort.

Meanwhile, the News missed a chance to make a bold statement about a New South. Imagine the largest newspaper in the "Heart of Dixie" endorsing a black man for president, a black man who clearly is the best choice in these perilous times.

But the News, as usual, chose to look backward--rather than making a bold statement about the future of our region.

That's unfortunate.

Talkin' 'Bout Ethics and My Termination

We recently wondered if Alabama Governor Bob Riley could face a Sarah Palin/Troopergate sort of ethics problem in the aftermath of my unlawful termination from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

A growing body of evidence, which we will be laying out here at Legal Schnauzer, suggests that people with close connections to Riley got me fired at UAB. That's the kind of thing that got Palin into ethical hot water in Alaska when her underlings tried to get State Trooper Mike Wooten fired.

(By the way, The Public Record, an independent investigative-journalism
Web site, picked up on our Riley/ethics piece. You can check it out here.)

I noted in my previous post that I think it's unlikely the Alabama Ethics Commission will go after Riley & Co. regarding my termination. But the issue doesn't end there.

What about people within UAB who have participated in my firing?

Let's return to section 36-25-24(c) of the Code of Alabama. And here is our key passage:

No public employee shall file a complaint or OTHERWISE INITIATE ACTION AGAINST A PUBLIC OFFICIAL OR OTHER PUBLIC EMPLOYEE without a good faith basis for believing the the complaint to be true and accurate.

In other words, it's a serious ethical no-no in Alabama to initiate action against a public employee (which I was) when you know the action is based on false information.

I sat through my entire grievance hearing, and it was clear that there was zero documentation or evidence of any kind to support discipline against me, much less termination, under university policy. Evidence suggests that a whole boatload of UAB employees participated in this action, knowing the charges against me were false.

Let's consider the roll call of honor:

* Janice Ward--HR representative for my department

* Anita Bonasera--director of Employee Relations

* Gary Mans--director of Media Relations

* Pam Powell--director of Publications Office (my supervisor)

* Dale Turnbough--associate vice president for public relations and marketing (Powell's supervisor)

* Shirley Salloway Kahn--vice president for development, alumni and external relations (Turnbough's supervisor)

* Carol Garrison--president of UAB (everybody's supervisor)

So there you have it, seven folks going right up the ladder to the top of the university. And I'm not including members of the Board of Trustees (of which Bob Riley is ex oficio president) or University of Alabama System Office, who might have known this was going on--or even helped pull it off.

Did these folks violate Section 36-25-24(c) of the Code of Alabama?

We will be examining that issue in the days and weeks ahead.

How Will UAB President Respond to a Few Pointed Questions?

We noted in a recent post that Carol Garrison, president of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), has upheld my firing after 19 years of service.

That is quite remarkable, of course, considering that Garrison's own employee-grievance committee found that my termination was wrongful.

Garrison sent me a "snail mail" letter, informing me that my appeal had been denied. When I read it, I thought, "Good grief, this woman has a Ph.D., and she writes this letter that is illogical, goofy, and downright embarrassing."

Of course, people tend to write that way when they are trying to explain the unexplainable. Anyway, I felt compelled to respond with a few obvious questions.

Here is my reply to the UAB president:

Dr. Garrison:
I am in receipt of your letter dated August 19, 2008, in which you inform me that you are upholding my termination. I would like to ask several questions:

* You state that you have reviewed the recommendations of the Problem Resolution Committee. I request that I be allowed to see the committee's recommendations. I find it curious that you and Cheryl Locke evidently have seen the report, but I have not--even though I am the one who filed the grievance.

* You state that you reviewed the facts upon which my complaint was based. I assume that means you reviewed the audiotapes of the grievance hearing, the one where my supervisor, Pam Powell, repeatedly answered "no" when asked if she could provide documentation to support my termination. I request that I be allowed to review these tapes. I was present for the entire hearing, and I know that no evidence was presented to support any discipline against me, much less termination. But since you and Ms. Locke evidently have had access to the tapes, it seems only fair that I be allowed to review them also.

* Were you aware, in your review, that I had filed a grievance against my supervisor roughly two weeks before I was placed on administrative leave and less than a month before I was fired? Are you aware that UAB policy clearly states that an employee is to use the grievance process without fear of penalty or reprisal? I filed a grievance and almost immediately faced rather serious reprisal--I was fired. And even your own grievance committee found that I should not have been fired. Do you or anyone else at UAB pay the slightest bit of attention to the policy that is outlined in the You & UAB Handbook? If so, how do you justify this statement in your letter: "I believe the decision to terminate your employment was correct?"

In the end, are UAB employees governed by what you and Ms. Locke "believe" or by what is outlined in the official university handbook?

One final thing: Several weeks ago, in response to citizens who had e-mailed you about my termination, you said that I was fired based "solely on work performance." You made this statement even though your own grievance committee had ruled that I shouldn't have been fired at all. Given this public statement you made some time ago, why should I (or anyone else) believe that you approached your decision in my case with any objectivity?

I look forward to your reply.

Thank you,

Roger Shuler

Could Bob Riley Develop a Palin Problem?

An Alaska legislative panel recently concluded that Governor Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper.

That raises this question: Could Alabama Governor Bob Riley face a similar inquiry because of my firing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)?

Let me say up front that, given our state's political climate, I think it is unlikely that Riley or people close to him would face any investigation regarding my termination. Experience has taught me that Republicans can get away with most anything in Alabama, and that's why they are so corrupt. I see nothing that makes me think that is going to change anytime soon.

But based on actual state law, and the facts as they continue to come forward, I think our question above is a legitimate one.

Under Alabama law, it appears that such an inquiry would be conducted by the Alabama Ethics Commission. If my experience with other regulatory bodies in our state is any indication--Alabama State Bar, Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission--the Ethics Commission probably is not anxious to rock any boats. In other words, for regular citizens like me, it's pretty worthless--or at least that's my guess.

But let's compare the Palin situation in Alaska to what I have experienced in Alabama.

Palin was investigated under Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a), which says in pertinent part:

The legislature reaffirms that each public official holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.

That's the law Palin was found to have violated, and it seems pretty straighforward.

The report focused largely on the role Palin's husband, Todd, played in trying to get Trooper Mike Wooten fired. But it held Palin accountable for the actions of her subordinates. Here is the key passage:

The evidence supports the conclusion that Governor Palin, at the least, engaged in "official action" by her inactions if not her active participation or assistance to her husband in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired [and there is evidence of her active participation].

The bottom line? The Alaska legislative panel found that the governor was accountable for actions by her supporters and subordinates in trying to get a public employee fired.

What's the situation in Alabama? Our ethics law is found in Title 36, Section 25 of the Code of Alabama. The purpose of the law is defined at Section 36-25-2, and it includes language similar to that in the Alaska statute.

Two sections of the Alabama ethics law jump out at me:

* Section 36-25-5 addresses "Use of Official Position or Office for Personal Gain." Personal gain does not appear to be clearly defined, but a "thing of value" does include "favors," such as firing someone you want to have fired. Alaska law did not require a showing that Palin benefited financially from her actions, and Alabama law appears to take a similar approach.

* Section 36-25-24(c) involves discharging or discriminating against a public employee. Here is the key passage:

No public employee shall file a complaint or OTHERWISE INITIATE ACTION AGAINST A PUBLIC OFFICIAL OR OTHER PUBLIC EMPLOYEE without a good faith basis for believing the the complaint to be true and accurate.

My research indicates that people who worked for and supported Bob Riley initiated action against me, a public employee, that led to me being fired. And having sat through my employee grievance hearing at UAB, I know that no one involved in the entire process had a good-faith basis for believing the charges against me--that I used public time and resources for political purposes--were true.

Would the Alabama Ethics Commission hold Bob Riley accountable for the unlawful actions of his supporters?

Well, the head of the Alabama Ethics Commission is a fellow named Jim Sumner. Is he that rare breed in Alabama--a watchdog with a spine?

Perhaps we will be finding out in the not-too-distant future.

Our Fan Base in an Unlikely Place Doubles in Size

We recently noted that Legal Schnauzer had developed a fan base in a most unlikely place--Briarwood Christian School in Birmingham.

Someone who apparently is a Briarwood student discovered the blog and became a fan, noting that the school has allowed a thirst for football power to override its academic and moral mission.

Now I've received an anonymous comment from a second Briarwood student. So it looks like our Briarwood fan club has doubled in size.

Given my suspicions that Briarwood played a leading role in the legal difficulties my wife and I have experienced, I never expected to have any readers on the school's campus--much less readers who actually seem to like the blog.

So I'm pretty thrilled with my little Briarwood fan base, kind of the way Gloria Steinem might be pleased to learn someone at the Vatican was reading her work--and enjoying it.

So let's take a look at what my second Briarwood correspondent has to say. He uses the casual spelling and grammar that is common in Web communication, but I think the message will get through:

i am a student as well and i dont find it the least bit supriseing that they would do this its just like a christain republic dumnass. if u ask me christains are the worst i hope the rapture comes and takes them all away cause then it would be like heaven

Something tells me that message was not approved by the Briarwood leadership.

I'm happy to see that at least a couple of Briarwood students have a healthy skepticism about the school's actions--and how they differ from the school's rhetoric.

If my Briarwood correspondents want more information about their school's questionable ethics, they might want to check out this post. It indicates that Briarwood officials know Shelby County judges cheat on their behalf and intentionally tried to take advantage of that by having a case unlawfully moved from Jefferson to Shelby County.

How's that for "Christian" ethics?

What Happened to UAB's Dirty Money?

News came recently that my former employer, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), is going through a rough financial patch.

With the Bush economy crumbling all around us, things aren't looking so bright on Birmingham's Southside. Tax collections in Alabama are way down--hey, those Bush tax cuts are kicking in--so UAB already has absorbed an 11 percent cut in state funding for fiscal 2009.

Now President Carol Garrison says UAB could be facing even more cuts. (Isn't this interesting: When Bob Riley was running for governor in 2002, he blasted Democrat Don Siegelman when state budgets went into proration. Now that Big Bob's in the governor's chair, he isn't crowing quite so much. Turns out Alabama relies way too heavily on sales taxes [as opposed to stable property taxes] to fund essential state services. That means revenues don't meet projections when the economy eventually tanks--as it usually does when a Republican president is in charge--and the governor can't do a whole lot about it. In short, Bob Riley is presiding over the worst Alabama economy in modern history. Wonder if Artur Davis, Jim Folsom Jr., and other Democrats will bring that up in 2010.)

But back to UAB. What happened to the several hundred million dollars the university cheated taxpayers out of over a 10-year period starting in the 1990s?

We've made several references over the past two months or so to the fact that the Bush Justice Department, led by local U.S. attorney Alice Martin, helped UAB get away with massive research fraud. The university barely received a slap on the wrist, thanks to a sham "investigation" that Martin's lackeys conducted.

So where did all of that money go? I was around UAB long enough to know that funds targeted for research cannot be used for operational expenses. But what about fraudulently obtained research funds? What about research funds that were greatly in excess of what the university was supposed to receive?

We will be going into detail soon about the case of the UAB research-fraud coverup. But for now, here is a key point to keep in mind:

The charges were driven by two whistleblowers in what is known as a qui tam case. And these whistleblowers were insiders who had reason to know what they were talking about.

One was UAB's former director of research compliance, who has a background in forensic accounting and has worked with federal prosecutors in a number of major fraud cases.

The other was a former researcher in rehabilitation medicine. Public documents indicate that fraudulently obtained research dollars did not go to him while he was on the UAB faculty.

So where did all of that money go? And we're talking about an estimated $300 to $500 million.

That seems to be a reasonable question to ask now that UAB is claiming to be short on funds.

It also is a timely question as we near the beginning of a new administration in Washington, D.C. If recent polls are on target, that new administration will be led by Democrat Barack Obama.

Republicans who had directed the Bush Justice Department have clearly shown that they are not interested in getting to the bottom of gross research fraud at UAB.

Alice Martin swept the wrongdoing under the proverbial rug, and that's just one of several signs that UAB has been in bed with the corrupt GOPers who have been running our country into the ground.

Another sign? My unlawful termination, which public documents indicate probably was driven by a major UAB donor with ties to Bob Riley, Rob Riley, Dax Swatek, the oil industry, and the gambling industry.

This UAB donor happens to have a most colorful history behind the wheel of vehicles, and he faces a criminal trial on drunk-driving charges on December 1. And that's just one of many mishaps where he has put other people's lives at risk.

To make matters even juicier, this donor is the defendant in a lawsuit that alleges improper accounting in the handling of the estate of a prominent Birmingham businessman.

The bottom line? UAB has been taking big money from at least one unsavory individual. Does UAB care that this chap has repeatedly put the lives of innocent people at risk because of his reckless behavior behind the wheel? Evidently not. "Hey, the guy writes us big checks," the university seems to say. "Why should we care if he's a public menace?"

How's that for ethics at Carol Garrison's university?

A lot of unsavory stuff has been going on at UAB in recent years, and the university now claims to be low on funds--even though evidence shows it has quite a history of taking taxpayers for a ride.

Alice Martin and her cronies have looked the other way when confronted with corruption at UAB. But a new sheriff will be in town soon, and God willing, it will be Barack Obama.

Perhaps an Obama administration will take it seriously when a major university cheats taxpayers at will.

Why Would Anyone Be "Afraid" of an Obama Presidency?

I was at a sporting event on Saturday afternoon, and a friend told me he was "afraid" that Barack Obama was going to be our next president.

(I think "afraid" was the word he used. It might have been "concerned." I was surprised when the conversation went in a political direction, so I'm not sure on the exact language. But my friend clearly was not happy about the prospect of an Obama presidency.)

I've known this friend for almost 30 years, and he's someone I consider to be of considerable intelligence and fine character. He's also quick with a quip or a corny joke, and I've always enjoyed his company.

We've had a number of discussions on "deep" topics--religion, politics, etc.--and I think we've always respected each other's opinions, even though we tend to come at things from different directions.

You might say my friend fits the classic profile of a Republican voter. He's a white, male Southerner in his 60s who lives in a suburban area and is a regular church-goer (Baptist). For good measure, I know that he's "pro life" on abortion rights and "pro gun" on the Second Amendment.

Still, I was taken back a bit by my friend's tone on Obama. I suspected my friend probably would vote Republican. But his tone indicated that he had a genuine fear that Obama would take the United States in some kind of dreadful direction.

I've gradually learned over the years when it's a good time to let a political discussion slide, and this seemed like one of those times. As I recall, I did indicate that I didn't share my friend's concern, but I politely (I thought) tried to let the subject die.

Before letting the subject die, though, I made a statement that I guess was intended to personalize things just a bit. And I said it only because this friend has some familiarity with the legal woes my wife and I have experienced over the past eight years.

I'm not sure if my friend had ever made the connection between our travails and Republican politics, particularly the Karl Rove variety that has come to permeate the Deep South. But I think enough of my friend that I thought I should spell it out.

So I said something like this: "You know, people in the Republican Party, with connections to the Bush Administration, have tried to ruin my wife and me. They've cost me my job. They've cost us our life's savings. This election is pretty personal, and pretty important, to me."

I meant to say it--and I think I did--in a friendly, non-threatening way. I guess I just wanted to help my friend understand that the results of presidential elections can hit closer to home than any of us might ever dream.

Come to think of it, the desire to share that message with others is probably what led me to start this blog.

As November 4 approaches, many of us focus on issues like the economy, gas prices, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I hope Americans will not forget that the next president will control the course of the Department of Justice and who serves as U.S. attorneys in districts across the country. Those decisions might determine whether you have honest or corrupt state judges at your local courthouse.

In my neck of the woods near Birmingham, Alabama, corrupt Republican judges cheat with impunity because they know U.S. attorney Alice Martin (a George W. Bush appointee) is not about to prosecute them for their crimes. (Will an Obama Justice Department clean up such messes? I'm not sure. But at least he should turn the Justice Department back in a healthier direction.)

So what about my friend? Well, I probably can't do anything to help him feel better about the prospect of an Obama presidency. But I do hope he, and others, will read this excellent piece from Frank Schaeffer at Huffington Post.

It's a thoughtful, balanced essay that indicates Obama might be the right man for our troubled times. And I see no reason to believe that John McCain is the right man.

Could Judge's Retirement Be a Good Sign for Obama?

Federal judge U.W. Clemon, a historic figure who presides over the Northern District of Alabama, has announced that he will retire from the bench on January 31 and return to private practice.

This might present a bad news/good news scenario for citizens who care about justice in Alabama and beyond.

Clemon, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, has been a proponent of civil liberties and an obstacle to the growing rightward slant of America's federal courts over the past 25 to 30 years. As a lawyer, the 65-year-old Clemon handled a number of landmark civil-rights cases before becoming Alabama's first black federal judge.

In 1969, Clemon brought a lawsuit against famed University of Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and UA trustees to integrate the Crimson Tide football team. The suit was dismissed after Bryant started recruiting black players.

Many progressives might best know Clemon as the judge who presided over the first criminal trial against former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and threw out the case for lack of evidence. U.S. attorney Alice Martin, a Bush appointee in Birmingham, brought that case. Siegelman later was tried and convicted when Leura Canary, another Bush appointee, brought a different set of charges in Montgomery.

Clemon said he will formally notify the new president of his plans to retire on Inauguration Day.

Clemon cited stagnant federal-judges pay and the ongoing rightward shift of federal courts as reasons for his retirement. He is particularly unhappy with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last year in the Lilly Ledbetter case, which Clemon handled in district court.

Ledbetter worked at a Goodyear plant in Gadsden, Alabama, and charged that the company had discriminated against her by giving her smaller raises than male managers. A jury found for Ledbetter and awarded $3 million in damages, but the U.S. Supreme Court (on a 5-4 vote) threw out the award, ruling that Ledbetter had missed a deadline to sue within 180 days of having received the first unequal pay raise. Ledbetter for years did not know that she had been paid less than men who held the same job.

"The court seems to me to have utterly ignored the remedial purpose of the nation's employment laws," Clemon said.

How could Clemon's decision to retire be good news? My guess is that it reflects his confidence that Democrat Barack Obama will defeat Republican John McCain in the presidential election on November 4.

Would Clemon be stepping down if he thought John McCain would be picking his successor? I don't think so.

If that's the case, is U.W. Clemon correct in his assessment of the 2008 presidential race? We have a little more than two weeks to find out.

Both Parties are Wrestling With Congressional Dirtbags

This has been a tough week for Congressmen with zipper problems--and other assorted woes.

All of the Congressional sleaze reminds me of some topics that are going to become a big part of our Legal Schnauzer tale, particularly the part in our story about my termination from UAB.

On the Democratic side, we have the charming Tim Mahoney of Florida, who apparently paid a former employee and mistress $121,000 in hush money when she threatened to sue him. Another mistress has surfaced, the FBI is sniffing around because of possible misuse of public funds, and it looks like Democrats are going to throw Mahoney under the electoral bus.

That seems like a good idea, considering that the Palm Beach Post has rescinded its endorsement of Mahoney and a new Republican poll shows Mahoney now trailing his GOP opponent, Tom Rooney, by 26 points. Mahoney had been leading until his sleazy activities began to surface.

Republicans have been trying to take advantage of the Mahoney mess, but they have a little problem of their own. GOP Rep. Vito Fossella of New York faces a court appearance today in Alexandria, Virginia, on a drunk driving charge.

Fossella agreed not to run for re-election this year after news about his sex scandal surfaced. The married Congressman was having an affair and had an out-of-wedlock child with the woman.

Under Virginia law, Fossella could face jail time if convicted on the DUI charge. And the trial got off to an inauspicious start for the Congressman today.

Hmmm, let's see . . . drunk driving, abuse of taxpayer dollars, extramarital escapades, sex scandals. I've been conducting research on a number of folks who appear to have played a role in my unlawful termination at UAB. And based on my research, all of these subjects, and other juicy nuggets, will soon become part of our Legal Schnauzer story.

You won't want to miss it.

UAB's Hypocrisy Takes on International Dimensions

Brazil's new consul general came to Birmingham the other day and paid a visit to my former employer, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

UAB President Carol Garrison took the visit from Adalnio Senna Ganem as an opportunity to extol the virtue of international alliances and study-abroad programs. Garrison noted that she encourages UAB students and faculty to spend time overseas.

"I have not met anybody who has had an experience like that who has not said it changed their professional life, and often their personal life, forever," Garrison said.

The people Garrison has met probably have been treated fairly and lawfully by their overseas hosts. But what about international students who come to UAB? How are they treated?

I know of at least one group of international students, trainees in UAB's medical program, who have been treated dismally. At least one lawsuit has been filed in the matter, and it appears that more will be on the way. And there are indications that the trainees' home government might get involved, given that UAB is trying to develop business relationships in the burgeoning country.

In at least one respect, the trainees have been blatantly cheated. And that's not just my opinion. The U.S. government made that finding.

You will be learning much more about this case here at Legal Schnauzer. It shows that UAB's abuse of students and employees goes well beyond my case. And it shows that UAB's hypocrisy cannot be contained by the borders of the United States.

Carol Garrison says international experiences tend to change people's lives. Well, she might try talking to some of her own international students. Their experiences at UAB have changed their lives--for the worse.

A Beloved Pet Suffers Because of Rove & Co.

When we think of those who have suffered because of the corrupt Bush Justice Department, we probably tend to think of people.

But I know of at least one much-loved pet who suffered because of the "Bush bastards." And I hope there is a particularly warm corner in hell for the people who are responsible.

Abby Teel was a 12-year-old Scottish terrier who had a happy life in Mississippi. One of her "humans" was my friend Wes Teel, the former state judge who is serving a sentence in an Atlanta federal prison for crimes he did not commit. Teel and his codefendants, Paul Minor and John Whitfield, are in prison only because Minor was a major contributor to Democratic candidates, and that caused him to become a target of the Bush Justice Department.

Teel and Whitfield (also a former state judge) were caught in the crossfire--collateral damage, if you will.

I learned in a recent letter from "No. 07708-043" (that's Wes' prison ID number) that the Teels' beloved Abby died recently.

"After I was sent to prison," Wes writes, "my wife tells me Abby lost her luster--her desire to live. She pined away for me, she looked for me each morning, and laid in my chair to pick up what remained of my scent. Her bright eyes dimmed, and she no longer looked forward to going outside. Chasing the local squirrels was no longer fun. Eating did not give her any joy.

"Abby eventually got sick and was taken to our vet who is a good friend and a great guy. There just wasn't much he could do to save her, and so she slipped out of this world and, I hope, into the next."

What was Abby like? You can check out a picture of her at the Gulf Coast Realist, a blog Wes started before he reported to prison in December 2007.
Scroll down a little ways, and you will see a picture of Abby and other family members on the right-hand side.

By the way, a Teel family friend is keeping the blog going, and she is a staunch Republican while Wes is a Democrat. I think it says a lot about Wes, and his friend, that their friendship flourishes across the political divide.

Wes' letter about Abby left me sad, stunned, and angry. I knew that Wes' wife, children, extended family members, and friends were struggling in his absence. But it had not occurred to me how much the family pets might be suffering. Considering the title of my blog, you would think that I--of all people--would have thought of that.

Given the extraordinary senses that dogs possess, I wonder if Abby not only missed Wes but somehow understood that he was the victim of a gross injustice.

We call our organization that is devoted to the well being of animals the American Humane Society. Wes' letter drove home for me just how inhumane Karl Rove and his ilk truly are. The death of Abby Teel should be laid at their doorstep.

"I sure will miss her soft eyes and gentle personality," Wes wrote. "I'll miss our walks and how loyally she would lay her head on my lap. She died, I believe, of a broken heart. And, now, as I write this with the tears of a 58-year-old man in my eyes, I miss my little dog and wish I could have patted her just one more time.

"Perhaps she died of a broken heart--for my heart is broken, too."

UAB's President Embarrasses Herself

Carol Garrison, president of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), has upheld my termination from the university where I worked for 19 years.

That means I won't be receiving justice within the university framework. And considering the leadership currently in place at UAB, that is not a surprise.

We noted a few weeks back that Cheryl E.H. Locke, UAB's director of human resources, had upheld my firing, even though her own grievance committee had found that I had been wrongfully terminated.

Garrison was my last line of appeal, and you might think that she would be able to see the absurdity in upholding a termination that the university's own committee had found was not supported by fact or policy.

But you would be wrong. And that sound you hear probably is Dr. Joseph Volker turning over in his grave.

You see, UAB once had visionary leaders who cared about issues of social justice, right and wrong. Dr. Volker is considered the "Father of UAB," and he more than anyone else is responsible for turning a small extension center of the University of Alabama into a major comprehensive university and a world-class medical center.

Dr. Volker grew up in Rochester, New York, and received his training in dentistry. He was dean of the dental school at Tufts University, near Boston, when he decided in 1948 to move to Birmingham and become founding dean of the dental school here. He went on to become UAB's first president and the first chancellor of the University of Alabama System.

Volker had the professional prowess to live most anywhere in the country. But he chose to make his mark in Birmingham, which was hardly a glamour spot at the time.

The city was riven with racial tensions in the 1950s and '60s, but Volker chose to stay and lead. He ensured that the integration of University Hospital went smoothly and played a huge role in helping Birmingham make the transition from steel town to biomedical research center.

If some right-wing zealot had come to Joseph Volker and demanded that he unlawfully fire an employee for political reasons, Volker almost certainly would have booted the zealot out the door--in a hurry.

But UAB no longer has that kind of honorable leadership, and Carol Garrison's letter to me proves it. Check it out:

Dear Mr. Shuler:
I have reviewed the facts upon which your complaint was based, the recommendations of the Problem Resolution Committee, the decision of the Chief Human Resources Officer and your letter of appeal. I believe that the offer of reinstatement to a position in another department, with two written warnings, was most generous. Given your refusal of that offer, I believe the decision to terminate your employment was correct.

For the foregoing reasons, I will take no further action with regard to this matter.

Sincerely,

Carol Garrison

In our previous post, I compared Garrison's handling of my case to the smarmy activities of U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-FL), who currently is embroiled in an employment-related mess of his own making.

Some readers might think comparing Garrison to Mahoney is overly harsh. After all, Mahoney was engaged in inappropriate extramarital activity and apparently was involved in improper use of public funds.

Garrison's letter to me might not seem to rise to that level of conduct. But I invite you to come along with me on an interesting journey through higher education, one that involves personal, professional, and financial hanky panky across several Southern states. And through it all, Carol Garrison was front and center.

Should UAB's president be compared to Tim Mahoney? Once we look at the details of my case, and at Garrison's personal background, I think you will see what I'm talking about.

Democrats Need to Roast One of Their Own

If Karl Rove has taught us anything over the past eight years or so, it's that the Republican Party, in its current state, is morally and ethically bankrupt.

Certainly we have honorable Republicans, and we've spotlighted some of them (Jill Simpson, Grant Woods) here at Legal Schnauzer. But their voices tend to be drowned out by the cacophony of sleaze that has been planted and nurtured by King Karl.

That means it will be up to Democrats if we are to have any hope of honest government in the near future. But in order for Democrats to lead on the ethics front, they must oust dirtbags in their own camp.

And they can start with Rep. Tim Mahoney of Florida.

ABC News and TPM Muckraker are reporting that Mahoney agreed to pay a former mistress-who was also a staff member--$121,000 after she threatened to sue him.

We learned yesterday that the FBI is investigating Mahoney. And a report comes today that Mahoney was having an affair with at least one other Florida woman, a county official in the West Palm Beach Area.

Mary Ann Akers checks in with an excellent overview piece at The Washington Post.

The Mahoney story is filled with icky irony. He holds the seat vacated by Republican Mark Foley, who stepped down after it was revealed that he had made homosexual advances toward subordinates.

Mahoney evidently thought it was OK to be a sexual predator, as long as you are of the "hetero" variety.

That, of course, is stupid. And if you want more evidence of Mahoney's stupidity, take a listen to a tape recorded phone conversation he had with his mistress.

You can hear the conversation and read a transcript of it here.

As someone who was unlawfully terminated from my job at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), I have low tolerance for people who abuse their employees. And the tape recording reveals Mahoney to be the worst kind of workplace reptile.

Listening to his words made my flesh crawl, and caused the words "stupid," "arrogant," and "prick" to come to mind.

It also reminded me of UAB's behavior in my case. I'll show you what I'm talking about next.

The Radical Right Lifted Palin to Power

Perhaps the most intriguing questions in American politics at the moment are these: How in the world did Sarah Palin come to power? How did Palin go from a City Council member in tiny Wasilla, Alaska, to vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party?

Folks who want answers to those questions should check out a splendid new article by Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert at Salon.

The story shows that Palin's rise to power was driven largely by two right-wing extremists--Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll.

Chryson was head of the Alaska Independence Party (AIP), which supported the state's secession from the United States. Stoll is an activist with the John Birch Society who is known around Wasilla as "Black Helicopter Steve."

They played a pivotal role in getting Palin elected mayor of Wasilla, supporting her financially and helping shape her policy once she was in power.

Palin returned the favors. She supported Chryson as he successfully advanced a number of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state constitution's language to better support the formation of anti-government militias. Palin pushed Stoll for her own empty seat on the Wasilla City Council.

Blumenthal and Neiwert spent several days in Wasilla, and their report is must reading for those who want to unravel the mysteries behind an "up from nowhere" political figure.

The Salon piece is fascinating reading on its own, and Neiwert provides a "behind the scenes" look at the story on his blog, Orcinus. You can learn more about how the story came together here. And at this post, Neiwert uses Wasilla City Council minutes to show how determined Palin was to advance the cause of her extremist supporters.

Blumenthal has all kinds of interesting material about Palin on his blog. He shows that she has a poor record when it comes to hiring minorities, including blacks and Native Alaskans.

Blumenthal recently visited the Rachel Maddow Show to discuss the Salon article. The Alaska Independence Party, Blumenthal reports, has connections to extremist groups in the "Lower 48," including neo-Confederacy secessionist groups and the Constitution Party, which wants to place the United States under Biblical authority.

We're supposed to be concerned about Barack Obama's "ties" to former anti-war activist William Ayers? Voters might want to check out who Sarah Palin has been "palling around" with.

Winding Road of Financial Crimes Leads to Alabama--and UAB

We wrote in a recent post about the Bush Justice Department's tendency to cover up certain financial crimes, and noted the subject hits close to home here at Legal Schnauzer.

Our post focused on a Virginia case involving General Reinsurance, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. The Justice Department spent about $2 million to investigate the case and uncovered powerful evidence of massive insurance fraud. But the Bush DOJ shuffled its personnel deck and imported a couple of Texans who shut down the investigation.

All of this, we noted, has roundabout links to my unlawful termination after 19 years of employment at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). How could that be? Well, follow me for a moment.

Not all financial scofflaws get off. In fact, a case of wide-ranging insurance fraud several years ago in Pennsylvania resulted in a high-profile conviction.

But the case was not limited to Pennsylvania. It spawned several trails of criminality, and one of those led to Alabama and a company owned by a man who now holds an oversight position with the University of Alabama System--of which UAB is a part.

The Alabama company clearly was implicated in the Pennsylvania case. But for reasons that remain unclear, federal authorities did not pursue the Alabama arm of the case.

The man who was connected to serious financial hanky panky is not some mid-level administrator in the University of Alabama System. He holds a position of significant authority over the three-campus system, and his name resonates throughout the state. It has been well documented in the press that, when he wants to, he can exert considerable control over UAB.

So what do we have? We have a powerful Alabama businessman who somehow managed to escape a Pennsylvania-based briar patch several years ago. It's likely this businessman owes a serious debt of gratitude to the U.S. Justice Department for letting him and his company off the hook. And now this businessman is in a position of authority over UAB--in fact, some might call him the most powerful figure in the University of Alabama System.

Would the Justice Department, when faced with a UAB employee who was writing uncomfortable truths about the administration of "justice" in Alabama, turn to this gentleman for relief?

Would this gentleman, owing the feds a huge favor, react by taking steps to ensure that the UAB employee was fired? Did UAB officials, under pressure from the powerful figure, trump up bogus claims that the employee was blogging on university time?

I'm still gathering information on this story, so I will hold off on more details for now. But will this entire story be laid out for Legal Schnauzer readers?

To quote Sarah Palin, "You're darn tootin.'"

The Original Legal Schnauzer, Part VI

This is Murphy and yours truly (back when I had brown hair and a job) on our deck.

I like this picture a lot because it shows how pretty Murphy's coat was. And Mrs. Schnauzer deserves the credit for that.

For one thing, it was Mrs. Schnauzer's idea to make Murphy mostly an indoor dog. Schnauzers love fresh air and exercise, and we took Murphy on one or two nice walks every day. Also, she spent a good bit of time on our deck. (She almost stumbled through the slats in her puppy stage, and we promptly put up a safety screen.)But making her mostly an indoor dog helped keep her clean--schnauzers have wiry coats that attract leaves and yard debris--and that seemed to make her even more a part of the family.

Actually, she smelled a lot better than we do. No wonder we liked having her nearby all the time.

I guess you could say I was Murphy's play pal and walk scheduler. But Mrs. Schnauzer took care of how she looked. That included brushing her regularly and getting her bathed and groomed every six to eight weeks. (A tip: We didn't bathe Murphy between groomings, and we think that helped keep her coat healthy. Bathing a dog too much can remove the coat's luster.)

My wife's routine apparently worked. Murphy always seemed to feel great, and she had the best smell I've ever encountered--kind of like fresh laundry, only better. We've often joked that Murphy might have been the only dog ever whose humans sniffed her more than she sniffed them.

If heaven has a smell, my guess is it smells something like the Murph's coat.

The Palin Principle: Going After Someone's Job is Stupid

The report from an Alaska legislative panel about Sarah Palin's efforts to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper is filled with fascinating information.

But here is a nugget that really jumps out: How in the world was having Trooper Mike Wooten fired going to make the Palin family safer?

Investigator Stephen Branchflower raises this issue in the report. "Assuming that Trooper Wooten was ever inclined to attack Governor Palin or a family member, logic dictates that getting him fired would accomplish nothing to eliminate the potential for harm to her or her family."

Branchflower seems to be saying that the Palins weren't really concerned about their safety; they were interested in vindictiveness. And that's a subject I have some firsthand experience with here at Legal Schnauzer. In fact, it's pretty clear that someone connected to my former employer, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), pulled the same stunt on me that the Palins tried to pull on Wooten.

So let's take a closer look at this business of going after someone's job.

From everything I've read, it appears that Trooper Wooten is not a particularly nice guy. With that in mind, here is the conversation Sarah Palin should have had with her sister: "Your ex-husband is a jerk, so get the best divorce attorney you can find and go after his sorry butt in court. But as governor, I can't get involved in your case.

"And by the way, try to develop better taste in men. Next time around, try to find a snowmobile champion like my guy Todd. And if he's not enough to satisfy ya, find yourself a dreamboat on the side like Brad Hanson. Whew, makes me sweat just thinking about him. Anyway, that's been my plan, and has it worked out for me? You betcha!"

What about the people who went after my job? Evidence suggests it was Alabama Republican operatives who have ties to Karl Rove (and also Governor Bob Riley and U.S. Attorney Alice Martin). And we established in a recent post that Rove and his acolytes aren't nearly as smart as they have been portrayed.

For example, what did the "mini Roves" hope to accomplish by costing me my job? Was it supposed to keep me from blogging? Actually, I now have more time for blogging. And more importantly, I have way more time to conduct research for my blog--because I wasn't conducting "research" at work, which was the bogus charge UAB trumped up. With more time on my hands, I've uncovered all kinds of information at our local courthouses and libraries that I never would have learned if I still had a job. This information provides important clues as to why I was terminated and who was behind it--and Legal Schnauzer readers will be learning about it in the days and weeks ahead.

So by firing me, the "mini Roves" gave me the time and the tools to help expose their schemes. Like I said, they aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.

And here's another sign that the "mini Roves" are stupid: By going after my job, they came on my turf. I've worked at UAB for 19 years, so I have a pretty good idea how the place works, particularly in the areas of external affairs, development, alumni affairs, media relations, etc.

So when my supervisor (Pam Powell) and her supervisor (Dale Turnbough) start acting outside the norm for them, accusing me of things I haven't done, I know something is up. And it has to be driven by the two people in the chain of command above them--Vice President for Development, Alumni, and External Affairs Shirley Salloway Kahn and President Carol Garrison.

Let's follow the clues. If you scan the profile of Shirley Salloway Kahn at the link above, you will notice her primary interest--raising money. More than anything else, her job is to find people with money and get them to give some of it to UAB.

Folks in higher education like to talk about their high-minded "tripartite" mission--teaching, research, and service. But I've been around UAB for 19 years, and I know it's no different from any other organization--money talks. And when someone gives lots of money to UAB, they hold extraordinary influence over folks like Shirley Salloway Kahn--and Carol Garrison, for that matter.

So who has given lots of money to UAB recently? Well, to pick a project at random, let's consider the Hazelrig-Salter Radiation Oncology Facility, currently under construction on Birmingham's Southside.

Click on the link above and notice the folks who have given big bucks for this project. Then ask yourself this question: If one of those folks went to Dr. Kahn and said, "Shirley, I would be a whole lot happier about giving money if you would do backflips down I-65 at high noon," how would Dr. Kahn react? My guess? It would take her about two minutes to get on her gym suit and start stretching.

That brings us to three lines of inquiry we will be examining regarding my termination at UAB:

* The Alice Martin Line--Evidence will show that Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, did UAB a favor by pretty much whitewashing massive research fraud at the university. And a settlement agreement in the case gives Martin extraordinary authority to reopen an inquiry on research fraud at any time. She has a proverbial gun cocked, loaded, and pointed at UAB's collective head. Would this cause UAB to return a favor for our corrupt federal crime fighter? Hmmm.

* The University of Alabama System Line--At least one member of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees, which oversees UAB, has reason to be extremely grateful to the U.S. Justice Department. That's because the DOJ chose to look the other way when his company was implicated in a major insurance fraud case a few years back in Pennsylvania. Also, a member of the University of Alabama System Office has connections to the Business Council of Alabama (BCA), the group headed by Bill Canary, of "my girls are going to take care of Don Siegelman" fame. Would either of these UA elites be willing to do a favor for the DOJ or the BCA? Hmmm.

* The UAB Donor Line--This is my favorite. And that's because I've unearthed a specific donor who seems to be an intriguing fellow. In addition to having given one of the largest individual gifts in the history of UAB, he has connections to Gov. Bob Riley and his son Rob Riley (shazam!), Riley confidant Dax Swatek (double shazam!!), and the gaming industry (triple shazam!!!). Heck, he even has ties to the oil industry (quadruple shazam!!!!).

And get this: Public records indicate the guy's personal and professional lives are trainwrecks. His driving record is, shall we say, "interesting." So much so that he's the defendant in a criminal case that is scheduled to be tried in less than two months. He recently went through a divorce that apparently was so juicy the file was sealed. And he and a business partner are defendants in a lawsuit that raises questions about whether they provided a proper accounting for the estate of one of Birmingham's most famed businessmen.

This donor might be a life-threatening menace behind the wheel of a vehicle, but would UAB's higher ups do him a favor on behalf of his political and business cronies? Hmmm.

Geez Louise, this donor alone will provide months of material here at Legal Schnauzer. I could even smell a book coming out of this. We're talking about a treasure trove for inquiring minds.

So hold onto your hats and ponder this question: Are some folks close to Sarah Palin wishing they had left Trooper Mike Wooten and his job alone? My guess is yes.

Will some folks in Alabama be wishing they had left Legal Schnauzer and his job alone? We'll find out.

Developing a Fan Base in an Unlikely Place

Legal Schnauzer apparently is developing a fan base in a place I never would have expected to find one--Briarwood Christian High School in Birmingham.

Folks who've followed the blog from the early days know that I suspect Briarwood Christian, a ministry of Briarwood Presybyterian Church, has played a curious role in the legal travails that have beset my wife and me.

Here's the most troubling thing about it: At least a few people in the Briarwood leadership--particularly Head Football Coach and Dean of Students Fred Yancey and chancellor Byrle Kynerd--know the school's actions have caused my wife and me considerable hardship. Do they care? I've seen no signs of it.

Has Briarwood's leadership exhibited a Christian response to our situation? I'm hardly a Biblical scholar, but one of the general themes of the New Testament seems to be this: We should try to treat others as we would like to be treated--and when we bring harm upon others, we should try to make it right.

The role Briarwood apparently has played in our legal woes is summarized here and here. Here is a brief overview: Fred Yancey and his wife, Sharon, used to be our next-door neighbors. In December 1998, days after Briarwood had won its first state championship, they moved to a house on the school's campus, and we wound up with Mike McGarity (and his substantial criminal record) as our new next-door neighbor. The sale of Yancey's house seems to have been done in a peculiar, "under the table" way. It was not listed with the Birmingham MLS (even though a real-estate agent was involved), it was not advertised as for sale in any major publication, no for-sale sign ever was in the yard, and the Yanceys never said a word to us that they were moving. (And we had always been on good terms with them; we considered them to be very good neighbors.)

Evidence suggests that Briarwood engineered the real-estate deal as a way to keep the highly successful Yancey as its football coach. As far as I know, there is nothing wrong with that. But in essence, Briarwood hand-picked our new neighbor--the house apparently was not on the open market--and they picked a guy with a lengthy criminal history, who stole almost 400 square feet of our property, filed a bogus lawsuit against me, assaulted me, and eventually caused me to lose my job at UAB.

Actually, I don't think McGarity directly had anything to do with me losing my job at UAB. That almost certainly happened because McGarity's lawyer, William E. Swatek, and corrupt Shelby County Judge J. Michael Joiner repeatedly cheated me. And when I started this blog to expose their criminal activities, Alabama's Republican machine kicked into gear and cheated me out of my job.

Bill Swatek and Mike Joiner, more than anyone else, are responsible for the hardship we've experienced. And they each have children who graduated from . . . Briarwood Christian School. Hmmm.

I've seen no sign that anyone in Briarwood's leadership gives a rip about this kind of injustice. So imagine my surprise, and delight, when I learned that at least one person at Briarwood--a student apparently--does care about how the school treats its neighbors.

I've received several anonymous comments from the student in recent days, and I put them up where he (I assume it's a he) posted them--at posts related to Briarwood. Most of those posts are fairly old, so it's doubtful that many readers have seen the comments. I would like to share some of them with you.

I've always assumed that private, Christian schools are monolithic places--where everybody thinks pretty much the same way. But my new correspondent illustrates the danger of making such assumptions.

Let's take a look at his thoughts:

I am a student at Briarwood Christian High School and I find this very interesting. Any student at Briarwood can tell you that ever since Fred Yancey has come to Briarwood, there has been way too much emphasis placed on Briarwood football and not enough on the actual academics. I look forward to reading more about your dealings with Briarwood. Keep it up.

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I am a Briarwood student and I find your dealings with Briarwood and the lawsuit that they were involved in very interesting. Keep up the good work and continue to investigate this. I am for finding any corruption in ANY institution and stamping it out. Thanks!

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I am a student at Briarwood Christian high school and I find your blog very interesting. I had the very same reaction as you when Briarwood lost. I really feel like Briarwood has placed WAY TOO MUCH emphasis on their football program at the expense of their academics program . . . and their morals.

Briarwood have clearly shown that they are more interested in winning football games, and raking in the cash that comes with winning football games, than they are in doing what's right.

You hit the nail on the head! This is exactly their mindset. It is really amazing how they spend so much of their money on their football program.

How are the adults at Briarwood going to "mold kids for a lifetime" when they themselves don't know how to do the right thing?" Amen to that, brother. Amen. I love your blog and I will be telling my fellow students at Briarwood about it!

Well what do you know, maybe we could start a Legal Schnauzer club at Briarwood Christian School. I could go to the library and have readings, just like real writers do. Wouldn't that be cool?

Rove a Genius? Not Hardly

Two myths have permeated American political life over the past eight years or so.

One is that Karl Rove is a genius. The other is that Rove has spawned an army of "mini Roves" who are also geniuses.

Matt Taibbi pops the bubble on myth No. 1 with a biting piece in Rolling Stone. I can do the honors on myth No. 2.

Taibbi's primary point is that Rove has taken over John McCain's presidential campaign, and the choice of Sarah Palin as vice president is Exhibit A:

But after the surprising nomination of Palin — a move that fairly stank of Rovian thinking, with its 10-megaton brazenness, its blunt anti-intellectualism and its naked courting of Rove's beloved electoral cattle, the evangelicals — Rove seemingly let it slip in a Fox broadcast that he did have inside info, saying during the teen-pregnancy flap that Palin was "carefully vetted. . . . They knew all of it." An anonymous Republican source soon told a Washington newspaper that Rove had a consistent, "medium"-size role with the McCain campaign.

Taibbi goes on to list numerous examples of Rove's influence on the McCain campaign and summarizes their impact:

One is tempted to call this brilliant tactics, except that it isn't brilliant, any more than pointing a gun at a Korean store owner is a "brilliant" way to make $135. One of the most remarkable aspects of Rove's career is the way the media consistently respond to being lied to, pissed on and manipulated by Rove: They stroke his already swollen gonads even more, hailing him as a singular political genius.

Taibbi then points out that no one has seen Rove's "genius" in action quite like former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. And Taibbi shows how Siegelman's prosecution on bogus corruption charges was covered with Rove's fingerprints. This is hardly brilliance, Taibbi argues, and he notes Rove's reluctance to testify about the case under oath before Congress:

Rove is not a genius, or even very clever: He's totally and completely immoral. It doesn't take genius to claim, as Rove ludicrously did last fall, that it was the Democrats in Congress and not George W. Bush who pushed the Iraq War resolution in 2002. It doesn't take brains to compare a triple-amputee war veteran to Osama bin Laden; you just have to be a mean, rotten cocksucker.

Taibbi's language gets a bit colorful there, but he hits the nail squarely. I've seen mean, rotten behavior from numerous "mini Roves" here in Alabama. I can't begin to cite all of the examples, but let's consider just a few that show that they are in fact stupid, not smart.

I suppose there is such a thing as a "smart" crook--the jewel thief who carefully cases his target and cleanly pulls off the heist. That doesn't describe the "mini Roves" I've encountered. Let's consider some principles a smart crook probably follows and show how the "mini Roves" butcher them:

* Know your target's strengths--In my experience, people with journalism training (like yours truly) are not the smartest people around, and they certainly are not the wealthiest. But they generally know how to do at least two things: (1) Find information; and (2) Present it in a fairly understandable fashion. Had the "mini Roves" done their homework, they might have noticed my background in journalism and decided to pick another target. But they seemed shocked--shocked, I tell you--when I started a blog and began to chronicle their corrupt activities. With just a little brainpower, they could have seen that coming. And they've compounded their stupidity by taking all kinds of steps to try to shut down my blog. As we will show in the coming days and weeks, that has only caused the doo-doo at their feet to get deeper and deeper.

* Don't assume your target is stupid or weak--The "mini Roves" clearly thought I wasn't capable of figuring out the actual law in my case and that judges were cheating me. And I feel certain they didn't think I would have the cajones to fire my lawyers and take over my own case when it became clear they were playing along with corrupt Shelby County Judge J. Michael Joiner. Also, the "mini Roves" didn't consider that modern technology makes valid legal information more readily accessible than it used to be, and technology (as in blogs) makes it easier for someone to tell a story, even if the mainstream media ignores it.

* Know your target's "life situation"--The "mini Roves" had every reason to know that my wife and I don't have children. But they didn't process that information very well. Without kids in the picture, we had the time--and the energy--to fight like wolverines when we realized people were trying to cheat us. Also, the "mini Roves" didn't size up Mrs. Schnauzer very well. They might have assumed she was the timid, retiring type who would not want to join a fight. They were way off base on that. Mrs. Schnauzer has a "Serbian temper," and a strong sense of right and wrong to go with it, and she had no qualms about joining the fray. Without that kind of support from the lady of the house, I would not have been able to fight back--and Legal Schnauzer never would have happened.

Rove & Co. will win some battles, mainly because a lot of Americans are disengaged from public life. But will Rove & Co. win the larger war? I don't think so.

As Taibbi so colorfully puts it, Rove knows he has the support of his "electoral cattle." But even cattle start to get alarmed when they realize they are being led to the slaughter house.

Are America's cattle waking up? Barack Obama's surge in the polls indicates that some of them are. And that might not be good news for King Karl and his Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight.

Bits and Pieces for $50, Alex

Are Indictments Coming in Bush DOJ Scandal?
David Iglesias, former U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, says the answer to our headline question might be yes.

The appointment of special prosecutor Nora Dannehy is ominous for Karl Rove and others who apparently engineered the firings of nine U.S. attorneys, Iglesias says.

Dannehy's appointment signals the investigation no longer is a civil matter to "blithely ignore," Iglesisas writes. And while "follow the money" was the phrase that helped break Watergate, Iglesias expects "follow the e-mails" to be the key to breaking the DOJ scandal.

Birmingham Lawyer Turns to Growing Pot
If your legal career isn't going so hot, maybe growing pot is a good alternative. That evidently was the thinking of Birmingham lawyer Daniel Pinson Rosser, who was arrested the other day on charges that he helped mastermind the largest indoor marijuana-growing operation in Alabama history.

The pot was growing in a northeast Birmingham warehouse, using a sophisticated hydroponic system in which plants are grown in water, without dirt. This produces pot that sells for four times the price that traditionally grown marijuana will bring.

Authorities said the system uses intense heat lamps to simulate sunlight and can produce $1 million worth of pot a year.

Rosser, who was suspended from law practice, apparently decided that growing uber-pot sure beats filing motions and dealing with clients.

Financial Woes Overshadow Justice Scandal
Are scoundrels who corrupted the U.S. Justice Department lucky, in a sense, that our financial system has gone into near collapse?

Probably so, says Toledo Blade columnist Marilou Johanek. She says the recent report on the firings of nine U.S. attorney got buried in a hyperactive news cycle:

AT ANY other time, what happened in the U.S. Justice Department last week would have been big news. At any other time, when internal reports by Justice Department call for more investigation into a case of unethical, if not criminal, conduct on the part of lawmakers and the White House, the administration would have a lot of explaining to do.

But the Bush Administration got lucky. As its Treasury and Federal Reserve chiefs warned that the sky was falling and the economic crash and continuing tumult on Wall Street made them seem prophetic, the Justice Department released a nearly 400-page scalding indictment of the administration over the controversial firings of several U.S. attorneys in 2006.

It was an overlooked bombshell in breaking news cycles preoccupied with financial crisis, rescue plans, presidential politics, and a vice presidential debate.

The Justice Department report is more troubling than many of the other big stories of the moment, Johanek writes:

Turns out the real reason some of the top federal lawyers were removed from the job, according to the Justice Department report, was that either the U.S. attorneys had the audacity to prosecute Republicans or because they failed to aggressively prosecute Democrats.

Either way, their behavior ticked off well-connected GOP politicians who had come to expect a politically loyal Justice Department. A couple of calls from powerful New Mexico Republican officeholders helped push former U.S. attorney David Iglesias out of a job. Evidently, the top New Mexico prosecutor was remiss in his duty to produce criminal charges against Democrats in the run-up to the 2006 election.

Another U.S. attorney in Missouri lost his post over a petty complaint from Republican Sen. Christopher Bond, and still another was bumped to make room for a protégé of White House political adviser Karl Rove. There was a pervading culture of partisanship/loyalty-above-all-else in the department, recalled one of the fired attorneys.

“Not only were my colleagues and I not insulated from politics — as we should have been in our jobs as prosecutors — but we were fired for the most partisan reasons,” Mr. Iglesias said.

What does this mean for the future of our republic?

Scandal-weary Americans may be inclined to dismiss yet another administration disgrace, but what happened at the Justice Department is too big a deal to ignore.

We’re supposed to be a country that requires “equal justice under the law,” not tainted justice under political consideration. But that’s what we had under shameless administration zealots like Mr. Rove and Mr. Gonzalez.

The former administration officials allowed the most invaluable assets of the Justice Department — its integrity and independence — to be jeopardized for political ends. They permitted wholesale politicization of the department, as one commentary put it, “by subjecting new hires and sitting U.S. attorneys to rigid ideological litmus tests. . . . ”

Before the next administration takes over, Americans need firm assurance that the rule of law will be applied fairly by the Justice Department. Never again can there be partisan allegiance required of incoming professionals, or political criteria that outweigh the legal and ethical.

The impartial administration of justice in this nation, its very credibility, was nearly destroyed by the tyrannical ambitions of a few. How’s that for big news almost buried?

The GOP and Wachovia Give Birmingham the Shaft
It seems like yesterday that Birmingham was a proud banking center, mainly because of our "Big Four" banks--AmSouth, SouthTrust, Regions, and Compass.

As of 2004, Birmingham had four banks in the nation's top 50, and only New York city had more banks make that list.

Just four years later, Birmingham's banking industry is in disarray, its image battered, largely because of deregulation pushed by John McCain, Phil Gramm and their Republican brethren.

The biggest jolt to Birmingham banking came in 2004 when Charlotte-based Wachovia gobbled up SouthTrust. Another jolt came in 2006 when AmSouth merged with Regions.

What has been the fallout? In recent days, we've learned that Wachovia is teetering and probably will be gobbled up by Wells Fargo. Who knows what that means for Birmingham? But it probably isn't good.

How tight has Wachovia been with the Republican Party. Facing South, the blog of the Institute for Southern Studies, reports that Wachovia made an $8 million bailout loan to the National Republican Bailout Committee. This came as Wachovia was denying credit or freezing assets of consumers, small businesses, and institutions. It also came as Wachovia was in the middle of a buyout deal backed by U.S. taxpayers.

Chris Kromm, of Facing South, has been leading the reporting on the Wachovia/GOP lovefest, and it is a story worth following.

Here is the bottom line in our neck of the woods: A bank that strongly subsidized GOP political activity has given Birmingham a world-class screwjob. And yet the GOP's presidential candiate, John McCain, leads Democrat Barack Obama by some 20 points in the latest polls.

Can anyone explain that one? Are Alabamians completely out to lunch?

Inside the Ugly World of Alice Martin and the Bush Justice Department

If I were granted one early Christmas wish for 2008, it would be this: That all Americans read "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi," the superb article written by Lynda Edwards in the October issue of the Journal of the American Bar Association (ABA).

What would happen if, between now and November 4, all Americans read, and grasped the importance of, the article:

* Democrat Barack Obama would be elected president in a landslide; and

* An Obama administration, in conjunction with Congress, would move quickly and decisively to ensure that the criminals who infiltrated our Justice Department over the past eight years are held accountable.

For the sake of our country, both of those things desperately need to happen. And Edwards' story is the kind of behind-the-scenes reporting that shows just how bad things have really been in the Bush DOJ.

(By the way, many Democrats are filled with angst that an Obama administration would let Bush criminals off the hook. In a recent op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal, famed Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz actually endorses the idea of a "get out of jail free" card for corrupt Bushies. For a well-reasoned counter to Dershowitz' nonsense, check out Lawrence Velvel's blog.)

Not surprisingly for those of us who live in or near Birmingham, Edwards' poster child for corruption is Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

Edwards' story is about a man, Alex Latifi, who sees his flourishing business intentionally ruined by federal officials, largely because he is a Democrat of Iranian descent.

It's a grim, ugly story. But Edwards still manages to find moments of hilarity. You have the star government witness who stole more than $12,000 from Latifi and admitted to altering and sabotaging company files and computer records. And my favorite is the DOJ official, who when asked for comment, tells Edwards she should not be writing about the case because "it's weird! It's an anomaly! It's a weird anomaly!"

Regular readers know I've had my own unfortunate encounters with Alice Martin, and my research indicates she or people close to her are behind my termination at UAB. (Much more on that coming soon.) So a number of scenes from the ABA Journal story cut close to the bone here at Legal Schnauzer:

*Consider this quote from Martin: "If KBR or Halliburton committed an illegal act in my jurisdiction in Alabama, I would have prosecuted them." This implies that Martin pursues cases regardless of the political implications. I've written numerous posts based on firsthand experience, including this one, that show this statement is pure, unadulterated rubbish.

* And get this gem from Martin: "This is actually more painful than a root canal because at least the dentist gives you Novocain. I don't know Jill Simpson, I have never met Karl Rove or been in the same building with him, to my knowledge. When I ran for elective office, I got some names of consultants from Bill Canary. I couldn't afford Bill."

And who did our gal Alice wind up with as a campaign manager when she ran for a seat on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals in 2000? Why, none other than Dax Swatek, one of Canary's right-hand compadres and a central character in our Legal Schnauzer story because his father, Bill Swatek, filed the bogus lawsuit in Shelby County that started my "road to legal perdition."

And get this: I wrote in detail about the Alice Martin/Dax Swatek connection on this post, dated February 18, 2008.

Notice the first comment on that post: "Nut case yours is comong (sic)."

Obviously, this individual has a slight problem with grammar and spelling. It's also obvious that he's not happy with the content of my post, and he intends to do something about it. In short, he shows signs of being a sociopath.

And here's an interesting note: According to testimony at my UAB grievance hearing, my former boss (Pam Powell) initiated an investigation of my computer usage at work on Jan. 21. (An investigation, by the way, that showed I had never once used my computer to work on my blog.)

Less than a month after that, a helpful correspondent tells me mine "is coming." Sounds like somebody knew something was up, doesn't it? And gee, given that the post in question was about Dax Swatek and his ties to Alice Martin, I wonder who my "helpful correspondent" might have been.

Is there reason to believe that Alice Martin and Dax Swatek had something to do with my termination at UAB? Is there reason to believe they enlisted the help of one or more influential people at UAB to get the dirty deed done? Do I have some evidence that suggests the identity of said influential people? Will Legal Schnauzer readers find out who those folks are and what really went down with my firing?

The answer to all of these questions is, to quote Sarah Palin, "You betcha."

Will Financial Crimes of the Bush Era Be Uncovered?

The nation's attention has been riveted in recent days on an economic crisis that largely was caused by the deregulation favored by George W. Bush and other conservatives.

But the Bush administration has visited another kind of financial calamity upon Americans, one that has mostly floated under the media radar--at least until now.

While grotesque greed and mismanagement created the need for the recent $700 billion bailout, another kind of mess has occurred on the Bush watch. We are talking about criminal behavior by financial kingpins, and some of it has been actively covered up by the Bush administration.

Is there reason to think these financial crimes might someday come to light? Perhaps. And the first clue might come with an obscure news story that made the rounds yesterday.

It's a story that, in a roundabout way, even has connections to my termination at UAB. More on that in a bit.

But first, here are the basics: Associated Press reported that Charles "Chuck" Rosenberg, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, is stepping down after two years in his post. Rosenberg informed President Bush of his decision in a letter dated September 30, and the U.S. attorney's last day will be October 22.

Why would Rosenberg step down with just a little more than two months left in the Bush administration? That remains a mystery; Rosenberg doesn't even mention that he wants to "spend time with his family."

But let me take a crack at explaining what might be going on and why it could be important.

Who is Chuck Rosenberg? He played a central role in dropping an investigation of a massive fraud case, one of the worst financial crimes of the past eight years. David Maguire, the veteran federal prosecutor who uncovered the case, described crimes that were "far worse" than those of Arthur Andersen, the accounting giant that collapsed in the wake of the Enron scandal.

And the case involved big names and even bigger money. At the heart of the investigation was General Reinsurance, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment empire overseen by billionaire Warren Buffett. Joining Buffett on the Berkshire Hathaway board of directors is Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

General Reinsurance, known as "Gen Re," had become entangled in a mess that could become a headache for the world's two richest men. But evidence suggests the Bush administration did not want that to happen. And Chuck Rosenberg is the guy it chose to make the problem go away.

What was at stake in the Gen Re investigation and why did the Bush administration want to shut it down? Marisa Taylor, a reporter for McClatchy Newspapers, has written an excellent account of the case. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has looked into the matter, and Corporate Crime Reporter has a strong overview of that angle.

Here are the basics of the case: It starts with Reciprocal of America (ROA), an insurer based in Richmond, Virginia. ROA was supposed to avoid insolvency by socking away vast surpluses collected from policyholders' premiums and passing risk to giant reinsurance firms such as Gen Re.

But ROA did not accumulate the surplus required by law. And regulators discovered the company was $450 million in the hole.

How did this happen? ROA's surplus began to erode in the late 1990s when medical-malpractice awards shot up. Under duress, company executives asked Gen Re to assume millions more in risk.

Gen Re agreed to the deal but treated it as a "side" or "unenforceable" transaction. Prosecutors allege that the two companies conspired to falsely inflate ROA's surplus and hide its losses from regulators.

What was the fallout? More than 80,000 lawyers, doctors, and hospitals lost their malpractice coverage. Many of them faced bankruptcy.

How did the Bush administration ensure that the Gen Re case would be covered up? Follow this game of musical chairs:

* Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney who had overseen the case, was "promoted" in November 2005 to become deputy attorney general under Alberto Gonzalez;

* The Bush administration brought Rosenberg from Texas (where else?) to replace McNulty;

* Rosenberg pulled Maguire off the case and replaced him with Michael Gill, who was imported from--guess where?--Texas;

* Gill pulled the plug on the Gen Re investigation.

What does Rosenberg's resignation mean? That remains unclear. But it could signal that, in the wake of our worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, federal officials might begin to take a closer look at financial crimes. It might even mean that someone is prepared to take a closer look at the reinsurance industry in general and the Gen Re case in particular.

How could this have any connection to my termination at UAB? More on that coming soon.

Being a Democrat Made Alabama Businessman a Target

Notes from prosecutors in the Bush Justice Department indicate an Alabama defense contractor was targeted because he is a Democrat.

Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, launched a four-year investigation of Axion Corp and its owner, Alex Latifi, in 2003. Latifi eventually was acquitted on charges that he violated federal arms-export laws. But while preparing for trial, his lawyers were stunned by the first entry in the lead investigator's official notebook.

"It said Latifi was a Democrat and gave $30,000 to a Democratic politician's charity for abused children," said Jim Barger, an associate at the Birmingham law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz.

The revelation comes in "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi," an investigative report by Lynda Edwards in the October issue of the Journal of the American Bar Association (ABA).

We noted in a previous post that the ABA Journal article shows that Martin and her prosecution team wanted to ruin Latifi's business, even if he was innocent of the charges against him.

Edwards goes behind the scenes to show how a prosecutor in the Bush Justice Department carries out a politically motivated prosecution. How insanely sloppy and bogus was Alice Martin's case? Consider:

* The prosecution's chief witness, former Axion secretary Elizabeth Lemay, had been fired from the company in February 2004 for stealing $12,730. She admitted on the witness stand that she had altered and sabotaged company files and computer records;

* The court received letters on behalf of another scheduled witness--from her husband, her doctor, and a psychologist--saying she was too mentally unstable to testify;

* A government attorney for an agency that helped search for evidence against Latifi was barred from the courtroom for threatening and bizarre behavior toward the defense;

* The fundamental charge against Latifi was that he had sent a classified drawing to a Chinese supplier. But at trial, a government witness was asked to examine the drawing in question and determine if he saw any noteworthy stampings. "On the bottom left," he replied, "it does say 'unclassified.'"

In other words, prosecutors charged Latifi with sending a classified document to a foreign supplier, but they never noticed that their own exhibit showed the document was clearly marked "unclassified."

That's not the only moment of black comedy in Edwards' story. When she contacted Department of Justice spokesman Dean Boyd, he said, "You should not be writing about this case! It's weird! It's an anomaly! It's a weird anomaly!"

The aftermath of the Latifi case might not be so amusing for Alice Martin & Co. A federal judge has awarded Latifi $364,000 in legal fees. Latifi has sued to obtain Martin's e-mails, memos, and phone records regarding the case. And the U.S. Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating charges that the Latifi case was an improper and abusive prosecution.

Will Alabama Republicans Steal More Elections?

Evidently it was not enough that Republicans apparently stole the 2002 gubernatorial election in Alabama. That's the one where votes for Democratic incumbent Don Siegelman mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the night in Baldwin County, giving Republican challenger Bob Riley a narrow "victory."

Evidently it's not enough that GOP plans to take over the Alabama Legislature in 2010 include prosecutions of state legislators that appear to be politically motivated. Democrat Sue Schmitz recently saw a hung jury in such a case brought by U.S. Attorney Alice Martin.

Now we learn that Governor Riley's office apparently is trying to purge rolls of likely Democratic voters.

A 2005 opinion from the Alabama attorney general named 28 felonies--which add up to about 70 crimes if each of the degrees of the offenses is counted--that have by statute or appellate decision been defined as crimes of moral turpitude, which strip someone of his voting rights.

Riley, who serves as court-appointed chief of Alabama elections, in 2007 created a list of more than 400 felonies that would lead to loss of voting rights. Riley's list includes everything from terrorism and homicide to starting a brush fire and drug possession. The governor's office gave its list to Election Systems & Software, a company hired to create a voter-registration database for the state.

Griffin Sikes Jr., legal director for the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts (AOC), said the governor had no legal authority to classify so many crimes as crimes of moral turpitude. Sikes said the governor's office had assured him for months that the shorter list was being used, but he recently discovered that was not the case.

Polls show John McCain with a wide lead over Barack Obama in Alabama, so the presidential race is not likely to be affected by the controversy. But several "down ticket" races--Congressional races and state appellate court races--could be affected.

"I think a lot of damage has been done to a lot of people," said Joe Turnham, chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party. "We have less than three weeks now to find the people who have been disenfranchised and get them back on the rolls."

So Much for Ethics in the Bush Justice Department

Prosecutors in the Bush Justice Department wanted to ruin an Alabama defense contractor's business, even if he was not guilty of criminal charges against him, according to a new report in the Journal of the American Bar Association (ABA).

Reporter Lynda Edwards writes about "The Curious Case of Alex Latifi," in the October issue of the ABA Journal.

The story focuses on Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama who launched a four-year investigation of Huntsville-based Axion Corp. and owner Alex Latifi. The case involved allegations that Latifi violated federal arms-export laws by falsifying a report and sending a classified drawing of a Black Hawk helicopter part to a Chinese supplier.

Latifi was acquitted of all charges after a seven-day trial in October 2007, but his once-thriving business was in tatters. That, Edwards reports, was the goal of prosecutors all along.

Attorneys for Latifi report grossly unethical behavior by prosecutors during the case. Lead defense counsel Henry Frohsin recounts asking prosecutors if they would drop a related charge if handwriting experts declared the signature a forgery. According to Frohsin and his associates, a member of the prosecution team replied, "We don't care if Latifi is innocent. Our goal is to put him out of business."

The ABA Journal originally attributed the quote to Martin. In a correction on its Web site, the Journal says the quote should have been attributed to Assistant U.S. Attorney David Estes.

Martin, however, made little effort to deny that the comment captured prosecutors' mindset during the Latifi case. Reports Edwards:

When asked later by telephone (about the) statement, there is utter silence for a long moment.

"If you know someone is a bank robber," Martin said carefully, "then you want to put him out of the business of robbing banks, no matter what."

How did Martin and her team "know" Latifi was a "bank robber?" What kind of evidence did they have to support that conclusion? Edwards summarizes:

The trial was potholed with crazy. The government's key informant was a fired company secretary convicted of stealing from Axion and forging Latifi's signature. She said on the witness stand she sabotaged Axion records. The judge excluded a top government fraud attorney from court for bizarre conduct. The drawing at issue was marked both "unclassified" and "uncontrolled." China owns Black Hawk helicopters and can examine the part anytime it wants.

So why did Martin bring the case?

Some observers say it has to do with race and international politics. Latifi is a naturalized citizen born in Iran. The Bush administration had labeled Iran part of its "axis of evil," and that might have helped make Latifi a target.

Other observers note the case might have been driven by Martin's ambition for higher office. Edwards quotes Wendy Wysong, a Washington, D.C. lawyer who prosecuted arms-export cases while at the U.S. Commerce Department. "She says in 2004 the obscure field of law became the hot, starmaking field for U.S. attorneys," Edwards writes.

Whatever the motivations behind the prosecution, it has turned into a mess for the government. U.S. District Judge Inge Johnson called the prosecution's case "sloppy" and awarded almost $364,000 in legal fees under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act.

More funds could be coming Latifi's way. He has sued to obtain Martin's e-mails, memos, and phone records regarding the case. He is suing under the Hyde Amendment, which allows exonerated defendants to seek compensation from federal officials if the prosecution was "vexatious, frivolous or in bad faith."

Finally, defense lawyers have filed a complaint against Martin with the U.S. Office of Professional Responsibility, claiming she brought a political and baseless prosecution against Latifi.

Why Are Newspapers Struggling?

I recently attended a retirement party for a friend who worked at The Birmingham News.

My friend worked at the paper for 43 years, so he was pretty much ready to retire. But he wound up leaving the paper a bit earlier than he had planned. That's because the News offered a buyout package to certain employees. My understanding is that about 85 employees received the offers, and my friend couldn't afford to pass it up.

I enjoyed the retirement party, and it gave me an opportunity to get my first gander at the inside of the News' swanky new digs in downtown Birmingham. I saw only a portion of the first floor, but the building looks like a huge improvement on the old building where I spent 11 years toiling for the late, great Birmingham Post-Herald.

As I ate my cake and drank my punch, I wondered: Why is this newspaper in such a less-than-stellar financial position that it is offering buyouts to veteran employees?

The News is our fair city's only daily newspaper, so it pretty much enjoys a monopoly on the market.

When numerous newspapers folded back in the 1970s and '80s, the explanation was that TV news had made afternoon papers obsolete and only a handful of cities were big enough to be "two-newspaper towns."

Now it seems that some cities aren't big enough to have even one thriving newspaper. So you have to ask: Why is that?

Newspaper types have been wringing their hands at professional gatherings for years, trying to figure out what ails their industry.

Many articles have been written about the problems facing newspapers, and one of the best ones I've seen recently, titled "The Demise of the Washington News Bureau," is written by John McQuaid at American Prospect.

McQuaid notes that Newhouse News Service recently announced that it would shut down after Election Day. This hits close to home here in Birmingham because Newhouse's Advance Publications is owner of The Birmingham News.

And Newhouse is not alone in tightening its national belt. McQuaid reports that newspapers in San Francisco, San Diego, Des Moines, Pittsburgh, Hartford, Toledo, Houston, Salt Lake City, Montana, Wyoming, and Maine have all cut back or eliminated Washington coverage in the past two years. Even the Chicago Tribune is considering cuts at its Washington bureau.

This is a disturbing scenario. At a time when we need more watchdogs in Washington we are getting fewer.

I'm sure there are multiple reasons for the gradual implosion of the newspaper industry. But one reason stands out in my mind, particularly here in Birmingham.

The one thing that a major newspaper can do better than any other form of media outlet is to report. And I'm talking about serious reporting--investigative, hard-hitting, fearless, insightful--without regard to political oxes that might be gored.

This is an area where The Birmingham News, in spite of its recent Pulitzer Prize, has come up short.

Yes, the News won journalism's biggest prize for its reporting on the Alabama two-year colleges scandal. But consider the stories the paper has either ignored or given only passing attention:

* The abusive practices of federal prosecutors in Birmingham (Alice Martin) and Montgomery (Leura Canary);

* The apparent railroad job and wrongful conviction of former Governor Don Siegelman;

* The connections between the Siegelman case and a similar case in neighboring Mississippi involving attorney Paul Minor;

* The dirty-money trail that helped funnel $13 million from Jack Abramoff to Governor Bob Riley's campaign;

* The stain gambling interests have placed on the Republican party in Alabama and throughout the Deep South;

* Efforts by GOP presidential nominee John McCain to hide the Abramoff-Riley connection;

* The deleterious effect Karl Rove has had on Alabama government, particularly in our state courts which he helped shape in the 1990s.

* The grotesque corruption in Shelby County, which is just south of Birmingham and represents our state's area of most rapid growth. This should be an area of enlightenment, but it is run like a banana republic--or worse.

We're just getting warmed up with this list. But serious reporting on these kinds of topics would make The Birmingham News an indispensable read. But by failing to address these and other important subjects, the News has made itself dispensable. And its recent buyout of veteran employees reflects that.

I have personal experience with the News' approach to reporting. Hannah Wolfson, the newspaper's UAB beat reporter, contacted me several weeks ago about my termination at the university after 19 years of service.

My impression is that Ms. Wolfson recognized it as an important story and wanted to treat it that way. And it's not an important story necessarily because it involves me. But it is important for at least the following reasons:

* UAB receives more than $400 million a year in federal research funding, and part of its grant proposals is a requirement to abide by federal law and avoid discriminatory practices. My case is just one example of UAB failing to live up to its obligations.

* I've become aware of several other instances of unlawful behavior by UAB toward its employees, and one of them has international implications. In fact, it is apparent that the university's human-resources problems go way beyond my case.

You will be reading about these other cases here at Legal Schnauzer. But you probably won't be reading about them, or my case, in The Birmingham News.

Why? My guess is that some editor up the line torpedoed Ms. Wolfson's story idea, probably because it would have cast an unfavorable light on some of the paper's favored Republicans.

As leaders of our community's only daily newspaper, editors of the News have that kind of power. But when they wonder why their bottom line isn't so hot, they should look in the mirror.

And when they wonder where their readers have gone, they might look at Web sites like Harper's.org, Raw Story, and Locust Fork World News & Journal. That's where real Alabama news, important stories The Birmingham News ignores, is being reported.

Will The Birmingham News Remain Clueless to the End?

The answer to our title question apparently is yes. But maybe there is hope for Alabama's largest newspaper.

The News opines today about the Justice Department report issued this week showing political considerations played a role in the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. The firings were "weird," the News determines. No, it seems clear, the firings were corrupt. But our local metro daily doesn't want to go there.

Where else does The News not want to go? To "Don Siegelman Has Been Right All Along Land."

The News acknowledges--and it appears to pain them--that the report raises questions not only about the unlawful treatment of some prosecutors but also about the treatment of those who were prosecuted. That would include Siegelman, Alabama's former Democratic governor who was prosecuted and convicted in a case that was dripping with conflicts of interest and political motivations from those in the Bush Justice Department:

Consider: If some U.S. attorneys were fired for not prosecuting people that suited Republican interests, were other U.S. attorneys able to keep their jobs by prosecuting the "right people"?

There were U.S. attorneys who were considered "mediocre" who didn't end up on the firing list, apparently because they had political favor. That begs the question: What kind of cases did they bring that kept them in good standing with the party? Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman would certainly love to argue that U.S. Attorney Leura Canary kept her job in Montgomery by prosecuting him.

Were some U.S. attorneys able to keep their jobs by prosecuting the "right people?" The News, laughably, seems to be pondering this question for the first time today. Where have you been folks?

And the paper doesn't want to mention that the entire Justice Department scandal, to a great extent, has its roots in Alabama, not only because of biased and unqualified U.S. attorneys Leura Canary in Montgomery and Alice Martin in Birmingham but because of Karl Rove's deep connections to Alabama, which started with his campaign efforts in state-court races in the 1990s.

Finally, the News would have us believe that Siegelman is fighting a lonely battle to show that Canary kept her job in Montgomery because of her willingness to bring a bogus case against him. In fact, Siegelman hasn't been lonely at all. Harper's magazine, The New York Times, 60 Minutes, and Time magazine are just a few of the media outlets that have reported extensively on the issue. And the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has spent considerable effort investigating the case, issuing a subpoena for Rove to testify about his possible role in the Siegelman prosecution--a subpoena with which Rove steadily has refused to comply.

Will the News get off its collective duff and start investigating a story that is right under its nose? We won't hold our breath. But today's editorial indicates the blinders might be loosening just a little:

It's true, U.S. attorneys are political appointees and can be fired at will. But their job is to serve the public's interest, not a political party's interest. If they can be fired because they don't prosecute people of the opposite party, or because they prosecute people of their own party, how can the public really trust that cases are being brought or are being dropped for the right reasons?

"For department officials to recommend the removal of U.S. attorneys even in part because they do or do not have political support undermines the public's confidence that Department of Justice prosecutive decisions are based on the facts and the law and not on political considerations," the report said.

Simply put, U.S. attorneys can't play favorites with the cases that come into their offices and expect to have any credibility with the public. The same rule applies to the Justice Department.

Are scales beginning to fall from a few eyes down on Fourth Avenue North in Birmingham?

Alabama Governor Leads Effort to Purge Voters

We learned yesterday that Alabama is one of 19 states where secret voter purges are under way, in apparent efforts to suppress likely Democratic voters.

Today we learn who is responsible for the voter purge in Alabama--the office of Republican Governor Bob Riley.

The Alabama Administrative Office of Courts (AOC) has determined that eligible voters are being wrongly denied the right to cast a ballot in the coming election because of the way the Riley administration defines a crime of "moral turpitude."

The AOC sent a memo earlier this week to probate judges, sheriffs and circuit clerks saying that people who should be allowed to vote have been stricken from the voter rolls based on information from the Riley administration over which felony convictions bar people from voting.

AOC officials said the memo was designed to help identify citizens who have been wrongly denied the right to vote over the past 18 months and notify them that they are eligible to vote on November 4.

"You're not talking about a few hundred people," said Joe Turnham, chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party. "You're probably talking about thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of voters that were legally entitled to vote that have been purged or denied their ability to register."

One man was blocked from voting because he was convicted years ago of having too much unopened beer in his car while driving through a dry county.

Riley's office claims that 480 of the state's 575 felony crimes involve moral turpitude. The AOC, however, lists only 70 crimes that should bar someone from voting.

Rove's Fingerprints Are At The Scene of the Crime

Karl Rove was at the heart of plans to fire U.S. attorneys, according to an analysis of this week's report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

Zachary Roth, of TPM Muckraker, says the report shows that the plan to dump U.S. attorneys originated at the Bush White House:

Still, a close examination of the report makes clear that, although on a day-to-day basis the plan was put into effect by mid-level DOJ political appointees -- enabled by a shocking lack of oversight from top department officials, principally former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- the impetus for the move came straight from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Many of the individual pieces of information have been previously reported, as DOJ provided emails and internal documents to Congress for its 2007 investigation. But the OIG report provides a far clearer sense of the longer-term trajectory of the plan, and the consistent interest in it from (Harriet) Miers and (Karl) Rove, than we've yet been offered.

How intimately was Rove involved? Consider this passage from Roth's piece:

In January 2005, (Kyle) Sampson received an email from a Miers deputy, which said: "Karl Rove stopped by "to ask ... 'how we planned to proceed regarding US Attorneys, whether we are going to allow all to stay, request resignations from all and accept only some of them, or selectively replace them, etc.' " [Quotation marks rendered as in the report]. A few days later, Sampson replied: "If Karl [Rove] thinks there would be political will to do it, then so do I."

The report makes it clear that Karl Rove was deeply interested in activities at the Justice Department. Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman has said Rove's interest went beyond the fired U.S. attorneys to actually ensuring that political prosecutions were carried out.

Is Siegelman on the right track? The OIG report does not provide conclusive evidence on that question. But it does provide important clues that indicate Siegelman is indeed on the right track.

There can no longer be any doubt that Rove was involved in Justice Department affairs. The report shows that certain U.S. attorneys were not favored. And it shows that certain U.S. attorneys--including Leura Canary and Alice Martin of Alabama, whose names were highlighted--were favored. Were they favored because they were willing to go after Don Siegelman with weak cases?

That is one of many questions that will be hanging in the air when the U.S. House Judiciary Committee meets tomorrow to discuss the OIG report.

Bits and Pieces for $100, Alex

Montgomery Advertiser Finally Sees a Ray of Light on Siegelman Case
Is it possible the scales are beginning to fall from the eyes of the leaders at one of Alabama's major newspapers?

The Montgomery Advertiser, in the wake of this week's report about the removal of nine U.S. attorneys around the nation, has decided that partisan decision making might really be a problem in the Bush Justice Department.

Heck, the Advertiser has decided, maybe former Governor Don Siegelman has a point about political prosecutions carried out by "loyal Bushies" at Justice:

It is unlikely that the Justice Department report will have any direct impact on Siegelman's appeal of his conviction, which is scheduled to be heard by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta in early December.

But as evidence of political meddling in the operations of the Justice Department by the Bush White House mount, Siegelman's claims of being targeted for political reasons start to sound more plausible.

Until now, folks at the Advertiser apparently thought:

* 60 Minutes produced a major investigative piece on the Siegelman case just for grins;

* Scott Horton, legal affairs contributor at Harper's magazine and law professor at Columbia University, wrote numerous posts and longer pieces about the Siegelman case because he had nothing better to do;

* Craig Unger is working on a major Siegelman piece for Vanity Fair because . . . gosh, they needed something to fill up pages; and

* Republican whistleblower Jill Simpson came forward with revelations about GOP plans to railroad Siegelman because she just knew it would help her law practice in north Alabama.

Pro-Palin Witness Reverses Course
Jason Leopold, of The Public Record and Consortium News, continues to be a go-to source on the Sarah Palin story.

Leopold's latest piece says a key Troopergate witness has backed off an earlier defense of Palin and now says the governor's associates applied pressure to deny worker's compensation benefits to her ex-brother-in-law.

Murlene Wilkes, owner of Harbor Adjustment Service in Anchorage, says she received multiple phone calls and personal visits from the Palin inner circle in an effort to deny benefits for trooper Mike Wooten.

Palin Might Give Biden All He Can Handle
Many observers seem to be assuming that Joe Biden will mop the floor with Sarah Palin in tomorrow night's vice presidential debate. But someone who knows firsthand what it is like to debate Palin says we might be in for a surprise.

Andrew Halcro, who ran for governor in Alaska as an independent in 2006, has debated Palin some two dozen times. He says she can be a formidable foe, not because she is knowledgeable--she isn't--but because she is a master of "the fine art of the nonanswer."

This can throw a smart, prepared opponent, such as Biden, off his game. Halcro's advice? Biden should speak as if Palin isn't there, treating it as a conversation between himself, the moderator, and the audience.

Voter Purges Are In Full Swing
CBS News is slated to report this evening that voter purges are under way in 19 states, and they appear to be designed to hurt the chances of Democratic candidates.

The story is based on a new report from the bipartisan Brennan Center for Justice. It shows 21,000 voters purged in Louisiana and 10,000 in Mississippi.

And--surprise, surprise--Alabama is among the 19 states where purges reportedly are taking place.

Going After Gonzo
Our friends at the Grievance Project have launched an effort to question whether former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is fit to practice law.

The folks at GP have sent correspondence to Gonzalez' attorney and the media contact for the GonzalezFacts.com Web site, asking for responses to specific allegations of wrongdoing by the former AG.

GP also has prepared complaints regarding the professional misconduct of Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling and other luminaries in the Bush Justice Department.

Will be interesting to see how "loyal Bushies" respond when confronted with facts. Probably not well--or not at all.

I Know All About Naomi Wolf's Police State

Author Naomi Wolf has written an essay about what might be ahead in a Republican-dominated America, and it is disturbing reading--on multiple levels.

Wolf's primary thesis is that Sarah Palin is more than just John McCain's running mate; she is the designated weak figurehead at the top of a coming police state in America.

Wolf became queasy when she saw Palin embrace lawlessness by defying subpoenas from the Alaska Legislature. Wolf became even more alarmed when she saw Palin use mafia-style tactics against critics.

Suddenly, Wolf realized that Palin, not McCain, was the central figure in the GOP's 2008 ticket:

Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protégé Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.

What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.

We could be headed for what Wolf calls a "Palin-Rove police state." And she offers evidence from her personal life that shows, in some respects, it already is here:

Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That's not all: people's bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says "That's impossible." Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable.

Some folks might read Wolf's essay and decide she is a nut. But my wife and I sure don't. Consider what Mrs. Schnauzer and I have experienced in the past eight years or so in Alabama, where Karl Rove helped put our state courts in GOP control:

* Our house has been repeatedly vandalized;

* We've had our savings wiped out from having to defend a bogus lawsuit brought by an attorney with family connections to Rove;

* We've seen substantial evidence to suggest that our phone calls were tracked (probably by a device called a pen register), and that information was used to cost my wife multiple employment opportunities over a three-year period;

* We've had our house unlawfully "auctioned" and a bogus "sheriff's deed" placed on our property, meaning we no longer own our house free and clear;

* I've been the victim of a felony assault by a neighbor with a lengthy criminal record, only to see our local authorities insist it was a misdemeanor;

* Our deteriorating financial situation has caused us to be hounded by third-party debt collectors, a particularly charming form of "bottom feeder."

* I've been terminated from my job as an editor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) after 19 years of service. This clearly was done because I write a blog that deals honestly and critically with the Bush Justice Department, particularly its misdeeds in Alabama.

I would call Naomi Wolf a visionary, not a nut. If anything, Wolf is a little bit late to the game. Here in Alabama, the GOP police state has been in action for quite some time.