Thursday, April 3, 2008

Republicans With Rabies

What's it like when Republicans, particularly the Southern variety, get rabies and start foaming at the mouth. Evidently, we are in the process of finding out.

On the regional and national stage, we have a couple of examples. And we will get to those in a moment.

But first, I have an example that hits close to home. In a post yesterday, I noted that I had filed a Claim of Exemption form that "should," if the law means anything, put a halt to the threats by Shelby County GOPers to seize and auction my house.

Of course, I noted that the law has not been applied correctly from the outset of my legal sojourn, so I certainly didn't expect it to start being correctly applied now. And I was right about that.

When I got home last night I had a voice message from Deputy Bubba Caudill (think I finally figured out how to spell his name). Bubba informed me that "a judge" had told him that, even though I had filed a Claim of Exemption form, they were proceeding with the sale of my house on Monday.

After receiving some insight from a reputable attorney, and conducting some more extensive research myself, I think I was wrong about one aspect of yesterday's post. (More on that coming up.) But I was right about this: Once I filed a Claim of Exemption, Alabama law gives the opposing party 10 days to file a contest and then a hearing must be held.

Based on Bubba's phone call, it looks like no contest will be filed and no hearing will be held--just as no Notice of Right to Claim Exemptions was served on me, as required by law. As I've said on numerous occasions, little things like due process mean nothing in Alabama--not when Republicans are in charge.

What has the GOPers so rabid that they would so blatantly trample Alabama Civil Procedure in a rush to seize my house? Good question. Is it the 60 Minutes story on the Don Siegelman case that ran a few weeks back--and the second part that evidently is coming up Sunday? Is it the thought that the Bush Reign of Error is coming to an end and GOP presidential nominee John McCain does not excite the conservative base? Is it the concern that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee and will be more difficult to trash than the opponent GOPers were expecting, Hillary Clinton?

Whatever the cause, I'm not the only person feeling the frothing, foaming wrath of Republicans who appear to be losing a grip . . .

John W. Goff Indictment
News comes today that Montgomery insurance executive John W. Goff has been indicted on 26 counts of fraudulently collecting workman's compensation insurance premiums.

Goff, of course, filed a lawsuit against Governor Bob Riley and others, claiming they had taken unlawful steps to ruin one of his companies. Scott Horton, of Harper's, and others have reported that Riley appeared to be pushing the U.S. Justice Department for a criminal investigation in retaliation for the Goff lawsuit. Riley's fear was that he would be forced to testify about the sources of his election funds.

I certainly have no insight on the merit of the government's case against Goff. But a couple of things are curious. Twenty-three of the 26 counts are for mail fraud. That follows a pattern we've seen in the Don Siegelman prosecution in Alabama and the Paul Minor case in Mississippi. And it seems odd that a Republican-led justice department would point out in its press release that Goff had lived a lavish lifestyle. Do Republicans think there is something wrong with lavish lifestyles?

Of course, the biggest curiosity is that the federal investigation evidently did not start until Goff had filed a lawsuit against Riley. Just like an effort to seize my home did not start until I began blogging about corruption by Republican judges in Alabama.

Rove vs. Jill Simpson
Former Bush advisor Karl Rove goes after Republican whistleblower Jill Simpson in a GQ interview. Rove calls Simpson a "complete lunatic" and a "loon" and cites the right-wing blog Power Line as a source for information on Simpson.

Larisa Alexandrovna, of at-Largely, has some interesting background on the Rove interview, noting numerous inconsistencies and inaccuracies in his statements.

The Wayne Madsen Reports (WMR) writes that the Alabama GOP is preparing to claim that Simpson illegally obtained a credit report on U.S. Judge Mark Fuller, who oversaw the Siegelman case. WMR also reports that a number of investigative journalists are looking into Fuller's financial interests.

Rove apparently has enlisted his journalistic friends at Newhouse publications and in the right-wing blogosphere, WMR reports, because he is "having fits" over news reports about Simpson, Siegelman, Fuller and the GOP conspiracy to imprison Siegelman.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been following your blog for the last several days and I have started this comment several ways, but the only thing I can say is that that you are bat shiat crazy. You are one of those tin foil hat liberals who think that the George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are out to get you.
I have tried looking for the original complaint but I cannot find it on the Circuit Court of Shelby County web site. If you have the guts, please post the original complaint and judgment on your blog. If you don't post it, I think I can get it provided the last 4 of your SSN is 2587. I am curious as to what caused this perceived witch hunt of liberal bloggers.

legalschnauzer said...

You clearly don't have a clue how courts work.

First of all, you won't find complaints or any other legal documents on the Web site of the Shelby County Circuit Court. Case files are public information, but they are large documents, and you have to go to the clerk's office and request the file and read it in hard-copy form.

I know the Jefferson County Courthouse has a lot of documents now available electronically. But my understanding is that members of the general public, still have to go to the clerk's office to view them.

In Shelby County, I think most documents are still in hard-copy format.

If you know the name of either party, you can easily look up the case number. But you don't need to do that because I've posted the case number on this site. It's CV-00-1248.

Don't know how much easier I can make it for you. But you can't learn about the case by sitting on your ass behind a computer. You have to go to the clerk's office.

If you have the guts, go to the clerk's office and read the whole file yourself. By the way, the original complaint and the judgment are meaningless. The original complaint didn't even state a true claim under the law. And the judgment is void under the law, as I will show on my blog.

The corruption in the case is readily apparent in other documents. In fact, you can see it simply from looking at the case action summary. Takes abotu five minutes. But that's probably too difficult for you.

If you don't know anything about the law--and you obviously don't--you are probably wasting your time to check the case file.

By the way, why you think having a portion of someone's SSN has anything to do with finding a case file is beyond me. But it sounds to me like you are basically threatening to commit a crime. And I would suggest that you be extremely careful. You may not be as anonymous as you think you are.

If you truly want to know about information in the case file, e-mail me and tell me who you are, and I can provide you with more paper than you will know what to do with.

But based on the anonymous nature of your comment, I suspect you are too big a coward to do that.

legalschnauzer said...

What's the matter, Eddie. Can't drive from Mobile to Shelby County? And I thought you didn't give a crap about my blog. So why are you still following it, after all these months?