Tuesday, March 24, 2009

We Must Not Forget Our Political Prisoners

When commentators call for investigations of possible wrongdoing by members of the Bush administration, the discussions usually have an international focus. Subjects such as torture, illegal detentions, and spying tend to carry the day.

But a recent Gallup poll shows Americans are concerned more with domestic wrongdoing, such as politicization of the Justice Department, than with international issues. The poll showed that 71 percent of respondents favored a criminal investigation or independent probe of possible attempts to use the Justice Department for political purposes. By contrast, 62 percent favored investigations into torture and 63 percent on warrantless wiretaps.

While national opinionmakers tend to focus on war crimes, folks in the heartland seem to be more concerned about the notion that Bush officials have prosecuted and imprisoned people for political reasons, not because they committed crimes.

And so we take time here at Legal Schnauzer to send this vital message: We must not forget our political prisoners. And we must take all necessary steps under the law to see that they are vindicated--and that the appropriate people are held accountable for their suffering.

I can think of no better way to remember the victims of the Bush "justice" system than to spotlight a recent three-part documentary produced by Project Save Justice. It is titled "The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove," and it is compelling viewing. My hope is that every American, in one forum or another, will see it and be moved to action.

The documentary opens by noting that many Americans have heard about the apparent political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. But most Americans do not know that the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has received information about roughly 1,000 questionable prosecutions. And of the 700 investigations conducted by the Bush Justice Department since 2001, about 87 percent targeted Democrats. Here is Part I of "The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove:"



Part II focuses on the methods used by the Bush DOJ, noting the critical role played by Republican-appointed judges and compliant mainstream news outlets. It also notes that supporters of Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Edwards were frequent targets. One Edwards supporter, Michigan attorney Geoffrey Fieger, notes that his office was raided by 100 FBI agents. "You could rob a bank and murder someone and get maybe two or three agents on your tail," Fieger says. The raid on his office, he says, was "unprecedented in American history." Part II also spotlights the Paul Minor case in Mississippi and includes compelling interviews with former state Supreme Court justice Oliver Diaz and Myrna Teel, wife of imprisoned former state judge Wes Teel. "Wes was told, 'You resign and never run for public office again or you will be indicted,'" Myrna Teel says:



Part III focuses on the payoffs for the Republican officials who went along with political prosecutions. Many were rewarded with high-paying positions in the private sector or lifetime appointments in government posts. What about the victims of these prosecutions? The documentary concludes with a lengthy scroll, including their names, positions, and home areas--plus the charges they faced. Many of the victims or their loved ones wound up in financial ruin. Suicides, or deaths from natural causes to those under 70, have been common. "This is not the system of justice I fought for in World War II," says Bill Minor, father of Paul Minor. "This is not the system of justice that Paul fought for in Vietnam."



Who are the victims? Here are just a few of them. If you are like me, you probably are hearing many of these names for the first time:

* Meg Scott Phipps--agriculture commissioner, North Carolina (extortion)

* Matt McCoy--state senator, Iowa (extortion)

* Rev. Saundra McFadden-Weaver--city council, Kansas City, MO (mortgage fraud)

* Jerry Mezzatesta--state senator, West Virginia (vote buying)

* Garey Ballance--circuit judge, North Carolina (tax evasion)

* Tom Murphy--mayor, Pittsburgh, PA (vote buying)

* Katheryn Shields--county executive, Kansas City (mortgage fraud)

5 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for bringing attention to such an important matter. Most American citizens have no knowledge of what has happened. They should be outraged that such could happen in this country and concerned enough to make sure it is corrected, and never happens again. Thanks again for spreading the word.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, they have persecuted many patriotic public servants who actually tried to stop corruption by falsely accusing them of criminal activity and rigging the criminal justice system to turn them into political prisoners in an effort to cover up their own wrongdoing. The way they accomplish this is to start with a nugget of truth, then take it completely out of context and surround it with lots of disinformation that is spread by the the corporate media.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Are you saying those crimes were not committed?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anon No. 2:
    I haven't studied many of these cases, so I can't say whether a crime was committed or not in each individual case. And I imagine you probably can't say one way or another either.

    But I have studied the Don Siegelman and Paul Minor cases extensively. And there definitely were not crimes committed there. The evidence also is overwhelming that Bush officials removed certain U.S. attorneys for failing to push prosecutions for political reasons.

    Many of the cases in the documentary apparently were brought by USAs who managed to keep their jobs because they agreed to pursue flimsy or nonexistent cases for political reasons.

    So I am saying there definitely were not crimes in some cases that I've been able to study closely. And there is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that there were no crimes in many of these other cases.

    ReplyDelete
  5. They wanted to use my escort service to blackmail politico's. All the people involved on this video need to be public on the internet so others can easily contact them.

    Prostitution, Blackmail, and Political Corruption
    By Agents of the United States

    Sex Slavery, Forced Prostitution, Human Trafficking, extortion, blackmail―of the most egregious kind―of U.S. Citizens by the U.S. Government Brothel of Bureaucrats

    My name is Robin Head, previous owner of Playboy Escorts in Houston, Texas. I was approached by various law enforcement agency's, FBI, ATF, etc... who wanted me to abet them in entrapping "State and political officials" having sex so they could extort, control and blackmail them, not to charge them with misdemeanor prostitution. At the same time, women at my service were being tricked and trafficked overseas to Bangkok and called me collect from a jail in Vienna.

    A madam from Alabama was found hanging in a federal jail cell in nearby Brazoria County. When I refused to abet in the extortion, I was thrown in jail, no bond, a 'Life' sentence filed on me, and then my son and family were harassed and attacked endlessly in some kind of gang like Mafia style.

    I went to the FBI, but it was like reporting the devil to the witch, they said they would help me but only if I would help them, again, to set up officials. They had no interest in the corruption aspect. Some very high profile names were involved, people seen on TV news commentary.

    Who are these agents with this monstrous agenda and what do they want? This is not a left/right wing thing it is a most vicious entity in this country.

    This country has become as fearful as any other 3rd world country when it comes to reporting crime to officials just exactly like in Russia, Iraq, Africa, Mexico, etc... where it is the officials that are the perpetrators of the crimes, kidnapping, ransom, drugs, and it is dangerous to report to them.

    VegasMadam@hotmail.com.
    http://fbicorruption.250free.com

    ReplyDelete