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| Dana and Don Siegelman |
Dana Siegelman, the daughter of Alabama's former governor, approached Karl Rove this week at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. Showing Rove more politeness than he deserved, Ms. Siegelman introduced herself and tried to ask if there is anything Rove could do to help her father. After all, Don Siegelman is due to report to federal custody next Tuesday as the victim of perhaps the most notorious political prosecution in American history.
Did Karl Rove care about the human costs of gross injustice? Not on your life. What did Dana Siegelman get for her trouble? An epic lesson in Republican rudeness.
The TYT Network interviewed Dana Siegelman about her brief experience in Rove's orbit, and you can view the full video at the end of this post. If you ever have asked yourself, "Just how big a jackass is Karl Rove?" Dana Siegelman provides the answer with the following words:
I had no idea that Karl Rove would dare step in this building. And when I found out this morning that he was here, I sort of felt . . . I need to meet this person and let him know what he's done to my family.
He didn't give me that opportunity. Instead, as soon as I introduced myself, which I thought I did very politely--"Sir, Don Siegelman's daughter, I just wanted to meet you and say . . . --he cut me off right away and started shaking his finger in my face: "Tell your dad not to use my name to make money," which Dad obviously isn't . . . so I thought, "OK, buddy, I don't know if you're quite with it."
He certainly knew who Don Siegelman was, and he certainly was angry to know that I was his daughter. I didn't get to ask him what I wanted to ask him, which was, "At this point, is there any way you feel you could help us?" Make him feel important, let him know that I'm not trying to attack him. But also let him know that I think he can do something. He knows the people behind my dad's case, he pulled a lot of strings. . . . He could, if he wanted to, right this wrong--and do it for the country and all the people that were politically prosecuted.
I don't know if meeting him will have any effect. I don't know if it will touch him where it should.
Bottom line? Dana Siegelman tried to interact with Karl Rove in a human way, as one person to another. And she didn't have much luck, probably because Rove is more jackass than human.
The Dana Siegelman interview hit home to me on multiple levels. As she noted, the corruption of our justice system under Karl Rove and others in the George W. Bush administration goes way beyond her father. It goes to Paul Minor, Wes Teel, and John Whitfield, who were unlawfully prosecuted in Mississippi in a case that I call a "bookend" for the Siegelman debacle.
For that matter, it goes right here to the Schnauzer household, where both my wife and I have been cheated out of our jobs because I chose to start a blog and write truthfully about judicial corruption in our state and beyond, including the Siegelman case.
In fact, I am being cheated at this very moment in my wrongful termination lawsuit against the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). My case is before the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, and it is being heard by two of the same justices--Gerald Bard Tjoflat and J.L. Edmondson--who unlawfully upheld convictions in the Siegelman case.
They appear set to uphold the violation of black-letter law by the trial court in Birmingham, which granted summary judgment to the university without giving me an opportunity to conduct any discovery. My lawsuit alleges what tape-recorded evidence clearly proves--that I was fired because of the content on my blog about the Siegelman case--and I repeatedly have criticized Tjoflat and Edmondson, on my blog and some half dozen national Web sites, for their bogus ruling in U.S. v. Siegelman.
So what happens? They wind up on the three-judge panel that is hearing the appeal in my employment lawsuit. The well-known standard for recusal is the following: Could a judge's impartiality reasonably be questioned? By that standard, Tjoflat and Edmondson clearly should never have sat on my panel, and I have filed a motion for them to recuse.
In the past two days, I've written about the latest in my case at the following posts:
* Here's How I Got Screwed By the Same Appellate Court In Atlanta That Cheated Don Siegelman;
* How Did the Same Judges from the Siegelman Case Wind Up On the Appeal of My Lawsuit Against UAB?
Will Tjoflat and Edmondson follow the law and step down? I doubt it. Will the same judges who cheated Don Siegelman continue to cheat me? I imagine so.
That's the system that Karl Rove has given us. And Dana Siegelman makes an eloquent statement about the harm that Rove and others have inflicted on our democracy.
29 comments:
It clear that Tjoflat and Edmondson should have recused themselves due to your having written about tham as you have. Surely they can not claimed not to have known this.
BTW how in the hell did Rove get into the convention. Did he present phony credentials?
Good question, David. Perhaps his status as a "Fox whore" got him in via a media pass.
That Tjoflat and Edmondson are hearing my case clearly is a set up. And it means cases are not randomly assigned, as they are supposed to be by law--just as Mark Fuller was not "randomly assigned" to the Siegelman case.
I strongly suspect one or two of the big downtown, conservative law firms in Birmingham are ramrodding my case. One of the them is very pro Riley; the other has strong ties to UAB and has at least one prominent lawyer who is very close to the Rileys.
We're talking organized crime--in the Siegelman case, Minor case, my case.
Dana Siegelman says in her interview that she wishes should could have thrown handcuffs on Rove. And she was right on the money: He is head of an organized crime ring. We might as well call it what it is.
We also should not forget Bill Pryor is on the 11th Circuit, and his "duty station" is the Hugo Black Federal Courthouse in Birmingham. He can easily coordinate the outcome of various cases between the trial and appellate courts. Again, we are talking about a federal judge who is an organized criminal--and he started the whole Siegelman charade.
Doesn't a judge have to admit their partiality in a particular case before a recusal?
If so- the US Court system may as well relocate to "East Timor."
Judges don't have to do anything--and that's the problem. They are only accountable to other judges, who are in the same corrupt tribe--so that means they are pretty much unaccountable.
They are accountable, in theory, to Congress, which controls the purse strings that fund our courts. That's where pressure needs to come from, in my view.
Courts should be defunded until they start doing the jobs they are supposed to do under the constitution.
Jeff:
We are no better than East Timor, or any other banana republic you can think of. That's how bad it has gotten, and Dana Siegelman tried to converse with the man who is largely responsible for it.
We no longer can lay claim to being a democracy, not without a judiciary that can be trusted. And ours is a total washout.
Karl Rove's buddy--Sean Hannity likes to continuously talk about some obscure notion of an "exceptional America-- I would think because his prissy butt has NEVER had to contend with U.S. judicial tyranny.
Their BOTH cowards!
Yes, much the way they tout their patriotism while running hurriedly the other way when it comes to actual military service.
The slogan:
"The Price We Pay To LIVE In A Free And Exceptional America."
A brand sold so long to so many that the population of America, tragically, actually too many believe this or Karl Rove would be in jail and Siegelman would not be.
Very simple arithmetic.
We're exceptionally corrupt, and that's about it. Did anyone hear a single speaker at the Dem convention mention justice issues. I didn't hear it. You know you won't hear it at the GOP affair.
That the party of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, with our first black president, could be so blind on justice issues is . . . well, it means we don't have a very bright future as a democracy.
How incredulous.
Karl Rove, who is also responsible for the criminally insane killing of millions of INNOCENT Iraqis: women, children, elderly, AND
BUSH IS A WAR CRIMINAL FOR THE GENOCIDE, "Rove's Boss."
Don Siegelman's daughter - rather than getting an entire group together, and A "CITIZEN'S ARREST," she did a video to show how reasonable he isn't.
No wonder "low hanging fruit" is also a 'slogan' for the south.
I wish Siegelman would refuse to report to federal custody. I wish he would lock himself in his house, and I wish citizens would surround his home, 100 deep or whatever, and force the feds to arrest protesters and break in to get Siegelman. I'm sure some would say this isn't wise, but I disagreed with Don when he said at resentencing that he respects the system. There is zero reason to respect the system, as it is now. The government can cite no lawful reasons to incarcerate him, and I would like to see him stand his ground.
There's no bright future because the lights are not on in the people who have the power to do something about this.
Siegelman's daughter should begin to arrest the criminals that have done this to her family. She can and there are many of us more than willing to back her.
Rather than being polite to mass murderers and thugs that steal our homes and all our "wealth," we arrest and begin to act as though we have grown-up human beings in America who are responsible enough to STOP the madness.
We are NOT a democracy, we are a "Constitutional Republic," and herein lies the rub of our most serious problem, "Apartheid."
Democracy actually looks like what this is, a small minority rule a large majority who agree.
A Constitutional Republic restored is what is feared most in the U.S.
What are the parties to do, once the Constitutional Republic functions as supposed to: Coining our own "money" .. THAT IS, manufacturing the computer credit for the majority and not a small minority, and of course the education for all to be highly intelligent people to choose in the 21st Century, how to SELF GOVERN. Uh Oh, a grown-up responsible "country."
About a decade to five and the real revolt is not going to get stopped by any the likes of a TURD BLOSSOM. He needs to bloom like the rose in the desert that is also too thorny for the real live human beings in the Middle East.
Rove's first pledge is to the money and power that corrupts the populations globally, so the Ghetto earth can keep his ilk in the ideology of self importance.
Roberta Kelly
Don respects the system because he has his future invested in the system which is the corrupt Federal Reserve SYNDICATE.
I appreciate you saying what he said about respecting this system that has literally destroyed his family and his life, clearly.
Thus, proving how sick he is. He shows up TO DO THE TIME FOR NO CRIME COMMITTED, and poor Don is literally not other than one of the many zombies.
The CIA has made the USA into a nation of blubbering piles of protoplasm.
Time to leave I am afraid when the Don Siegelman family is our mirror reflection of DEMOCRACY, then it is truly time to leave.
You've demonstrated more passion for Don Siegelman, than he has been able to FULLY "MUSTER,' and what this proves to all those of us who have supported him, is that he is NOT committed to a "Constitutional Republic."
Don has bowed to the toxic shame game and one who is not into the corruption only uses HEALTHY SHAME for "alchemy" into "dynamics of power." Thus, RETIREMENT!
Don's "retirement" from the FED, is what stands to be lost and his loyalty is not to audit that which he believes his his "future."
This is very sick. I wish him to not get too many drugs loaded into him in prison to make this self destruct condition for fake money and power, far, far worse.
He knows the U.S. Constitution and what happened to our right to be a sovereign nation, however, he would rather keep his fantasy about how a future awaits him.
Roberta Kelly
Mr. Schnauzer:
Maybe during the Dem convention no mention justice issues occurred or the holding Karl Rove & Bush & Cheney accountable for crimes against humanity is because Obama was preoccupied with:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?smid=tw-share&_rmoc.semityn.www
*
And certainly was preoccupied with watching out for Jeffrey R. Immelt's interests:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_R._Immelt
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/business/media/07weather.html?_r=2
Just another political hack!
very interesting links, jeffrey spruill, the corporations are of course welfare recipients, by design. And, Noam Chomsky has written about IBM, our 'internet' as well as all the recipients of the public taxpayer, the American citizen, and whatever label can be applied. Consumer here in our 'modern' day.
We the people not only pay to play in the market that is hidden, but we pay to support the criminals that fleece US in every direction the market flows to them, AS NON HIDDEN, "Too Big To Fail." Eleventh Circuit arises to mind scum at a top level somewhere.
Corporations known also as transnationals. That is one of the big deals the American public are paying for, now, the EURO investments by the so-called leaders in the U.S. The majority of U.S. citizens-consumers-public are the host to the global empire builders and this is a historical fact. Digital computer credit, sold as money-debt, controlled by a few whom are secret, enslaving billions of many human beings, is a monster yet artistically perfected for the public eye. Too scary to see how vile evil in the year 2012, is in 'reality.'
"... Iraq: Inside the Belly of the CIA ....
... “The then leaders of the United States [Mr. Bush] and Great Britain [Mr. Blair] fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the specter of Syria and Iran before us,” he said ..
.. No doubt, Bush and Blair will be eventually tried in a fair court of justice for the crimes they have committed in Iraq in the name of democracy under the hallucination of a divine decree; indeed, that is only a matter of when rather than if. As for Bush, he has explicitly stated that he was on a mission from God to strike Afghanistan and Iraq. Overwhelmed with a maniac feeling of messianic mission, Bush revealed this religious madness four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in his meeting with a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit ..
.. He said, “I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did" ..
.. In an unprecedented ruling handed down by the Kuala Lumpur (KL) War Crimes Tribunal in Malaysia in May, George W. Bush and a number of his accomplices including Dick Cheney, former US Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld, former Defense Secretary, and Alberto Gonzales, then Counsel to President Bush were found guilty of war crimes ..
... Day by day, more evidence is building up to put Bush and Blair to abject shame for their crimes and fresh calls for arresting and trying the duo and their accomplices at the international criminal court fall upon the ears from time to time ..
.. International community is waking up to the realities thanks to the efforts of peace activists and the justice-seeking dissidents across the world. It is indeed a good sign that a new age of social and political enlightenment has already begun to dawn and that a new light is in sight. This marks an imminent end to multitudes of atrocities perpetrated by Washington and its allies and the plots hatched by the Zionists to divide and rule the world.
By Dr. Ismail Salami
Global Research, September 08, 2012
I'm in TX and here it is my understanding that the appellate court system is separate fro m the lower courts. Therefore, the same judges that heard your previous case would not be in the pool of judges to review the lower court's decision. Is that not the case in Alabama? It seems really wrong for the same judges to decide on the validity of their own decisions.
cj--
Most employment cases are heard in federal court, and that's where mine is. The trial court is in the Northern District of Alabama, here in Birmingham, and the appellate court is the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, which covers Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. My appeal supposedly was "randomly assigned" to a three-judge panel, but two of its members just happened to be the same ones who heard the appeal on the Don Siegelman case. That's where the conflict comes.
Legal Schnauzer, did your payroll check get disbursed through the State and Univ. of Alabama, or via the Fed? All money is from the Fed, in reality. The "tracking" that is, all "digital credit" has a tracking number via the Fed. But, my question is did your payroll check come from a Federal Agency or the UAB as a State Agency?
In my understanding jurisdiction is strongly held in revenue as the contract. Where the contract gets vitiated is where the "victim(s)" suffer the greatest revenue damages, harm, etc.
The revenue was set in the state or federal venue - jurisdiction?
And another question, did you get the tax returns filed by the UAB, which indicate how your job was seen with the revenue there, loss or gain, and furthermore, how does the University file taxes - redacted returns can be forthcoming as discovery, however, the tax returns should be public.
REPUBLIC. The name has been changed so the PUBLIC get to pay for a private 'democracy.'
.. Federal judges, and in particular, those who make it to the Federal Courts of Appeals and Supreme Court, are not drawn from the ranks of progressive lawyers ...
.. Whether appointed by Democrats or Republicans, they tend, at best, to be corporate liberals sympathetic to the arguments of business ...
.. They are not the sort to wrench the steering wheel solidly in labor's direction by reversing Supreme Court decisions reaching back a half century ...
.. Even in the unlikely event that the Supreme Court were to reconsider many of its past labor decisions, it is highly unlikely that Democratic appointees to the Court could be counted on to make the sharp turn in labor policy necessary to restore the right to engage in effective strike tactics.
Are Both GOP and Democratic Party-Appointed Judges Anti-Labor?
Where's The Change? Alternative political/cultural commentary from an historical New Left working-class counter-cultural perspective.
Anon:
You raise a lot of interesting points. To my knowledge, my paycheck was disbursed via the state. But UAB brought in large sums of federal dollars, via grants and contracts. UAB would never have amounted to much if it had to rely only on state funding and tuition, etc. Here's an interesting thing about UAB and other public universities: They happily take federal money, but when you sue them for violation of federal law, they claim "state sovereignty" or "Eleventh Amendment immunity." In other words, they want federal dollars but they don't want to be held accountable to federal law. Eleventh Amendment immunity is a monstrous scam that should not exist for entities that take federal funds. Even if it does exist, it often is unlawfully applied by courts. And you are absolutely correct about federal judges. They come from big firms, which tend to support management over labor at every turn.
Anon@11:17 AM
Competition is a sin.
John D. Rockefeller
Who actually "OWNS" THE US?
"... Under the doctrine of “Parens Patriae” (which means Government as Parent), as the result of the manipulated bankruptcy of the UNITED SNAKES of AmeriKKKa in 1930, ALL assets of the American People, their natural labor/life energy, and the rest of this country itself are held by the Depository Trust Corporation at 55 Water Street, N.Y., N.Y., secured by Uniform Commercial Code Liens, which are then monetized as “debt money” by the Federal Reserve. It may interest you to know that under the umbrella of the Depository Trust Corporation lies the CEDE corporation, the Federal Reserve Corporation, the American Bar Association (the legal arm of the banking interests), and the Internal Revenue Service (the system's collection agency for the entire Fraudulent Scam). Keep in mind that the mysterious CEDE Corporation is a controlled private Unknown holding company of the Depository Trust Corporation.
The Independent Treasury act of 1920 suspended the de jure (rightful) Treasury Department of the UNITED STATES Government. (Look up the word de jure in some type of law reference and you will see that it means “by right of legal establishment.”)
The U.S. Congress turned the treasury department over to a private corporation. This private corporation (which is nothing more than a Fascist Monopolistic CARTEL) is none other than the Federal Reserve and their agents. There is currently a very well-kept secret being held from the American People. The bulk of the ownership of the Federal Reserve System is held by a select group of International Banking Interests and absolutely NONE is held by the UNITED STATES Treasury.
These International Banking Interests are:
ROTHSCHILD BANK OF LONDON
ROTHSCHILD BANK OF BERLIN
WARBURG BANK OF HAMBURG
WARBURG BANK OF AMSTERDAM
LAZARD BROTHERS OF PARIS
ISRAEL MOSES SEIF BANKS OF ITALY
CHASE MANHATTAN BANK OF NEW YORK
GOLDMAN, SACHS OF NEW YORK
LEHMAN BROTHERS OF NEW YORK
KUHN LOEB BANK OF NEW YORK
When you request the tax returns with respect to your case, LS, be certain to ask for CERTIFIED COPIES OF THE ORIGINALS, but of course. You are going to want an audit, independent of the returns.
Your "status" as an "employee," would be A very interesting "jurisdiction question," as to how exactly does your case get litigated in the proper "venue."
That one blogger was direct about you being litigious or it was that you're in a litigant position to a point where you should not be so abrasive to the judicial where the litigation is decided.
POINT: Where is your case actually decided for proper jurisdiction / venue? I do not believe this can be litigated until the tax returns determine exactly where you stand.
Karl Rove has dedicated his life to getting even with the world for his inability to get a date in high school. In his sad little world, anything goes if Republcians win. Period. The man should die in prison, owing the country a hundred years.
First mistake: Thinking that Karl Rove would help anyone other than himself. Second mistake: Actually talking to the bastard.
Legal S, Your answer to my comment was regarding the Siegelman case. I was referring to your case, which may,in any case, be equivalent to the Siegelman case.
How is that fair to have the same judges decide if their previous decisions were correct?
Protest.
cj--
I think I see what you are saying. Part of the problem, I guess, is that federal judges have lifetime appointments. They can be involved in a decision in 1988 that settles law and then hear a case that involves consideration of that law in 2012. If I interpret you correctly, that does raise an interesting issue. It seems unlikely that a judge is going to find that his own earlier opinion was wrong.
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