It does happen in America

What I find most troubling is the total lack of coverage of the Don Siegelman case in the mainstream newspapers.  Google Don Siegelman, Newspapers and see what you get.  There was a time when a story like this would be front page news in every major newspaper around the country.  Today, not a peep, not a whisper.  This is an extremely serious charge of "abuse of power" and corruption of the justice system and the mainstream media would rather cover celebs in trouble than a Nation at risk.  No wonder alternative sites are the main form of information for the US public today.  To bad there are not more people listening to something other than Fox News and reading their local newspapers.

by Peter Wedlund (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 164 comments) on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 1:59:35 PM
 

George "Johhny Friendly" Bush and the Mafia Culture

Bush, the all-American Cheerleader, who comes across as the down-home country-boy and pretend Texan, always talks as if he has your best interests at heart, and even likes to give you gifts, like rebates, to keep you beholden and thankful, all the while he and his henchmen, just like Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront, runs their rackets, not merely on the waterfront, but on the homefront, and across the globe, one of his key rackets being jimmying the legal system so that it serves cronies and syncophants, and not any measure of justice.

This is how it is in Fascist Third World countries, where there is no justice, just bribery, power and fear. Throw Johhny Friendly and his Mob Party in the river now, before they screw us all.

by Mac McKinney (42 articles, 69 quicklinks, 164 diaries, 1064 comments) on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 4:05:58 PM
 

The wrong people are in prison

It looks like the wrong people are in prison, unfortunately, the ones with the power, the ones that should be in prison are this nations leaders.

Time for a change?  Seems like it will take more than a little change... and meanwhile those perpetrating and abusing power walk away without so much as an investigation into their wrong doings.

This President and his administration have had plenty of time to destroy all the evidence - maybe the public should begin a trial...  in a new system of justice. 

Rove should go away for a long time for his abuses of power - but will there ever be an investigation and trial? 

by August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 442 comments) on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 6:52:51 PM
 

Siegelman

If I had known that neoconservatives would destroy the conservative movement, take control of the Republican Party, and turn the party to the service of evil, I would not have helped to revive the Republican Party. I apologize to the American people.  

Paul Craig Roberts 

by paul roberts (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 27 comments) on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 7:32:50 PM
 

Dear Mr. Roberts...

     Many of us are accomplices by our lack of diligence. However we arrive at our truth matters not as much as that we do. Many here on this site are the voices that accept that. Many here like you, but not as visible, I applaud for sharing the perspirations of truth. I welcome you today and thank you for your steadfast work and efforts.

     Your apology is accepted. Please accept mine for my late blooming diligence.

     WE have lots of work to do.

     Thank you.

     peace

by mikel paul (10 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 394 comments) on Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 1:09:26 PM
 

Re: The Political Trial of Don Siegelman

by Munich (0 articles, 66 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 831 comments) on Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 1:52:51 AM
 

great article!

i'm so glad this story is finally sprouting legs.

i had just read your article which was sent to me online and was going to contact you to ask you to post it at OpEdNews and then i looked, and there it was!

you read my mind!  keep digging.  keep writing.  

those who are not taken in by the mainstream media want to know.

by Joan Brunwasser (139 articles, 3422 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 597 comments) on Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 2:31:48 PM
 

Alabama Rewarded

On Friday afternoon, it was announced that Northrop Grumman/EADS won a U.S. Defense contract for $40 billion to provide air-refueling tankers in a not-yet-built plant in Mobile, Alabama.  Its stock value went from $3.74 to $82.37. 

The other main competitor for the contract was Boeing.  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that "Boeing was considered the heavy favorite" but that "Northrop and its supporters, especially politicians in Alabama" claimed Northrop's tanker was superior.

As I began to look into who the lobbyists were who influenced this change in favored a manufacturer, which would devastate a portion of the Seattle area economy while rewarding strongly (and drastically changing) the community of Mobile, Alabama, I suddenly gasped as I saw another email about Don Siegelman provided by the diligent Mark Crispin Miller "Alabama press goes rabid for Karl Rove".

ALABAMA?! Oh, my God.  Alabama.  Is it possible?

So, I'm putting the idea out:

Is there any connection between Alabama's prosecution of Siegelman and its black out of the 60 Minutes segment... and the switch from Boeing in Seattle to Northrop Grumman/EADS in Mobile?

My own time to research this is limited, so I'm encouraging others to see what they might find, and please respond back.

This could be verrrrrry interesting.

by Barbara Bellows-TerraNova (14 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 53 comments) on Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 2:39:10 PM
 

DOJ subversion

I saw the "60 Minutes" segment about this case and was furious about the whole thing.  What Cheney/Bush/Rove have perpetrated upon the American people is moral bankruptcy of colossal proportions.  That whole outrageous bunch of neo-con fascists should be removed from office and prosecuted to the full extent of any remaining law that still matters.  Then Cheney/Bush should be turned over the Hague and tried for crimes against humanity.

   That some members of the Republican Party are honest and virtuous enough to oppose such, speaks well for our country's political health.  That the party of Lincoln should end up in the dirtied hands of these neo-con crooks is truly beyond the pale. 

by L. RETZACK (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 41 comments) on Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 7:36:58 PM
 

Same as it ever was.

The big thieves hang the little ones. Czech Proverb

I've nothing but contempt for the judiciary and legislative branches of both the federal AND state level only exceeded by my revulsion of the executive branch and the mass media.

You can see it played out across the nation in our local courts, the rot penetrates the entire system; it's ALL pay or play - you get your monies worth of justice. Jesus forgives - the state doesn't.

The US Constitution and Bill of Rights has been relegated to being "just a godd_m piece of paper" (GWB) as well as the wholesale rejection of Magna Carta legal precedents, the Geneva Conventions and the general degradation of principles dating to the "Enlightenment".

And all of this has happened under the watchful eye of our Mass media. We still have 1st amendment "free speech" – just not the right to be heard from the privatized soapbox (otherwise known as the magic box with all the shiny people inside).

I first heard of the Siegelman case on the Internet when the Bushites first went after the Alabama Governor in 2002. His real crime was not playing ball with the hidden hand of economic interests – privatize everything and blame the poor for their poverty.

The subversion of the "justice" system by corporate and wealthy interests for personal gain predates Santa Clare Vs Southern Pacific (1886 - granting equal protection 14th amendment rights inserted into the decisions endnotes by a Supreme Court Clerk who also just happened to have formerly been a Lawyer for the Rail Roads).

The corruption of the Judiciary really took off with Nixon's diversionary "War on Drugs" and all the confiscation "Drug King Pin" laws initially targeted at Pablo Escabar which morphed into the "Tough on Crime" mandatory minimums and "3 strikes" life sentences. Very good for the military/prison industrial complex where our beloved "Land of the free" incarcerates 1 in 100 citizens: more than any other country in the world INCLUDING China and Russia.

It can be a very lucrative funding source for aggressive police agencies more concerned with seizing cars and houses of someone selling pot then where and how exactly the local "Outstanding Pillars of the Community" actually became wealthy.

The only difference in this case is the subject of the railroading had been relatively wealthy and politically well connected. Our general population is railroaded everyday by politically ambitious Elected District Attorneys intent on fulfilling some "Tough on Crime" campaign platform. Innocence and guilt do not matter as much as someone goes to jail and every conviction is seen as "setting an example".

I submit (with the few rare and notable exceptions), I've seen more Honesty, Integrity and general morality from local street corner drug dealers and prostitutes then the majority of politicians that have plagued our Nation for the last 100 years.

For example: Enron where more money was evaporated by a corrupt conspiracy of a politically (Bush) connected energy company colluded with its Auditors, and the major Banks then all the street crime of 2000 including drugs ($60B – the SC number was $49B).

As the bottom drops out of our economy and desperation turns into increasing crime only a few low level scapegoats will eventually be hung out to dry for the subprime derivatives "securities" financial meltdown. Certainly none of the principles.

No one will go to jail for the Plame - Brewster Jennings outing but our jails will continue to be filled by minor drug pushers and users, the occasional athlete who admits to doping and the former Alabama Governor.

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear: Harry S Truman

by David Donnell (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments) on Monday, March 3, 2008 at 10:18:14 PM