OpEdNews » Doing Battle With a Corrupt Bushie

Support OEN
With Your
Tax-Deductible Donation

Tags for This Article:

Populum Tag Cloud Control Panel
	Fine tune your search to access content

Articles	Links
Diaries	Products
Events	All

All time
Last 6 mos
Last month
Last week
Last 24 hrs

From:
Month Day Year

To:
Month Day Year

Alphabet Popularity	Count ON Count OFF
This Level	Sub-levels

Tag(s): Alabama; Blogger; Bushies Under The Microscope; Corruption; Fraud; Justice
Add to My Group

June 5, 2008 at 17:50:15

Doing Battle With a Corrupt Bushie

by Roger Shuler Page 1 of 1 page(s)

www.opednews.com

SAVE FAVORITES

VIEW FAVORITES

View Ratings | Rate It

Doing Battle With a Corrupt Bushie

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee is investigating possible political prosecution by several U.S. attorneys in the Bush Justice Department.

But how does political prosecution work? One method is familiar to the public: It involves initiating prosecutions for political reasons. Two classic examples are the Don Siegelman case in Alabama and the Paul Minor case in Mississippi, both involving prominent Democrats.

But a second method is less familiar to the public: It involves hindering, or even curtailing, prosecutions for political reasons. In this scenario, people who actually have committed federal crimes are not investigated or prosecuted--all because they are "loyal Bushies," members of the GOP "home team."

The Alabama blog Legal Schnauzer is taking readers on a personal journey that involves this second form of political prosecution. And the practitioner of this unlawful art is Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and the first prosecutor to go after Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama.

Legal Schnauzer presents a tale of a citizen who presents Martin with clear evidence of wrongdoing by Republican judges in Alabama state courts. Interestingly, the case also involves wrongdoing by an attorney with family ties to Karl Rove and the Bush White House.

What does Martin do about these allegations of GOP crimes? Legal Schnauzer will show you. And it isn't pretty.

First, you can read the citizen's initial missive to Martin. Then you can read the U.S. attorney's dismissive, and rather snarky, reply.

But the citizen rises to the challenge, firing off a multipage letter that is filled with clear evidence of federal crimes, particularly honest-services mail fraud. Ironically, that charge was at the heart of both the Siegelman and Minor cases.

Will Alice Martin uphold her oath and pursue justice in a nonpartisan manner? And if she does not, what techniques will she use to sweep Republican wrongdoing under the proverbial carpet?

Legal Schnauzer is about to lay all of that out.

www.legalschnauzer.blogspot.com

I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and work in higher education. I became interested in justice-related issues after experiencing gross judicial corruption in Alabama state courts. This corruption has a strong political component. The corrupt judges are all Republicans, and the attorney who filed a fraudulent lawsuit against me has strong family ties to the Alabama Republican Party, with indirect connections to national figures such as Karl Rove. In fact, a number of Republican operatives who have played a central role in the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman (a Democrat) also have connections to my case. I am married, with no kids and two Siamese cats. I am the author of the blog Legal Schnauzer. The blog is written in honor of Murphy, our miniature schnauzer (1993-2004)who did so much to help my wife and me survive our nightmarish experience with corrupt judges. I grew up in Springfield, Missouri, and I am pretty much a lifelong St. Louis Cardinal baseball fan. I've lived in Birmingham for almost 30 years and have adopted the UAB Blazers as my Southern college football and basketball team to follow. Also, follow East Tennessee State basketball. An avid reader, both fiction and non-fiction. Influential writers on public affairs are Kevin Phillips, Michael Lind, Thomas Edsall, E.J. Dionne, Molly Ivins, and Scott Horton.