Eric Holder traveled to Austin, Texas on Tuesday to deliver a major speech on civil rights in general and voting rights in particular. He sent a strong message to those states who have passed Voter ID laws: The DOJ will carefully review them to see that they are in line with the Voting Rights Act. While he stopped short of coming right out and accusing states of voter suppression, it was clear in his message.
As Congressman John Lewis described it, in a speech on the House floor this summer, the voting rights that he worked throughout his life – and nearly gave his life – to ensure are, “under attack… [by] a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, [and] minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process.” Not only was he referring to the all-too-common deceptive practices we’ve been fighting for years. He was echoing more recent concerns about some of the state-level voting law changes we’ve seen this legislative season.
Since January, more than a dozen states have advanced new voting measures. Some of these new laws are currently under review by the Justice Department, based on our obligations under the Voting Rights Act. Texas and South Carolina, for example, have enacted laws establishing new photo identification requirements that we’re reviewing. We’re also examining a number of changes that Florida has made to its electoral process, including changes to the procedures governing third-party voter registration organizations, as well as changes to early voting procedures, including the number of days in the early voting period.
No financial executives have gone to jail, despite an overwhelming body of evidence indicating that a group of organized "banker gangs" conducted a widespread Wall Street crime wave that made them rich and while throwing millions into poverty. The Justice Department's failure to act against these bankers is matched only by its declining credibility -- a problem it only makes worse whenever it tries to defend itself.
An interview with an outgoing Justice official in today's Wall Street Journal is merely the latest in a sad parade of weak excuses and implausible arguments, and it comes on the heels of Justice Department official Lanny Breuer's poor 60 Minutes showing this week on the same topic.
Stop. Just stop. If nobody at Justice can get the job done, it's time for the Administration to bring in a whole new team and start again. Did everybody in the banking business break the law? No. Very few did. But some of the ones that did appear to be very well-placed, and if they're not punished they'll do it again and again.
Broken Trust
The credibility problem with Holder's (and Obama's) Justice Department doesn't just stem from its failure to act, or even from its inability to offer a plausible explanation for its inaction. The real problem comes from its history of misleading, misdirecting, and deceiving the public about its efforts.
Its "Interagency Task Force" against lending fraud with a lot of fanfare, for example, turned out to be vaporware, a small-time operation that targeted two-bit grifters and petty crime rings but avoided any investigation of big-bank systemic fraud. Not that the operation was a total failure: The SEC charged a psychic with fraud! (I say the psychic shoulda seen it coming.)
The Justice Department boasted about another operation, too, one with the all-too-ironic name "Operation Broken Trust." As with the "Interagency Task Force," we were told that "Broken Trust" was a coordinated Justice Department effort to track down bad guys. And like the Task Force, "Trust" ignored the real crimes on Wall Street while triumphantly listing enough colorful small-time crooks to mount a summer-stock production of Oliver.
But, while both operations were deceptively packaged, Broken Trust was worse. How much worse? The fair-minded Columbia Journalism Review called its roundup of articles on the topic "Obama Administration's Financial Fraud Stunt Backfires." The laundry list of cases named as "Broken Trust" successes included some that were initiated before it was even created. Some were underway before Barack Obama even became President.
"Trust" was a brazen attempt to hoodwink the public -- nothing more.
Sounds like Spitzer's on a campaign to push hard for the prosecution of Goldman Sachs. This, from last week:
Eliot Spitzer challenges investment banker Goldman Sachs: "Sue me. I don't care. You lied to the public, you should be prosecuted" during an interview with Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate subcommittee charged with investigating the causes of the financial crisis.
Here's a transcript of what Spitzer said:
SPITZER: Senator, I'm going to take a leap. I'm going to say it out loud. Very directly.
Goldman Sachs, you lied to the public. You lied to your clients. You've got a problem. You come on the show. Sue me. I don't care. You lied to the public, you should be prosecuted.
I'm going to say it right now. And I hope they are.
Listen to Spitzer challenge Holder in his appearance on Anderson Cooper, then go read this William Greider article on "How Wall Street Crooks Get Out of Jail Free".
Then read this Politico piece on how conservative members of Congress are more upset that Holder is refusing to devote DoJ resources to prosecuting something much more important: online pornography.
UPDATE: Via Miss Kitty, it looks like Darrell's minions have been busily scrubbing Wikipedia! Nice to know they read us, huh?
Dear, dear Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the incoming subpoena-wielding chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was on Faux News this weekend, attacking ACORN and Attorney General Eric Holder, talking about how "corrupt" the Obama administration is. I thought I'd take the opportunity to remind people just who's lecturing us on morality. Via Wikipeda:
A retired Army sergeant claimed that Issa stole a Dodge sedan from an Army post near Pittsburgh in 1971. The sergeant said he recovered the car after confronting and threatening him.
Issa denied the allegation and no charges were filed.
In 1972, Issa and his brother allegedly stole a red Maserati sports car from a car dealership in Cleveland.
He and his brother were indicted for car theft, but the case was dropped.
That same year, Issa was convicted in Michigan for possession of an unregistered gun. He received three months probation and paid a $204 fine.
[...] On December 28, 1979, Issa and his brother allegedly faked the theft of Issa's Mercedes Benz sedan.
Issa and his brother were charged for grand theft auto, but the case was dropped by prosecutors for lack of evidence.
Later, Issa and his brother were charged for misdemeanors, but that case was not pursued by prosecutors.
Issa accused his brother of stealing the car, and said that the experience with his brother was the reason he went into the car alarm business.
A day after a court order was issued, giving Issa control of automotive alarm company A.C. Custom over an unpaid $60,000 debt, Issa allegedly carried a cardboard box containing a handgun into the office of A.C. Custom executive, Jack Frantz, and told Frantz he was fired.
In a 1998 newspaper article, Frantz said Issa had invited him to hold the gun and claimed extensive knowledge of guns and explosives from his Army service.
In response, Issa said, "Shots were never fired. ... I don't recall having a gun. I really don't. I don't think I ever pulled a gun on anyone in my life."
Of course not. Bill Maher will continue to invite him onto his show, and the ladies and gentlemen of our corporate media will assume that none of this even happened. It's so much easier that way!
FOX News has been ginning up a story about the hate group the "New Black Panthers" from the election on November 4th as some sort of 'angry black man' intimidation tactic that made Obama win the presidency. I covered that story and it was thoroughly debunked. Just watch the obvious middle aged teabagger woman asking Rep. Brad Sherman if Eric Holder is refusing to prosecute black people in the country over white people.
Woman:...and the latest news that the DOJ's new policy is that they are not going to prosecute cases with black defendants where the plaintiffs are white?
Shouldn't Kelly be upset by the woman who asked this question? It's so insane, but no...she's an obvious FOX watcher and gets her opinions from FOX and talk radio. So they attack Sherman. FOX is actively creating hate based on race in our country again and this clip is a great illustration of that point except instead of using code words, they are screaming about it on our airwaves.
This exchange between Megyn Kelly and the conservative Democrat pundit, Kirsten Powers is a prime example of their bias. Look how outraged Kelly is at Kirsten for disagreeing with her basic premise. Did somebody get murdered at the PA. polling station? Oh, right. A couple of black guys are scaring FOX Nation.
Kelly: We have a DOJ whistleblower alleging there is a discriminatory policy at the DOJ voting rights section and no one seems to give a darn.
Powers: Well, I’m sorry you can actually put me in the same category of people who don’t really give a darn because I looked at the video. The guy wasn’t really intimidating people. They were walking past him and voting so I don’t really understand how he’s being intimidated. Second of all, what the Congressman should have said..
Kelly: With respect — you don’t seem to know what you are talking about.
Powers: Well, I think I do, Megyn.
Kelly: Well, I don't think you do. Unlike you Kirsten, I have read the testimony that was given before the U.S. commission. Have you?
Powers: The Department of Justice has gotten an injunction against them. What more do you want them to do?
Kelly: Have you read the testimony?
Powers: I talked to the Department of Justice at length about this.
Kelly: Have you read the testimony?
Powers: Megyn, it doesn’t matter, they got an injunction against him.
Kelly: No you haven't
Powers: No! but they got
You don’t know what you are talking about. you clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Powers: Yes I do.
Kelly: You cannot debate.
(crosstalk)
Powers: Megyn, why won't you won’t answer my question?
Kelly: What's your question?
Powers: I do care. They GOT an injunction against him. What more do you want them to do?
Kelly: I'll tell you. I'll tell you, because you clearly don't know the facts of this case.
I actually do know..
Kelly: Let me finish!
Megyn goes on to outline the case against another name FOX loves to repeat: Shabazz...continuing fight..
Kelly: So Don't tell me that they did all they could and don't tell me...
Powers: Megyn, I'm curious to know if you were just as outraged when the Bush administration downgraded all their investigations?
Kelly: Sorry?
Powers: Were you?
Kelly: Oh, back to Bush...
Powers: Were you upset and outraged by the discrimination there when they weren't pursuing cases?
Kelly: Yes! (Sure Megyn, you just expressed them to yourself in a tiny cafe in Soho drinking a latte)
More fighting...
Kelly: Unlike you, I have read the testimony...
Powers: I didn't say it wasn't voter intimidation, you're putting words in my mouth.
Kelly: let 'em finish.
Powers: You're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say it wasn't voter intimidation.
Kelly: Don't make me cut your mic. Don't make me cut your mic.
It's truly time to stick a fork in this one. Megyn Kelly can keep trying to beat dead horses, but when Bush appointee Abigail Thernstrom -- well-known for her conservative views on affirmative action and other civil rights issues -- says this, it's more or less a dead horse that's been flogged until it's unrecognizable.
But when it comes to the investigation that the Republican-dominated commission is now conducting into the Justice Department’s handling of an alleged incident of voter intimidation involving the New Black Panther Party — a controversy that has consumed conservative media in recent months — Thernstrom has made a dramatic break from her usual allies.
“This doesn’t have to do with the Black Panthers; this has to do with their fantasies about how they could use this issue to topple the [Obama] administration,” said Thernstrom, who said members of the commission voiced their political aims “in the initial discussions” of the Panther case last year.
“My fellow conservatives on the commission had this wild notion they could bring Eric Holder down and really damage the president,” Thernstrom said in an interview with POLITICO.
Now there's a surprise. Conservative politicians plotting to manufacture a controversy in order to 'bring down' the Attorney General? And surely they wouldn't be doing it with the assistance of Fox News and the ginned up breathless reporting of airheaded bimbos like Megyn Kelly, would they? Why, yes they would. As Media Matters points out, the Fox News hyping of this story follows the same right-wing trajectory as the ACORN, Ayers, and ClimateGate stories.
So far — after months of hearings, testimony and investigation — no one has produced actual evidence that any voters were too scared to cast their ballots. Too much overheated rhetoric filled with insinuations and unsubstantiated charges has been devoted to this case.
She finishes the argument and the controversy with this:
The two Panthers have been described as “armed” — which suggests guns. One of them was carrying a billy club, and it is alleged that his repeated slapping of the club against his palm constituted brandishing it in a menacing way. They have also been described as wearing “jackboots,” but the boots were no different from a pair my husband owns.
A disaffected former Justice Department attorney has written: “We had indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere.” “Indications”? Again, evidence has yet to be offered.
The balance of Thernstrom's article concerns the upcoming redistricting battle where she reverts to a line of reasoning that suggests Eric Holder is behaving in a sinister way to stack redistricting decks. It's classic conservative argument and while I disagree wholeheartedly, I still think Thernstrom deserves a kudo or two for pointing out that the emperor truly does have no clothes and Fox has no sense.
So in the past day, the following things have been happened: The idea that there was outside pressure from the administration to close the case has been shown to have no evidentiary basis, the commission has been exposed as deliberately attempting to damage the administration with this investigation, and Adams' claim that the Voting Section does not intervene on behalf of white voters has been proven conclusively false.
The Washington Post published this two weeks ago, but unless he releases something today, Attorney General Eric Holder has missed the deadline, condemning thousands more to sexual assault in prison:
"RAPE IS VIOLENT, destructive, and a crime -- no less so when the victim is incarcerated." These were the opening words of a report delivered to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. last June by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission. By law, the attorney general was given one year to consider the report's recommendations and issue standards to reduce the scourge of sexual violence in the nation's prisons. The Justice Department is about to miss its June 23 deadline -- and probably by a shamefully wide margin.
The department will not say, but those following this issue closely estimate that the Justice Department is unlikely to take action until the end of this year. At that time, federal prisons will be obligated to adopt whatever standards Justice approves. State and local facilities will not be forced to embrace the measures for another year after that. In the meantime, more prisoners -- including juveniles -- will have been senselessly brutalized.
This is such a basic impulse of human decency, to keep prisoners from being sexually brutalized -- and the thing is, the report had solid bipartisan support. As far as I can tell, the only people who oppose it are the corrections officials, who don't want anyone looking over their shoulder while they ignore prisoners getting gang raped -- or molested by guards. So I don't have a clue why Holder hasn't acted.
Even the screwed-up people who believe prisoners deserve whatever happens might want to give some thought to the fact that prison rape happens frequently to innocent people who are being held in custody until they're released without charges. Maybe even those sick bastards might give some thought to the possibility of their 17-year-old kid being raped by an HIV-positive convict after their kid's held for DUI.
Because even in this Taser-lovin' America of ours, people might still see the injustice of inflicting a life sentence like HIV on someone who hasn't even been found guilty of a major crime.
Being raped at knifepoint was the worst thing I could ever imagine. The physical pain was devastating. But the emotional pain was even worse.
I reported the rape, and was sent into protective custody. But I wasn’t safe there either. They put all kinds of people in protective custody, including sexual predators. I was put in a cell with a rapist who had full-blown AIDS. Within two days, he forced me to give him oral sex and anally raped me. I yelled for the guard, but it was so loud in there, no one came to help me. I finally had to flood the cell to get a guard to come.
Because I was raped, I got labeled as a “faggot.” Everywhere I walked, everyone looked at me like I was a target. It opened the door for a lot of other predators. Even the administrators thought it was okay for a “faggot” to be raped. They said, ‘Oh, you must like it.’ I’m here to tell you that no one wants to be raped. No one likes being violently attacked.
I documented the abuse, I filed grievances, I followed all of the procedures to report what was happening to me, but no one cared. They just moved me from cell to cell. This went on for nine months. I went through nine months of torture – nine months of hell - that could have been avoided.
In August, I started bleeding really bad from the rectum. I didn’t want to go to the infirmary, because I was still so ashamed about what had happened to me, but I had to. They gave me a test, and that’s when I got the devastating news. I was HIV-positive.
After being convicted of a nonviolent securities offense, I was sent to FCI-Morgantown. Set at a former youth facility, Morgantown is a minimum security facility with no fence. Places like Morgantown are used for individuals with relatively no risk of violence, escape, or predatory behavior.
As an inmate at Morgantown, I witnessed corrections officials breaking the rules of the institution, and I reported them. Because of my reports, the prison officials retaliated against me by holding me in solitary segregation, by falsely accusing me of misconduct on charges that were later proven to be false, and finally, I suppose as a last resort, by transferring me to a higher-security facility in Milan, Michigan.
At the time, FCI-Milan was a facility often used for more unmanageable inmates in the mid-Atlantic region. It had a history of gang activity, large scale riots, violence, and predatory assaults.
I was being sent to a place known to be dangerous simply for speaking up. I was worried about what might happen to me there, but I honestly had no idea how bad it would turn out to be. I tried to protest the decision to transfer me, and I asked not to be housed in the dangerous dormitory-style housing at Milan. But I was placed in a double dormitory with about 150 inmates, dozens of blind spots, and only one officer on duty at any given time. It was here that my nightmare began. It was here that I was sexually assaulted by the same assailant, more times than I can even count.
This is the madness that oozes from our House of Representatives and the Republican Party. Our old friend Rep. Steve King is palling around with G. Gordon Liddy these days, brewing a nasty cauldron of hate to "see if it will come to a boil."
If it does, I only hope it spews its poison back on King and Liddy.
This is a clip from King's appearance on Liddy's show. It begins with Liddy referencing Mexicans and ice cream cones and segues into King being "offended" by Holder and the President.
DOWNLOADS: 1041
PLAYS: 383
Embed
King: When you look at this administration, I'm offended by Eric Holder and the President also, their posture. It looks like Eric Holder said that white people in America are cowards when it comes to race. And I don't know what the basis of that is but I'm not a coward when it comes to that and I'm happy to talk about these things and I think we should. But the President has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race - on the side that favors the black person.
I see. A default mechanism. Got it. As if this wasn't bad enough, today King went on Radio Iowa to defend his comments.
During an interview on the G. Gordon Liddy talk show, King said President Obama has a “default mechanism” that “favors the black person.” King also accused U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder of not pursuing a series of cases because those accused were minorities.
“I have no regrets about what I said. I stand by what I said because what I said is accurate. It’s factual,” King said during a telephone interview with Radio Iowa late this afternoon. “I think the president should answer and Attorney General Holder should answer for the justice department being used in the way it is, but what I said was accurate and it was objective.”
Hmmm. What part is factual? The part about prosecutions or the part about default mechanisms?
Speaking of default mechanisms, let's review Steve King's record.
October, 2009: ...the hate crimes bill results in a "pedophile protection act," and is meant to create "thought crimes" and protect "sexual idiosyncrasies."
February, 2010: "It’s sad the incident in Texas happened, but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary and when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the IRS, it’s going to be a happy day for America." (Referencing the attack on the Austin IRS office that killed one agent)
March, 2010: King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 "would be fine with me."
May, 2010: "Gay people should stop wearing their sexuality on their sleeve."
May, 2010: "The ACLU, SEIU and the Muslim American Society are calling the shots at the Justice Department. The 'draft complaint' DOJ has prepared to challenge the Arizona law is a 'cut & paste' version of the class-action lawsuit the ACLU filed in United States District Court on May 17th. "
These are just a few examples. Who is it with the default mechanism on minorities? Projection, much, Representative King?
Just in case you thought it was safe to be something other than white in this country, Steve King wants to make you a little nervous:
“I actually, when this first popped…I told my people here that handle my media: ‘Let’s let this cook for a couple of days and see if this pot will come to a boil,’” King said. “I don’t want to put it away in the first day because I think the American people need to have this debate about what appears to me to be an inclination on the part of the White House and the justice department and perhaps others within the administration to break on the side of favoritism with regard to race.”
Whacko racism isn't new in this country at all. But it's really disturbing when it comes from someone who is involved in forming the laws of our land. Really disturbing.
Perhaps the only thing worse than a war criminal is an unrepentant one. And so it with Barack Obama's predecessor. Just months after former Vice President Dick Cheney boasted, "I was a big supporter of waterboarding," George W. Bush joined him by announcing, "I'd do it again."
President Bush's endorsement of the use of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques against 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terrorism suspects came during an appearance before a business audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As CNN reported:
"Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," the former president said during an appearance at the Economic Club of Grand Rapids, Michigan, according to the Grand Rapids Press.
"I'd do it again to save lives," he added.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Back in February, Dick Cheney bragged to ABC's Jonathan Karl is almost the exact same terms:
"I was a big supporter of waterboarding. I was a big supporter of the enhanced interrogation techniques..."
And in that same interview, Cheney confirmed that the both Bush legal team that invented the spurious rationale for detainee torture and those implementing it were merely following orders:
"The reason I've been outspoken is because there were some things being said, especially after we left office, about prosecuting CIA personnel that had carried out our counterterrorism policy or disbarring lawyers in the Justice Department who had -- had helped us put those policies together, and I was deeply offended by that, and I thought it was important that some senior person in the administration stand up and defend those people who'd done what we asked them to do."
There are only two problems with the Bush-Cheney tag team defense of waterboarding.
Federal agencies, including the FBI, are participating in the probe and "if we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be forceful in our response," Holder told reporters after meeting with state and federal prosecutors in New Orleans.
The Justice Department has already demanded that the companies involved in the spill, including BP, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton Co., preserve records related to the accident.
It's been a long time coming. I don't think anyone has doubt there were corners cut and regulations ignored in this case.
But what bothers me is the report that I happened upon shortly after I heard about Holder's press conference.
BP Plc has decided not to attach a second blowout preventer on its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico and efforts to end the flow are over until the relief wells are finished, according to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Thad Allen, who spoke at a press conference today.
So, I have a few more questions that are unanswered by this little blurb.
When was the decision made to scrap the effort on the second valve?
Was the decision related to news there would be a criminal investigation?
Was the decision related to orders not to destroy evidence down there on the ocean floor?
If BP's decision is unrelated to an ongoing criminal investigation, what specific factors caused them to abandon the effort?
If I find answers, I'll let you know. It's all too coincidental for my taste.
BP Plc said it won’t be able to stop the flow of oil from a gushing well in Gulf of Mexico until August when a relief well can be finished, and in the meantime it will divert as much of the oil as it can to surface ships.
The diversion strategy, unlike capping the flow, is subject to disruption by tropical storms and hurricanes.
(snip)
BP is preparing for storms by installing a free-standing riser pipe later this month that will terminate 300 feet below the water’s surface. The pipe will have flexible coupling to allow tankers to depart ahead of a hurricane and safely return when seas have calmed, BP said today in a statement. The oil company didn’t say what happens to the flow of oil if the ship has to disconnect.
This is the madness that oozes from our House of Representatives and the Republican Party. Our old friend Rep. Steve King is palling around with G. Gordon Liddy these days, brewing a nasty cauldron of hate to "see if it will come to a boil."
