Clips from Taxi to the Dark Side
Clips from Acadmy Award winning Taxi to the Dark Side
[h/t InformationClearinghouse]
Add comment February 1st, 2008
Archive for February 1st, 2008
DoJ prosecutes another for breathing while Democratic
Scott Horton today warns that Alabama is the scene of another of those political prosecutions whereby the Injustice Department collaborates with the local GOP to prosecute people for the crime of being Democrats. Former Gov. Don Siegelman is already serving a long term in prison for this crime. The new victim is Sue Schmitz, 63-year-old retired social studies teacher whose real crime is being a Democratic member of the Alabama legislature, a legislature that the Alabama GOP, in cahoots with the Federal government and the corrupt Alabama press, is trying to take over. Horton quotes the AP on Schmitz’s crime:
“We charge that Representative Schmitz’s only substantial ‘work’ was to work her official position in the Legislature to land a job through the postsecondary system,” U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said in a statement.
Schmitz was employed from January 2006 until October 2006 by the CITY Skills Training Consortium, an arm of Alabama’s troubled two-year college system. The federally funded program operated at 10 sites statewide to help at-risk youth referred by juvenile courts develop academic, behavioral and social skills. The indictment claims Schmitz made as much as $53,403 annually as a program coordinator despite rarely showing up and doing virtually nothing for the money.
And here’s Horton’s explication:
Let’s just pause and look at what’s going on here. A massive federal case has been launched, at a likely taxpayer cost in excess of $2 million, against a social studies teacher, who it is alleged (on the basis of sharply disputed evidence) was not putting in as many hours as she should have in teaching her classes. This has to count as one of the more absurd (if not malicious) cases I’ve seen in recent years. And remember, this is a Justice Department that can’t spare an FBI agent to look into, or a prosecutor to handle, a gang rape case involving Jamie Leigh Jones, or any of the dozens of other cases involving rape, assault and homicide in Iraq. They’re not “priorities.” On the other hand, bringing charges against Democratic office holders has been a very high priority from the day Bush took office, and it continues to be so today.
More than this, note how party connections flavor the U.S. Attorney’s interest in cases of feather bedding. Recall that a Missouri criminal attorney conducted a detailed investigation into the service of Mark Everett Fuller as District Attorney in Coffee and Pike Counties. His study, presented in a sworn affidavit and backed up with documentation, showed that Fuller was an absentee district attorney. He drew his salary for the job, but he spent his time out of state, largely in Colorado, attending to the business that he owns and operated and which continues to provide most of his income–Doss Aviation. The affidavit was submitted to the U.S. Attorney and the Justice Department. No investigation of its allegations occurred. The allegations of “feather bedding” in the case involving this Republican official were many times greater than the one charged against Schmitz. But what happened? Nothing. The U.S. attorney was not interested. As a prosecutor told Time’s Adam Zagorin, different rules apply with respect to the “home team.” Fuller went on to be the judge designated to handle the highest profile political prosecution in the country, involving former Governor Siegelman. Now we’re seeing more evidence of the two distinct flavors of justice dispensed by Republican prosecutors in Alabama: one marked with a “D” and the other with a “R.”
What was done to Siegelman and is being done now to Schmitz is an outrage, a danger to us all. If it an happen to them, it can happen to anyone. But let us also remember that these and worse tactics have long been used against radical and minorities, far removed from the levers of power.
Richard Nixon had an enemies list, which inspired outrage. What actually inspired outrage was that the list consisted of liberals and Democrats; Noam Chomsky was the only radical on it. Nixon was using the tactics of repression traditionally reserved for radicals and minorities against the elite. We see that happening again. It poses a great danger to all of us if mainstream figures can be thrown in jail for opposing the woul-be dominant party. But, as we support Sielman and Schmitz, let’s not forget the many others, less connected to positions of power and influence, who also end up imprisoned on false charges.
Add comment February 1st, 2008