Miscellaneous Politics

Karl Rove is supposed to testify, but former Alabama governor/political prisoner Don Siegelman doesn't believe Rove will ever tell the truth. Not that everybody believed he ever would.
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Still More Miscellaneous News

Josef Fritzl may get as little as ten years for committing his atrocities against his daughter and her children.

Unreal.

Well, Joe, how does it feel to be in the same position as your daughter and three of her children?

I don't think officials are going to be too sympathetic.
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Neither is Congress now that Karl Rove has ignored a subpoena to appear before it regarding the Siegelman prosecution. Former Alabama governor Don Siegelman is certainly a political prisoner if there ever was one. Citing "executive privilege" is certainly a stretch.

As far as I'm concerned, Rove's ignoring the subpoena is as good as admitting guilt.
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Miscellaneous.

I don't see how there could be any debate over the media embargo of Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan.

It was wrong to out where he was.
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The United States should be proud of being number one in the percentage of its population incarcerated.
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I would not be one bit surprised Karl Rove was behind the prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman.

Rove is nothing but a dirt bag who should be locked up.

Here are the YouTubes of the 60 Minutes broadcast of last Sunday:







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A Longtime Turd Blossom

watcher has been paying attention to the Don Siegelman case.

Yes, We Have Political Prisoners

in this country, as Time as well as Harper's tell us. The prosecution and conviction of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman is one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice in recent times. But it was part and parcel of the wider, even more outrageous, Justice Department scandal.

Is there any doubt his prosecution was politically motivated?

Alabama is as red a state as the clay in its earth. After the years of rule by Southern Democrats, Republicans have now taken up residence in the Governor's mansion, as well as most statewide offices and congressional seats. In the 1990s Rove helped orchestrate a GOP near sweep of the Alabama Supreme Court.

In this new Republican landscape, Siegelman emerged as one of the few Democratic stars, winning the Governor's race in 1998. He lost the seat in a close and contested race in 2002, but polls in 2003 showed that he had a good chance of recapturing the governorship. Then came the first indictment from the U.S. Attorney in Birmingham, charging Siegelman with using his position to rig a state bidding process. A judge dismissed the case in 2004 for lack of evidence. Just as Siegelman was preparing to run for Governor again, a second round of charges was brought in 2005 by the U.S. Attorney's office in Montgomery. His trial in 2006 overlapped with Alabama's Democratic primary, in which Siegelman had initially been a heavy favorite.

And let's not forget the double-standard in effect here:

Legal experts say prosecutors enjoy wide latitude in deciding whom to charge in criminal cases. But according to Laurie Levenson, a former assistant U.S. Attorney and a prominent expert in legal ethics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, there are limits. "Certainly prosecutors would face a professional obligation to check out or verify the allegations in this case," she says. "Not doing so would represent a potential abuse of prosecutorial discretion." The key, she adds, is whether prosecutors chose not to pursue evidence of criminal activity by Republicans because of political bias or a conflict of interest. Sometimes prosecutors have a more benign motive; they may simply verify that allegations are untrue or be unclear on how to categorize the offense or the relevant statute of limitations. Certainly in Young's statements about Sessions and Pryor, he did not allege a quid pro quo for his money laundering of their campaigns. And whatever the involvement of their campaigns, Sessions and Pryor both assert they were completely unaware of his confessed chicanery. But the U.S. Attorney's office chose to prosecute Siegelman in no small measure on the basis of Young's word and chose not to investigate Sessions and Pryor--or their campaigns--on the basis of that same word.

Several people involved in the Siegelman case who spoke to TIME say prosecutors were so focused on going after Siegelman that they showed almost no interest in tracking down what Young said about apparently illegal contributions to Sessions, Pryor, other well-known figures in the Alabama GOP and even a few of the state's Democrats. "It just didn't seem like that was ever going to happen," said an individual present during key parts of the investigation. "Sessions and Pryor were on the home team."

Was There Any Doubt

former Alabama governor Don Siegelman was a casualty of the Bush Justice Department scandal?

It sure as hell appears to be.