Could it be that President Obama's legal team is imploding due to a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party? So many new developments regarding the Black Panther case occurred in the latter half of last week that it is hard keeping up with them all. But none of them look good for the Obama administration or for Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s Justice Department.
The case involves paramilitary-garbed Panthers caught on videotape (which was backed by copious testimony) engaged in what observers say were intimidating and racially charged activities outside a Philadelphia polling booth on presidential Election Day in 2008. Even though a judge was ready to enter a default judgment against the Black Panthers, based on a case brought by career attorneys at the Justice Department, the Obama administration suddenly decided last spring to drop three of the four cases and punish the final one with an incredibly weak injunction.
Controversy, accompanied by continued administration stonewalling, has ensued ever since.
The new developments last week were as follows:
First, a Web site called "Main Justice" reported on Wednesday (and we have since confirmed) that the Justice Department has, for now, ordered two key career attorneys not to comply with a subpoena about the case issued by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The commission, by law, has explicit power to issue subpoenas, and the law mandates that "all federal agencies shall cooperate fully with the commission." The Justice Department, however, is citing internal regulations stemming from a 1951 case to support its order to ignore the subpoena.
One of the attorneys, J. Christian Adams, has been advised by his personal attorney, former South Carolina Secretary of State Jim Miles, that failure to comply with the subpoena could put him at risk of prosecution. "I can't imagine," Mr. Miles told The Washington Times, "that a statute that gives rise to the power of a subpoena would be subjugated to some internal procedural personnel rule being promulgated by DoJ." In short, the department is stiffing the commission and unfairly putting its own employee in a legal bind.
Second, that same day, the two Republican House members with top-ranking jurisdiction over the Justice Department, Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia and Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, issued a joint statement calling Justice Department delays "a cover-up," and "a pretense to ignore inquiries from Congress and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights." At a hearing on Thursday, Mr. Smith said that "continued silence by the Justice Department is an implied admission of guilt that the case was dropped for purely political reasons."
Third, at the same hearing, Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, accused Justice Department Civil Rights Division chief Thomas Perez of not being "truthful" while under oath, to such an extent that "there are people who have gone to jail" for such a level of purported "dishonest[y]."
The disputed statement, from what appeared to be prepared remarks by Mr. Perez that he later repeated insistently, was that "the maximum penalty was sought and obtained" against the one Black Panther for whom the charges were not entirely dropped. The bizarrely weak penalty consisted of a mere injunction for the Black Panther not to brandish a weapon near a polling place, within Philadelphia, through Nov. 15, 2012. In short, he is prohibited, only within Philadelphia and only for four years, from doing something that is illegal anyway.
Such a slap on the wrist is far from the "maximum penalty" allowable for such voter intimidation. Most directly, the injunction could be far broader, not just limited to Philadelphia for four years. Also, harsher penalties than mere injunctions could conceivably be available. If the Justice Department sought a criminal indictment, for instance, Title 18, Section 245 of the U.S. Code provides that those found guilty of voter intimidation "shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."
As all of this was going on, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, the No. 2 man in the whole department, was announcing that very morning that he will resign after less than 10 months in office. Mr. Ogden - whose possible involvement in the Black Panther case had been specifically mentioned in the Civil Rights Commission's subpoena - became the third high-ranking Obama legal official to announce a resignation in the last month. He was preceded by White House counsel Gregory Craig and deputy White House counsel Cassandra Butts.
"Holder and them have done a terrible job on this," Mr. Wolf told The Washington Times. "This has just been handled so poorly.... You can't hide these things. There is something wrong here. There is something very wrong. When it all comes out, I think it will be very bad."
The congressman is probably right.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2009 12:56 ||
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Six doctors who believe government scientist David Kelly was murdered have launched a ground-breaking legal action to demand the inquest into his death is reopened.
They are to publish a hard-hitting report which they claim proves the weapons expert did not commit suicide as the Hutton Report decided.
They have also engaged lawyers to write to Attorney General Baroness Scotland and the coroner Nicholas Gardiner calling for a full re-examination of the circumstances of his death.
The doctors are asking for permission to go to the High Court to reopen the inquest on the grounds that it was improperly suspended. If Baroness Scotland rejects that demand, or the court turns them down, their lawyers say they will have grounds to seek judicial review of the decision.
Dr Kelly was found dead at a beauty spot near his Oxfordshire home in 2003, days after he was exposed as the source of a story that Tony Blair's government 'sexed-up' its dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction to justify invading Iraq.
In one final phone conversation, he told a caller he wouldn't be surprised 'if my body was found in the woods'.
The inquest into Dr Kelly's death was suspended before it could begin by order of the then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer. He used the Coroners Act to designate the Hutton Inquiry as 'fulfilling the function of an inquest'.
Lord Falconer, a former flatmate of Tony Blair, was also responsible for picking Lord Hutton to run the inquiry.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2009 11:40 ||
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#1
One of the doctors' is an Orthopaedic who campaigns for justice in Palestine and is convinced that the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks were 'false flag operations.'
In which we at Rantburg once again cite the Daily Kos. I tell ya, life is strange sometimes. Absolutely worth the read even though it is long. It's nice to see that someone on the Left is willing to call an abuse of power by a Democrat when they see it. I'm sure the fact that Baucus is pushing the health care bill has nothing to do with it.
Filed under 'Lurid Crime Tales' because it's definitely lurid, it's quite a tale, and if there was any justice, Baucus would resign and Hanes would be prosecuted for her crimes.
A preview of the cited LA Times article is available here; the full article costs money.
Another article here is mostly a puff piece but notes that Hanes and Baucus began dating before either had divorced their-then spouses.
Question: how'd she get the job as acting Deputy Administrator for Policy in the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention?
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/06/2009 00:00 ||
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Methinks Kos and the LAT are all over this only because Baucus is a relative moderate; probably also because he's pushing a bill that the Left doesn't believe goes far enough.
Had this been Frank, Dodd, or any of the 'progressive' legislators, it'd either would have never seen the light of day or would be in the same 'Hold' box as the climate scandal.
Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him.
More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present.
The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, described his visit as "opportunistic" and a "waste of time".
Furious about equipment shortages and poor compensation for their injuries, one soldier said: "It is almost as if we are the product of an unwanted affair ... he has done nothing for us."
#2
Sad but apparently fitting. It's sickening to watch the UK as it has changed. I recall the uniform demoralization of the half-dozen UK officers I got to know in B'dad. Of course Brown is a disaster of unique and peculiar proportions, but the attitude he represents is - disastrously and scandalously - far from uncommon in the British or US political classes.
Never have so few done so much for so many who are undeserving of the benefit.
#3
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
(4.3.43) Henry V, William Shakespeare.
A year ago Mayor Daley rammed though a parking meter deal that was supposed to provide a "rainy day" fund for Chicago for the next 75 years.
In September, snags appeared prompting the Chicago Sun Times to write Daley losing confidence in parking meter company.
Mayor Daley demanded today that Chicago's embattled parking meter operator synchronize the time on its pay-and-display boxes and void parking tickets tied to time discrepancies. "That's unacceptable. They have to void those tickets," he said.
Daley said the latest in a string of operational problems that have marred the transition to private control has prompted him to lose confidence in Chicago Parking Meters LLC.
"Slowly but sure, yes," he said.
But, the mayor said he is not about to cancel the 75-year, $1.15 billion lease tied to a steep schedule of rate hikes that helped plug a gaping hole in the city's 2009 budget.
"See that home over there? Go over there and ask them if they want their real estate taxes increased," the mayor said after a ribbon-cutting at the new Jorge Prieto Math & Science Academy, 2231 N. Central.
"We have a rainy day fund. If it wasn't for that, our financial crisis would be worse. ... That was sold at the highest time. You can't even sell a public asset today. You can't sell anything today."
The Chicago Sun-Times and NBC5 reported this week that pay-and-display boxes touted as the high-tech solution to over-stuffed and improperly calibrated parking meters have a problem of their own: they're out of synch. A spot check of about 50 newly-installed boxes found the time they show varies from machine-to-machine -- leaving motorists confused about when to return to their vehicles to avoid getting a ticket. Confusion and ticketing were the goals!
Times displayed by boxes along Lincoln, Fullerton and Armitage didn't match, even though they're on the same computer server.
Political fall-out from the parking meter fiasco is at least partly to blame for a precipitous drop in Daley's approval rating -- to 35 percent, the lowest of his 20-year reign, according to a Chicago Tribune poll.
In November, Felix Salmon posted an interesting chart showing just how flawed the lease deal is. Boiled down, what the city of Chicago did was to rush a bill selling the parking-meter concession through the city legislature without allowing lawmakers to give it a detailed reading. The city claimed it got a good deal, basing that claim on a single valuation from its own advisor. But after the fact, a number of analysts, including the Inspector General, have concluded that actually the deal wasn't very good at all. All gov't 'rush jobs' are good deals. Wake up people! Have you learned nothing from our US Congress?
Informative chart and balance of the article at the link.
#1
Just who do you think TAUGHT the current President fiscal responsibility?
Do the names Rahm, Desiree, and Roland ring a bell?
The 'Chicago Way' goes to Washington and the nation
(CNN) - National Democrats are considering changing the presidential nominating process, by establishing a new primary calendar and deemphasizing the influence lawmakers and political insiders have on choosing the party nominee.
The battle for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination was marred by controversy as the Democratic National Committee argued with some state parties over when they could hold their primaries and caucuses and candidates were forced to take sides in this important internal party dispute.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-South Carolina, said that the 2008 nomination contest "yielded a great candidate," but readily acknowledged the problems that arose.
"We need to improve a little bit in spite of the fact that we got a great candidate out of the process," Clyburn said Saturday at a meeting of a DNC working group tasked with drafting a new plan. "It was not very comfortable at various points along the way."
Democrats see an opening to change the system now, because this is "a rare cycle of no apparent Democratic presidential nomination challenge" in 2012 as President Obama is expected to seek a second term, according to the "Draft Report of the Democratic Change Commission," discussed at the meeting.
Commission members, who range from lawmakers and grassroots activists to President Obama's campaign manager, are charged with putting forth recommendations to help expand the Democratic base and increase more ethnic and regional diversity in choosing the party's presidential nominee in 2016 and beyond, assuming Obama seeks a second term.
A commission suggestion would be to allow the first four states that held nominating contests in the January 2008 maintain their early, privileged calendar positions. But these states - Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina - would be directed to delay holding their caucuses and primaries before February 1. All other states would be forbidden from holding their nominating contests until at least the first Tuesday in March.
Another recommendation in the report suggested grouping states by "region or sub-region."
"This would not be a mandatory obligation upon the state parties," the commission stated. "The commission recommends that these clusters be staggered throughout the window to allow for a deliberative process that benefits all voters and caucus-goers through the country."
States parties that abided by the DNC's calendar would be rewarded by getting special perks at the national nominating convention.
The commission also discussed how to reduce the influence of unpledged delegates -- lawmakers and party insiders also know as superdelegates -- who played a big role in the 2008 nomination contest.
"Unpledged delegates constituted 19% of the total convention and the presidential candidates were compelled to spend a substantial amount of candidate time and other resources to seek the support of these automatic delegates," the commission stated. "We learned that in a closely contested presidential race, the nomination could be decided by this category of delegates."
No formal solution dealing with superdelegates was arrived at Saturday and the commission will draft a plan to reduce their numbers in the coming weeks.
"The DNC must address the perception that there are too many unpledged delegates and those delegates could potentially overturn the will of the people, as determined by the state contests," the commission stated.
The commission is expected to vote on its final recommendations before December 18. The recommendations will then be sent to the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee for further debate and discussion.
Mark Brewer, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, said he had no problem with reducing the number of superdelegates as long as state party chairs and vice chairs maintained their status and party leaders continued to play a role at the conventions.
But Brewer took exception to the idea of allowing four states to be granted a special exemption to hold their primaries before other states.
"From the perspective of Michigan and other states, it is unfair that any state have a permanent place at the top of the process," said Brewer, who attended the meeting but is not a commission member. "It is unfair to give any states or state a monopoly."
The Republican National Committee is also looking at how its party chooses its presidential nominee, and the DNC expressed interest Saturday in working with its political rival on a nomination calendar.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2009 13:19 ||
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Forget the economy, 10.2 - 17% unemployment (depending on whom you ask) and the little people, we've got political self-preservation to be concerned about. See you at the Helix at 5:00!
#4
re #3 - unless Hilary decides she's got a chance, resigns from State and mounts a challenge. That would put the Dems knickers in a twist.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/06/2009 19:34 Comments ||
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1 - there is no perfect solution. If there was, it would be in place already.
2 - the party being composed of several disparate special interests groups is unlikely to be free of some form of fudging by one group or another.
3 - as power keeps getting sucked into the Beltway, the state parties and primaries are going to be marginalized to the interests of the center of power. We already see this in 'party first, nation second'. They're stuck on, addicted to the money that Washington prints.
Not that it is much better. Anyone in the 'later' states pretty much get screwed. My primary vote was meaningless.
I think the *all* the primaries should be held on the exact same day. Why should New Hampshire and Iowa get months-on-end of coverage while later (larger) states get the crumbs - if that.
The heat's on Desiree Rogers. Now, a lot of people in Chicago are wondering will they or won't they fire the nation's celebrity party planner.
For those who don't know, Rogers has been under intense scrutiny since a Washington couple crashed the president's first state dinner. The highbrow shindig was thrown in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But the guest of honor was overshadowed by the antics of Tareq and Michaele Salahi, reality TV star wannabes who sashayed their way into a dinner that was supposed to be invitation-only.
Despite their names not being on a guest list, the uninvited managed to get up close and personal with President Obama and other Cabinet members. A committee investigating how the Salahis did it want to talk to Rogers. That's not likely to happen.
So far, the White House has dug in its heels -- ignoring threats from members of Congress that if Rogers doesn't voluntarily talk to them, she will be subpoenaed. But the controversy has put Rogers in the headlights. What an untidy mess for an administration that likes things tied with a bow.
One head that won't roll
On Thursday, the director of the U.S. Secret Service, Mark Sullivan, threw himself and his agency into the flames by acknowledging to a House committee that "appropriate procedures" were not followed. The agents who waved the Salahis by all of the checkpoints have been relieved of their duties and most likely will be sacked.
Meanwhile, the White House social secretary appears to be immune to any punishment. For one thing, Rogers, who once headed up Peoples Gas and was the Illinois Lottery lady during former Gov. Jim Edgar's administration, is so socially connected, who would dare humiliate her publicly?
As an early supporter of the Obama campaign, and the BFF of Obama insider Valerie Jarrett, Rogers has been instrumental in hooking up the first family with the right benefactors. Truth be told, Rogers -- who was a leading member of Chicago's business and philanthropic community when Obama couldn't rent a car with his credit card -- is the one who brought the Obamas to the party, not the other way around. So no.
She is, after all, a member of Chicago's chic elite. And she isn't just any old social secretary. She's a top-tier socialite. Rogers isn't likely to be pushed out of the East Wing anytime soon.
The elected officials who are hounding Rogers to answer questions have forgotten that she has two titles. She is also a special assistant to Obama. As my father would say, Rogers has the world in a jug and the stopper in her hand.
Her style has redefined what it means to be a social secretary in the White House. But people on both ends of the spectrum agree that Rogers' faux pas embarrassed the Obama administration.
Craving too much attention?
The social secretary "has to be a worker bee, and Michelle [Obama] is the queen," said a woman who has observed elegant private functions over the years. "You're supposed to be a supporting actress."
As an example, the source, who asked for anonymity, pointed to the glare Rogers has knowingly sought. "I didn't think she needed to be at Fashion Week," she said. "In light of what is going on in the country, you have to play it low-key."
Obviously, Rogers didn't get where she is in life by being low-key. While the first lady has been up to her elbows plucking vegetables from the White House garden, Rogers has planned nearly 200 elegant parties and social events.
Regardless of her title, over the years, Rogers' name has shown up most often in the society columns. So it isn't surprising that Rogers would bask in the glory of being a VIP at one of the world's most exclusive events. Her sin was forgetting that her paid job is to make sure the president and first lady look good at every social function.
Frankly, there's real trouble brewing when the social secretary's public persona begins to overshadow that of the first lady. Given Roger's credentials and past experience, it is unlikely that party-gate was a result of her being feckless. She just forgot her place.
It happens.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/06/2009 11:38 ||
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It does not totally disclude blame from the Secret Service, but I know how it works around disdainful big whigs also.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Six doctors who believe government scientist David Kelly was murdered have launched a ground-breaking legal action to demand the inquest into his death is reopened. 
Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him.
