Rove More Involved in Attorney Firings Than Previously Disclosed

Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee released over 5,400 pages of emails from the Bush White House and the Republican National Committee regarding the controversial firing of U.S. Attorneys.

You can read the White House emails here and you can read the RNC emails here.

and what did the emails reveal? From Bloomberg:

Karl Rove and other aides to former President George W. Bush played a bigger role in the dismissal of federal prosecutors than was previously disclosed, newly released documents show.

and what about former U.S. Attorney from New Mexico, David Iglesias? Again from Bloomberg:

In an interview with the committee, Miers said Rove became “very agitated” in a conversation with her about David Iglesias, then the U.S. attorney in New Mexico. The Judiciary Committee released a transcript of the Miers interview.

“It was clear to me that he felt like he had a serious problem and that he wanted something done about it,” Miers said, according to the transcript. She said she didn’t recall whether Rove said he wanted Iglesias removed.

One Rove aide e-mailed another in 2005 discussing the firing of Iglesias. The e-mail said: “I would really like to move forward with getting rid of NM USATTY.” Miers later wrote in an e-mail that a decision had been made to replace Iglesias.

The Justice Department “gave Iglesias top rankings, so this decision was clearly not just the result of the White House following the department’s lead as Rove and Miers have maintained,” according to Conyers.

A chain of e-mails in 2006 started by then-Representative Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican, criticized Iglesias for failing to bring public corruption cases that could help Republicans.

A Rove aide forwarded Wilson’s e-mail to Rove and complained that Iglesias was “shy about doing his job on” Patricia Madrid, Wilson’s Democratic challenger in 2006 who was the state’s attorney general at the time. Weeks later, Iglesias was placed on a final list to be fired.

Is this really any surprise?

RNC Accidentally Leaks Their Talking Points on Sotomayor's Nomination

It has taken very little time for people to see how the Republicans plan to respond to the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

The RNC has inadvertently leaked their talking points that were sent out to several hundred prominent Republicans. Check them out:

o President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is an important decision that will have an impact on the United States long after his administration.

o Republicans are committed to a fair confirmation process and will reserve judgment until more is known about Judge Sotomayor's legal views, judicial record and qualifications.

o Until we have a full view of the facts and comprehensive understanding of Judge Sotomayor's record, Republicans will avoid partisanship and knee-jerk judgments - which is in stark contrast to how the Democrats responded to the Judge Roberts and Alito nominations.

o To be clear, Republicans do not view this nomination without concern. Judge Sotomayor has received praise and high ratings from liberal special interest groups. Judge Sotomayor has also said that policy is made on the U.S. Court of Appeals.

o Republicans believe that the confirmation process is the most responsible way to learn more about her views on a number of important issues.

o The confirmation process will help Republicans, and all Americans, understand more about judge Sotomayor's thoughts on the importance of the Supreme Court's fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law.

o Republicans are the minority party, but our belief that judges should interpret rather than make law is shared by a majority of Americans.

o Republicans look forward to learning more about Judge Sotomayor's legal views and to determining whether her views reflect the values of mainstream America.

President Obama on Judicial Nominees

o Liberal ideology, not legal qualification, is likely to guide the president's choice of judicial nominees.

o Obama has said his criterion for nominating judges would be their "heart" and "empathy."

o Obama said he believes Supreme Court justices should understand the Court's role "to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process."

o Obama has declared: "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old-and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges."

Additional Talking Points

o Justice Souter's retirement could move the Court to the left and provide a critical fifth vote for:

o Further eroding the rights of the unborn and property owners;

o Imposing a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage;

o Stripping "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and completely secularizing the public square;

o Abolishing the death penalty;

o Judicial micromanagement of the government's war powers.

Now that you can read these talking points, is it any surprise that this was RNC Chairman Michael Steele's reaction to Sotomayor's nomination:

"Supreme Court vacancies are rare, which makes Sonia Sotomayor's nomination a perfect opportunity for America to have a thoughtful discussion about the role of the Supreme Court in our daily lives. Republicans will reserve judgment on Sonia Sotomayor until there has been a thorough and thoughtful examination of her legal views."

Michael Steele's Revisionist History

I am sure that many of you have heard about the fighting that has been going on between the RNC Chair Michael Steele and the conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh. In case you are late to this story here is an intentionally brief summary:

- Rush Limbaugh made the comment that he hopes President Obama will fail.
- Limbaugh is criticized for saying this but stands by his comments saying that if Obama succeeding means going against the principles that he believes, then of course he hopes Obama fails and he would think that many Republicans want Obama to fail as well.
- RNC Chairman Michael Steele goes on CNN, says that he is the head of the Republican Party and that Limbaugh is an entertainer. He also says that Limbaugh can be "incendiary" and "ugly". Here is the video of this exchange:




After this exchange, Limbaugh retaliated saying that Steele is not the head of the Republican Party. Steele then apologized to Limbaugh by saying:

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh...I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. …There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”

Now, there is some revisionist history taking place as Michael Steele is claiming that he never attacked Limbaugh in the first place. He claims that he said that there were other "people out there" who may think that Limbaugh is incendiary and ugly, but that he never meant that to be his viewpoint. Watch:




In case you want to hear the exact language from Steele's CNN appearance that directly contradicts his most recent claims that he "never attacked" Limbaugh, just go watch it again for yourself. I also enjoy how Steele and others within the Republican Party are now saying that it is the Democrats and the left who are distracting America by bringing attention to all of this. Steele mentions in his final clip that the left are implementing some kind of plan that they have wanted to enact for a while...to distract Americans from the real issues by bringing up this controversy. Sure, that's it.

It's not only Steele either. Check out this exchange between MSNBC's David Schuster and former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher. Fleisher comes out on the offensive with his talking point about Obama acting "childish" and Schuster tries to show Fleisher just how hypocritical this claim is. It takes effort to not go insane when these items get flipped on the head on such a consistent basis and as part of a strategy to falsely revise history:

Prosecutors Announce That All Charges Against Journalists in St. Paul Will Be Dropped

In follow up to a story that was reported and discussed here at the Beacon, it has just been announced that all charges against journalists arrested in St. Paul during the RNC will be dropped.

The decision was announced by local authorities in St. Paul following widespread public outrage at the detention and the filing of charges against journalists arrested while covering the events outside the RNC. Mayor Chris Coleman of St. Paul released the following statement:

“This decision reflects the values we have in Saint Paul to protect and promote our First Amendment rights to freedom of the press. A journalist plays a special role in our democracy and that role is just too important to ignore. At the scene, the police did their duty in protecting public safety. In this decision, we are serving the public’s interest to maintain the integrity of our democracy, system of justice and freedom of the press.”

While this is certainly recognized as encouraging news by advocates of independent media and freedom of the press, there are many questions that still remain. Nancy Doyle Brown of Twin Cities Media Alliance states:

"This is an important first step, but many questions remain. We still need answers about why and how journalists got swept up in these arrests in the first place. And more than anything else, we need to ensure that this never happens again. We’ll never know how many important stories never got told because their authors were behind bars, not in the streets."

After the arrest of Amy Goodman and two of her producers from the independent media program Democracy Now!, thousands of people from across the country signed letters and statements calling for their release. The media reform organization FreePress delivered over 60,000 of these letters and statements to St. Paul City Hall demanding that they drop all charges against journalists. Josh Silver of FreePress reacted this news today:

"We’re pleased that the St. Paul authorities ultimately acted to uphold the rights of all journalists -- including those citizens using blogs, cheap cameras and cell phones to report news as it happens. Our task now is to ensure that our press remains free to report on the events, issues and stories that matter to our country, our communities, and our democracy."

Part of ensuring the future freedom of the press and of reporters to report on dissent is to critically examine why these actions were taken and how they can be prevented in the future. The statement from the Mayor's office implies that this is how the system should work; police should detain and arrest indiscriminately and then the courts will end up sorting it all out. Instead of assuming that this is an overall success there needs to be an examination into how these incidents happened, how they can be prevented in the future, and the impact this model of law enforcement has on a free society. The fact that so many people rose up and demanded that these charges be dropped is a victory for the people in standing up for basic rights. While this should certainly be viewed as a victory, it should be viewed through a bittersweet lens. Arresting journalists interrupts the important work that they are doing on the ground during the event being covered and this is valuable time that has been squandard can not be given back. Examination also needs to be done over the strategy of preemptively raiding journalists houses and rented space as was done in the case of I-Witness Video. This practice led police to copy documents and photograph items within the property, detain the individuals inside, and interrupt the journalistic work that was done. The following questions need to be asked in this case:

1. What did police do with the information collected from these locations?
2. Is any of this information being stored in a database that can be used against activists that have not broken any law, in future high publicity events?

There is no telling the amount of information compiled about journalists who have not been charged or convicted with a crime during the DNC and RNC. This is relevant and needs to be addressed.

This article can also be viewed at: http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com

The Crackdown of Dissent in St. Paul: Preemptive Raids, Journalist Arrests, and Police Intimidation

At the end of my last article in which I summarized the police reaction to dissent during the DNC, I mentioned how there were already indications that we would see more of the same in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention. This observation unfortunately turned out to be accurate and now that the RNC has concluded, there is an opportunity to look back and examine how police dealt with dissent and with the independent media.

The first incident, which I discussed briefly in my past article, involved three members of the group Glass Bead Collective who were in town to document incidents of police misconduct. As reported in the Minnesota Star Tribune, members of this group were detained for over an hour after they were questioned about a rash of car burglaries in the area. Police searched the belongings of all three members without their consent and confiscated video cameras, cell phones, a laptop, and other items that belonged to the group. This incident set the stage for an array of police action that targeted peaceful protesters and journalists.

On the Saturday prior to the start of the convention members of I-Witness Video were gathered for a meeting in a house that they were renting while they were in town for the RNC. I-Witness video is a New York based organization that uses video to document police interaction with protesters in order to protect civil liberties. I-Witness video was largely successful during the 2004 RNC in New York City in providing video to clear many peaceful protesters of allegations by police. On Saturday August 30, members of I-Witness Video were gathered in their host house in St. Paul when they received two visitors at the front door. An FBI Agent and a Wisconsin Deputy Sheriff were at the door and inquired about the location of a gentleman that supposedly lived at that location. The Sheriff and FBI Agent specifically stated: "we're not here about the convention" and asked when the gentleman of interest may be returning home. The people inside the house said that they did not know and the agents then left. Two hours later upward of 20 officers arrived back at the house and surrounded the location. Those inside the house were told that if they left, they would be detained. The officers did not have a search warrant at that time, but stayed surrounding the house until one arrived over two hours later. The only problem was, that the warrant was for the address next door. Police moved into the location next door, detaining the owner of the building, and then moved into the I-Witness Video apartment by busting through the attic with guns drawn. 7 members were detained in the backyard while police took photos, made copies of documents, and searched through the entire house. When the police concluded their search, they released all of those detained and left the property. Video of this incident can be found here for Part 1 and here for Part 2. This video was shot by former Democracy Now! producer Elizabeth Press while she was inside the house working with I-Witness Video. You can also view comments by the landlord of the property here.

While this incident was one of many that occurred on the Saturday before the beginning of the Convention, it was not the last for I-Witness Video. Police returned to the same location that was raided on Saturday on Wednesday, September 3rd. Members inside the house noticed that police had pulled up to the house and started to unload equipment from their vehicles. An attorney with the National Lawyers Guild, Geneva Finn, went out and spoke with police. The officers said that they had received information that anarchists were holding people hostage inside the home and that they were responding to a kidnapping. Finn escorted the officers in to the location and showed them that no one was being held hostage at the location and then asked the officers to leave. The officers refused to leave until their Sergent arrived on the scene. After the officers left the members of I-Witness video were informed that their landlord wanted them to immediately leave the house due to all of the commotion over the past week. I-Witness video packed up, left, and set up shop at Free Speech TV's studios in St. Paul. I-Witness Video admits that all of this harassment by police has greatly interfered with their ability to do the job that they had set out to do.

In addition to preemptive raids on locations prior to the Convention, journalists found themselves targeted as they went about trying to do their job during the Convention. As was posted earlier in the week on this site , two producers of Democracy Now!, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, along with host Amy Goodman, were arrested on Monday, September 1. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested as they were reporting on a protest that police converged upon and Goodman was arrested when she asked to speak with a commanding officer about the arrest of her producers. Salazar videotaped her own arrest and you can view the video here and you can view Goodman's arrest here. At the time of this article felony charges have not yet been filed against Kouddous and Salazar and Amy Goodman has been charged with a misdemeanor of obstructing a legal process and interfering with a peace officer. Along with the three Democracy Now! members, Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke was also arrested and later released.

On Wednesday, September 3, about two dozen journalists were arrested as they attempted to cover the protests on Marion Street Bridge. Protesters and journalists (including AP reporters Amy Forliti and John Krawczynski) were trapped by riot police on the bridge over an interstate highway. Police blocked both ends of the bridge, ordered approximately 200 people to sit down and keep their hands over their heads as police then arrested and led away protesters and journalists two at a time. You can view videos of this incident from WCCO here, The Uptake here, and Pioneer Press here. Police have been criticized in this incident and in other incidents from the week, for utilizing force against otherwise peaceful protests.

The New York based Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned these arrests and the organization FreePress has stated that the arrests were "an orchestrated round up of independent [media] covering the Republican National Convention." FreePress collected 60,000 letters by concerned citizens and delivered them to Mayor Chris Coleman's office on Friday demanding that all charges be dropped against journalists arrested during the Convention.

A preliminary tally has placed the number of those arrested during the RNC at 818 people, this number does not include those who were detained, like those of I-Witness Video prior to the Convention. As journalists and videographers were rounded up with other protesters a new precident for police action has been set. In future situations where large amount of citizens will protest I fear that the actions taken by the police in St. Paul will be viewed not only as a success, but as a new model of cracking down on dissent. The kind of preemptive raids on locations were seen on the Saturday prior to the Convention are of particular concern. In these scenarios, no crime had been committed and police detained and searched the locations preemptively. This type of action blurs the line between the protection of important rights and the action that police feel they can take against those who they feel have the potential to commit a crime. At the time of this article, 8 members of the RNC Welcoming Committee, an organization that provided logistics and coordination for many of the protests, have been charged with "conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism", a felony punishable by up to 7 1/2 years in prison. Those charged with this crime were arrested in the house raids before the Convention started and police have admitted to infiltrating this group in order to build a year long case against these individuals. Attorney Bruce Nestor is the Minnesota Chapter's President of the National Lawyer's Guild and states:

These charges are very significant for any political activist or anybody that cares about the right to organize politically or for freedom of speech. By equating plans or stated plans to blockade traffic and to try to disrupt the convention with acts of terrorism, the conspiracy nature of the charge, where you punish people for what they say or advocate, but not for what they do, really creates a possibility that anybody organizing a large-scale demonstration, at which civil disobedience may be a part of it or where other individuals may then engage in some type of property damage, creates the potential that all those organizers can be charged with these conspiracy charges and face significant penalties.

We will continue to follow these incidents and those individuals who have had charges filed against them and report back on the outcome. Regardless of whether many of the filed charges result in convictions, it is clear that St. Paul will be looked upon as a great success in the cities ability to contain and suppress dissent.

This article is also available at: http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com

Amy Goodman arrested at the RNC

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar were arrested yesterday by St. Paul police outside the Republican National Convention. Kouddous and Salazar were covering the protests and filming when they were arrested and detained. Both Kouddous and Salazar had proper press identification but were manhandled by police. Salazar was dragged by her leg and received scrapes and a bloody nose. Kouddous was slammed against a wall which has resulted in chest and back pain. Amy Goodman was arrested after she approached police and asked to speak to a commanding officer regarding her producers. Police then yanked her by the arm and arrested her. Video is below:




Amy Goodman was released and is being charged with obstruction of a legal process and interference with a peace officer. There have conflicting reports on whether Kouddous and Salazar have been released, but I just placed two calls to the Ramsey County Detention Facility where they confirmed that both were still being held and have not yet been booked. I attempted to confirm the reports that both were being charged with a felony of suspicion to riot, but the jail could not confirm this at the time. I have left a message with the Mayor's office of St. Paul for comment, but at the time of this article, have not had my call returned. I should also note that my first call to the Ramsey County Detention Facility resulted in the woman on the other end of the line becoming very confused as I attempted to spell: Sharif Abdel Kouddous. When I told her that I would be spelling three parts of his name she stated, "just how many names does this guy have." I informed her that I was asking about one person to which she replied, "I bet this guy had a hard time learning how to spell this in kindergarten."

While an employee of Ramsey County Detention Facility feels that detaining journalists is a time for jokes, all those who hold freedom of the press as an important right should be calling for the immediate release of Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar as well as for dropping all charges against them. In a society that depends on an independent press it is imperative that journalists are not arbitrarily arrested and held on trumped-up charges. Below is a video of Amy Goodman discussing the arrests after her release.

You can call the Mayor of St. Paul to weigh in on this issue at:

651-266-8510

You can also reach the Ramsey County Detention Facility at:

651-266-9350






This article can also be found at: http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com

The Democratic and Republican Conventions, Sponsored by...

As this campaign season continues to move through the summer months, attention is starting to become focused on the national conventions of both major political parties.

The Democrats are first, rolling into the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado from August 25-27 and INVESCO field on August 28th. The Republicans then arrive in St. Paul, Minnesota where their convention will be held at the Xcel Energy Center from September 1-4. Both conventions will act as a 4 day political ad for each respective party with media attention focused on speeches and the nominating process itself. Each convention will have music, performances, speeches from various delegates, and will culminate in the acceptance speech by the presumptive nominees for President...John McCain and Barack Obama.

Both conventions will have their share of protests and as in 2004, the practice of limiting protests to "free speech zones", will be a strategy that the authorities use to attempt to keep the peace.

As these lavish political productions approach, it is interesting to take a look at who pays for all of the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the conventions and the connection between funding the conventions, policy making, and access to political candidates.

Take a look at an image of the welcome bag that delegates and entrants into the convention will receive at the DNC in Denver:


AT&T is one of 146 companies or organizations that have given money to the Democratic and Republican Conventions. 70 companies have given money only to the Democratic host committee to fund the convention, 39 companies have donated solely to the host committee for the Republicans, and 37 companies have donated money to both conventions according to the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute. It is interesting that AT&T's logo is on the welcome bag to the DNC considering it was the Democrats (including Barack Obama) who joined with the Republicans recently in passing the FISA legislation which gave retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies (like AT&T) which broke the law and spied on Americans.

The amount of soft money that has been given to these host committees for both parties, is very high and seems to work directly against the type of campaign finance reforms that both major party candidates have pledged to follow. In an interview on Democracy Now! this week, Steve Weissman from the Campaign Finance Institute stated:

“In return for this money, the parties, through the host committees, offer access to top politicians, to the president, the future president, vice president, cabinet officials, senators, congressmen. They promise these companies who are giving that they will be able to not only get close to these people by hosting receptions, by access to VIP areas, but they’ll actually have meetings with them.”

This sounds to me like a great opportunity for these companies to meet with some of the most important decision makers within both parties, and discuss issues and policies that would greatly benefit each organization. Money does indeed buy access.

There are three tables that the Campaign Finance Institute has put together to break down the campaign contributions of some of the companies that have donated to the conventions thus far.

This table shows the Organizational Donors to the Host Committee for the Democratic Convention and their Federal Contributions and lobbying expenditures.

This table shows the Organizational Donors to the Host Committee for the Republican Convention and their Federal Contributions and lobbying expenditures.

This table shows the Organizational Donors to the Host Committee for BOTH the Democratic and Republican Conventions and their Federal Contributions and lobbying expenditures.

Since the Campaign Finance Institute's first report was released, 39 other companies were acknowledged as donors and that information appears here. In addition to this information, the CFI wrote to all 146 and requested that they provide how much money they contributed to each convention's host committee. Not many companies responded, but of the ones that did you can see their contributions here.

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, wrote in a follow-up to her interview with Steve Weissman:

Disclosure of what corporations are giving is not required until 60 days after each convention, which is essentially Election Day, so there is no time to challenge a candidate on particular corporate donors. Weissman reports that most of the corporations that are giving to the convention “host committees” also have serious business before the federal government.

Serious business before the federal government, much like the lawsuits that have been filed in response to the newly passed FISA legislation which directly affects the likes of AT&T.

Corporate sponsorship of the biggest gathering of top-level decision makers within the government, complete with special access in order to discuss important policies. Call me crazy, but something doesn't sound quite right about this process. It should not strike anyone as odd when the Democrats join with the Republicans in passing legislation that benefits corporations while the majority of the population of this country does not benefit from the same policies. After all, those that disagree with such a process are locked away in "free speech zones", out of earshot of the convention. The free-flow of corporate dollars into the election process continues to pollute democracy. As the CFI suggests:

More fundamentally, Senators Obama and McCain should take steps to permanently end the soft money system for political convention financing. Specifically, they should support the recommendation of CFI’s diverse and bipartisan Task Force on Presidential Primary Financing for legislation that would ban host committee soft money for convention expenses and instead allow the parties to collect and spend limited hard money contributions to help fund their conventions.

This would be a step forward in ending the type of corporate funding of the conventions, but we also need to look beyond and support ways which will help to reverse the corporate sponsorship of our government.