Post #284,483
5/12/07 11:45:52 AM
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The talented Ms. Goodling
I reproduce the opening and closing few paragraphs of [link|http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/washington/12monica.html?ex=1336622400&en=26ad5277c04e7880&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss|this article] from this morning's NY Times. The middle third is also worthy of your close perusal: Two years ago, Robin C. Ashton, a seasoned criminal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, learned from her boss that a promised promotion was no longer hers.
You have a Monica problem,\ufffd Ms. Ashton was told, according to several Justice Department officials. Referring to Monica M. Goodling, a 31-year-old, relatively inexperienced lawyer who had only recently arrived in the office, the boss added, \ufffdShe believes you\ufffdre a Democrat and doesn\ufffdt feel you can be trusted.\ufffd
Ms. Ashton\ufffds ouster—she left the Executive Office for United States Attorneys for another Justice Department post two weeks later—was a critical early step in a plan that would later culminate in the ouster of nine United States attorneys last year.
Ms. Goodling would soon be quizzing applicants for civil service jobs at Justice Department headquarters with questions that several United States attorneys said were inappropriate, like who was their favorite president and Supreme Court justice. One department official said an applicant was even asked, \ufffdHave you ever cheated on your wife?\ufffd
Ms. Goodling also moved to block the hiring of prosecutors with r\ufffdsum\ufffds that suggested they might be Democrats, even though they were seeking posts that were supposed to be nonpartisan, two department officials said.
And she helped maintain lists of all the United States attorneys that graded their loyalty to the Bush administration, including work on past political campaigns, and noted if they were members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.
By the time Ms. Goodling resigned in April—after her role in the firing of the prosecutors became public and she had been promoted to the role of White House liaison—she and other senior department officials had revamped personnel practices affecting employees from the top of the agency to the bottom.
...
Her mandate over hiring expanded significantly in March 2006, when Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales signed a confidential memorandum delegating to her and D. Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff, the power to appoint or fire all department political appointees other than the United States attorneys. That included interim United States attorneys and heads of the divisions that handle civil rights, public corruption, environmental crimes and other matters.
At the same time, Ms. Goodling, Mr. Sampson and Mr. Nowacki, according to e-mail released to Congressional investigators, were helping prepare the final list of United States attorneys to be dismissed. Ms. Goodling was also calling around the country trying to identify up-and-coming lawyers—and good Republicans—who could replace them, said one Justice Department official who received such a call.
Mr. Comey said that if the accusations about Ms. Goodling\ufffds partisan actions were true, the damage was deep and real.
\ufffdI don\ufffdt know how you would put that genie back in the bottle, if people started to believe we were hiring our A.U.S.A.s (Assistant United States Attorneys) for political reasons,\ufffd he said at a House hearing this month. \ufffdI don\ufffdt know that there\ufffds any window you can go to to get the department\ufffds reputation back if that kind of stuff is going on.\ufffd I had favored Congress commencing impeachment proceedings against Gonzales, but I'm beginning to think that mounting his head on a pike across from the White House might be a more appropriate response to the scale of the crimes at Justice. cordially, Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
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Post #284,486
5/12/07 12:03:08 PM
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for hiring someone like her, he is obviously incompetent to
head the justice department. A smart move may be civil rights investigations that could put little miss goody two shoes next to a chick called bubba in a federal slam somewhere. Asking questions of an applicant like that is a clear civil rights violation.
thanx,
bill
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 51 years. meep
reach me at [link|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net]
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Post #284,649
5/14/07 5:45:01 PM
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Too late.
[link|http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/12/america/NA-GEN-US-Fired-Prosecutors.php|http://www.iht.com/a...d-Prosecutors.php]
Fully immunized against all but self-inflicted wounds.
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Post #284,650
5/14/07 6:05:30 PM
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Oh that is too bad
Now she can conveniently turn out to have planned, ordered, and executed everything every step of the way -- so much against the wishes of Rove, Gonzales, Cheney and Bush had they but known what she was up to.
In the end, it will all serve as a powerful argument that the executive needs yet more control and fewer restrictions -- the better to keep politically unsavvy elements like Goodling leashed.
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Post #284,653
5/14/07 6:38:56 PM
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It has that look doesn't it?
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Post #284,487
5/12/07 12:05:22 PM
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Bill Moyers had more on Goodling in his segment on Regent U.
[link|http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05112007/transcript1.html|Keeping the Faith] (also called "God's Grad School?" in other links there). BILL MOYERS: Carly Gammill is one of the many promising students to graduate last week.
CARLY GAMMILL: Part of the goal of many of us who are going out from this institution from here on to make it clear and accurate what it really means to be a Christian leader to change the world, which is not to indoctrinate anyone but to share the truth and to offer the truth and to rely on the truth in the way that we handle our lives as an example to others.
ANNOUNCER: "Carly D. Gammill\ufffd
BILL MOYERS: Gammill is going to work for one of Regent's best-known alumni.
Jay Sekulow earned his PhD from Regent arguing that it's okay for judges to decide cases on the basis of their religious beliefs. Sekulow now heads up Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice, and was hand-picked by the White House to be an advisor on judicial nominations.
Last month, when the ascendant majority on the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on "partial birth" abortion. Sekulow declared victory for the religious right and for Regent.
JAY SEKULOW: Well the end result is that many of the findings of fact that the Court made in NY, the finding of fact in our favor about the horrific nature of this procedure were incorporated in this decision that came out today.
BILL MOYERS: Sekulow's legal group wants to roll back other Supreme Court rulings that uphold gay rights and the separation of church and state. They'll have the help of Regent's finest.
CARLY GAMMILL: I intend to help further the administration of justice and to do justice. And I believe in absolute truth, and I believe in absolutes. Not grey, you know, not relative truth but absolute truth. And that is what God's word is.
[...]
CARLY GAMMILL: The importance to me of having the Biblical foundation in the law is because of my belief that God's law is the highest law. And not that earthly law and you know the law of this world is necessarily supposed to be exactly the same, but just to understand what God's law and what the word of God does have to say about the different issues that affect our culture.
JOSHUA BLAKE: Instead of promoting the individual's liberties necessarily, we are looking at what's good for people as far as these values that are found in the Bible.
BILL MOYERS: Those were the values that motivated Monica Goodling when she graduated from Regent Law, Class of 1999. This is her Web site from her days as a student.
After graduation, Goodling worked in the war room of the Republican National Committee in the campaign of 2000, doing opposition and attack research with this man - Timothy Griffin--shown in this BBC documentary, "Digging the Dirt."
After the election Goodling and Griffin both wound up in the Justice Department under the new attorney general John Ashcroft.
Their stars rose quickly. Griffin served as a top aide to Karl Rove. Goodling moved up to be senior counsel to Ashcroft's successor, Alberto Gonzales. She also held the portfolio as liaison between the department and the White House. At 33 years old you can't get much more powerful than that.
But her power has landed her smack in the middle of the controversy surrounding the firing of 8 Federal prosecutors. She had been the link to the White House in the hiring and firing of Justice Department lawyers . . . what's now a fast-evolving scandal. It's all more than a little creepy. There's a nice [link|http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05112007/transcript2.html|interview] with the editor of Reason magazine (a Libertarian journal), too. He almost sounds reasonable. ;-) Cheers, Scott.
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Post #284,530
5/12/07 11:14:40 PM
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I saw it.
Did you also catch [link|http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/06/romney-at-regent-treading-lightly-on-facts/|Mitt Romney speaking at Regent]? Kissing Pat Robertson's ass!
Alex
When fascism comes to America, it'll be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross. -- Sinclair Lewis
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Post #284,500
5/12/07 12:56:05 PM
8/21/07 6:29:21 AM
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I believe one must start at the top (W)
And impeach/indict/prosecute everyone within 2 degress of separation. Hopefully a metaphorical smoking crater of that size will halt the infestation.
We posture as apostles of fair play, as good sportsmen, as professional knights-errant-- and we throw beer bottles at the umpire when he refuses to cheat for our side...We save the black-and-tan republics from their native [statesmen]--and flood them with "deserving" democrats of our own. We deafen the world with our whoops for liberty--and submit to laws that destroy our most sacred rights...We play policeman and Sunday-school superintendent to half of Christendom--and lynch a darky every two days in our own backyard.
H.L. Mencken, 1914
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Post #284,536
5/13/07 6:25:33 AM
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If this hasn't got legs - -
then the whole 'sorry' [-- that we killed so many of your civilians, Honest!] Country is a nematode.
Moyers' Journal, mentioned, was completed without utterance of a single \ufffdmotherfucking bastards! - but then, his equanimity has taken decades to instill.
This Starry-eyed Evangel Empire builder is going places.
Soon, one hopes.
Opt. [We're Fucked - Still]
Well some one might -- but I can cajole no endorphins, 'hoping' on such an improbable chain as: full investigation, indictment, sentencing and actual incarceration.
(Step 1: how much has already been shredded? ___ tomorrow's figure ___)
I think that daily, progressively it becomes clearer that we have passed the tipping point thing re corruption - it's a major facilitator of capitalist wealth concentration at medium levels; I'd believe that it is an Essential-ingredient for most every orders-of-magnitude "income growth" (the word, 'earned' joins 'innovation' - in Lethe) - thus, for absolutely All practical Purposes:
Corruption is inextirpable in the Murica of today or tomorrow (however long that lasts.)
[Condoleezza-grade Chirpy Pollyanna On])
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Post #284,600
5/14/07 9:55:49 AM
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Lines found on the web this morning
He who knows and knows that he knows is a Teacher. Learn from him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a student. Teach him.
He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a menace. Avoid him.
He who knows and knows not that he knows is our Attorney General. Impeach him.
—from [link|http://rjwaldmann.blogspot.com/2007/05/he-who-knows-and-knows-that-he-knows-is.html|Robert's Stochastic Thoughts]
cordially,
Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
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Post #284,724
5/15/07 6:05:26 PM
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An apt paraphrase of some Words of Wisdom oft stenciled
in interesting fonts, near the ceilings of places where people tend to sip coffee (or Absinthe) and, think about ... Things.
Curses..! YAN link {sigh}
Asymptotically
we'll all be
dead
-- er, Robert
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