Great piece on Democracy Now re: voter fraud crap from Justice:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/24/1446251

From this article: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003039.php we learn:

"Mr. (Elston) said that people were struck from the list for three reasons: grades, spelling errors on applications and inappropriate information about them on the Internet."
Which would of course have to mean that Elston's "special" review panel (of unnamed staffers) would have been doing internet research. Which of course is the description of opposition research. Which is what ex- DOJ'er Monica Goodling had a background in, since she previously worked for Tim Griffin in the 2000 war room.

David Kurtz' story on Talking Points Memo from not too long ago adds another critical detail:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2007_03_18.php#013229 quoting:

"He (Bradley Schlozman, the former Civil Rights division deputy chief, now an appointed US Attorney) called it "absolutely not true" that he drove out career lawyers. "What I tried to do was to depoliticize the hiring process," Schlozman said. "We hired people across the political spectrum."

And quoting Kurtz:

"I'm no expert on DOJ hiring policies, but how exactly did Schlozman know he was hiring people from across the political spectrum? "

How did Schlozman know? Because Elston and his "special (unnamed)" panel had already vetted them.

Projecting possible guilt, you of course know that voter rolls are public information. I would have to guess that Monica Goodling and the panel could have easily run career applicant names through a voter rolls database, probably available thru the RNC. Karl Rove is of course obsessed with voter rolls.

(continued...)

Also ask you to consider the case of Gary Malphrus. He was a young White House policy aide who used his preference and became a career immigration judge, doubling his salary. He had no immigration experience. And, as the GAO report says, they found it impossible to determine if his hiring was proper. With political appointees signing off on career hires, you really have to wonder.

Bush appointee job:
Associate Director
Domestic Policy Council
The White House
3 U.S.C. 105
AD-0301-00/00
salary per year -- $61,000
end of job term -- 01/21/2009

After the obscure preference appointment:
Immigration Judge
Executive Office for
Immigration Review
IJ-0905-00/01
salary per year -- $113,904
end of job term -- never; it's a career job

Here's a law.com article on Gary and his appointment:
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1150794314407

Interestingly, he was also part of the so-called "Brooks Brothers riot" in Florida in 2000: http://www.democrats.com/joel-kaplan

C92, the next administration will be saddled with a shitload of Bush right wing extremists in career spots if we don't do something now. But what can be done?

Meanwhile, as you know, Bradley Schlozman could be in a boatload of trouble if the press release I linked to below is accurate. Why is Schlozman hiding out if he has done nothing wrong?

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Sandbagged Novation LLC Prosecution

"...In an April 18, 2005 affidavit, Medical Supply Chain founder Samuel Lipari complained about FBI misuse of USA PATRIOT Act surveillance powers. The affidavit described interception of electronic communications and searches by law enforcement officials being used to interfere with and obstruct Lipari’s civil prosecution of the Novation defendants in Medical Supply Chain, Inc., v. Novation LLC et al, US District Court for the W.D. of Missouri No. 05-0210-CV-W-ODS

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confirmed the existence of the program for warrantless surveillance, first reported in The New York Times, on December 19, 2005. However on January 25, 2006 Gonzales wrote that “there has not been a single verified abuse of any of the provisions” of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Samuel Lipari again complained on October 12, 2006 in the US Court of Appeals for the Eight Circuit in St. Louis, Missouri that US District Attorney Bradley J. Schlozman failed to investigate evidence of public corruption brought to his office and permitted obstruction of justice to continue despite the injuries to Samuel Lipari, his family and associates.

On January 16, 2007 Attorney General Gonzales responded to criticism of his misuse of the USA PATRIOT Act by announcing John Wood would be taking Bradley Schlozman's place in Kansas City two days before he gave his previous testimony to Congress..."

Mr. Clevenger's experience as a mini-whistleblower - that is, being a responsible professional and reporting up the chain of command on abuses within his department - is typical. As is the fact that he was terminated within hours of putting his concerns in writing, in this case, to Paul McNulty at the DOJ.

In doing so, Mr. Clevenger's superiors were merely adhering to the Eleventh Commandment: "He Who Speaks Out, Shall be Smitten."

This administration has enforced that dogma throughout its domain, from the Park Service to the GSA. There are lots of Monica Goodlings willing to pillory heretics, saddened only that burnings at the stake are no longer public.

When Alberto Gonzales tells the United States Senate that he can't recall or remember the hiring and firing process for nearly ten percent of his top employees, he is lying. Just as surely as is Mr. Bush when he claims to see Winged Victory around the corner in Iraq. Or, perhaps they're both dipping into the same liquor cabinet.

The bush criminal gang - foremost are the lawyers. They "legitimize" the whole enterprise. They determine what's "quaint" from what's expedient.

If you fill DoJ with loyal lackeys, ready to do the bidding of the dons, ready to prosecute those who get out of line, that helps the "business."

The whole thing is a spider web of crime. And we're just beginning to see the strands of the web and the bodies attached to it.

"Netcraft is showing that an event happened in the Ohio 2004 election that is difficult to explain. The Secretary of State's website, which handles election reporting, normally is directed to an Ohio-based IP address hosted by the Ohio Supercomputer Center. On Nov. 3 2004, Netcraft shows the website pointing out of state to a server owned by Smartech Corp. According to the American Registry on Internet Numbers, Smartech's block of IP addresses 64.203.96.0 – 64.203.111.255 encompasses the entire range of addresses owned by the Republican National Committee. Smartech hosted the recently notorious gbw43.com domain used from the White House in apparent violation of the Presidential Records Act, from which thousands of White House emails vanished. Can anyone suggest a good explanations for this seemingly dubious election-eve transfer?"

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://election.sos.state.oh.us

interesting abt that switch in 'ownership'

bobh@April 24, 2007 05:05 PM

Thanks for the info. Robtex's Swiss Army Knife Internet Tool (link below)gives a nice picture of who is on what servers. Try searching GWB43.com.

I did a fair amount of research on one of the big voting companies, Global Election Systems, Inc., and concluded that it would have been fairly easy to rig the software in the GES machines in 2000 and 2002. I began a thread about my research in the TPM Cafe but never finished it because I got kind of burned out on the subject.

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/blog/mrs_panstreppon/2006/oct/26/how_the_republicans_rigged_the_voting_machine_software_part_i

I'd really like to swap notes with someone who is as interested in this aspect of voting machine fraud as I am.

C92, Paul Kiel interviewed Ty Clevenger!

"Clevenger, who graduated from Stanford Law School in 2001, told me.."

C92, All I meant was that Paul Kiel is being taken seriously and being granted interviews.

On a different note, have you ever heard about the DOJ's early retirement program for the department's most senior and experienced litigators? One way to cut down on the success rate, isn't it?

Dallas Morning News
By Matt Stiles
10/19/04

"U.S. attorney's office loses three 'go-to guys' 2 prosecutors to work as defense attorneys, while third is retiring"

Three of the region's most experienced and skilled federal prosecutors recently left government service, creating a void at the U.S. attorney's office in Dallas, officials said.

Two veteran prosecutors - Michael Uhl and Michael Snipes - are switching to potentially more lucrative jobs as white-collar defense attorneys. The third, Leonard Senerote, is retiring.

The three, who have decades of combined experience on complex cases, are the last winners of the Greater Dallas Crime Commission's award for federal prosecutor of the year.

"It's a great loss for the office, no question about it," said U.S. Attorney Richard Roper, who supervises prosecutions of federal crimes such as bank robbery, immigrant smuggling and fraud from Dallas to the Panhandle.

"All three of these lawyers were go-to guys."

The departures of Mr. Senerote and Mr. Snipes mirror those of nearly 100 other federal prosecutors across the country as part of a Justice Department early retirement offer.

Under the plan, senior prosecutors and some other employees got severance payments of up to $25,000 if they left before Sept. 30. All three men made about $130,000 annually, records show.

The move was part of a national restructuring effort to bring in employees with new talents, such as advanced computer skills, authorities said...

Refresh my memory. What was the DeLay/Ryun house story?

C92, if you'd actually read Clevenger's article in Regent's Law Review, you'd recognize the irony of your statement. Indeed, Clevenger predicted it 5 years ago.

"Frankly, I realize that publication of this essay in the Regent University Law Review will be grounds for criticism because Regent is identified, rightly or wrongly, as part of the 'religious right.'"

Perhaps a little less complaining about others' "biases" and a little more self-examination would be in order for you.

Bill@April 24, 2007 11:29 PM

Maybe Ty Clevenger was just brown nosing the boss, AG Ashcroft five years ago.

Just another shoutout from Germany, great job on the muckraking. I teach an American Newspapers class here at the University and I pointed the students to where I get my news, here and FDL and huffington and kos besides the big 3-4 newspapers I try and get to each day.

This problem is really hard to grasp. The politicization of hiring government employees is probably at the heart of the scandal.

What is happening to:
1)The missing emails
2)That lunchtime report with Republican bias (and that Doreen chick was just like Gonzales in not remembering anything. Shouldn't that be some sort of crime, or at least a fireable offense? A bad memory on extremely questionable acitivites?)
3)The Biskupic USA case in Milwaukee(?)
4)The Alaska USA situation
5)Are Sampson/Goodling/Battle/McNulty still supoena-able and prosecutable or...
6)The Regent Law School and its influence on government.
7)Condi Rice not coming to a hearing she was scheduled to go to.
8)NSA warrantless wiretapping
9)Torturning/Gitmo detainees
10)War Profiteering. How in the hell can you defraud the government of more than 100 million dollars and GET another contract? Especially when that company is owned by the company that used to be heade by Dick "Go" Cheney "Yourself?

I'm sorry but our ability to provide oversight and correct corruption and to punish criminals is one of the few things we can do to show the world that we do try and uphold the law here and that we do have ideals that we also try and live by. How dare we tell other parts of the world how to behave, what is moral and here we are doing things just as bad if not worse?

"Same" as before, forgot to sign that last post...

Good luck with that whistleblower action. The Office of Special Counsel is run by Scott Bloch, a true Bushie who's more concerned with rooting out the "homosexual agenda" than any substantial complaints. He'll bury the investigation.
In their quest to control everything for the next 30 years the Bushies have metastasized into every branch of government.

Which part of "illegal" don't they understand? It's bad enough to use political filters in private employment, but it is blatantly illegal for civil service jobs.

One thing that strikes me is the enormous amount of time and money going into untangling this endless supply of GOP messes--time and money being redirected from other pressing issues. I'm angry that the previous GOP-majority Congress collected paychecks while letting our venerated institutions be gutted by political hacks. They should be required to return their salaries to the treasury.

I agree this all needs to be cleaned up, but wonder what other important current issues are being shunted to the side while Congress is distracted by the avalanche of this administrations previous bad acts. It appears we are only at the tip of the iceberg. How is it possible that one administration could have so severely crippled so many institutions in such a (relatively) short time? That this could happen puts the onus on all of us to build better protections for our most basic government functions (FDA, EPA, DOJ, etc.)

I can't imagine a bigger nightmare for people of reason and morality than this administration. They have have abused the spirit of the law using clever machinations of the letter of the law to achieve political goals and have done so time and again without consequence. I despair the architects or any of their nasty minions ever being held to account.

Interesting side note--Ms. Cutlar is described as "charming and very intelligent," but she shows a clear lack of empathy and disregard for the feelings of others and operates like a petty tyrant. This description fits the criteria for a number of personality (character) disorders, including sociopathic personality disorder. It is more than a little disturbing that a person with sociopathic traits heads up the civil liberties arm of the DOJ. I've said it before, but I'll say it again--sociopaths have dotted the ranks of politics for years, but never before has the preference for sociopathic traits been institutionalized like it has been in this administration. This should scare the s**t out of everyone.

.............

The most frightening thing here is the silence.

What the Bush/Cheney/Rove cabal are doing is unbelievably un-American and it should have Republicans everywhere screaming their heads off.

Instead, complete silence.

.............

Ok - Schlozman is a loyal Bushie

But why has he been replaced???

Why didn't the keep this loyal Bushie in the (interim) USA position?

There must be reason for this and have not found ANY.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2007/04/why_was_schlozm.html

As all these stories unfold of ideologues in management positions I am reminded of a scene from the Movie "The Right Stuff". The Werner von Braunesque character, complaining about the opinioniated Mercury 7 astronauts complained about ever making "test pilots" astronauts.

I always took that scene as a complaint against hiring people who had knowledge and job skills that were relevant to a task but whom management, who might not be up to the task at hand, did not want to actually contribute to the task. As a result contributions from such employees was deemed useless and in violation of the "team" spirit - meaning contrary to management opinion.

This strikes me as the perfect description of the entire Bush administration. When they do come across competent people actually trying to do their jobs without respect to political ideology they are unwanted "test pilots".

Let's just be thankful von Braun wasn't working for a Bush-like administration.

The only thing notable about this article is that Clevenger has already been fired and need not fear retaliation. Therefore he can use his name. But this is a tiny, tiny tip of the huge Schlozman iceberg.

The man brazenly bragged to almost anyone who would listen in Main DOJ about his politicization of the career staff of the Civil Rights Division!!!!

It was and is widely known among the career staff at Justice that Schlozman used his power aggressively to force out excellent and experienced career civil rights lawyers, sometimes ruining careers in the process, and to replace them with hard-right Republican loyalists. A handful of the latter have done a decent job, but many were laughably incompetent. Most, however, have towed the line in what has become one of the most blatantly political and profoundly conservative agencies in the federal government.

While there are some good civil rights lawyers that have survived the Schlozman purges at Civil Rights, the agency is a shell of its former self.

Since their boss is completely unqualified for his job, why would we expect that anyone in the Bush Administration is qualified for thiers??

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