Some of these Republicans now realize that politicizing the Justice Department from top to bottom by corrupt individuals like Alberto Gonzales, and the equally corrupt graduates of Trinity University Law School, could lead to a voter backlash (like in November 2006) and assure Democratic control of the White House and the Justice Department starting in January 2009, at which time a Democratic president will fire all the crony, crooked Republican-appointed U.S. Attorneys, replacing them all with (hopefully) fair and impartial “rule of law” U.S. Attorneys.

Of course, after as much Republican corruption as evidenced over the years of the worst and most corrupt administration in U.S. history, any fair and impartial “rule of law” U.S. Attorney (like Carol Lam) will have plenty of opportunities to follow the “rule of law” and bring a whole lot of corrupt Republicans to justice.

Which has a whole bunch of corrupt Republicans either lawyering-up or making out-of-country travel plans (Halliburton?). They now realize, especially after the November 2006 election results, that a majority of patriotic and loyal U.S. citizens are fed up with Republican corruption, Republican greed and Republican lies, and the piper is getting ready to be paid…in full…under the “rule of law…as per our democratic, constitutional form of government.

Praise God and start passing out the subpoenaes.

the pharm data base info is way off topic -

questions about Fredo’s reign sure seem on-topic to me…

I don’t think we have to worry about Abu’s successor, even though it’s fun to speculate.

Prosecutorial railroad tracks are getting layed into the White House for unlawful political influence.

Gonzo’s going to get mowed down or shoved aside because the great men and women that represent us believe the president is exercising ‘extra’-constitutional authority – boot-strapped by signing statements and executive orders – in bad faith.

The pressure is only going to get even more intense with each passing day.

In his testimony yesterday, Gonzo used the phrase ‘read into the program’ a couple of times – the OPR was ‘read into the program’ and the Office of the Inspector General was ‘read into the program.’

It’s not showing in the transcripts today, but I’m pretty sure I heard Leahy ask Gonzo: “The TSP is suspended, isn’t that right?” And Gonzo’s reply was: “That’s correct,” or something to that effect.

It sounds like Monica Goodling’s rumored ‘loyalty oath’ administering might have something to do with getting certain people/departments ‘read into the program’ of the TSP.

So, Bush’s ’save my ass’ plan is hide behind privilege with respect to the Terrorist Surveillance Program. He’s going to claim that Goodling, Gonzo, the RNC and EVERYONE else who has been ‘read into the program’ is protected under privilege because TSP is the President’s Program (remember how they pitched it?)

Look for the ‘loyal Bushies’ to crowd into the keep behind the walls of the TSP.

I heard Gonzales come close to saying that the RNC emails that were about official gov’t business come under executive privilege. And all my peronal alarm bells went off. He started to say it and garbled it a bit, in his fried brain way, then some Sen. cut him off. I was hoping somebody would follow up. My listening conditions were chaotic; picked up bits and pieces of testimony, in and out of car, and from both live and later rebroadcast. So I’m sorry I can’t pinpoint when or which Sen.’s time it was. I think it was in the afternnon.

It sounded to me like Gonzales was letting slip something that is being talked about behind closed doors–that they may try to cover the most “smoking gun” of the RNC emails with exec. priv., and presume to pick and choose which is which. Typical Bushitism. Break the public records law by doing gov’t biz on a private Republican computers, then try to use THAT to your advantage.

Somebody upstream (radiofreewill) said Gonzo didn’t mention executive priv. But I think he did–on the RNC emails.

One other thing I picked up, that nobody else seems to have mentioned. When one of the good guys was questioning him about Iglesias being “an absentee landlord” (cuz of Military reserve service!), Gonzo came back, in a real high-pitched tiny dog yipping voice, “yeah, well, what about…what about when PATRICK FITZGERALD left his US Atty job for that OTHER prosecution…what about THAT? Huh? Huh?”

Or something to that effect. Real touchy on the Patrick Fitzgerald front.

While Alberto Gonzales bears substantial responsibility for allowing himself to be used as a political tool in his position at the DoJ, he was not the only person who was acting in this way — and, thus, should not be the only person who faces consequences for this perversion of the justice system. The actions taken, and their ever-widening consequences, are as offensive as they are wrong to anyone who has ever tried to uphold the standards of integrity and justice in enforcing the rule of law that any decent prosecutor should adhere to in the performance of their duties.

He was in charge.

Any culture of partisan cheating at Justice is his responsibility to root out. That he didn’t may not exculpate his employees, but it should give lavish grounds for the excusal of those employees, especially when it’s been shown that firings were common, and whistleblowers were being persecuted instead of protected.

Who’s the next victim after this bum?

Who’s the next AG?

[snip]

Ticked off at this administration and what they’ve done? Oh yeah. (And I’d like to hear more about this prescription database system that even medical pros didn’t know existed until this week! Potential for misuse? Can we say h*ll yes?)

(reposted from late nite fdl….)

Six huge issues here:

(1) Big Pharma buy your RX records from Big Pharmacy.

(2) How do I know? Big Pharma is repeatedly busted for bribing docs to overprescribe their megacorps’ wonder drug(s) of the year. Big Pharma monitors your prescriptions already – that’s how they know the bribed docs are living down to their end.

(3) Big Pharma / Big Pharmacy / Big Insurance have come together in various combinations to own most of the pharmaceutical distribution channnels. This centralization allows tracking of meds from manufacturer to patient.

And big healthcare keep your data.

(4) Big Insurance megacorps share all of our health records with each other.

HIPPA my ass.

Their “Interinsurer Data Bank” (IIRC) is Big Insurance’ clearing house for swapping all of our health care histories and data around the insurance companies.

5) IIRC, HIPAA has backdoors for law enforcement to grab your health records anyway….

6) Every person I know who understands this gets all of their mental health care out of pocket if they can possibly afford it.

Especially if they’d like to run for office some day.

___________________________

The universe of compounds the FDA recognizes as “drugs” has two galaxies: over the counter (OTC) and prescription (RX).

OTC drugs are ones you find on the drugstore shelves and take to the cash register.

RX drugs require a prescription.

The galaxy of RX drugs has a main cluster and a ring.

The main cluster are RX drugs that don’t get ya’ high (in DEA speak, they have “no abuse potential”).

The ring orbiting the main cluster are the RX drugs* that the DEA controls – these are the “get high” drugs.

The DEA divides the ring of drugs with “abuse potential” in five schedules: I to V

Schedule I, Daddy DEA tells us, has no use in medicine, and is totally banned.

examples: heroin (British hospitals literally can’t get enough for use in pain control there), cannabis…

Schedule II: Can use, but very restricted

examples: big bad opiates like Oxycontin or Morphine).

…all the way down to Schedule V: cough medicines you can buy OTC in much of the world.

[the DEA also tosses many synthetic chemicals and plants with intoxicating properties into these five schedules.

Cannabis is in schedule I (IIRC)….peyote cacti and psilocybin fungi are also “scheduled” I. (IIRC)

Nasssty repressive congress critters keep trying to “schedule” salvia divinorum.

But I digress.]

__________________________

Who gives a jump?

The DEA always required “triplicates” for drugs in Schedule II (and III ? if IIRC).

Common but addictive benzodiazapines (val**m and cousins) and other “sedating” RX drugs could be prescribed (from Schedule IV) without a record going to the Feds.

New DEA laws do away with the triplicates, but now demand special tamper-proof RX forms for “controlled substances” (the ring : Schedules II-V).

And the Feds now track all the benzodiazapines and (scheduled) sedative/hypnotics.

However, antidepressant and antipsychotics aren’t “scheduled” drugs under DEA scrutiny.

The whole main cluster of regular ‘ol (non-”scheduled”) RX drugs is regulated by the FDA, and the FDA simply requires regular old prescriptions with no Federal record [in so far as I am aware].

Commercial data mining, however, allows the Feds to come to the server trough and root through our health and medication records along with Big Pharma and Big Insurance.

So although I do not have any reason to believe Federal agencies directly record all “non-scheduled” RX drugs prescribed, I do believe the commercial data mines allow law enforcement to do so as soon as our health info goes into the Interinsurer Data Banks.

Thanks for delurking and sharing your story.

Hope your account is widely re-posted and widely read.

BUSH FIRED THE US ATTORNEYS. Can we just keep repeating this until some reporter asks something like:
“Mr President, if the US Attorneys serve at your pleasure, isn’t it your decision, alone, to fire them? Will you please explain to the American people why you fired them and how justice is better served by cras politicization of prosecution decisions?”

Or something like that!

‘Cause I think one thing that will give him pause is whom can he get through a confirmation hearing? OTOH, if he can sneak ‘em through, the House & Senate Dems better start coordinating their schedules: one can vacation while the other’s “in session,” then vice versa.