No other way to get those fleas out than to keep on brushing that dang dog! Some day, FAR in the future, we will have a democratic government again. Stay strong, be patient. Root them out and keep squeezing Jacky Boy till he screams.

BTW, what kept Nixon from destroying everything to save himself? Whatever it was, 43 doesn’t have it. Paranoia reigns in bushco right now, we can expect ANYTHING.

Even if they are able to “muddy” the waters or “gum” it to death, eventually, the bush legacy will be revealed for what it really is, a kick in the butt to those of us who have not participated, have not been a true “citizen”, because it is our fault that it has gotten this far out of line. I found I do love my country, that I am willing to fight for it. At least, it made us witness a corruption so deep that “The People” woke up simply from the stench of it. We’ve got celebrate that.

You know it’s happening. I know it’s happening.

Once people noted that some record should exist somewhere of the RNC emails, then the Bush administration would immediately have had their hacks at work finding and deleting them…under the cover of “national security” or some such CYRA (Cover Your Republican Ass) nonsense.

What I didn’t know was that this was the tip of a much bigger berg. The RNC’s and the Bush family’s IT consultants have not just ginned up an RNC supercomputer. According to ePluribus Media, those consultants have installed IT networks in the White House, at the Depts of Justice, State, and Energy, and at some of the top committees on the Hill. They also have key contracts for state election data processing too, such as Ohio.

A horrible thought just crossed my mind: the White House and the RNC are capable of computer blackmail. It wouldn’t take much for them to take down our entire system, delete bank accounts, screw up social security. They can mess us up good. If the Capital Hill Police were asked to escort them out of the building after impeachment, we could never be sure that our whole information system is safe. Who has the frickin’ superuser passwords?

Christie, I’d like to think it raises a lot of red flags but corporations can be very clever. For example, they can request performance goals for employees but conveniently neglect to actually write them. Or the person who you thought was your supervisor is not actually the person rating you. It might be someone higher up. Or the performance goals can be written so vaguely that the employee could fail to meet them even if he/she does good work. Or they could put a Jack Welch style Rank-and-Yank rating system in place where your managers and peers rate you. The danger in that is that sucking up is *required* for keeping your job. It starts looking like a game of Survivor where people are making alliances and voting people off the island. Both badassness and sycophantic loyalty is required. Can you bust someone’s corporate culture? Only if someone complains and in those kinds of cutthroat environments, NO ONE complains. Think Enron. The Smartest Guys in the Room will give you a primer of today’s corporate culture.
There are always ways to skirt the policy, usually by omission or obscurity. I wouldn’t look at the official paper trail route because it’s likely not very revealing. It’s the gossipy email that’s going to yield the most bang.
BTW, when there is a bullying environment at work, the absolute last place you should expect assistance is the HR department. They go straight to the supervisor and tell everything. That is probably why David Iglesias didn’t report the call from Domenici. But his antenna should have been twitching like mad. The bullied employee’s best chance of survival is good record keeping and networking. But from what is sounds like, the fired USA’s were carefully kept out of the loop and other USA’s were cautioned to not get involved. The firings were meant to be a sudden, frightening ambush in order to keep the other ones in line. Maybe a sympathetic current USA will come forward with information but don’t count on it. They’re all scared s$%^less

NOT FUCKING KARL ROVE! He cooks up yet another political assassination. Eight of them.

Why oh why haven’t we put this prick in jail yet? What the hell will it take?

You are sooo right re: the employment law aspects of a paper trail. There are a couple of rules which mgt. employment lawyers advise their clients to follow w/o exception:

1. When dealing with an employee who may be headed out the door for conduct/performance reasons — No Surprises. Make sure the employee knows well in advance that s/he has one foot on a banana peel and the other out the door well before the deed is done, and make sure there is a paper trail documenting everything that got done in this regard.

2. The corollary to No. 1: Triers of fact (juries, judges, arbitrators) subscribe to the notion that if an employee’s conduct/performance is serious enough to get him/her fired, it is serious enough to have all been put in writing. Failure to have the paper trail leads to the not – illogical inference that . . .

3. The employer’s alleged reason for termination is a pretext for the real reason, which the trier of fact will assume is unlawful, otherwise, why lie about it?

4. All the blathering about the USAs “serving at the pleasure” of Dear Leader is to a certain extent beside the point. The analogy to employment law is that all employees are “at will”, which in the real world translates out to they can be fired for a good reason — not doing their job — or for no reason, but they can’t be fired for a bad reason, i.e., because they fall into a protected classification or were engaged in “protected activity” (long legal def. there, but the concept may very well cover the sorts of investigations that several of the fired USAs appear to have been in the midst of).

5. The David Iglesias situation presents the cleanest case of a protected activity. Whatever fool in the DOJ who stated Iglesias was being fired for being an “absentee landlord” because he was on Naval Reserve duty committed a prima facie violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-Employment Rights Act.

CityGirl – my gut instinct is that the Republicans are actually most concerned about Edwards being the Dem nominee. They can get plenty of anti-Hillary support & money, and even anti-Obama (a lot of people in this country will quietly oppose a female or black president, I’m afraid). Edwards is the one that scares them. So, I expect to see a lot of subtle hit pieces in the future, as they will try to smear him. Smears against Hillary write themselves. They already did some work on Obama. There’s a whispering campaign about Richardson. They are trying to drum up something that will stick against Edwards. And, if there is any truth to the rumors that Gore is considering a run, then they have ammo available for him.

I agree, and the other reason is that he is an experienced trial lawyer who can speak directly to people and make it sound real, the way FDR did. Clinton had this capacity, too, but exploited it only in his own defense (to his defense he probably didn’t have much choice in the matter). Edwards would be lethal to the thugs, and they know it. He could mobilize what my mom calls ‘working people’ in a way that no one since FDR and perhaps John Kennedy have done.

I’m still waiting for some principaled whistle blower in DoJ to sing like a canary. Have all the good guys already left out of disgust or been fired? Why can’t someone like Fitz do something? Arghh!

They are singing, to Senate and House Judiciary staffers. What you see on TeeVee is only the tip of the iceberg. We have experienced prosecutors working this case now, and they won’t let go.

On Reagan, it’s stately, star quality, debonair and rugged!

It’s great humor tho, watching them try that tack. Like watching them try to convince the public that Paul Wolfowitz has more appeal & magnetism than say George Clooney or Clint Eastwood.