The Siegelman case has been rife with appalling and politicized conduct.  But it gets worse. Much, much worse....

Imagine for a moment that you are a career employee of the federal government in a law enforcement or intelligence gathering agency. Imagine now, that you know bits, pieces, even big chunks of information about the ways in which the current Adminsitration has violated the Constitution over the last 7+ years. Are you now chomping at the bit to spill the beans come Inauguration Day?

I know that many of you have expressed concern about the "Goodlingization" of DOJ and the lasting effect that her politically motivated hires into career positions at DOJ might have on the fairness and integrity of that agency going forward. We have had reports of some political appointees taking voluntary demotions in career positions as part of process known as "burrowing in". Some have suggested an old Soviet era style political purge. I disaagree.

Trials in U.S. courts are coming for Guantanamo detainees

Republican corruption doesn't rebuild, it reloads. Eric Cantor, the new Republican Whip in the House, promised limits on executive pay. The law firm that has been one of his biggest donors, and which is representing companies that have gotten or are seeking bail out money, says the bill was carefully drafted to have none.

Gray Davis, Bud Siegelman, Eliot Spitzer--all vicitms of manufactured smears, criminally manufactured smears. David Iglesias got fired for refusing to abuse his office to manufacture a smear against a democrat running for office. Eliot Spitzer was an abrasive, rude guy who had few real friends in his own party, which is why there was not the hue and cry you would have expected from Dems in Albany, when he was the victim of a bogus "criminal" non case. But this is about much more than an injustice done to Eliot Spitzer, it's about the weaponization of DOJ to take out one's political opponents.

The preamble to the US Constitution refers to "establish[ing] justice" as a primary purpose and guiding principle of the establishment of the set of laws as the foundation on which our government was to rest. Rule of law, not of men. We have strayed from this purpose the last few years -- shamefully so. Nowhere more corrosively than at the Office of Legal Counsel at the DOJ.

One cannot have watched the folks all across the nation, standing in line to cast their ballots for the last few weeks from the start of early voting through the last ballot at the close yesterday without a bit of a smile.  And some understanding of the genius of national renewal in each election of the "for the people, by the people" mandate on which this nation has run since its Founding. However, anyone think after the overwhelming turn-out numbers and voting participation across the country that the voter suppression tactics of the GOP are now a bygone era remnant?  A little reminder of the Hans Von Spakovsky anti-voter access trial balloon from September...

My dream team for DOJ

Post-it stack via libraryman.Sarah Palin is scheduled to be deposed on Friday in the second round of "troopergate" investigations currently being conducted by the AK personnel board. Which is interesting because I still think that Palin may have broken state law in how she allowed multiple state personnel files to be handled by husband, Todd.