MUST READ: Alberto Agonistes --- Best Gonzales\WhiteHouse Summary Explanation So Far !!!

[WillyT]

Joseph A. Palermo - HuffingtonPost

<snip>

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's performance yesterday while testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee was nothing more than a desperate attempt to cover up the gross improprieties of the Bush White House. The chronology of events that led to the firing of the eight United States Attorneys last December seems to have gone something like this:

Karl Rove produced a list of U.S. Attorneys to be canned for not being sufficiently partisan in the cases they chose to prosecute.

Monica Goodling, the Pat Robertson law school graduate and White House liaison with the Department of Justice, brought Rove's list over to the Attorney General's chief of staff, Kyle Sampson.

Sampson "aggregated" the names on the list and passed them on to his golfing partner, friend, and mentor Gonzales.

Gonzales then signed off on the political purge without so much as a second thought because he knew that's what the White House wanted. Gonzales did not question the merits of Rove's list, or look at the performance evaluations, or even give courtesy calls to the targeted attorneys. Gonzales fired them in a pretty brutal manner, but what would you expect from a guy who argued in favor of torturing people?

What's more, the purge list was circulating at the same time Rove's top aide, Scott Jennings, was running around the Capitol giving power-point presentations to Republican officials, including the Republican darling Lurita Doan of the General Services Administration, about how best to use federal government agencies to help the GOP win back the House and Senate in 2008. (It was a clear violation of the Hatch Act.)

Karl Rove intended the purge of the U.S. Attorneys to accomplish at least four simultaneous results:...

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/alberto-agonistes_b_46399.html?view=print

What else is missing? Is even THIS a surface scratch???

:shrug:

Onedit: Apparently forgot the obligitory MUST READ.

[WillyT]

1. Well... I Thought It Was Good...

:shrug:

[DemReadingDU]

2. me too

:)

[TahitiNut]

3. I'd say it's about 70% of it.

I think there's the remarkable pogrom to replace non-members of the Federalist Society with members. This would indicate collaboration/collusion with the bowels of that organization, imho. This was NOT totally contained within the White House and DOJ and involved people outside the administration. This is very important, since the collusion and exchange of information not yet shared with Congress negates claims of executive privilege, imho. It was not enough that these people be GOP - they had to be a specific ideology on the far right of the GOP. Their ideology is NOT merely partisan - it's an ideology that's inimical to our Constitutional government itself. I'd almost call it treason, but that's been overused.

[WillyT]

5. And I Agree With You Completely !!!

This is a take-over of our constitution, and therefore our country.

[BrklynLiberal]

7. As D.L. Hughley said: What kind of government can you expect from people who hate government?

I enjoyed him very much the last time he was on the Bill Maher Show.

[Rex]

8. It is such a large organization of people working endlessly to make

a profit for themselves and others (mostly others) in lining the coffers of 'offshore accounts'. Treason is right, but they can be called a cabal of pirates for all I care, the truth is the truth. We are dealing with the most narrow-minded, ideologically, group of people running the executive branch in modern history.

A very dangerous ideology IMO. I think corporate cabal fits nicely.

[TahitiNut]

15. "cabal of pirates" ... yes, I think 'privateers' is a completely apt term

... to describe their 'base.' They're selling out the nation to a group of insatiable privateers.

[live love laugh]

4. What I want to know: what is happening with those cases that the lawyers

were fired from? If the attorneys have been replaced and they find the republicons not guilty, then they're pretty much off the hook right? So while these hearings go on, the criminals are getting off the hook anyway.

Mission Accomplished.

[Octafish]

13. Obstruction of Justice

The Bush Crime Family gets aways with murd--oops! er, wins again.



"Heh heh heh."

[BrklynLiberal]

6. They are all just so damn arrogant! Peeing on your shoes and telling you it is raining while

looking you straight in the eye...expecting everyone to believe this crapola.

[Oilwellian]

9. Great piece

Thanks for posting. Mr. Palmero understands it completely and I totally agree with Tahiti Nut's additional comment. The Federalist Society is very shady and has been the subject of many conspiracy theories. One could also say the same about the Dominionists and their warped sense of reality. When you see the Federalist Society and Pat Robertson's army infiltrating such a key branch of government, it certainly gives those theories more credibility. I hope the permanent employees of the Justice Department continue to inform Leahy & Schumer of this sinister attack on our rule of law.

[grasswire]

10. Is Gonzales a member of the Federalist Society?

Or just the Texas Mafia?

[WillyT]

11. Not Sure, But Lookee Here !!!

<snip>

Members

The Society has many prominent conservative members, including United States Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia (who served as the original faculty advisor to the organization), Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, former United States Circuit Court Judge Robert Bork, former United States Attorney General Edwin Meese, former United States Solicitor General Ted Olson, Senator Orrin Hatch, former United States Solicitor General Kenneth Starr and Congressman Dan Lungren.

The Society also has many prominent libertarians who are members and frequent speakers at Society events, such as Professor Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago Law School; Professor Randy Barnett of Georgetown University Law Center; Bradley Smith, a professor at Capital University Law School who formerly served as Chairman of the Federal Election Commission; and Roger Pilon, Director of Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute.

Other members include Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, United States Ambassador to the European Union C. Boyden Gray, and Columbia Law School Dean David Schizer.

Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts was reported to be a member of the Federalist Society during the 2005 confirmation process, but Roberts's membership status was never definitively established. Deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino said, "He has no recollection of ever being a member." <12>. The Washington Post later located the Federalist Society Lawyers' Division Leadership Directory, 1997-1998, which listed Roberts as a member of the Washington chapter steering committee.<13> Membership in the Society is not a necessary condition for being listed in the "leadership directory."<14> Like other private organizations, including the NAACP and the National Rifle Association, the Federalist Society does not publish a membership list or otherwise disclose the identity of its members, preferring instead to let members publicly identify themselves with the Society if they so choose.

The Bush administration has appointed a number of Society members nominated to federal District and Appeals courts.<15>

<snip>

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society

Don't know if there is a complete, current, and accurate list.

:shrug:

[grasswire]

12. I've never seen a full list. (n/t)

[dragonlady]

14. Ann Coulter started a chapter at her law school

which, out of shame, I will not name here. :blush:

[jazzjunkysue]

16. Save Alberto! Hurry!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=723493&mesg_id=723493