They Won't Cooperate?

You know, one way NOT to honor the sacrifice of Officer Findley is to let someone get away with killing the man accused of killing him. This isn't 1908, or 1808, or even 1008. This is not something that people should just shrug off--this is something out of the Dark Ages.

Several Prince George's County correctional officers who had access to a 19-year-old inmate found strangled in solitary confinement Sunday have initially declined to speak to investigators of the slaying, a source familiar with the interrogations said.

The Maryland State Police and federal agents were investigating the death of Ronnie L. White, who was killed less than 36 hours after he was booked into the county correctional center on first-degree murder charges in the hit-and-run death Friday of county police Cpl. Richard S. Findley.

It wasn't clear why the correctional officers reportedly declined to answer questions. Sgt. Curtis Knowles, president of the county's correctional officers union, said the union's position is that its members can be interviewed only during work hours and with a union representative or attorney present, unless a criminal investigation is underway.

[SNIP]

Sources close to the investigation, who like others in this report spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said county police collected most of the forensic evidence from White's cell Sunday, before state police took over the investigation at the request of county officials. An attorney for White's family called on the Justice Department, which has launched a civil rights probe, to be a partner in the criminal investigation.

"This did not happen on some dark, abandoned, lonely road," Bobby G. Henry Jr., the family's attorney, said at a news conference. "This happened in broad daylight, in the custody of county officials. Everyone who has someone or knows someone who is in the county correctional facility should have a problem with that."

The problem is, the US Justice Department already purged the Civil Rights division--thanks to the efforts of Brad Schlozman.

It is not, however, quite over yet.

Justice Department lawyers have filed a grand-jury referral stemming from the 2006 U.S. attorneys scandal, according to people familiar with the probe, a move indicating that the yearlong investigation may be entering a new phase.

The grand-jury referral, the first time the probe has moved beyond the investigative phase, relates to allegations of political meddling in the Justice Department’s civil-rights division, these people say. Specifically, it focuses on possible perjury by Bradley Schlozman, who served a year as interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo.

Mr. Schlozman left the Justice Department last year after he was challenged over his hiring of conservative lawyers at the civil-rights division and his decision later as U.S. attorney to bring voter-fraud charges against members of a left-leaning voter-registration group days before the 2006 election.

Schlozman, an inept character who’s almost amusing in his clumsiness, has a very serious problem on his hands, which will not only lead to the likely criminal prosecution of a former top official in Bush’s Justice Department, but once again bring into focus how the Bush administration operated.

We are ruled by incompetents and thugs.

--WS

GAO Auditors Thrown Out of Agriculture Department Headquarters

Nothing gets me more animated than the subject of agriculture. What used to be the single most important thing in this country--and the sole reason for its expansion and greatness in the early years of our founding--is now the province of agribusiness concerns and massive conglomerates.

The family farm has all but disappeared and has been replaced by urban sprawl, poor land management and rampant subsidies. What used to be an institution that would guarantee minorities successful enfranchisement in this country is an afterthought. The very idea that minorities could own land, borrow money, farm successfully, and reap the benefits helped raise the standard of living for countless minorities. Owning property is the key to establishing a class of people who have a vested interest in good government at the local, state and Federal level. And owning a farm is an act of faith in society.

The incompetence of the Bush Administration has now spread to an area where you would think there would be a minimal amount of insanity. After all, it's the Department of Agriculture. Most Americans don't even realize we still have a Department of Agriculture.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Agriculture Department abruptly ordered congressional auditors to leave its headquarters and told its employees not to cooperate with them.

"You are hereby instructed not to meet with any member of the (Government Accountability Office) today, or until this matter is resolved," Michael Watts, a top USDA attorney, wrote to employees Wednesday in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press.

The auditors were seeking information for an ongoing audit on Agriculture's office of civil rights and its handling of discrimination complaints. Specifically, they were investigating allegations that the department had previously provided false information for the audit.

J. Michael Kelly, Agriculture's deputy general counsel, said the GAO investigators called the department Wednesday morning to say they were on their way to its headquarters and wanted to speak with a handful of specific employees.

The auditors refused to allow USDA lawyers to be present for the interviews, and after allowing one employee to talk, department officials stopped the interviews and told the investigators to leave the building, Kelly said.

"We are not interested in having our employees potentially put themselves at risk when they have not yet been advised of their rights and when we were not allowed to provide counsel," Kelly said. "We also pointed out to them that while they hold themselves out to be criminal investigators, GAO is an arm of Congress and has no authority to investigate violations of criminal law."

[snip]

John Boyd, a Virginia farmer who for years has criticized the Agriculture Department on civil rights issues, said the development shows that the department is not open about its handling of civil rights complaints.

"We think it's appalling that the USDA would go this far to obstruct civil rights," he said. "It's obvious that they have something to hide."

Hey--civil rights? Remember those? Now, why would the Bush administration have a problem making sure people aren't having their civil rights violated?

In March 2006, Bradley Schlozman was appointed interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo. Two weeks earlier, the administration was granted the authority to make such indefinite appointments without Senate confirmation. That was too bad: A Senate hearing might have uncovered Schlozman's central role in politicizing the civil rights division during his three-year tenure.

Schlozman, for instance, was part of the team of political appointees that approved then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's plan to redraw congressional districts in Texas, which in 2004 increased the number of Republicans elected to the House. Similarly, Schlozman was acting assistant attorney general in charge of the division when the Justice Department OKd a Georgia law requiring voters to show photo IDs at the polls. These decisions went against the recommendations of career staff, who asserted that such rulings discriminated against minority voters. The warnings were prescient: Both proposals were struck down by federal courts.

Schlozman continued to influence elections as an interim U.S. attorney. Missouri had one of the closest Senate races in the country last November, and a week before the election, Schlozman brought four voter fraud indictments against members of an organization representing poor and minority people. This blatantly contradicted the department's long-standing policy to wait until after an election to bring such indictments because a federal criminal investigation might affect the outcome of the vote. The timing of the Missouri indictments could not have made the administration's aims more transparent.

Apparently, we're going to have to turn over a lot of rocks in order to figure out whether or not each Federal agency has been protecting the Civil Rights of every American. Since they can't protect us from standing water, terrorism, religious bigotry, the chickenhawk Republican crime wave, or the mortgage industry, how much do you want to bet those rocks are hiding a whole lot we don't know?

Schlozman out at Department of "Just Us"

Bradley Schlozman has resigned, sneaking out last week, his exit unannounced. An exit like that is truly an embarrassment for such a high-profile Loyal Bushie. That is called leaving not with a bang, but with the proverbial whimper. Schlozman skulks away a pariah in the legal community, an abject failure, having seen his grand voter suppression schemes blow up in his face, revealing to the entire world that he is nothing more than a gormless cheat. (Rather like the much ballyhooed and terribly overestimated Karl Rove.)

I take personal the truncation of the Department of Justice. The feckless Schlozman was the U.S. Attorney in my city, installed without a Senate confirmation after Todd Graves was wrongly fired. From that position, Schlozman abused his power to derail the political career of Katherine Shields, a prominent Kansas City Democrat. He replaced the ninth fired U.S. Attorney, Todd Graves, who was very much John Ashcroft’s man, and had a sense of right and wrong, and refused to tamper with elections. Schlozman had no such qualms of conscience. He came to us from the Voting Rights Division, where his purpose was to suppress the rights of groups that were likely to vote for Democrats. One of the most revolting schemes he cooked up was the caging strategy that was used to deny African American members of the armed services their Constitutional right to vote. He and fellow political operative Hans Von Spakovsky schemed to politicize the hiring process for career Justice Department officials and eviscerate the Voting Rights Division. They were successful in doing so, but at steep cost. Throughout the Justice Department, positions remain unfilled. People simply do not want to work for the Department in this politicized environment, feeling that any connection with the Gonzalez Department of Just Us would be a kiss of death to a career they want to see continue past January 2009.

Schlozman is merely the latest perjuring rat to desert the sinking ship that is the Gonzalez Just Us Department. He is the latest hack to leave, joining Goodling, Sampson, Taylor, McNulty, Elston, and Mercer…just off the top of my head.

Like the others, he will not be missed. This is just more good riddance to bad rubbish.