Ashcroft Gets His Pound of Flesh

[rusty charly]

Since we began to write about federal criminal law about a year ago, we have come to realize that the federal criminal justice system itself is a moral outrage. No barriers exist at all to prevent criminal behavior on behalf of federal prosecutors and "law" enforcement officers. Once they target an individual, it is almost certain that the person either will go to prison or be nearly destroyed in the process, even on those very, very rare occasions where there is no conviction.

When we pulled up the CNN website this afternoon (Friday, March 5), what we saw literally turned our stomachs. Quickly afterward, one of us called a friend who had served time in federal prison herself, and she reminded us that early on she had predicted a conviction. Keep in mind that our friend did not believe Stewart was guilty of any crime, but rather that the nature of federal criminal charges make them hard to beat.

No doubt, at this very minute, the mainstream press is hanging onto every word of the "victorious" federal prosecutors who tried this case. Being that John Ashcroft at this moment is in intensive care in a hospital, we suppose he cannot stride up to a bank of microphones and crow to the press. However, his number two man, James Comey, the U.S. attorney who first gained the indictments against Stewart and her broker, no doubt right now is telling the awestruck press how " the system works."

Indeed, this system does work – it works as well as anything Josef Stalin created in the 1930s with his infamous "Moscow Show Trials," in which guilt was assured, and the only question was the mode of execution. In retrospect, we realize now that the Stewart trial was indeed a show trial. Most likely, Stewart had convinced herself that she would be taking part in a real trial with real evidence and an impartial jury. Even her post-trial statement, "I believe in the fairness of the judicial system and remain confident that I will ultimately prevail," reflects the naïveté of someone who actually believes that federal courts are real courts.


more:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson87.html

[harrison]

1. A friend of mine is a criminal defense attorney who does a good

bit of Federal defense work. His take on the Feds: they simply can't be trusted. The FBI can't be trusted. The Federales have too much power and are really accountable to no one.


Looks to me like we "liberals" are taking a conservative position. We need to to limit federal power.

[readmylips]

3. The Dick Cheney is Numero Uno world criminal...

..he's ugly, mean and powerful and will get away with his crimes,just like Henry Kissinger.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. Sounds like a MS apologist.

I would like to see harsher penalties for corporate criminals, although Martha is definite small potatoes. Ken Lay, Koslowski, Ebbers, the Rigasas should all do HARD TIME.


http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/

[RoeBear]

4. It would seem Martha's greed...

...harmed no one. In fact she has created many much needed jobs. The criminals that need to go to jail are the Enron execs greed cost people jobs.

[slackmaster]

6. She netted only $45K on the transaction

For her case to get anywhere near the air play of real scandals like Enron, Tyco, etc. boggles my mind.

[saltpoint]

5. Real good post --

-- and timely, too. Thanks.

[iverglas]

7. interesting

The authors of the piece quoted, from the page linked to:

William L. Anderson, Ph.D. , teaches economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland, and is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Candice Jackson is a graduate of Pepperdine Law School and is an attorney for the West Coast office of Judicial Watch.

Hmm. Judicial Watch.

Oh look. We have, on that page, a link to an anti-UN/international law article in ... drumroll ... WorldNetDaily. And oh look. Another one, this time opposing over the counter access to the morning after pill -- as all good right-wingers of course do. (I'm not quite sure how this falls into Judicial Watch's bailiwick; I guess they just liked it.) And yet another one, this time calling Kerry a hypocrite on abortion, by that same WorldNetDaily columnist -- ah, maybe she's got something to do with Judicial Watch itself.

Why yes indeed!
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37199

Jane Chastain is a WorldNetDaily columnist and host of the Judicial Watch Report radio show, heard daily from 4 to 5 p.m. EST on the USA Radio Network.

And I haven't read 'em all by any means, but it seems that Judicial Watch doesn't hold any brief for Janet Reno or John Kerry.

And oh my, damned if Judicial Watch doesn't conclude that good old Antonin Scalia just hasn't done anything too terribly, um, indiscreet in the Dick Cheney business: http://www.judicialwatch.org/3556.shtml

The Sierra Club "also threatened to impugn Judicial Watch’s integrity and motivation in the media" in relation to that one. Heavens to betsy, I can't imagine why.

Reading on down that list ... oh, oops, they don't like Howard Dean either, I guess.

Well, it's a long list. And yeah, the Washington Post is on it too. And yeah, they have a few harsh words for the odd Republican. But it just seems to me ...

But let's not take my word for it. Let's ask google for "judicial watch" "right wing".

http://www.moldea.com/rightwing.html lists it under that rubric, right along with WorldNetDaily. (Whatever the Scaife Foundations are, Judicial Watch gets money from them.)

People for the American Way seem to feel the same ... with what I'd call pretty good reason:
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=3199

The Center for Reclaiming America has drafted a Senate petition in which those who sign "implore" their Senators to "confirm Sen. Ashcroft as Attorney General, and ... other pro-life, pro-family nominees to President Bush's Cabinet."

And true to their litigious nature, Judicial Watch, a right-wing organization that has brought dozens of lawsuits against the Clinton administration, called those in opposition to Senator Ashcroft's nomination "ultra leftist revolutionaries" and vowed not to allow "illegal methods to smear and destroy conservatives with techniques reminiscent of Karl Marx." Judicial Watch is asking for financial support to fund investigations of "the activities of the ultra-left and, where appropriate, bring legal action to prevent harm to these conservative leaders."

Could Judicial Watch have had *that* sharp a U-turn in its thinking since then??

Now, let's consider those authors. Anderson is associated with

- the Mackinac Centre for Public Policy: http://www.mackinac.org/
which seems keen on privatizing the University of Michigan, and quite the advocate of "right-to-work" laws. Democratic? Liberal? Progressive? You be the judge.

- the Ludwig von Mises Institute: http://www.mises.org/
and, why, there's an article by our Dr. Anderson opposing universal health care. And an article by someone else praising the scabs in the grocery store strike. Progressive? Liberal? Democratic? You'll just have to be the judge, again.

Now to find his sidekick, Candice Jackson, you gotta ask google to select out the porn; it seems she has a doppelgänger. That's hard to do, so I'll just add Judicial Watch to it.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36731
there she is, speaking to a crowd gathered to support some guy suing Jesse Jackson for assault, at the "national day of repudiation of Jesse Jackson". Sorry, I don't know about the case so I'm not going to comment. Not much else ... she does indeed look like the sidekick.


Well, anyhow. I'll tell you what I'm seeing here. I'm seeing an outfit using a case that a bunch o' real progressives might have some actual problems with, to advance its own agenda. And that agenda ain't one I want any part of. And, despite the odd demurral I see on the net, I'd call it a right-wing one.

The article isn't written in aid of fairness and justice, it's a weirdly contorted bit of red-baiting that exploits the misuse and abuse of the system by the right wing to attack the system rather than the right wing, because the right wing really hates the system. It must've been tough deciding whether they hate a Democrat defendant more than the federal criminal justice system, but they seem to have known what their real goal was and not been distracted from it by their right-wing fellow travellers' willingness to use the system for their own ends.

It hardly seems detabable that the source cited is a right-wing source. The initial poster (how'd this end up down here, anyhow??) didn't comment on the article in the lead post.

I'd sure be interested in what some folks might say in light of what I consider to be some quite interesting background on these authors and their agenda.

.

[MrBenchley]

8. Excellent analysis--who would benefit most

from the abolition of the federal judicial system, do you suppose? <snicker>

[iverglas]

9. and ... Lew Rockwell, eh?

That's the site where the article came from: http://www.lewrockwell.com

I shoulda just gone to the horse's mouth.

Quelle amazing inbreeding and circularity. Lew Rockwell is the founder of that Mises Institute: http://www.lewrockwell.com/about.html

Lew Rockwell, founder and president of the Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala., and vice president of the Center for Libertarian Studies in Burlingame, Cal., is an opponent of the central state, its wars and its socialism.

Yeah, he's somebody that "liberals" should be listening to. (Click the link for "Center for Libertarian Studies" there, and, oddly enough, you get connected back to LewRockwell.com.)

Yup, he does have some critical things to say about the Bush administration and its friends, but should we perhaps not remember the truth about that old adage -- that the enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend? Criticism of Bush from the right -- while perhaps hard to imagine -- is not criticism that *I* unquestioningly adopt.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/generalline.html

Not since its inception two years ago has LewRockwell.com laid out its principles, other than to emblazon "Anti-State, Anti-War, Pro-Market" on every page. Another way to sum up that slogan is to say that LRC is pro-liberty. Our aim is to present journalism, commentary, and scholarship that embodies the libertarian ideal – deepening, refining, and applying it across a full range of economic, political, and cultural issues.

... From the right we get a love of property, local political control, and bourgeois culture (and yes, that includes its roots in faith). Also, it is from this tradition that we inherit love of the market economy. People say we make the market a god. It’s more correct to say that we see in commerce the hand of God using the free actions and choices of billions of people to create orderliness where the pseudo-god of government only creates chaos and destruction. The glory and mystery of global commerce has been observed for thousands of years, but it is no less wondrous to see in our everyday lives how it is that people pursuing their self-interest in peace can only promote the interest of society.

From the left, we inherit a deep suspicion of power, a critical attitude toward the status quo, a defense of cosmopolitanism, a belief in the universal rights of man, and the desire to expose the underlying interest-group relationships behind political control. The hatred of war has roots in the right and left, but the left seems decidedly less inclined to whoop it up for war these days. And like all good people of any persuasion, we reject collectivism in all its forms.

As for the state, there is no need to mince words: it is the locus of earthly evil in our day, and in all of history. It differs from a gang of robbers only in its appearance of moral legitimacy.

Well, no, Lew. *I* am on the left, and I will speak for myself, thank you very much. And the "universal rights of man <sic>" that *you* believe in are not the same as the ones I believe in, not by a long shot. And my "hatred of war", to the extent that I have such hatred, is not your hatred of war. And no, I do not reject collectivism in all its forms; to do so would be an utter nonsense, and to define "good people" to include only those who adhere to such nonsense is simply dishonest. (And opposition to an effective central government -- "states' rights" -- as far as I know, has always been the battle cry of the right, not the left.) So no, you may not co-opt my beliefs for your vile ends.

Lew can call himself a "libertarian" if he wants. I note that he also uses the expression "anarcho-capitalist" to charaterize himself, and he's welcome to that one. I sure don't want it.

Perhaps one of the most telling of his screeds:

(I could only access this through google's cache) WorldNetDaily Exclusive Commentary by Lllewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.:

All of these factors combine to paint a fascinating picture of the state in decline. We would be foolish not to take heart in the denunciations of this trend printed in the daily newspapers. Everyone from Mario Cuomo to Bill Bennett to Garry Wills decries these trends and promises to reverse them with a newly invigorated public sector. Every national politician promises to restore the American people's faith in government. May they all fail, and miserably.

... Democracy itself still remains what it has been since the turn of the century -- a degenerate system whereby organized groups of special interests are able to exploit the majority of taxpayers for their own purposes.

Is that standard, or even non-standard, Democratic Party principle? (Do we really think that when he says "organized groups of special interests" he's actually talking about the Bush cabal?)

Is it any wonder that this last bit turns up being quoted at places like (warning: this is a hate site) http://vnnforum.com/printthread.php?t=2000? And that at this (another hate site) -- http://www.ancpage.com -- LewRockwell.com shows up under "mainstream links" ... along with ... freerepublic.com, rushlimbaugh.com, and perhaps that most mainstream of all outfits, americannaziparty.com ... and Canada's own "mainstream" nazi racist Ernst Zundel's freedomsite.com?

THEY know which side he and his fellow travellers are on, folks. Let's not US be too dim about it, huh?

.

[MrBenchley]

10. Good catch....(nt)

[MrBenchley]

11. Some more hate-filled Lew Rockwell fans....

These ugly nutcases aren't fooled even a bit...

http://www.ancpage.com/

[iverglas]

12. and some more Rockwell

(that site you gave was the one where he's listed in the company of freerepublic, Limbaugh, the American Nazi Party and Zundel)

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=1220

Here, we learn how right-wing "fifth columnists" are actually "leftists":

The rhetoric of the Anti-American Right betrays its leftist roots. "I was born to be a revolutionary," declared George Lincoln Rockwell. Neo-nazi leader Gary "Gerhard" Lauck anticipates, "When the revolution comes, we will be triumphant."

(any relation?)

Yup, that works ... if we define "left" as "bad", all bad things are leftist things. Kinda by definition.

And look what we find in the footnotes of that screed (along with the obligatory tip of the hat to Hayek):

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., "Socialist Origins of Neo-Nazism," WorldNetDaily.com, August 13, 1999.

These folks seem to need to take the "political compass" test: http://www.politicalcompass.org/
No, belief in the state as an agent of welfare is NOT the same as belief in the state as an agent of oppression; yes, the "world's smallest political quiz" http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html IS a disingenuous deceitful piece of crap.

You can read Rockwell's masterwork here: http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/gov_philosophy/socialist_origins_of_neonazism.htm

Funny how someone who objects so to right-wing thugs being called "right" has no problem calling other right-wing thugs "left".

And funny how some people seem so eager to abandon their principles when it's convenient.

Strong government can serve good ends and evil. For us to abandon the concept of government, because the right wing (which professes to oppose strong government but has no hesitation in using it) uses it to its ends, would be idiotic ... and of course would be doing just what they want. "Free Martha!", the new rallying cry of the anarcho-capitalist. (After all, the stock market shouldn't be regulated in the first place, right??)

You'd think they'd be saying "it isn't government that oppresses people, it's people that oppress people" ...

The uncomfortable truth is this: the differences between the fevered imaginings of Furrow, and those advanced in the academic socialist literature, do not concern ideological substance, but its particular shading and application.

The actual truth is that Rockwell, and those who gather round him, are lying.

Given that the people they're lying about are "democrats", "liberals" and "progressives", one really has to wonder why democrat, liberals and progressives would be so eager to embrace their lies.

I can understand being deluded and misled by them. That, after all, is what they're out to accomplish. But really, not for very long, eh?

.

[MrBenchley]

13. That's the $64 thousand dollar question, isn't it?

"Given that the people they're lying about are "democrats", "liberals" and "progressives", one really has to wonder why democrat, liberals and progressives would be so eager to embrace their lies."
Perhaps for the same reason some of them dredge up crap from Newsmax, APFN and the Washington Times here, or attack every Democrat anyone has ever heard of.

[NorthernSpy]

14. yup

George Lincoln Rockwell was the father of Lew Rockwell, I believe.

There's been a general influx of Rockwell-derived material in progressive discussions. It's not just pro-rkba citing this stuff. My guess is that antiwar.com is the vector, because a lot of decent antiwar folks are unfortunately reliant on the news page assembled by Raimundo et al. Raimundo is at the Mises himself, and he dutifully posts highlighted links to Rockwell material about 456,345,832,590,245,802,000 times every day....


Mary


(edited: typo)

[MrBenchley]

15. George Lincoln Rockwell

was the head of the American Nazi party, and old timers will recall him as a regular on the old Joe Pyne show (Joe Pyne was the prehistoric version of Rush Limbaugh).