Crikey, this jerk wants to convict their attorneys too. I draw the line very definitively there, as you might would guess.

I had assumed defendants was all-encompassing, but your additional specificity is helpful.

Final nail, meet coffin. *g*

Last I checked the scandal over the attempt to reduce the county news sources to a monopoly of one by bankrupting the NewTimes, there was this linked article describing excuses for partial divulgation by some personnel involved in archiving records and watchdogging due process. The Todd and Sarah episodes in the news last night over the scandal firing someone reminded me of Maricopa politics. However, I wonder if, with its new voter lists AZ is ready to explain its share of the statistics in an article in NYTimes today showing 43,000 AZ voter registrations* evidently referenced against the federal database redundantly when local AZ databases should have provided name matches without accessing the Social Security Administration roster. I expect Maricopa has its share of these voter list references, as it is the population center of AZ. In NW AZ county of Coconino, there is an interesting suit prosecuted by RSilver’s outfit to attempt to halt a Bush appointee’s illicit awarding of uranium claims inside Grand Canyon in the twilight days of the administration. AZ is a state with strongly held personal and private ideals, definitely a place which needs more Democratic party officials to balance the usual fare.
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*v.sidebar link ‘States use of Social Security database’

I have to say, I can never understand electing judges and law enforcement types like sheriffs – the realities of electoral politics, in Arizona or elsewhere, is that a sheriff is going to get more good press from putting 1 despised criminal or pornographer in jail on dubious evidence than he is for investigating and solving 10 crimes. There is simply no place for demagoguery in law enforcement. And the Republicans have figured out that the best way to neutralize the trial lawyers is to get their Federalist friends on the bench, through appointment federally and by large campaign contributions for elected judges.

I suppose some of our Alaskan friends can at least now ante up.

OT-just a thought. I wonder if the repugs are raising the ruckus about ACORN, and maybe even creating the questionable voter registrations, as a feint to capture the attention of the press so that the press won’t notice or investigate the caging the repugs are engaged in???? Such a tactic would follow their pattern of attacking in the ‘other’ that which they are themselves doing…

princess pandora appeared before a crowd that wasn’t hand selected by the repuglitards

and she got BOOOOOOOOOOED resoundingly

You just GOTTA LOVE PHILLY

guess the repuglitards didn’t know they once booed santa at an iggils game, AND THEY’RE PROUD OF IT (I mentioned it once on DKOS, and a guy from Philly said “Yeah we booed him, we booed him GOOD)

I’m a big fan of Philly’s police department too, they really know how to serve an eviction notice

(wink)

This is slightly on topic, because it deals with republicans.
Has anyone seen this Wired article yet?

It details Operation Highlander, NSA’s wiretapping of Americans abroad.

The dates are after 9/11/2001. Americans (especially reporters) in the Middle East and Americans in Doctors Without Borders were targeted.

Here’s an excerpt:

[Former 31 year-old Navy Reserve Arabic linguist Adrienne} Kinne [who intercepted American civilians’ satellite phone calls and faxes] said everything changed shortly after her unit intercepted a call in early to mid-2002 between British and U.S. aid workers. The two were discussing day-to-day work details when the British worker told the American, “You should be careful about what you’re saying because the Americans are listening to us.” The American responded that USSID 18 barred U.S. authorities from spying on the communication of Americans, so the British worker had nothing to worry about.

Kinne said her supervisor, Chief Warrant Officer John Berry, and others were livid.
“[They] acted as if he was betraying some hugely intense national secret to a foreigner,” she said. “So that’s when they were like, ‘We need to be able to listen to them’.”

Shortly thereafter, she said she was informed that her group had received a waiver from USSID 18. She said it was communicated verbally during one of her shifts.”They never showed us anything in writing,” said Kinne. “But we never expected to get anything in writing.”

Here’s an additional excerpt:

Once they identified speakers, they typed the person’s name or organization into the system, so that when a conversation involving that number was intercepted again, the name appeared on their computer screen. Although the system allowed them to block phone numbers identified as belonging to a nongovernmental organization or journalist, they never did so. Instead, she said, they added the numbers of humanitarian aid organizations and journalists to a priority list.

“They were ‘priority five,’ from what I remember,” she said. “‘Priority one’ was terrorist organizations. ‘Priority five’ is middle of the road. ‘Priority nine’ was just unidentified numbers. Not only were we given the ability to listen to [NGOs and journalists], but it was programmed into our system to listen to them.”

Not surprising, I guess. But here’s at least an eye witness account. Wonder if AG Ashcroft signed off on this order, pre-pancreatitis (which was in 2004)

Thanks bmaz.

GOP ran the same stunt in Wisconsin to try and stack the state Supreme Court. You’d think these neocons were all working the same Rove play book, lmao:

Judicial Commission says Gableman ad was deceiving

[…] Gableman’s campaign ad suggested his opponent, then-Justice Louis Butler, got a child molester out of prison, allowing him to commit another sex offense. Butler won an appeal in the case as a public defender, but the offender remained in prison and did not commit the subsequent crime until he served his sentence.

“By publishing the advertisement in willful violation of (the state’s judicial ethics code), Judge Gableman engaged in judicial misconduct,” the commission wrote in its complaint.[…]

More background.

Gableman’s calls from DA office under investigation
Justice says calls to fund-raisers were not political

[…] In all, 60 calls went from Gableman’s office to Republican campaign offices, McCallum fund-raising staff and McCallum donors in the weeks before Gableman hosted a June 2002 dinner for McCallum, records show. Most of the calls were brief, but some lasted 15 minutes or more.

McCallum appointed Gableman to be Burnett County circuit judge two months after the event.

In May, Gableman told the Journal Sentinel he couldn’t recall the nature of the calls but thought he might have been trying to get details about a visit McCallum was making to the area. He insisted the calls were not political and said he tried to reimburse for personal calls. […]

Gableman and he’s the second neocon justice, they’ve gotten on the court in the last two years. The first one we’re stuck with. The big daily in WI is going after Gableman with a lot more vigor. Maybe we can get rid him off the court?