US Attorneys

{pic via deviantart.com}
Disgraced former Congressman Charles Taylor just can't keep his scandals out of the news. Sure, he's been out of office for months now, but his 16 year record of deceit and criminality continues to pursue him. Recent revelations about the political manipulations of U.S. Attorneys led one enterprising reporter to take another look at one infamous instance of politics trumping justice:

McClatchy: "As Washington swirls with allegations that the Justice Department and White House intervened in federal prosecutions across the country, a review shows that U.S. attorneys in North Carolina have gone after a lot of Democrats - and a few Republicans, too - during the Bush administration.

I know we're all feeling a little Bushwhacked after 6 long years of this guy and his horde of minions running the country, but did any of you get a load of the news out of the justice department late last week and over the weekend?

Democratic Senate leaders are calling for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto "Torture is A-Ok" Gonzalez. As if his reasoning that the Geneva Conventions is a pro-torture document wasn't enough reason to put him in jail, much less take him out of our GOVERNMENT, we now find that he's firing US attorneys under the direction of Karl Rove. Some might call it a "Plaming" of the justice department.

And we also found out that the FBI has been abusing the Patriot Act, needlessly accessing bank and phone records of thousands of Americans while they sleep the blissful sleep of the drugged and apathetic. If they fire US attorneys for not exercising their political will, we can only wonder what they are planning to do with our personal information. Who knew that when they came up with the term, "identity theft," they'd be talking about the action of a government bureau!

I can be a little paranoid. In fact, friends laugh when I insist on using the qualifier "little" in that sentence. I know this, so I resist the urge to pull out the tin foil hat. Really, I do.

But I saw the news of the US Attorney's FIRED without cause first at dailyKos and Josh Marshall takes it seriously and fleshed out which ones were getting booted and for jimminycricketssake, Ed Cone put up a link to that and now I'm getting a little upset at my stomach. My "concerned-0-meter" is edging into the red, boys and girls.

So I have to ask those I respect most what they think ...