Letters to the Editor
-
I'm kinda embarrassed to admit this...
But my first thought after reading this article was: "Obviously, Alberto Gonzales has a serious attraction to porn which he feels extremely ashamed about."
-
The US Attorney's scandal gets dirty
The op-ed from Gonzales was very reassuring, especially in light of the refusal by the DoJ to prosecute Texas State-sponsored (or enabled) sexual exploitation and abuse of children under its control. According to the DoJ it wasn't a civil rights violation. Moskowitz, the head of the criminal division of civil rights flat out refused to prosecute. A further explanation from the DoJ stated that since there weren't any allegations of physical pain, it wasn't prosecutable. Of course, it is now known that the juvenile detention facilities were highly corrupt and that cooperation with investigations was dealt with severely. Copies of the frankly disgusting e-mails are available at lonestarproject and worldnetdaily. Clearly Texas USA John Sutton had more important issues to pursue such as voter fraud allegations and perhaps pornography. The former is clear, the latter I haven't checked yet but I'll bet it's there.
-
If true...
...I'd love to see the MSM portray this as "they wanted the AG to go after adult filmmakers at the expense of pursuing paedophiles". That should get even the American wingnut dead-enders indignant at last. (Only a pity that they can't be made indignant over all the other political malfeasance as well.)
-
@ Howard K
...I'd love to see the MSM portray this as "they wanted the AG to go after adult filmmakers at the expense of pursuing paedophiles". That should get even the American wingnut dead-enders indignant at last.
Howard, a MUUUUCH too complex thought process for your average AWD-E. To the bulk of them, your quoted segment reads "porn=porn." After which reading, they'll go back to listening to Rush and Hannity et al. telling them that this whole thing is nothing more than a "Democrat witch hunt."
Besides, most of 'em think paedophiles are people who like bicycles...
Seriously, now that I'm through snarking, I despair of most Americans' ability to make this sort of distinction and then make the connection between this unseemly obsession with what total strangers do in the privacy of their own bedrooms, and politicization and a loss of independence in the DOJ. It really is too complicated a series of analyses and links.
But bvernia's insider observations pretty much confirm what we've thought for a long time, didn't they?
-
Random question regarding SPAM.
A little off topic...
From the article: "Its case targeting the distribution of porn via SPAM was the first of its kind... "
In the last week I've seen junk mail delivered via email written as SPAM (as if it were an acronym) rather than spam or Spam (which Hormel hates, I'm sure, unless you are referring to the meat product).
Is spam (or SPAM) now an acronym and, more importantly, why didn't I get the memo?
-
To gsp Re: SPAM
You did get the memo, but it ended up in your SPAM folder so you never saw it.
-
Rove Clones
Perhaps a criterion for being hired by this Justice Department is that one look like Karl Rove.
Kyle Sampson:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002901.php
William Mercer:
http://www.epluribusmedia.org/features/2007/us_attorney_william_mercer.html
Rove:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove
-
Child Recruitment
In 1500 AD Michael Servetus was sauteed and barbecued by good Protestants over kiddie-porn* policy differences. Baptists and Quakers got burned, too! Rooting out mind-pollution is salacious sectarian sword for infant recruiting. Viva New Model Army!
*infant vs. adult baptism
ps. Still dubious? Check out Mohammed(53) on best friend's daughter A'Isha (9)!
-
Beautiful!
I love it when the facts of a situation directly contradict the attempted spin placed on them. The one US Attorney who was actually protecting the community with re: to the oh so horrid life-destroying blight of consensual adult pornography is one of the attorneys fired.
The spam case (assuming that what is meant here is the unsolicited distribution of actual porn via indiscriminate mass email) is the only so-called obscenity case that addresses the possible infliction of sexual images on an unsuspecting and non-consenting public. Every other case is trying to determine if the legally created images that a person enjoys in the privacy of their own home would offend the community at large.
These types of obscenity cases leave a wide open door for additional censorship efforts on similar grounds. If a vocal contingent of evangelicals can get the Harry Potter books banned for allegedly promoting witchcraft, what would be the fate of actual Pagans who have books on their actual religion? I've lived in areas where Fahrenheit 451 was forcibly removed from school libraries (without a trace of irony, at that). What would think of my library of books on anarchist theory?
But I digress. Considering the track record of Arizona US Attorney's office, if Gonzalez tries to use the porn issue as a building block of his "no improper reason" defense, he will have some difficult explaining to do.
Does anyone remember a time when being a Conservative meant that you thought the role of government in fiddling with the lives of citizens should be kept to a bare minimum? More and more the movement has been hijacked by these Social Conservatives file all the wrongs in the world under the same umbrella of "Immorality" with no distinction made between admiring the naked human form and sexually preying on children.
-
The political thrust of the DOJ started before Gonzales BTW
Karen Tandy, the current head of the DEA, has said on numerous occasions that her agency isn't just targeting drug kingpins -- her other major goal while serving as head of the DEA is to shut down the marijuana legalization movement itself, by targeting well known activists for prosecution.
People outside the marijuana activist community didn't pay any attention at all to those statements. Nobody gave a damn.
That's why I can't get all excited about this current scandal.
Look, if it's okay with mainstream Democrats for the head of the DEA to admit in public that her goal is to shut down a legal political movement -- then what has Gonzales done wrong?
Nobody has attacked Tandy outside of the marijuana activist community.
If Tandy isn't doing anything wrong -- then neither is Gonzales.