Topic awaiting preservation: Dumbya's Puppett

From:
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Tuesday, October 4, 2005
New World Order
Cronyism and capitulation: The scoop on US Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers

White House Counsel, Harriet Miers

Cronyism and capitulation: The scoop on Harriet Miers
Joshua Frank CounterPunch October 4, 2005

So you thought that Harriet Miers, George W. Bush?s new Supreme Court pick has no paper trail. You were wrong. One of Miers only qualifications for the high court -- as she hasn?t an ounce of judicial experience -- is that she was the head of Locke, Liddell & Sapp; a sleazy corporate law firm based in Dallas, Texas. According to the InterNet Bankruptcy Library (IBL), Locke Liddell & Sapp paid $22 million in a suit alleging it aided a client in defrauding investors. The Dallas-based firm agreed in April of 2000 to settle a suit stemming from its representation of Russell Erxleben, a former University of Texas football star whose foreign currency trading company, Austin Forex International, was a pyramid get-rich Ponzi scheme. Erxleben later pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and securities-fraud charges. "It's a very simple legal proposition: a lawyer can't help people steal money," George, of George & Donaldson told reporters at the time. George?s firm had represented investors who lost close to $34 million in Erxleben's company. All this was going on while Harriet Miers was co-managing partner of the law firm at the time. ... The Miers scandalist past goes deeper than her ties to corporate crooks in Texas. According to Newsweek, she?s also played a role in maintaining Bush?s National Guard credibility. ... It gets better, if not dirtier. At roughly the same time Miers was helping Bush dodge National Guard questions; Bush had named her chair of the Texas Lottery Commission, which had been scandal-plagued for years. The chief issue before Miers and the commission was whether to retain lottery operator Gtech, which had been implicated in a huge Texas bribery scandal. ...

Who is Harriet Miers?
The Left Coaster October 4, 2005

Given the criticality of this nomination and how it may determine the fate of Americans over the next 2-3 decades, I decided to create this page to consolidate key facts about Ms. Miers (her White House released biography is here). ... Miers' known history is catalogued here in several sections. I will update this page periodically. (NOTE to bloggers and readers who may have additional information on Miers that is not contained here: please post them in the comments.)

SECTIONS

1. Politics
2. Cronyism
3. Legal Experience and Judiciary
4. Executive Power, National Security and Civil Liberties
5. Corporatism and Economic Issues
6. Socio-Cultural Issues
7. Law and Order and Civil Rights
8. Environmental Issues
9. Religion/Church-State
10. Other

...

Bush's new Supreme nominee: Why? Just in case...
Wayne Madsen waynemadsenreport.com October 3, 2005

Packing the Supreme Court in Anticipation of a Constitutional Showdown. The Kabuki dance between George W. Bush and Special Prosecutor on the CIA leak case Patrick Fitzgerald continues with Bush's nomination of his one-time personal lawyer and current White House Counsel Harriet Miers, a person who has never served on the bench, as the replacement for outgoing Associate Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Miers succeeded Attorney General Alberto Gonzeles, who was forced to recuse himself from the CIA leak case because of his prior role in the leak case. If either indictments or unindicted co-conspirator evidence are issued by Fitzgerald against George Bush or Dick Cheney, a politicized Supreme Court, with one time Reagan White House Deputy Counsel John Roberts now as Chief Justice and Miers as Associate Justice , will be positioned to rule in favor of the White House. ...

Supreme Court choice shows Bush is not spoiling for a fight
Richard W. Stevenson New York Times October 4, 2005

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 - There is still much to learn about Harriet E. Miers, but in naming her to the Supreme Court, President Bush revealed something about himself: that he has no appetite, at a time when he and his party are besieged by problems, for an all-out ideological fight. Many of his most passionate supporters on the right had hoped and expected that he would make an unambiguously conservative choice to fulfill their goal of clearly altering the court's balance, even at the cost of a bitter confirmation battle. By instead settling on a loyalist with no experience as a judge and little substantive record on abortion, affirmative action, religion and other socially divisive issues, Mr. Bush shied away from a direct confrontation with liberals and in effect asked his base on the right to trust him on this one. The question is why. ...

No mention of Miers' involvement with the scrubbing of Bush's National Guard files, her law firms alleged swindling of clients' investors ($30 million in penalties paid out for two cases), and the fact that she is the darling of the Anti-Defamation League.

Same-old, same old.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

quote:

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Diogenes said:

Cronyism

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It's pretty difficult to deny this charge.

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Heh.

When speaking of Mr. Bush and the current Republican Party, Bugs, it's kind of difficult to deny that charge - reward those who toe the line, and hammer those who don't.

Oh, you are going to reap what you have sown!

To be fair...it is thus with all governments.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

But not like it is currently! Never before have we seen such blatant awarding (re: cronyism) out in the open, as we do now. There isn't even a half-hearted attempt to hide it - on the contrary, it is paraded about, more, those doing such are strutting about, preening their feathers, and crowing out the new age of cronyism and award for being a "good fella".

Nice to se Delay reaping what he sowed. Let us hope such spreads further - all the way up to the rotten core at the top!

quote:

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WebShaman said:

But not like it is currently! Never before have we seen such blatant awarding...

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Not true at all.

Not in the last few decades, in the US...maybe.

But this is par for the course in the broader scope, geographically and historically.

Well, DL, I do tend to agree that such behavior is widespread - but to be honest, I haven't seen it paraded in the public eye as blatantly as it is currently.

WS, you should oughta take a look at some recent Canadian politics...makes Dumby look like a piker.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

Are they really that bad?

"For reason is a property of God's...moreover, there is nothing He does not wish to be investigated and understood by reason." ~Tertullian de paenitentia Carthaginian Historian 2nd century AD

(Edited by Gideon on 10-09-2005 22:42)

It is not that this is new or different. It is that those that got put in these positions have been called on to act because of circumstances outside of their control, and the lack of skill is then put into the spotlight.

Dan @ Code Town

Well if Harriet Miers thinks George Bush is the most intelligent man she's ever met she's fit for the bench alright... a fucking PARK BENCH!!!

Conservatives are up in arms about this appointment. A very prominant conservative writer, Charles Krauthammer, even called for the president to Withdraw This Nominee.

One thing I heard Bush say in response to some criticism was that he looked for the most qualified person and chose her or somthing to that effect. Well, that is just a complete gaff. I can see him defending the choice but he can hardly say that!

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Of course he can say that, Bugs. God told him to pick her. You are not doubting the Word of God, are you?

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US top court nominee steps down

OUCH!!! That had to hurt!

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Oh Yah! The mighty ego must be near catatonic (how could one tell?)

I have no idea if the allegations the woman is gay are true or not and for most matters her sexual orientation would be irrelevant.

However, if she is gay and Bush, who clearly has no love of homosexuals, would still nominate her against his religious bias, it speaks loudly to just how much more important expediency is than religion for this poor sod.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

He simply corrected a mistake

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^ Hehe...oh man, that is pretty funny!

Reap, reap, REAP!

yeah yeah yeah

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