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Senator Stevens, You Are Free To Go
Topic Started: Apr 1 2009, 06:31 AM (733 Views)
Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
Master of the personal attack Quirt!

You make it extremely hard to get along with you.
___.___
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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Mark
Apr 2 2009, 08:15 AM
Master of the personal attack Quirt!

You make it extremely hard to get along with you.
You toss this little bomb out there:

Quote:
 
1hp, Don't you know? Quirt never lets facts get in the way of his dangerously uniformed agenda.


And you expect me to be polite?

Not hardly likely.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
You were the one who called me dangerously uninformed. I was just returning the favor.
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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Perhaps you should check your facts. That was in response to you saying that my views were dangerous.

You throw the first insult, and then get all huffy when it gets crammed back in your face.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
Wrong.

You called me "dangerously uninformed". That started it.
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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Where's Wacki when you need him?
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Piano*Dad
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Bull-Carp
Quirt,

Why do you so easily dismiss the notion that a democratic prosecutor may have had significant leeway to abuse the system. It seems a little glib to note that the Attorney General was a republican who could have quashed things and then leave it at that. I think a reasonable Attorney General would have been quite wary of overruling a prosecutor for fear of getting embroiled in a very high profile political problem.
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Piano*Dad
Apr 2 2009, 09:37 AM
Quirt,

Why do you so easily dismiss the notion that a democratic prosecutor may have had significant leeway to abuse the system. It seems a little glib to note that the Attorney General was a republican who could have quashed things and then leave it at that. I think a reasonable Attorney General would have been quite wary of overruling a prosecutor for fear of getting embroiled in a very high profile political problem.
That's a reasonable point. However, I would assume ... particularly in a Justice Department notorious for political litmus tests ... that the U.S. Attorney was not exactly a Democratic sympathizer. In fact, I'd doubt that any U.S. attorney was a Democratic sympathizer during the Bush Administration. Which is to say that the U.S. Attorney probably had strong reason to believe that there was a case there. No matter which trial attorney that case was eventually assigned to.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Mark
Apr 2 2009, 08:36 AM
Wrong.

You called me "dangerously uninformed". That started it.
Apparently, I need to rub your nose in it.

The relevant thread:

http://s10.zetaboards.com/The_New_Coffee_Room/topic/7116060/1/

The 18th post in that thread, written by you:

Quote:
 
People who think like like you are extremely dangerous.


The 23rd post in that thread, written by me:

Quote:
 
I have always felt the same about you, Mark. Your infantile reactions to the income tax and to the Federal Reserve system have always branded you as dangerously uninformed.


I think even a second grader might be able to tell you that the 18th post came before the 23rd post. Moreover, given that my post started with "I have always felt the same about you, Mark", it seems abundantly clear that I was responding to your initial attack.

Better get yourself to the bathroom and clean off that crap that I just rubbed your nose in.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
QuirtEvans
Apr 2 2009, 08:13 AM
1hp
Apr 2 2009, 07:51 AM

I'm sorry, but you (Quirt) said:

Quote:
 
Quick, think of a reason why a second-term Bush Justice Department would want to get rid of a reliable Republican Senator.

And then remember who dismissed the prosecution ... the hated Democrats.

Care to make this a partisan thing again?


but George's article begs to differ - it was partisan, and it looks like Democrats responsible, not a Republican Bush Justice Dept.
Who was in charge of the Justice Department again during that time? Who appointed the U.S. Attorneys? Who was the Attorney General? Who had authority to quash the investigation?
Bush, the All-Knowing?

The Anti-Christ?

The guy who was anathema to all Demorats? The guy who prosecuted according to party?

Yeah, right...
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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1hp
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Fulla-Carp

Quote:
 
Who was in charge of the Justice Department again during that time? Who appointed the U.S. Attorneys? Who was the Attorney General? Who had authority to quash the investigation?


Ahhhh, so you agree - as Obama is now in charge everything is his fault. :thumb:
There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
1hp
Apr 2 2009, 05:28 PM

Quote:
 
Who was in charge of the Justice Department again during that time? Who appointed the U.S. Attorneys? Who was the Attorney General? Who had authority to quash the investigation?


Ahhhh, so you agree - as Obama is now in charge everything is his fault. :thumb:
Absolutely. All decisions made are on his watch now.

Like Truman said.


It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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George K
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Finally
QuirtEvans
Apr 2 2009, 12:03 AM
Don't try to pretend that Stevens is innocent. There was just too much (Republican) prosecutorial misconduct to convict him.

Guilty, and convictable, are two totally separate concepts. Stevens was apparently the first, but through a series of (Republican) bungles not the second.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304459804577283371409080312.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_t

Department of Injustice
Prosecutors in the Stevens case deserve severe sanctions.

Something is very rotten at the U.S. Department of Justice. No other reasonable conclusion can be drawn from an independent report on the 2008 prosecution of then-Senator Ted Stevens.

According to the exhaustive study ordered by Judge Emmet Sullivan, government attorneys engaged in "systematic concealment" of "significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated Senator Stevens's defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government's key witness."

Most damaging to Justice's credibility is that, three years after Judge Sullivan set aside the guilty verdicts against Stevens, the department still hasn't disciplined the men and women involved. Nor has it instituted harsher penalties for future abuses. Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate committee last week that a separate internal inquiry at Justice is almost done, but he would not promise to make all the results public.

Speaking of public scrutiny, you've probably never heard of Matthew Friedrich, Rita Glavin, Brenda Morris, Joseph Bottini, James Goeke or Edward Sullivan. But maybe more people should know them, and learn the various roles they played in a prosecution that not only trampled on the rights of the accused, but denied the people of Alaska a fair election and literally shifted the balance of power in the U.S. government.

The Justice lawyers were not all equally culpable—some withheld evidence; others failed to ensure that their subordinates honored the defendant's basic rights. And while prosecutors acknowledge the violation of Stevens's rights, they generally blame them on communication problems and other process errors rather than any intent to mislead the judge and jury.

Guilty verdicts against the Republican Stevens arrived less than two weeks before Election Day in 2008, causing the previously popular Senator to lose a close race to Democrat Mark Begich. Mr. Begich would go on to provide the 60th Senate vote to pass ObamaCare in 2009.

Virtually the entire case against Ted Stevens hinged on the testimony of the government's star witness, VECO Corporation CEO William Allen. To protect his credibility, prosecutors withheld from the defense evidence that he had suborned perjury in a separate criminal investigation. Nor did prosecutors say a word in court when, according to the report, Mr. Allen offered testimony that the prosecution knew to be false.

The government's seven-count indictment for false statements accused Stevens of accepting free home renovations from Mr. Allen's company and then not reporting these gifts on federal disclosure forms.

Mr. Stevens and his wife said they had paid $160,000 for the renovations and as far as they knew that was the total cost of the work. What the prosecutors learned in interviewing witnesses—but never shared with the defense—is that even the foreman on the job site shared the Stevens' understanding that they had been appropriately billed for all the work. Instead of sharing this evidence supporting Stevens's defense, prosecutors selectively quoted the foreman to make it appear as if he had said the opposite, and they used his comments to falsely attack Stevens.

Stevens died in a 2010 plane crash so he never learned the full story that was revealed this week, nor did he ever get a fair shot to win back his Senate seat.

The report found that the prosecutorial misconduct was "intentional," though it doesn't recommend criminal contempt prosecutions because at trial government lawyers were not specifically ordere d to share all exculpatory evidence. They are of course already required to do so under the Supreme Court's Brady decision, and doing so ought to be a matter of basic legal ethics.

It would be nice to think these abuses were rare lapses. But we wonder what else we might learn if every DOJ prosecution was subjected to a review like the one Judge Sullivan wisely demanded.

What is certain is that Ted Stevens was not alone. Guilty verdicts against two Alaska state legislators were also overturned because Justice withheld evidence related to Mr. Allen. In recent years charges against executives at tech company Broadcom were also tossed out because federal prosecutors had improperly pressured and influenced key witnesses for the defense.

Americans hand prosecutors an awesome power—the power to destroy fortunes and futures, and in this case to reallocate national political power. We are seeing a pattern of abuse of this power, in order to win big cases. To help prosecutors remember that their job is to do justice and not simply to beat the defense team, there should be automatic and severe penalties for Brady violations. Prosecutors could also be required to turn over more raw data with potentially exculpatory evidence, except in cases where it threatens national security or endangers witnesses in a criminal case.

Mr. Holder claims to have addressed the problems in the Stevens case by expanding training programs and the like. But as the nation's chief law enforcer, he should know that harsh punishment is the appropriate response when anyone violates the rights of a citizen as badly as prosecutors did in the Stevens case.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
The man chaired the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and lobbied for a tiered internet system favoring big business when he knew but two things about the Internet: Jack and S***. And Jack left town.

Justice Department ****ups notwithstanding, Ted wasn't exactly the most on the level guy.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
That does not excuse these abuses.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
It sure doesn't, you're right. But to me it's like choosing to be outraged against the government for giving Richard Nixon an unfair parking ticket.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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George K
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Finally
Aqua Letifer
Mar 17 2012, 05:03 AM
It sure doesn't, you're right. But to me it's like choosing to be outraged against the government for giving Richard Nixon an unfair parking ticket.
Being falsely accused and convicted of a crime two weeks before losing your election can hardly be compared to an unfair parking ticket.

I understand that you disagree with some of Stevens' stands, but, they were not illegal.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Well it's not just that. He seemed to me to be a dirty politician. So it's not that I'm turning a deaf ear because I think the guy was a crank or because I disagreed with him politically, I just don't think he had much business holding office.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
If he is dirty then convict him. Other than that he is not deserving of this sort of abuse simply because he "looks dirty" to you. There is a reason lady justice wears a blindfold.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
JBryan
Mar 17 2012, 05:25 AM
There is a reason lady justice wears a blindfold.
I'd always assumed it was because if she didn't, she'd gouge her own eyes out.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
JBryan
Mar 17 2012, 05:25 AM
If he is dirty then convict him. Other than that he is not deserving of this sort of abuse simply because he "looks dirty" to you. There is a reason lady justice wears a blindfold.
I'm not suggesting he deserves judicial abuses because of what I think about the guy. I'm saying that this is not some isolated incident and the DOJ's mishandling of the case does not eliminate the doubt for me that he was into shady deals. There are still the National Park Service money laundering allegations and his relationship with Bob Penney. These are all incidents similar to the VECO case. If you can prove that all three are part of some concerted effort to bring down an Alaskan politician, okay, fine. Then I would say that he was a victim of a witchunt. But when multiple allegations have sprung up in the past, three separate issues, I cannot prove that he is definitely guilty but yes, he does look like a dirty politician.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Piano*Dad
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Bull-Carp
Aqua Letifer
Mar 17 2012, 05:10 AM
Well it's not just that. He seemed to me to be a dirty politician. So it's not that I'm turning a deaf ear because I think the guy was a crank or because I disagreed with him politically, I just don't think he had much business holding office.
Dangerously close to "ends justify means" rationalization of government abuse of individual rights.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
Aqua Letifer
Mar 17 2012, 07:00 AM
If you can prove that all three are part of some concerted effort to bring down an Alaskan politician, okay, fine. Then I would say that he was a victim of a witchunt.
I am not the one who has to prove anything.

Quote:
 
But when multiple allegations have sprung up in the past, three separate issues, I cannot prove that he is definitely guilty but yes, he does look like a dirty politician.


I am by no means a big fan of Ted Stevens but these allegations must be proven in court before depriving him of his liberty.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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