Fletcher computer files copied (warrant served + warning against pardons)

[Rose Siding]

Fletcher computer files copied
Stumbo also warns against pardons

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- Investigators from the attorney general's office began copying the computer network server for Gov. Ernie Fletcher's office yesterday after receiving a search warrant.

The 5 p.m. search was related to a special grand jury's investigation into allegations that the Fletcher administration violated state hiring laws by filling jobs on the basis of politics, not qualifications.

In a related development, Attorney General Greg Stumbo warned Fletcher in a letter delivered last week that the truth within allegations of illegal hiring can only be determined at trial and "now is not the time for a pardon."

Fletcher has said he has not ruled out exercising his power to issue pardons for nine current and former administration officials who have been indicted.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050820/NEWS0104/508200474/1008/NEWS01

GOP adviser named to ethics panel

Gov. Ernie Fletcher has put another of his "county contacts" -- local Republican advisers -- on the Executive Branch Ethics Commission, which is investigating possible GOP political bias in his administration's hiring.

Yesterday, Fletcher named former state Rep. J. Quentin Wesley, R-Morganfield, to the five-member ethics panel. As one of Fletcher's two Union County contacts, Wesley occasionally was called by Fletcher aides for his opinion of state job applicants in his area, a controversial practice now under investigation.

Wesley is also a vocal critic of the several investigations into Fletcher's merit-system hiring, saying they are politically motivated by unhappy Democrats.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/local/12431212.htm

[acmejack]

1. Why is this type of conduct unsurprising?

Seems to be business as usual for our RepubliCon friends.

[goclark]

2. Good for the criminals, may they rot

[benburch]

3. This is why the GOP needs to be OUTLAWED

When we get power again, and we will, we need to OUTLAW the GOP the same way Germany outlawed the Nazi Party after WW-II.

[Hegemony Cricket]

5. That's not helping

Republicans are not Nazis. They've never been Nazis. Some of them even fought Nazis. They aren't SA brown-shirts. They aren't SS. Maybe the Minutemen have a chance of becoming the SA, if they weren't a bunch of lazy blowhards.

I hate the administration. I feel they are cowardly, corrupt, and just plain ole malevolent criminals. I don't think they're Nazis, and I'd fight to the death to preserve their right to be dicks.

I'll also fight to see them finally indicted for a wide variety of actual crimes they may have committed over the last five years(my god, three to go...), since no one has a right to be a criminal .

However, we cannot outlaw Republicans without having to outlaw the Ku Klux Klan, the Neo-Nazis, non-SHARP Skinheads, ...you know, those offensive bastions of dangerously idiotic thinking that make America the great place it is.

By stating they should be outlawed you then give the other side the right to outlaw YOU. The constitution is a great thing. It keeps the other side off our back as much as it keeps us off of them. Start making exceptions and we all suffer.

This kind of talk resonates as an argument against liberals and progressives, "You see ladies and gentlemen? You see what they want? This liberal elite knows what's best for you. They know what you should or should not believe!"

The Bizzarro universe version of me writing this article on a website called Republican Underground would be saying:

However, we cannot outlaw Democrats without having to outlaw the ACLU, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace...

Passion is a bitch to master, but try not to let it blind you.

[KansDem]

6. I'm inclined to agree with you, however...

I can understand the emotions of the previous poster when the suggestion of outlawing the GOP is raised. It is not so much a difference in views on policies as it is the complicity to crimes that the leaders of the GOP have committed. I wouldn't want to "outlaw the GOP" over social, fiscal, environmental, foreign, domestic, etc, policies, but, it is obvious now that Bush and his kind have committed the most dastardly of crimes in their abuse of power. And I have heard or seen few, DAMN FEW, Republicans concerned about this. The GOP for the most part is still drunk on power and have been since 1994. The Republican rank and file would do well to look at their leaders and, at least, demand an investigation, a real investigation, into the Iraq invasion, the DSM, the Plame outing, election fraud, etc. Until then, the average Republican can be held just as responsible for this administration's crimes as the party's bigwigs. The choice is theirs.

The mantra "My Party, Right or Wrong" will not bode well for the GOP.

[anotherdrew]

11. use the RICO laws to go after the whole corrupt organization

"The Republican rank and file" will do nothing because all they know how to do is play "follow the leader"

[evermind]

14. Actually, some republicans were nazis... literally!

Nazis and the Republican Party

By Carla Binion, January 28, 2000

Investigative reporter Christopher Simpson says in "Blowback" that after World War II, Nazi émigrés were given CIA subsidies to build a far-right-wing power base in the U. S. These Nazis assumed prominent positions in the Republican Party's "ethnic outreach committees." Simpson documents the fact that these Nazis did not come to America as individuals but as part of organized groups with fascist political agendas. The Nazi agenda did not die along with Adolf Hitler. It moved to America (or a part of it did) and joined the far right of the Republican Party.

Simpson shows how the State Department and the CIA put high-ranking Nazis on the intelligence payroll "for their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare," among other purposes. The most important Nazi employed by the U.S. was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's most senior eastern front military intelligence officer. After Germany's defeat became certain, Gehlen offered the U. S. certain concessions in exchange for his own protection. Gehlen promoted hyped up cold war propaganda on behalf of the political right in this country, and helped shape U.S. perceptions of the cold war.

Journalist Russ Bellant ("Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party") shows that Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, built the Republican émigré network. Pasztor, who served as adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich, belonged to the Hungarian Arrow Cross, a group that helped liquidate Hungary's Jews. Pasztor was founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council.

Two months before the November 1988 presidential election, a small newspaper, Washington Jewish Week, disclosed that a coalition for the Bush campaign included a number of outspoken Nazis and anti-Semites. The article prompted six leaders of Bush's coalition to resign.

(...continues, at http://victorian.fortunecity.com/brambles/499/Special_Reports/Nazis/nazis.html ...)

Republican nazis exposed by Bellant include:

Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council's executive director, and head of "Bulgarians for Bush." Slavoff was a member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust denier, Austin App.

Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of "Romanians for Bush." Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.

Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.

Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.

Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP's Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi groups.

Bohdan Fedorak, leader of "Ukranians for Bush." Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish wartime pogroms.

Hmph. I hoped to include a link to the text of Bellant's book, which you used to be able to get online, but it seems to have been pulled from the web (probably to help sales, rather than any tin foil hat reason, I should imagine).

(Edited for formatting, but let me also say I agree completely that outlawing political parties is not a great idea - you'd probably find your own favourite party got outlawed as soon as the idea gained a moderate acceptance! )

[mom cat]

18. Thanks for the info and the links!

[wli]

17. no, they still have to be banned

The remaining members of the party after the criminal prosecutions, if they care to attempt to continue in politics, can resume their activity under a different party organization.

They may not be Nazis per se, but they do have direct heritage, and furthermore, they have committed such heinous crimes against democracy and numerous war crimes that they must be dissolved.

[RawMaterials]

19. Republicans

are just miss informed americans. imho

[TankLV]

9. It is aproaching that point.

But then again the repukes are not NAZI's - they have a different name.

And they are in a different counytry.

And they hate blacks and other minorities more than Jews.

And there are soooo many other reasons why they are not like the NAZI's.

But the list is much to long as to why they are fast aproaching to being LIKE the NAZI's - that's the problem.

I hope it doesn't come to that, but I don't see them ever putting their country before their party.

[Lexingtonian]

4. Does Kentucky

have recall elections or proper impeachment/removal procedures instituted?

Kentucky Democrats should start talking about this.

By the way, they might have standing to sue Fletcher in federal court and try to get any pardons he gives overturned under RICO or the Tyranny Clause.

[alfredo]

10. No recall, but we can impeach and probably will

if he pardons anyone or tries to interfere with the investigation in any way.

[Roland99]

15. I doubt it. The Democratic Party isn't that strong here anymore

:(

[alfredo]

16. We do control the house, and the Reps have a small majority

in the senate. Ernie is damaged goods.

Remember, congress was split when Nixon was impeached.

[alfredo]

7. If Gov Ernie tried to pardon anyone, including himself

he will be impeached.

[Along the Red Ledge]

12. Hello, fellow Kentuckian!

As a fellow Kentuckian, I certainly hope that is the case. The Rethugs bitched and moaned about former Governor Patton's alleged improprieties. They make anything Patton might have done look like a three card monte game versus a a bank heist.

http://www.kdla.ky.gov/resources/KYGovernors.htm

[alfredo]

13. Welcome to DU. Ernie promised to be an ethical

governor with an ethical administration. He lied to us.

From Central Ky

activities:

CFK
Fayette Democratic Party
Kentucky Vets for Progress.
Vote Yes
Sympathetic to KFTC, but have to draw the line somewhere on activities.

[newyawker99]

20. Hi Along the Red Ledge!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Rose Siding]

8. NPR piece from today: Kentucky Statehouse Under a Cloud

Politics
Kentucky Statehouse Under a Cloud
by Adam Hochberg

Weekend Edition - Saturday, August 20, 2005 · Nine current or former members of Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher's Cabinet have been indicted over the administration's hiring practices. The first-term Republican has been subpoenaed to testify at the end of the month.

Link to audio at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4808392&sourceCode=RSS

[Roland99]

21. STATE HIRING INVESTIGATION - The 12 'Disciples' and their mission

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/12436910.htm

The governor's office handpicked a dozen personnel representatives from across state government to hasten the hiring of Republican supporters and then monitored the activities of those so-called "Disciples," documents show.

<...>

But in one e-mail message obtained by the Herald-Leader, a key Transportation Cabinet representative in the initiative told the other participants that he was looking forward to doing the governor's bidding.

"As 'change agents' and 'missionaries' of the Governor, our task will not always be embraced by those around us," wrote Tim Hazlette, then deputy administrative services commissioner of transportation, in a Jan. 25 e-mail.

<...>

The e-mail Hazlette wrote to the initiative participants was heavily laced with religious overtones. At one point he added, "No one on earth faced more adversity than the Apostles -- we should not think we are any different."

[MissMarple]

22. So, are the attorneys general going to war? Collectively?

The judiciary and the lawyers may be beginning to step to the forefront to address the GOP and corporate abuses running rampant and destroying the country.