Comments (38)

Alguien wrote on January 11, 2008 6:17 PM:

A nice little breath of hope for the weekend! (amid the ocean of despair!)

hardheaded liberal wrote on January 11, 2008 6:21 PM:

This is great news! Chris Coates is a good guy - instead of coming to the Civil Rights Division from law school or a clerkship, Chris spent years in the private & NGO sector litigating voting rights and other civil rights cases.

Chris is not a bureaucrat - he's a genuine civil rights lawyer! The Voting Rights Section will now be headed by someone who actually believes in minority voting rights!

chisholm wrote on January 11, 2008 6:30 PM:

Interesting. I wonder if Mukasey's MO will be "I am not going to prosecute people for past crimes and misdeeds (within DOJ) but nor will I allow these dangerous trends to continue." It's how I'd imagine an ethical* Republican to act in that situation.

*Not that I think Mukasey is ethical. His number one priority is to protect the president.

allsburg wrote on January 11, 2008 6:45 PM:

Ever since Mukasey's confirmation hearings, I've been wondering if liberals had gotten his message wrong. People were so hung up on his refusal to take a position on waterboarding. As a judge, you wait to decide an issue until there's an actual case before you that forces you to address it. It helps prevent judges from making bad calls due to inadequate information and briefing. I wondered at the time, and I wonder still, whether his refusal to take a position was actually a positive attribute, rather than a negative--a decision to show his caution, and his impartiality.

Of course, I live in a time hallmarked by the Bush administration's constant lies, dissembling, and installation of incompetent lackeys into positions of high power, so I let myself be swayed by those who condemned Mukasey as a Bush shill. But is it true? It seems that most of what I here from DOJ these days is pretty favorable. Under Mukasey, incompetents have been railroaded away from power, the feds have been given the go-ahead and clearance to investigate republican and white house misdeeds, Patrick Fitzgerald has been honored, and the civil rights division is on its way to being depoliticized. Heck, maybe Mukasey intentionally failed to pay the Department's phone bill to stop the wire tapping.

But I may be wrong. Please tell me what bad, unethical things have been attributed to Mukasey since he's been at DOJ. I want to hear from people who still think he is evil. I want to know why Chisholm says his number one priority is to protect the president. And don't say it's because Mukasey has failed to indict Bush for war crimes, or fall back on the waterboarding issue. I want evidence of unethical actions he's actually taken.

Keith Gore Wiseman wrote on January 11, 2008 6:55 PM:

This is a smokescreen. The United States, under Bush, is totally lawless and has done so much damage that 2, or even 100, fired at Justice means nothing.

watercarrier4diogenes wrote on January 11, 2008 7:04 PM:

I think any discussion of this move by Chris Coates should be devoid of mention of Mukasey. Even if he had to approve the move (did he?), he'd have been a total fool to not approve it as the sh*t would have REALLY hit the fan if he'd interfered. Especially given the investigations the two are the subjects of. Fix the article, Josh, by removing Mukasey's picture and replacing it with Chris Coates' pic. He deserves at least that for doing this.

yellowdogD wrote on January 11, 2008 7:09 PM:

Was thinking this during Mukasey's confirmation hearings, but nener opined on it.. suppose Mukasey is an honorable man. He knows that if he admits waterboarding is torture, the torture president yanks his nomination. Therefore, he sucks it up and takes the heat from Dems in order to get in and do some good. Plausible?

lambert strether wrote on January 11, 2008 7:16 PM:

Why weren't they fired?

dewey_m wrote on January 11, 2008 7:17 PM:

Allsburg, why not come with he has failed to prosecute the Bush Crime Family for war crimes? I guess we should just put a band-aid over this festering pustule? So a wink and a nod do not count in your book? When you walk by a pig on a fence post, you are one of those guys that won't draw any conclusions huh? As the lead law enforcement officer of this country, if Mukasey does not act he is complicit- plain and simple.

chisholm wrote on January 11, 2008 7:39 PM:

Allsburg--

The evidence that Mukasey's number-one priority is to protect the president isn't demonstrated by unethical actions he's taken, it's by the ethical actions he HASN'T taken. One example that comes to mind is the Siegelman case. Anyone who believes this doesn't merit a special prosecutor is Ed Gillespie's assistant. Given what Siegelman is enduring and what/who the stench points to--Noel Hillman! on up! that is just enormous!--there's a real urgency there, and to my mind a justice-minded AG would have jumped on this asap. Just by itself that case has done serious, serious damage to the department's credibility.

Secondly, I see no break with the stonewalling patterns of AGAG. No Yoo or Bradbury or Addington memos released, no cooperation with Congress. No refutation of the shockingly poor legal judgments the administration concocted to rationalize their actions. Would a rule-of-law AG continue to abide by them? The attitude towards Congressional oversight alone points to, at the very least, shared beliefs re: unitary exec. with the WH, nevermind complicity.

To be truly justice-minded Mukasey would know that the department is held in *very* low esteem by the American people it is intended to serve--remember, I've only alluded to a fraction of the degradation that Ashcroft and AG etc. have inflicted on DOJ. Clearly, then, to rectify this he would begin to address these issues, one by one, and a huge part of the addressing would be to permit scrutiny, and scrutiny--the slightest scrutiny--will blow the lid off the joint, and we all know it.

Retired wrote on January 11, 2008 7:41 PM:

(picky not picky not...but for post graduate sake any chance spare us the lame pain soporific of "only time will tell" since time per se not a causal factor in change of circumstances...sheesh...worse than
freshmen English on top of Somerby using "hopefully" and Crks and Liars obtusely saying things like "very unique" so keep the language strong and your

fuzz wrote on January 11, 2008 7:54 PM:

sentences incomplete.

The Perilous Pea wrote on January 11, 2008 8:21 PM:

chisholm
Seconded

EH wrote on January 11, 2008 8:46 PM:

Mukasey's job is to back out all the losers that have been corrupting the system for the past several years before they get accused of crimes. Organizational CYA in advance of future election losses. If Bush was able to secure a third term none of this would be going on.

7th Floor Glass Doors wrote on January 11, 2008 8:46 PM:

Easy, easy, easy.

No more of this here, please.

KucinichSpeaks wrote on January 11, 2008 9:10 PM:

Write to John Conyers and asked what happened to the Siegelman hearings.

Gov. Siegelman is undergoing false imprisonment under terrible conditions. We must not forget him. If they can arrest lawfully elected Democrats with trumped up charges to get rid of Democratic officeholders, we really are a police state. With all that Scott Horton wrote about this case in his series of articles in Harpers and even the MSM commentary and Mr. Siegelman not being allowed to be interviewed by 60 Minutes.

We need to start focusing on the most important cases and continue constantly calling for justice. One of the reasons bushco is getting away with it is that the left blogosphere is so fickle and has such a short memory.

Write to Congressman Conyers today.
_____________
What happened with the hearings on Gov. Siegelman's case? There does not seem to be any follow-up to help Gov. Siegelman fight this injustice, according to Harpers the corrupt judge has not release transcripts of the trial though it has been a year and Gov. Siegelman's lawyers cannot go forward with the appeal without the transcript.

Please exert pressure on the judge to have the transcript prepared and turned over to Gov. Siegleman's attorneys ASAP and please make an effort to protect him and to make sure he is not suffering abuse. His only crime was being a democrat, justice delayed is justice denied.
______________

KucinichSpeaks wrote on January 11, 2008 9:12 PM:

look how murkasey and patrick fitzgerald mishandled the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

They are both very dirty.

Harry Potter wrote on January 11, 2008 9:13 PM:

::packs up marauders' map::

Mischief managed.

-30-

Harry Potter wrote on January 11, 2008 9:13 PM:

::packs up marauders' map::

Mischief managed.

-30-

Goldspinner wrote on January 11, 2008 9:40 PM:

Big ups to IceJustIce, Bigger,and all the other bloggers in the Voting Rights section. Keep us posted, 'K?

IceJustIce wrote on January 11, 2008 10:34 PM:

Goldspinner,

The story is done, over, finished. The grownups are back in charge. The power of progressive blogging (with more than a little help from folks working hard on the inside) has brought about the downfall of the incompetent leadership of the most politicized part of the most politicized agency in the Bush administration.

Brad Schlozman - practicing tax law in Wichita
Hans von Spakovsky - FEC nomination stalled
John Tanner - involuntarily transferred
Susana Lorenzo-Giguere and Yvette Rivera - demoted out of leadership positions

The story has passed on! It is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker!

It's a stiff! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!!

THIS IS AN EX-STORY!!

Now, we can all get back to doing our jobs protecting minority voting rights. It's all any of us ever wanted to do.

Dennis wrote on January 11, 2008 10:39 PM:

This "canning" is nice for show, but let's wait to Mukasey gets to the big stuff and see what happens.

The big fish in the White House and the Oval Office will get away; wait and see. (And don't be surprised, as well, that the Democrats will have a helping hand it in the get away).

"We need to put all of this behind us", will be the theme.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

Helena Handbasket wrote on January 11, 2008 11:57 PM:

IceTwat,
Thanks for giving us the abreviated list ya cunt. Do you think that proves some pinheaded point. There are way longer lists that could be provided by an intelligent person who likes to type. There was a time there where Bible College freaks were paraded in front of Congress speaking like they had frontal lobotomies.I'm not saying they didn't have lobotomies I'm just saying they sounded like it. I don't know, I don't remember, I dont' recall.
DOJ is loaded with Bible College freaks who think Bush is the second coming of Christ. In my religion if a RETARD comes into your community "Don't accept him as Christ". Give him a bus ticket to anywhere just get him the fuck away from anything he can fuck up. Lock up the booze and cocaine and send the fuckwad on his way. In modern times that might be called "impeachment". Or even"enabling". In old times they would have put Emperor Chimpy in a catapult and sent him flying. Ahhh the old days.

WorseThanAmistake wrote on January 12, 2008 12:40 AM:

Mukasey may be a perfectly reasonable "grown up" on every other issue (or not), but when it comes to "the war on terror" he will always be pro-torture, pro-unlimited-wiretaps, pro-bomb-Iran ... etc.

You can look for rational thought and nuance on every other issue, but not that one. There you will just find a complete willingness to equivocate, lie, stonewall, and obstruct.

whispers for forgotten children wrote on January 12, 2008 3:23 AM:

Hey, uhm, could you sort of try to generalize a bit more? The CR Div. needs to protect everyone's voting rights.

Indian (aka Native American) votes have suffered, uniquely, since well, what, 1530 or so? Chances of an Indian vote being lost in 2000 & 2004 were significantly higher than any other ethnicity.

Civil rights violations and crimes against Indians are through the roof, especially on reservations. Law enforcement habitually fails to respond appropriately or meaningfully in Indian Country.

And somehow, even among enlightened liberals, these issues are forgotten or too ugly to explore.

liz wrote on January 12, 2008 7:08 AM:

More than the voting rights section is closed up at the DOJ. The Civil Rights Division responsible for disability discrimination is still abusing the system. The DOJ Civil Rights office in Atlanta never answered a single letter I sent over the past three years. The letters pretained to the fake forged Appeals Court orders in my Social Security Disability file. The Inspector General is allowing numerous South Carolina Social Security employees and Administrative Law Judges to abuse the system and lie and cheat and steal from disabled Americans who attempt to reintegrate with society and work. The Civil Rights division has essentially allowed the Social Security Administration to void the concept of a " working disabled American" and or has allowed Social Security to proclaim that all disabilities go away at their imaginary five year line due to work.
Maybe doctors should send sick people to work if work cures disability.
It is truly 1984 and Orwell is in charge.
The Social Security Inspector General should be investigated for fraud and the DOJ Civil Rights division should be re opened.

Helena Montana wrote on January 12, 2008 7:23 AM:

My feeling is, these actions are taking place solely to distract attention from other matters at the Justice Dept. Mukasey, a loyal Bushie if there ever was one, must be up to something nefarious. Any of your friends disappeared recently?

foggylady wrote on January 12, 2008 8:07 AM:

2 infallible rules when seeking clarity..

Follow the money
and
actions speak louder than words.

Per rule 2, let's look at the "cleaning house" reality.

Tanner continues to feed at the public trough, in another job.
The Deputy chiefs got demoted, and continue to feed at the public trough.
Has anything been done about the loss of valuable experienced staff who were purged by these guys?

NO.
So the office remains broken?

IceJustIce wrote on January 12, 2008 9:54 AM:

Ms. Handbasket,

I'm trying to figure out just where we disagree other than in your characterization of me as "IceTwat."

I don't disagree with a thing you've said. And I'm not saying all of DOJ has been cleaned up, just that the Voting Section has largely been -- and only because its actions were brought into the light of day.

And Foggylady, they do continue to feed at the public trough, and nothing has been done about the loss of valuable experienced staff. You are correct. None of this is good, and something should be done about it. But in terms of depoliticizing the Section, great gains have been made -- again, because the actions of the wrongdoers were brought into the light of day.

Jeez, it's like you folks don't *want* things to get better. I kind of thought that was the whole point of the thing.

fedhallofshame_com wrote on January 12, 2008 11:21 AM:

IceJustIce,

Thank you for putting the whole ordeal in perspective. I often wonder if this whole system is like a Gordian knot. It is filled with people who want to (and perhaps have the capacity to) do the right thing but are prevented from doing so by political appearances and the after-effects of "admitting wrong."

Sadly, I think this is the best that one can hope for, and the fact that things are getting better rather than worse is a positive sign.

Within my federal career, the public was wronged many times over, but they did get rid of the "bad guys," albeit by a golden handshake and a "voluntary" demotion. It's still not what any ordinary citizen would want done with their money, but at least the unit was permitted to function for a short time.

(Alas, it is not a very good long-term solution and I continue to worry about the effects for America, but I digress.)

fedhallofshame_com wrote on January 12, 2008 12:16 PM:

And after writing the words "bad guys," I instantly regretted it. These weren't bad guys. These were Lynndie Englands from Abu Gharib. Something that I picture Susana Lorenzo-Giguere and Yvette Rivera to have been too. It's hard to forgive their actions, but a bad environment makes monsters out of otherwise average citizens.

Captain America wrote on January 12, 2008 1:25 PM:

One small step in the right direction for the Voting Section....

Mary wrote on January 12, 2008 1:37 PM:

Ice,

Just wondering if you think the "minorites die first" statement is on par with the "MLK faced fire hoses but it took a president LBJ to get civil rights done" statement.

Since you are an insider and knows what havoc an administration can bring, I was wondering, if you had a choice, which dem candidate's administration you'd rather work for?

Your posts have been greatly enlightening and you are a reall asset to this blog. I would really like to know a rational justice employees opinion.

Bigger Thomas wrote on January 12, 2008 1:42 PM:

For IceJustIce, all current and ex-Voting Sectioners, and general regulars on this site, who have been following my lowly, insignificant plight on these TPMMuckraker comment boards. I'd just like to express how empty and sad I feel inside, now that I don't have one eye looking over my shoulder, trying to see if I'm watching porn at work anymore.

In honor of the Acting Deputy Chief steeping down, I think I will watch "Deep Throat" tonight.

And just to clarify, the porno, not a video of Mark Felt handing over Watergate evidence to Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

That's all folks....:)

Muchas Gracias wrote on January 13, 2008 9:01 AM:

I just want to thank the couragouse Voting Section staffers who went to speak with the Powers That Be about how the Section 5 Unit was functioning under the Acting Deputy of Section 5. It is my understanding that every analyst - yes old and new - in the office earlier in the week had the courage to step up and speak to higher managers, which speaks volumes when the former Acting Deputy was know for retaliation. My hat is off to you all. A new day has dawned, and I thank you all, and wish the new managers all the best.

re: Muchas Gracias wrote on January 13, 2008 11:43 AM:

re: Muchas Gracias- Right you are. The Acting Deputy thought all the new people had confidence in her, and as it turned out, they all woke up and saw the issues for themselves. Guess that's not hard when she runs around talking about other staffers and asking the new people to tell on the old people. Let's hope she has learned a valuable life lesson, and does better in her new position.

re: Much wrote on January 13, 2008 6:49 PM:

New position? One would imagine shame would overwhelm them. Most would depart. People in government who get a break like this (not being fired) usually go elsewhere as fast as their legs can carry them. I would imagine they have enough contacts to find something else.

fedhallofshame_com wrote on January 13, 2008 9:45 PM:

Re: Much,

Shame?

I wouldn't count on the departure of the old guard. The best that can be hoped for is that they understand the symbolism and stay out of the way to let others do their jobs.

Voting Section,
I am crossing my fingers for you and hoping that enough toxic waste has been washed away so that you are all able to persevere in your mission. Your unit's former leadership represents my deepest fears about federal service, but the bravery of those that fought from within represent my greatest hope.