Yes, 4,000 confidential documents HACKED from the
computers of Democratic Senators by Republican
*Judiciacy Committee* staffers, yes, you heard it
right, BUT of course you have to be listen
closely...Like Fraudida, the Enron/Bush connection,
9/11 and Iraq, this story is a painful illustration of
what happens in a republic where the free press
abidcates its responsibility to pursue the truth,
bring it to the public and force government action
when the common good or the Constitution itself is
threatened....There will be no congressional
investigations, i.e. powerful subpeonas and public
testimony under oath and glaring lights. There is no
independent prosecutor law, so there no Lawrence Walsh
or Archibald Cox will get to examine the evidence and
follow the trail wherever it leads. In this
atmosphere, with all three branches of the Federal
government compromised, the "US mainstream news media"
us only hope for the ugly facts and their political
implications to be dug out and displayed in the court
of public opinion....Yes, more than eve, it's the
Media Stupid...
Reuters: A U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee effort to
devise a bipartisan request for federal prosecutors to
probe a scandal in which Republican staffers
improperly accessed sensitive Democratic computer
memos collapsed in bitter disarray on Thursday night.
Democrats and some Republicans had wanted to refer the
memo incident to the U.S. Justice Department, and
several wanted a special prosecutor. Committee members
attempted all day to find compromise language on how
to proceed. The documents had involved President
Bush's contentious judicial appointees. With no
Democrats present, committee Chairman Sen. Orrin
Hatch, a Utah Republican, announced on Thursday
evening he was not going to take any further action on
the memo probe and would leave it up to the Senate
sergeant-at-arms to decide what to do next.
Confound the "Vast Reich-Wing Conspiracy," Show Up for
Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/031304B.shtml
U.S. Senate Panel Accord on Meprymo Probe Collapses
By Reuters
Thursday 11 March 2004
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate Judiciary
Committee effort to devise a bipartisan request for
federal prosecutors to probe a scandal in which
Republican staffers improperly accessed sensitive
Democratic computer memos collapsed in bitter disarray
on Thursday night.
Democrats and some Republicans had wanted to
refer the memo incident to the U.S. Justice
Department, and several wanted a special prosecutor.
Committee members attempted all day to find compromise
language on how to proceed. The documents had involved
President Bush's contentious judicial appointees.
With no Democrats present, committee Chairman
Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, announced on
Thursday evening he was not going to take any further
action on the memo probe and would leave it up to the
Senate sergeant-at-arms to decide what to do next.
The sergeant-at-arms, whose preliminary report
into the documents was made public last week, told
Reuters he needed to "digest what I just heard" before
making a decision on whether to refer the matter to
federal prosecutors. Earlier in the day, he said he
thought a referral to the U.S. attorney's office was
probably the right course of action.
Democrats were caught by surprise, thinking they
had a few more minutes to cast votes on the Senate
floor before returning to the Judiciary session.
"We weren't boycotting this -- we thought we had
10 more minutes," said Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick
Durbin, who said some Republicans wanted to stop or
curtail the probe because they did not want any
revelations about "which interest groups received
these stolen documents" about the battle over the
judges.
Committee Democrats on Wednesday night had
written their own letter to the Justice Department
seeking a special prosecutor, but at a committee
meeting on Thursday morning they agreed to back off
that document and try to come up with a bipartisan or
potentially even a unanimous alternate.
Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle released a report
last week showing how two Republican staffers, both of
whom have since left the committee, improperly
retrieved sensitive documents from Democratic
committee staff computers.