Justin's Political Corner

SCRANTON, Pa. (Associated Press) — A longtime northeastern Pennsylvania judge has been ordered to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive juvenile justice bribery scandal that prompted the state’s high court to toss thousands of convictions.

Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in federal prison for taking $1 million in bribes from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as “kids-for-cash.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Ciavarella, 61, was tried and convicted of racketeering charges earlier this year. His attorneys had asked for a “reasonable” sentence in court papers, saying, in effect, that he’s already been punished enough.

“The media attention to this matter has exceeded coverage given to many and almost all capital murders, and despite protestation, he will forever be unjustly branded as the `Kids for Cash’ judge,” their sentencing memo said.

Federal prosecutors accused Ciavarella and a second judge, Michael Conahan, of taking more than $2 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers and extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the facilities’ co-owner.

Ciavarella, known for his harsh and autocratic courtroom demeanor, filled the beds of the private lockups with children as young as 10, many of them first-time offenders convicted of petty theft and other minor crimes.

The judge remained defiant after his arrest, insisting the payments were legal and denying he incarcerated youths for money.

The jury returned a mixed verdict following a February trial, convicting him of 12 counts, including racketeering and conspiracy, and acquitting him of 27 counts, including extortion. The guilty verdicts related to a payment of $997,600 from the builder.

Conahan, meanwhile, pleaded guilty last year and awaits sentencing.

h/t: Huffington Post

The nearly three-year-old John Doe investigation into aides and associates of Gov. Scott Walker is closed, the judge who is overseeing that probe said Friday.

Neal Nettesheim, a retired state appeals court judge, said he entered an order Feb. 21 concluding the probe. The decision was made public after Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm concluded paperwork in the case.

No new charges will come from the John Doe investigation, Nettesheim said.

Chisholm confirmed the end of the investigation in a statement. “After a review of the John Doe evidence, I am satisfied that all charges that are supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt have now been brought and concluded. As a consequence, last week my office petitioned for, and Judge Nettesheim has granted, the closure of the John Doe investigation.”

Milwaukee prosecutors launched a secret John Doe investigation into aides and associates of Walker nearly three years ago. Walker’s chief of staff contacted prosecutors over suspicions that more than the $11,000 was missing from Operation Freedom, a fund used to pay for an annual event to honor veterans and their families.

The investigation later was broadened into other areas, including another embezzlement case involving Operation Freedom money and two county employees in Walker’s office doing campaign work while at their taxpayer-paid county jobs.

Longtime Walker aide Timothy D. Russell pleaded guilty Nov. 29 to stealing more than $21,000 in Operation Freedom money. He was sentenced to two years in prison in January. Kelly Rindfleisch, who worked for Walker in the county executive’s office in 2010, was sentenced Nov. 19 to six months in jail for campaign fundraising at the courthouse using a secret email system installed there.

Democratic Party officials were still critical of the Republican governor, even though he was not charged in the probe.

“That Scott Walker avoided prosecution is no feather in his cap,” Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski said. “He clearly was connected to criminal activity and he spent a half million dollars, through his unprecedented criminal defense fund, to waylay charges. The crimes convicted flow directly from Scott Walker’s belief that he is above the law.”

BULLSHIT!

H/T: JSonline.com

Freshman U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, did not cooperate with the Office of Congressional Ethics in its initial probe of alleged campaign finance violations by U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Peoria.

“The OCE infers that the information Mr. Davis refused to provide, taken together with the factual findings in this referral, supports the conclusion that there is substantial reason to believe that the alleged violation occurred,” the OCE said in a report made public Wednesday.

The report recommends that Davis and three other non-cooperating witnesses be subpoenaed.

The investigation, now before the House Ethics Committee, deals with allegations that Schock solicited donations of more than $5,000 per donor for a super political action committee. The OCE report says Davis, then an aide to U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, was identified by the super PAC’s managing director as the contact person for five potential donors before the 2012 primary election.

The report deals with efforts by a super PAC called the Campaign for Primary Accountability to help raise money for what turned out to be a successful primary challenge by U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Manteno, to former U.S. Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Leaf River.

“In early March 2012, CPA managing director learned that a House staffer, Rodney Davis, planned to have contributions sent to CPA from various donors for television commercials opposing Representative Manzullo,” the report states. It also says that the CPA development coordinator told the OCE that Davis was the contact person for a total of $120,000 in donations from five donors.

Both Davis and Schock represent parts of the city of Springfield.

At the time of the Kinzinger-Manzullo race, Davis was not yet a candidate for Congress. He was chosen by GOP county chairmen to run in the 13th Congressional District after the primary election winner, former U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana, dropped out of the general election race.

H/T: State-Journal Register

PHOENIX — A citizen’s group called Respect Arizona filed paperwork at the Maricopa County Elections Department on Wednesday to initiate a recall effort against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The group would need to gather 335,317 signatures by May 30 of this year in order for the county to call a special election for the sheriff’s office.

Several Republican figures are at the center of the effort to recall Arpaio, who has been re-elected to his post six times since 1993. Williams James Fisher, the chairman of Respect Arizona and a Republican attorney, is expected to announce the recall effort at press conference Thursday morning.

Arpaio narrowly won re-election last November with 50.7 percent of the vote, after a strong voter registration campaign lead by Latinos took place countywide to oust him from office. His campaign war chest had over $8 million dollars, most of it coming from out of state. 

Over the last five years, the self-proclaimed “America’s toughest” sheriff rose to notoriety due to his immigration sweeps in Latino neighborhoods and his raids in businesses that hire undocumented laborers.

Those actions put him at the crosshairs of civil rights lawsuits alleging racial profiling – one brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, and another filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which is awaiting a federal judge ruling.

Arpaio has also been criticized for his role in misspending $100 million in taxpayer dollars from a jail tax fund that was used to conduct investigations on political enemies and on immigration enforcement, rather than on jails. 

Another scandal, one that drove many Republican voters away from Arpaio during the last election, involved the mishandling of investigations of over 400 sexual crimes against children.

h/t: AlterNet

Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker transferred another $40,000 into his criminal defense fund on the final day of the 2012 calendar year.

This latest transfer of money has raised more eyebrows about the ongoing “John Doe” investigation in Wisconsin, in which Darlene Wink, Kevin Kavanaugh, Kelly Rindfleisch, and Tim Russell, all former political confidants of Walker, have either been convicted or have plead guilty as part of the John Doe probe.

Scott Walker himself has yet to be charged with any wrongdoing, however, he has a criminal defense fund, he has NOT been cleared of any wrongdoing, and he has NOT been granted immunity in the John Doe probe. Wisconsin state law only allows the incumbent governor to establish a criminal defense fund if the governor, one or more agent(s) of the governor, or someone who is dependent upon the governor and/or one or more agent(s) of the governor, is a target of a criminal investigation, has been indicted, or has been convicted.

h/t: BlueDownstate

The non-partisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed complaints Thursday with both the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alleging that Karl Rove and his secretive Crossroads GPS violated election law and may have engaged in a criminal conspiracy to do so.

Under campaign finance law and FEC regulations, 501(c)(4) groups, like Crossroads GPS, can raise unlimited funds from wealthy individuals and corporations without having to disclose their donors. The only time donors to these secretive groups must be disclosed is when donors give more than $200 explicitly “for the purpose of furthering an independent expenditure.”

CREW also notes that, in a 2011 letter to the FEC, Crossroads GPS said that it “understands the applicable reporting regulations” and that, should it receive “any contributions that are required to be reported,” it would do so as required. Given this, CREW argues, the violations “were deliberate” and “are subject to criminal as well as civil penalties.”

Crossroads GPS may also be in hot water for its apparent failure to register as a charity in Virginia, as required by law.

CHICAGO (CBS) – A former U.S. attorney representing embattled Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is negotiating a plea deal with the federal government, CBS 2 has learned.

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine has the exclusive details.

The plea deal would end Jackson’s 17-year career as a congressman representing Chicago’s South Side and suburbs.

At least some jail time would appear to be inevitable for Jackson, the son of civil-rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and spouse of Chicago 7^thWard Ald. Sandi Jackson.

The Congressman is currently being treated for a bi-polar disorder, both at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and as an outpatient at his home in Washington. He has been on medical leave since June and did not campaign in-person to be re-elected to his 2^nd Congressional District seat. He won his bid Nov. 6.

Those who have seen and spoken with Jackson say there are serious doubts as to whether health issues would ever permit his return to Congress.

As for a timetable for the agreement, a source familiar with those negotiations said as soon as possible and probably by the end of the year.

If Jackson resigns, as expected, a special election will determine his successor. Jackson himself replaced the disgraced U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds in 1995.

H/T: Chicago.cbslocal.com

Over the past nine months, a question plaguing Willard Mitt Romney is when he left as CEO of Bain Capital due to conflicting state and federal SEC and FEC filing statements contradicting his retroactive retirement contention.  It is pertinent to know why he fled Bain Capital in August 2001, and why he cited February 1999 as his official separation date when he was CEO the entire time. Organized crime figures develop elaborate schemes to avoid Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations and in Romney’s case it was Bain Capital’s bankruptcy fraud he was desperate to avoid.

MoveOn.org filed a complaint with the DOJ over Romney’s disclosure claiming he was 100% stock holder and paid Bain Capital executive in 2002 despite his contention left active management in 1999. The period between Feb 1999 and Aug 2001 is when Romney, Bain Capital, and their corrupt operatives conspired to commit bankruptcy fraud guaranteeing Bain Capital could plunder a company they managed with impunity.

A similar scenario unfolded when Bain Capital took eToys into bankruptcy.  Bain Capital’s secret law firm, MNAT, colluded with Romney’s bankruptcy gang by committing perjury to represent the debtors’ counsel and creditor’s counsel to give the appearance of being on opposite sides and conceal the fact eToys was not broke.  Controlling both sides, Bain Capital’s corrupt gang colluded to plunder the company’s assets without opposition, and give Bain Capital eToys for free.

Romney was head of Bain Capital while his team of conspirators committed fraud on the court, and when they were reported to the Department of Justice  he “retroactively retired” to conceal his involvement and avoid a Department of Justice investigation. George W. Bush’s appointment of a lawyer from Bain Capital’s secret law firm as U.S. Attorney guaranteed Romney would not be investigated, but retroactive retiring does not change public docket records or FEC and SEC filings showing he profited from corruption, fraud, and racketeering (RICO) as head of Bain Capital, and as he was a corrupt vulture capitalist, he will be a corrupt president.

H/T: PoliticusUSA

Harry Briggs said the high school administrators suspended 10 students due to inappropriate messages sent through Twitter.

“Our policy allows for kids to have cell phones in school,” Briggs said. The students were suspended due to the nature of the messages.

---

Ten or 11 Granite City High School students were suspended early this week after they sent out inappropriate tweets on their cell phones during the school day, Granite City School District Superintendent Harry Briggs said. On Twitter, several Granite City High School students are saying that more students were suspended.

The students were making sexually explicit remarks about a female teachers or teachers, Briggs said. In one case, a tweet of a threatening nature was sent, he said. The  superintendent would not specify the nature of the threat. 

“We monitor those things. Social media is open to everyone. Everyone should be beware,” Briggs said. He compared it to passing notes in an earlier generation.

Briggs called the incident “very disrespected and inappropriate.”

Briggs declined to be more specific and only said 10 or 11 students were suspended and that the incident occurred about Tuesday. Students began sending messages on Twitter about the incident on Wednesday.

h/t: Jim Merkel at Suburban Journals

Last week, conservative pseudo-intellectual Dinesh D’Souza was featured on a conference call for Rick Scarborough’s 40 Days to Save America. D’Souza said Obama is “attacking the traditional values agenda” by supporting marriage equality and abortion rights, arguing that “Obama doesn’t like traditional Christianity because he identifies it with colonialism.” However, D’Souza’s rhetoric about “traditional morality” may be undermined by the fact that at a recent conference he reportedly shared a hotel room with a woman other than his wife, whom he introduced as his fiancé. D’Souza later admitted to getting engaged to his girlfriend even though he is still married, but denies sharing a hotel room with her at the conference.

D’Souza: Why is Obama on the social issues — and I’m thinking here of abortion, I’m thinking here of gay marriage — why is Obama so aggressive in attacking the traditional values agenda? I think the reason for it is because when Obama thinks about colonialism, about the British and the French who went abroad to conquer other countries, or earlier the Spanish and the Portuguese, I come from a part of India that was a Portuguese colony at one time, I think for Obama colonialism is identified not just with the soldiers but also with the missionaries. Remember it’s the missionaries that went alongside the conquerors, the conquistadors, came to the Americas and worked on converting the Indians and later missionaries went to China, India and Japan. So I think this is the problem, Obama doesn’t like traditional Christianity because he identifies it with colonialism. Obama’s own Christianity is more of a Third World liberation theology, a very different kind of Jeremiah Wright type philosophy, summarized in the idea that America is the rogue nation in the world.

H/T: Ariella at RWW

It seems that corrupt GOP Rep. David Rivera’s many interactions with the FBI haven’t scared him away from ignoring the law in pursuit of personal gain.

There’s still a great deal of uncertainty about the reasons that Rivera avoided arrest last year from rampant and overt corruption, though the FBI reportedly opened up a second investigation into his activities. But clearly, his ability to evade prosecution thus far has only emboldened him.

Sternad’s mailers targeted African American voters, a clear effort at eroding Joe Garcia’s strong support among that community. The hope clearly was to siphon Garcia voters away so that a weaker Democrat prevailed in the primary.

That Rivera’s effort failed should prove the least of his worries, now that his illegal involvement has been exposed.

h/t: Markos at Daily Kos

 Brooks, Coulson and five NoW staff plus Mulcaire charged
• Six charged with conspiracy to intercept Dowler’s voicemail
• Seven accused of six-year conspiracy to intercept voicemails
• Two charged with conspiracy over Jolie and Pitt’s voicemails
• CPS announce three others will not face charges
• Prosecutors defer decision on two other suspects

Prosecutors are to charge eight people, including Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, in connection with the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World, reports the Guardian’s Vikram Dodd.

Coulson, a former aide to the prime minister and ex-editor of the defunct Sunday tabloid, and Brooks, News International’s former chief executive, will face charges in connection with the hacking of the phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

Read the full story here.

Each of the eight, with the exception of Glenn Mulcaire, will be charged with conspiring to intercept communications without lawful authority, from 3 October 2000 to 9 August 2006.

In addition, each will face a number of further charges of conspiracy unlawfully to intercept communications, as follows:

Rebekah Brooks will face two additional charges:

• the first relates to the voicemails of the late Milly Dowler
• the second to the voicemails of Andrew Gilchrist

Andrew Coulson will face four additional charges, relating to the following victims:

• Milly Dowler
• the Rt Hon David Blunkett MP
• the Rt Hon Charles Clarke, and
• Calum Best

Stuart Kuttner will face two additional charges, relating to:

• Milly Dowler and
• the Rt Hon David Blunkett MP

Greg Miskiw will face nine further charges, relating to the following victims or groups of victims:

• Milly Dowler
• Sven-Goran Eriksson
• Abigail Titmuss and John Leslie
• Andrew Gilchrist
• the Rt Hon David Blunkett MP
• Delia Smith
• the Rt Hon Charles Clarke
• Jude Law, Sadie Frost and Sienna Miller, and
• Wayne Rooney

Ian Edmondson will face a further eleven charges, relating to the following victims or groups of victims:

• the Rt Hon David Blunkett MP
• the Rt Hon Charles Clarke
• Jude Law, Sadie Frost and Sienna Miller
• Mark Oaten
• Wayne Rooney
• Calum Best
• the Rt Hon Dame Tessa Jowell MP and David Mills
• the Rt Hon Lord Prescott
• Professor John Tulloch
• Lord Frederick Windsor
• Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills 

Neville Thurlbeck will face a further seven charges in relation to the following victims or groups of victims:

• Milly Dowler
• Sven-Goran Eriksson
• the Rt Hon David Blunkett MP
• the Rt Hon Charles Clarke
• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt
• Mark Oaten
• the Rt Hon Dame Tessa Jowell MP and David Mills

James Weatherup will face a further seven charges in relation to the following victims or groups of victims:

• the Rt Hon David Blunkett MP
• the Rt Hon Charles Clarke
• Jude Law, Sadie Frost and Sienna Miller
• Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt
• Wayne Rooney
• the Rt Hon Lord Prescott
• Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills

For legal reasons, Glenn Mulcaire does not face the first of these charges. However, he will face four charges, relating to:

• Milly Dowler
• Andrew Gilchrist
• Delia Smith, and
• the Rt Hon Charles Clarke

h/t: The Guardian

The Justice Department’s dismissal of its case against John Edwards on Wednesday brought a close to a controversial prosecution which many campaign finance experts contended was doomed from the outset.

In dismissing the case, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said it was DOJ’s duty to “bring hard cases when we believe that the facts and the law support charging a candidate for high office with a crime.”

TPM SLIDESHOW: Players In The John Edwards Trial

Breuer said he was proud of the way that federal prosecutors conducted themselves during the trial, but said DOJ would dismiss the five remaining counts on which jurors where unable to reach a verdict.

The dismissal of the case, however, doesn’t quite bring an end to the Edwards saga. Edwards mistress Rielle Hunter will be out with a book soon and will be featured in an interview on ABC’s 20/20 on June 22.

h/t: TPM