Alabama Deputies Beat, Arrest Corruption-Fighting Reporter

[Coyotl]

36. Calling Scott Horton.

The one other reporter covering the same issues is Scott Horton, writing in his No Comment blog at Harpers. Hopefully, this will get his attention refocused back on Alabama politics. It has been a while since we heard form him on the topic:

http://harpers.org/blog/2012/09/boss-roves-justice/
No Comment — September 13, 2012, 2:24 pm
Boss Rove’s Justice
By Scott Horton

“There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember the second.” That quip was offered by Mark Hanna during the first modern professional presidential campaign, that of William McKinley in 1896. But it could just as easily have been voiced by Hanna’s modern understudy, Karl Rove, the man who emerged as the undeniable mastermind of the G.O.P. following their recent convention in Tampa. As Rove understands it, electoral politics has little to do with policy and everything to do with money—in particular with ensuring that his side has a massive advantage over its adversary.

From early in his career, Rove’s game plan was to tap the tills of corporate America by pushing “tort reform,” which is to say, stacking the deck against tort lawyers by electing Republican judges in state court elections. In Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and other states around the nation, this tactic served to fill the coffers of a flagging Republican Party and to bolster its electoral efforts across the board. Rove’s agenda focused on the rapid appointment of a particular species of judge and prosecutor characterized less by their experience in the courts than their history in Republican Party politics. The last decade witnessed the gradual emergence of a Rovian judiciary—overwhelmingly Republican, usually appointed by the Bush White House under Rove’s strategic guidance. For a Rovian judge, it’s an article of faith that corporations and the truly wealthy who control them have the right to contribute without limit to the Republican Party candidates of their choice. This, apparently, is the true meaning of the First Amendment. Citizens United marked the triumph of this program, and that ruling benefited no single individual more than Boss Rove. Indeed it has already transformed American politics from a bid for votes to a scramble for billionaires.

But Rove’s focus on money has been twofold: the object is not simply to raise it but also to thwart the fundraising capacity of the opponent. And that brings us to the plight of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, who this week returned to the federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, to serve a seven-year sentence. What precisely was Siegelman’s crime? A foundation associated with Siegelman that supported his effort to secure a state lottery for education in Alabama received a $500,000 donation from Richard Scrushy, the CEO of insurance giant HealthSouth. Siegelman reappointed Scrushy to the same non-compensated state board to which three prior governors had appointed him. Federal prosecutors argued, and ultimately convinced a jury, that Siegelman should go to prison for this donation, even though he received no personal benefit from it.

Though it may be distasteful, the appointment of campaign donors to high offices belongs to the rough-and-tumble of American electoral politics. Karl Rove is the undisputed master of this practice; ..........

For more insight into this case, Google this: Siegelman "Scott Horton" site:democraticunderground.com

https://www.google.com/search?q=Siegelman+%22Scott+Horton%22+site%3Ademocraticunderground.com