Blogging Can Be Dangerous to Your Freedom

[Octafish]

2. Shuler got canned from his gig at University of Alabama for blogging about Siegelman.

Shuler, because most of Corporate McPravda was busy covering something other the prosecutions of the war criminals and banksters, had to write about it in 2008:

Alabama Blogger is Fired Over Siegelman Coverage

By Roger Shuler
Op Ed News, July 15, 2008

Roger Shuler, who writes the blog Legal Schnauzer, has been fired from his job as an editor in the Publications Office at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

Shuler, who had worked at UAB for 19 years, apparently was terminated because he wrote critically about the Bush Justice Department, especially its handling of the Don Siegelman prosecution in Alabama and the Paul Minor case in Mississippi.
Lindsay Beyerstein, a reporter for the Raw Story Web site, broke the story with a major investigative piece.

Shuler had recently posted a series of original investigative pieces about Alice Martin, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and a Bush appointee. Martin is the federal prosecutor who first went after Siegelman, in a case that was so weak a federal judge in Birmingham quickly kicked it out of court. Siegelman was eventually convicted in a case brought in Montgomery by Leura Canary, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama.

Shuler's posts showed that while Martin evidently is eager to prosecute Siegelman and other Democrats, she drags her feet and even intentionally hides evidence when presented with possible wrongdoing by Republicans. In fact, Shuler's primary allegation against Republican judges in Alabama involved honest-services mail fraud (18 U.S. Code 1346), the offense that made up roughly two-thirds of the charges against Siegelman and about half of the charges in the Paul Minor case.

Siegelman's case has received heavy press coverage, including a piece by 60 Minutes, as a possible example of political prosecution by the Bush Justice Department. The Siegelman case, along with questionable prosecutions in Mississippi (Paul Minor), Pennsylvania (Cyril Wecht), and Wisconsin (Georgia Thompson), is the subject of an ongoing Congressional investigation.

SNIP...

People on the opposing side in Shuler's personal legal case have direct ties to the Bush White House. Dax Swatek has worked for Bill Canary, the Republican operative who was quoted by whistleblower Jill Simpson as saying "his girls" (Alice Martin and Leura Canary, Bill's wife) would "take care of" Don Siegelman. Bill Canary, in turn, has close ties to Karl Rove, and the two teamed in the 1990s to lead a Republican takeover of Alabama state courts.

CONTINUED...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Alabama-Blogger-is-Fired-O-by-Roger-Shuler-080715-415.html

He sounded pissed. I know I'm pissed.