11-01-2012, 02:14 AM
I've been following blogger Matt Janovic who is covering this case for many years. I was interested to see what he posted yesterday:
Abbie Hoffmann (aka MJ)
wants you to know that the DC Madam defense was poised to be a de facto special prosecution team when Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler granted us subpoena powers over the entire American intelligence community. She was replaced by former FISA Court Judge James Robertson without comment.
Abbie Hoffmann (aka MJ)
wants you to know that the DC Madam defense was poised to be a de facto special prosecution team when Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler granted us subpoena powers over the entire American intelligence community. She was replaced by former FISA Court Judge James Robertson without comment.
- Commentator: Love it! Normal operating procedure, of course....
Yesterday at 02:41 ·
- Abbie Hoffmann There was never a case like this, not ever. Can you name a federal case where a defendant was granted that kind of subpoena powers? I can't.Yesterday at 02:43 ·
- Commentator: I was involved in one where somebody was suing Prudential and asked for 40,000 typical insurance policies -- about 80 Bekins boxes or one cube truckload, you could set aside a room at the courthouse to paw through it all -- and the judge granted it. The guy went back and asked for copies of all 104,000,000 policies, dating back to about FDR, and again it was granted. Do the math: you're looking at trailer trucks from here to Insuranceville, Connecticut. They had to set up 27 printing plants around the country to run it all off. There was stuff in handwriting, and there were policies in seven-bit ASCII on Hollerith cards, complete with hanging chads. Some bunch of acid-head hackers in Texas were the only people who could decode some of the shit: Prudential itself relied on sales-slips and agents' notes. But the former FISA guy you mention: was he perchance the guy who resigned on principle against Shrublet?
Yesterday at 02:50 ·
- Abbie Hoffmann Yes he was. A rat fleeing a sinking ship.Yesterday at 02:52 ·
- Abbie Hoffmann This was unprecedented. I have never found any analog.Yesterday at 02:53 ·
- Commentator2: It is clear that some congressman or even someone else in higher position, wanted this to be sweeper clean, from the records! Who??Yesterday at 02:58 ·
- Abbie Hoffmann It's hard to say who did it. Someone in the US Courts expedited it.Yesterday at 02:58 ·
- Commentator: As far as I know the CIA have nothing to hide. It would be wonderful to see Dick Feith and company (he's the guy who ran little Donnie Rumsfeld's counter-CIA, to deliver intelligence as wanted, as opposed to, uh, intelligence) put on trial. My moderately well-informed view would be that there are substantial numbers of strong decent people in Washington who agree with me on this.
Yesterday at 03:22 ·
- Abbie Hoffmann Then why wouldn't the CIA accept the subpoena? That's a curious perspective.Yesterday at 03:24 ·
- Commentor: I don't know: your post is the first I've heard of all this. I don't even know how the company is being run now that the very very bright David Petraeus (of whom I am an admirer) is running it. My last contact with all of that stuff was when Bushlet put the evil Ambassador, John Negroponte, "in charge" of all the intelligence agencies. Negroponte looked around the scene and took it all in, and was last seen getting drunk before ten every morning in the lower floors of a 16th Street whorehouse I used to visit.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.