Posted on 01/04/2002 8:52:30 AM PST by editor-surveyor
There is something very wrong inside the Justice Department of the United States and there has been for some time.
Various newspapers are now reporting that under President Clinton, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was ordered to stand down on various terrorist investigations.
One of the most egregious examples is the failure of the bureau to investigate fundraising organizations like "The Holy Land Fund," based in Arizona, which allegedly funneled millions of dollars in donations to Middle Eastern terrorists.
Although the Bush administration has now frozen the assets of the fund, it was apparently allowed to operate for 8 years despite the FBI intelligence that was presented to Mr. Clinton and then-Attorney General Janet Reno. One bureau source told the press that Ms. Reno felt any investigation of "The Holy Land Fund" would lead to anti-Arab sentiment and therefore was opposed to such an investigation.
As always, Ms. Reno will not comment on any aspect of her tenure as attorney general that is at all controversial.
There is no question now that under Ms. Reno and then-FBI Director Louis Freeh, Americans were put at great risk. The Wen Ho Lee-Chinese espionage case still has not been explained, and the fact that the 19 Sept. 11 terrorists weren't even on the FBI's radar screen is about as frightening as Janet Reno's passion for political correctness.
The current attorney general, John Ashcroft, has made no attempt to examine Ms. Reno's bizarre behavior or update the public about the Marc Rich investigation or anything else. Mr. Ashcroft specializes in looking dour and stonewalling. While Congress is attempting to get documents about President Clinton's dubious foreign fundraising and FBI abuses in Boston, Ashcroft is refusing to cooperate at all.
And this isn't a political issue. Conservative Congressman Dan Burton and liberal Congressman Barney Frank have actually joined forces to try and pry this information from Ashcroft's hands. If that's not amazing, then nothing is.
The truth is that for nearly 8 years, the Justice Department has been corrupt and inefficient. Janet Reno botched nearly every important decision she had to make including Waco and Elian Gonzalez. Time after time, Ms. Reno refused to approve investigative initiatives sought by the FBI. And time after time, Mr. Freeh sat in his plush government office refusing to let the American people know what was happening.
Now Mr. Ashcroft is doing the same thing. There is no reason on this earth why the public should not know the status of the Rich pardon probe. Or the anthrax investigation. And what about Enron, Mr. Attorney General – are you going to look into that? Millions of Americans were hosed while some Enron executives made millions.
How about a comment on that, Mr. Ashcroft?
Don't get me wrong on this, mrs nitti and I both enjoyed our $300 checks and we're happy Dubya is in there but the press is going to do their thing no matter what is going on at(or NOT going on) Justice.
I still don't see the elimination (okay how 'bout just indexing?)of capital gains happening anytime soon which should be a big part of his agenda.
The reason capital wants to come here in the first place as opposed to say argentina is that we have a relatively stable and honest system of government where everyone plays by more or less the same set of rules. By not aggressively following up on the fundraising disgraces of the last 8 years as well as the rampant corruption of agencies like the FBI, Ashcroft is actually harming economic growth by discouraging "straight" investment in favor of the Charlie Trie variety.
As much as I hate to see those two sleazeballs get away with all their crimes, I think persuing them is likely to be a multi-year effort which may or may not result in a conviction. In the meantime, it would likely be political suicide for GWB.
To try and compare the Janet Reno DoJ, under Clinton, to the John Ashcroft led DoJ, under President Bush is a ludicrous effort in futility.
Outside of some anti-govt libertarians, the anti-war pacifists and all subversives and anarchists, this isn't a news story, but an outrageous attack on AG Ashcroft and the Bush administration in general. Coming during a time of war, makes it a sickening endeavor on the part of O'Reilly.
Anyone who believes his rhetorical trash from O'Reilly is braindead and should seek immediate psychological help.
My Boss the Fanatic
by Tevi Troy, posted 1-19-01
A woman I recently met at a Bat Mitzvah asked me what I do for a living. Experience told me what was coming, so I kept my answer generic: I work in politics. She followed up, pressing until she got the answer she wanted--or, more accurately, did not want: I work for Senator John Ashcroft, Republican of Missouri. I'm used to fellow Jews disliking my boss, but her answer still took me by surprise: "I'm speechless."
With his nomination to be George W. Bush's attorney general, Ashcroft's image among my co-religionists seems to have deteriorated even further. The National Council of Jewish Women opposes his appointment. Jewish senators like Barbara Boxer and Charles Schumer have expressed their displeasure. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said this week, "We question whether his religious views will have an impact on his role as attorney general." I'm beginning to wonder whether I'll ever be able to safely cruise Bat Mitzvah buffet tables again.
Critics imply that Ashcroft, because of his strong Christian beliefs, is intolerant of Jews. Actually, he's more than tolerant; he's downright philo-Semitic. Ashcroft was born to a gentile family in a predominantly Jewish Chicago neighborhood. His mother served as a Shabbos goy, turning ovens on and off as needed (a practice many Jews found charming when practiced by a young Colin Powell--but then Powell is African American and pro-choice). Ashcroft's father even took a mezuzah with the family when they moved from Chicago to Springfield, Missouri, where he kept it affixed to his doorpost until his death, in 1995. Ashcroft, I'd wager, knows more about Judaism than half the Jewish members of the Senate.
When I first told Ashcroft that, as an observant Jew, I would not be able to work on Saturdays and certain holidays, it was a point in my favor, not a strike against me. Once, I stood up during a Friday afternoon briefing and said I needed to leave. He asked me where I was going, as it is unusual for staffers to walk out of briefings. I told him that the sun was setting, and he immediately understood and ordered me to hurry along.
Ashcroft, his detractors suggest, is a religious fanatic, because his religion dictates that he cannot smoke, gamble, drink, curse, or dance. But it may be precisely because he is scorned as a "fanatic" that he has been so tolerant of my own somewhat odd religious practices. After all, when I go to weddings, I won't participate in mixed dancing. I fast half a dozen times a year, and I unscrew the lightbulb in my refrigerator every Friday so I won't turn on the light on the Sabbath. I'm every bit the "fanatic" that he is--maybe more so.
What most liberals and most Jews don't understand about people like Ashcroft is that their deep respect for religious faith genuinely transcends sectarian divides. And that often makes it easier for me, as a religious Jew, to work for them than for Jews or Christians who don't take any religion seriously as a force in people's lives. In my experience, when you tell a nonobservant Jewish boss you need time off for Shavuot, there is often a moment of discomfort, as if he thinks you are acting superior for taking off what many Jews see as a minor holiday. When you tell an observant gentile, he may ask you what the holiday is and then say he is happy that you are observing Pentecost.
As senator, Ashcroft held a voluntary Bible study in his office every morning. I didn't go and suffered no adverse consequences. But the office's other Orthodox Jewish staffer--Ashcroft may well have employed more Orthodox Jews than any other senator--attended regularly. And every other attendee, including the senator, was impressed by this staffer's knowledge and understanding of the Old Testament. Whenever staffers ate with the senator, someone began the meal with a prayer. While the prayers were of the Christian extemporized variety--as opposed to the Jewish approach of reciting specific blessings for specific foods--they were ecumenical in content. In fact, Ashcroft pointedly insisted that prayers not mention Jesus, in order to be inclusive of all the religions in the office.
And there's another reason for Ashcroft's sensitivity. It's not just that as a devout person he feels an affinity to other believers. He feels a particular affinity to members of minority religions, because, hard as it is for many Jews to understand, he also sees himself as part of a small, sometimes scorned religious minority.
Ashcroft is a member of the Assemblies of God (often called Pentecostals). Members of the AOG are probably even less well-represented in the upper echelons of American politics, industry, and academia than are Orthodox Jews. In fact, Ashcroft would be only the second AOG Cabinet member ever. I know Ashcroft has suffered religious bigotry, because I've seen it. In St. Louis before the election, some people told me they were uncomfortable with the fact that his faith forbids him to gamble, smoke, dance, drink, or curse. I could not help but wonder how these people would feel about a non-Jew who expressed similar misgivings about a Jewish politician--like Joseph Lieberman--who did not eat cheeseburgers or ride on the Sabbath and who threw out all his bread products every spring. When Al Gore chose the Connecticut senator as his running mate, The New Republic wrote: "What is so startling about Lieberman's observances, and so edifying about them, is that they appear to have served as the basis for his engagement with the world. His career stands as a rebuke to those Jews--and those Christians--who insist that a religious life requires a withdrawal from society" ("Lieberman," August 21, 2000). Ashcroft, in his own way, represents a model just as unusual and just as impressive.
Jews sometimes seem to view members of the Christian right as contemporary versions of the Christian zealots who oppressed Jews in eighteenthcentury Ukraine or fifteenth-century Spain. But I see them as more like the Puritans, who encountered religious prejudice in England and braved death to come to the New World, where they could be "fanatics" in peace. And, because they knew that their observances made them objects of scorn in the old world, they helped create a new world that demanded religious toleration, even for religious beliefs that they themselves rejected. If Jews, or anyone else, oppose Ashcroft because of his views on affirmative action or abortion or antitrust, I might disagree, but I can understand. But if they oppose him because they think his faith oppresses others, then they misunderstand his religion, and perhaps even their own.
TEVI TROY, former policy director for Senator John Ashcroft, is writing a book about intellectuals in the White House.
It's not that it's lacking in interest,it's that all the Bubba Bush cheerleaders here are terrified of commenting because somebody will rightly point out that Janet Ashcroft follows the orders of his/her boss,Bubba Bush.
But,"Hey!,Why would we care about investigations into selling pardons and other similiar crimes? After all,Buh-Bette!'s new ultra-religious Jewish friends ONLY stole 50 MILLION DOLLARS from the US taxpayers. Can't we overlook such a minor offense?" After all,if this is investigated,somebody might bother to ask about what happened to the missing money.
Because too many prominent Dim and Rep (same thing,really) families earn MILLIONS of dollars a year from being in business with them. They don't want to kill one of their Golden Gooses.
Like I've said before,we live in a "One-Party Country" now,with the two brances of that party in business with each other,but competing to see who holds the reins to all the gooberment power and wealth. The only real mystery is how the percentages are split. They settle this by elections.
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