folo

“The thing with Thomas was he was one of the most active judges, but he would abuse the privileges,” Cochran said.

I’m really not sure that’s how I would have worded that if I were Sheriff Cochran.

It seems that Mobile’s jail and courts had an extremely casual arrangement whereby judges could check out prisoners at a whim, and one of the judges, Herman Thomas, took advantage of this system to check out young men for sessions of secret paddling and a lot else in his offices and even about town (e.g., erstwhile jail inmates more than once turned up at police stops driving one of Judge Thomas’s cars).

There were hints and more of these goings-on when Thomas resigned from the bench in 2007 in the midst of an investigation by the state panel disciplining judges, and some snickering on a self-styled legal tabloid. In an affidavit in an unsuccessful suit against Thomas, one witness had said that Thomas was “constantly” driving up his block to pick up a neighbor, who told the witness “that as long as he plays the sex game with Judge Thomas, he wouldn’t have to worry about staying in jail.”

A lawyer in Mobile working up a criminal case involving people with connections to Thomas began hearing from witnesses who talked about Thomas trading (or offering to trade) favors in criminal cases for sex, and the lawyer went from there obsessively investigating and collecting further examples, turning them over to the prosecutors.  The local alternative newspaper, Lagniappe, ran a story about that and about the apparent failure of prosecuting authorities to pursue this.

A follow-up story describes some of Thomas’s activities once he left the bench:

After his suspension from the bench two years ago …Thomas appears to have become even more involved in mentoring through the Phoenix Program, which is designed to help at-risk students who are in danger of dropping out of school or in long-term suspension [and is] … run by the 100 Black Men of Greater Mobile, Inc., a group dedicated to the idea of making a positive difference in the lives of African-American youth. The program is run by 100 Black Men using federal and local funds that come through the Mobile County School System. Thomas is listed as a member of 100 Black Men’s board of directors.

According to former Mobile County School Superintendent Harold Dodge, Thomas had always been active with the Phoenix Program, but became even more so after his suspension. … The program includes kids from sixth through 12th grades.

“Herman was an outstanding mentor,” Dodge said. “He would check on the kids at all times of the day.”

I’ll bet.

These stories have all kinds of intimations that the power structure in Mobile is protecting Thomas for fear of what might be revealed if Thomas were actually prosecuted.

After he resigned, another Mobile judge banned Thomas from his courtroom with an order that read in part “Thomas violated the provisions of Section 34-3-20(1) Code of Alabama (1975) in that he used his office to threaten criminal defendants with jail time, penitentiary time and probation revocations if they did not engage in sexual acts with him,” and had attached to it a CD containing testimony of inmates Thomas had abused, with instructions that the CD was to only be listened to by Judge Thomas. Judge Thomas has a lawyer who intends to take this up with the Alabama Supreme Court, noting that Judge Thomas has a right to be heard before his right to practice law is taken away.

The obvious answer is a show-cause order directed at Thomas. Give him some due process. That should stir things up.

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Email from Alyssa Schnugg:

Just an FYI, since so many Oxford folks read the blog, they may be interested in knowing the Yocona River Inn burned down early this morning. I’m doing a story for today’s paper. Cause isn’t known yet. No one hurt. Started about 1 a.m. Owner said they will rebuild.

UPDATE: The Eagle is up with story and photo:

Lafayette County volunteer firefighter Josh Baker pulls a hose through the Yocona River Inn this morning to extinguish a part that re-ignited following a fire that was reported around 1 this morning. (Bruce Newman/Oxford Eagle)

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The AP has a story I hope we’ll hear more about:

If the global economy were a 100-yard dash, the U.S. would start 23 yards behind its closest competitors because of health care that costs too much and delivers too little, a business group says in a report to be released Thursday.

The report from the Business Roundtable, which represents CEOs of major companies, says America’s health care system has become a liability in a global economy. …

Americans spend $2.4 trillion a year on health care. The Business Roundtable report says Americans in 2006 spent $1,928 per capita on health care, at least two-and-a-half times more per person than any other advanced country.

Comparing statistics on life expectancy, death rates, cholesterol and blood-pressure readings, and costs, the study factored them all into a 100-point scale of healthcare “value”:

The United States is 23 points behind five leading economic competitors: Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. The five nations cover all their citizens, and though their systems differ, in each country the government plays a much larger role than in the U.S.

The cost-benefit disparity is even wider — 46 points — when the U.S. is compared with emerging competitors: China, Brazil and India.

“What’s important is that we measure and compare actual value — not just how much we spend on health care, but the performance we get back in return,” said H. Edward Hanway, CEO of the insurance company Cigna. “That’s what this study does, and the results are quite eye-opening.”

The only expected sentence to be found here? The last one: “The CEOs of the Business Roundtable believe health care for U.S. workers and their families should stay in private hands, with a government-funded safety net for low-income people.”

Hum.

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Today’s early batch of Mississippi news includes . . .

Either John Reeves spotted Injustice4all’s comment or arrived at the insight by himself, but he wasted no time before handing Judge Dan Jordan a motion to reconsider jury selection (7-page pdf). I’d like to quote from it here, but since copy&paste comes up with only garbage code, let Chris Joyner’s summary suffice:

In this latest motion, Reeves noted the coastal counties are 15.6 percent black, while the entire southern judicial district is 41 percent black. As in the first trial, the jury should be selected from the entire district, so Melton could be judged by “a constitutionally fair cross-section of the community” and suggested that failing to do so could be grounds for appeal.

Alternately, Reeves suggested the jury be selected from the Eastern Division of the Southern District, an eight-county area in southeastern Mississippi that is 43.5 percent black.

Reeves also restated Melton’s objection to moving even the jury selection to the Coast as an “unduly burdensome” cost.

Also in the C-L, an interesting AP story about who gets to decide how Mississippi spends its stimulus money ($2.5 to $2.8 billion for October ’09 through December ’10):

In a one-on-one interview with The Associated Press, [Haley] Barbour said Wednesday that he and other governors are sending staffers to the White House for meetings Thursday about how the federal dollars will be distributed and what kind of regulations will govern the money.

“There are some things that different people interpret different ways, and what matters is how the federal government interprets it,” said Barbour, a Republican. “So we’ve got to get their interpretation, whether we like it or don’t like it. Then we have to live with it.”

The Lege has until March 25 to file final versions of budget bills for the year beginning July 1. Members say they can do a better job of that if they know when different pots of the federal money are due and whether some of it can replace state funding for certain programs. Some accept that the feds has a say in this, others think they’re the ones to make such calls.

Haley says Washington is still setting regulations for how to spend the stimulus money: “This is a new, unprecedented thing. When I say that, I’m not being critical,” he told the reporter, comparing this to the uncertainty around Katrina-recovery money. “When we were trying to figure out how to process the Katrina money, we had to go through periods of figuring out what the rules ought to be and then clearing the rules with somebody else,” he said.

A companion AP piece has Thad Cochran splaining what’s in the separate budget bill for Mississippi. (If the reporter inquired after Ann Copland too, no mention of that here.)

Mississippi is third overall in earmarks, the group’s research shows, with a total of $325 million, a figure that doesn’t include multistate funding.

“This is where Mississippi is always impressive,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Mississippi trails much larger California ($568.7 million) and Texas ($370 million) overall, but swamps them when earmarks are figured on a per capita basis. Mississippi is fourth in the country with $110.59 per resident accrued in earmarks. Alaska remains No. 1 at $209.71 per resident.

Overall, the group estimates there are $7.7 billion in earmarks in the $410 billion spending plan.

The Sun Herald relies on AP reporting too, for instance the story about the state NAACP’s allegation that the MS Highway Patrol is continuing to discriminate against black troopers.

Derrick Johnson, president of the Mississippi Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, alleged that the law enforcement agency has stopped posting open positions. Instead, the jobs “are being advertised by word of mouth or over the patrol radio cars,” Johnson said Wednesday during a news conference.

He said the action has limited the ability of black troopers to even know about the open positions.

Johnson also said that Col. Michael Berthay, who has command of the troopers, “should be removed or his authority limited.” Johnson said Berthay “sets the tone of the department.” …

Johnson said the NAACP filed the complaint on behalf of about 200 black state troopers with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in January, but the allegations of racial slurs, a hostile work environment and denied promotions date back three years.

The SH home-cooks its story of how, but for the shooter’s bad aim, another multiple killing would have occurred on Tuesday in Helena, Miss. This reminds me of the C-L story duckweedpond found about the second Crystal Springs murder in two days. “Doesn’t it seem strange,” ducky asks, “that there are two murders in the same community where the victims were shot in the FACE? Doesn’t shooting someone in the face suggest some particular sort of anger?” It would seem to — but no word yet on progress in solving either crime.

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Remember last week when Barney Frank

announced a hearing March 20 with Attorney General Eric Holder, bank regulators and the Securities and Exchange Commission as witnesses to discover what their plans are to prosecute irresponsible and in some cases criminal behaviors.

He isn’t looking for names, Frank said, but “I do want all the people with enforcement power, state and federal, in that room.” …

They heard him. NYT reports that, “Spurred by rising public anger, federal and state investigators are preparing for a surge of prosecutions of financial fraud. …” As Holder mulls whether to form a federal task force or just support state AGs having at alleged fraudsters, the new budget sends more resources his way for either or both purposes. White-collar-crime specialists are prepping too:

One defense lawyer said he expected to argue that either his clients did not understand the financial instruments they were marketing, or were not adequately warned of the dangers by underlings.

“We’ll all sing the stupidity song,” said the lawyer, who said he feared that speaking publicly by name would deter potential clients. “We’ll all sing the ‘These guys never told me’ song.”

Ah, which reminds me that what Peter J. Henning laid out yesterday, Bloomberg confirms today: Bernie Madoff would rather eat it all himself than strike a plea deal obligating him to help the feds pursue any alleged co-conspirators singing “He never told me.”

Madoff’s ploy may work better than whatever Jim Cramer comes up with next. He was so arrogant as to boast on videotape in 2006 that manipulating the stock market is “a fun game … a lucrative game … very satisfying.” Hedge-fund managers should always indulge in it, he said, because “the SEC doesn’t understand it” and no WSJ (or CNBC) “bozo” will pick up on it: they’re just there to be used. Heeeeere’s Jimmy:

Uhhhh, maybe you‘re not best situated to throw around “bozo,” Cramer? The word could have reasonably occurred to Kevin Drum whilst contemplating the buyers who doubled Citigroup’s share-price in response to a memo by its CEO this week. See, Kevin figures the bond market is telling Citi’s story better — and there, it sounds anything but good.

“Insurance? Banks don’t need no stinkin’ insurance!” said Congress. And so . . . “The federal agency that insures bank deposits, which is asking for emergency powers to borrow up to $500 billion to take over failed banks, is facing a potential major shortfall in part because it collected no insurance premiums from most banks from 1996 to 2006.”

What a time for TheCunningRealist to pop up and ask, “Anyone seen any recent calls for Social Security private accounts?” (Psst: Checked your pre-paid college plan lately?)

If all this is just TOO FRICKIN’ MUCH for you, maybe you’d rather focus on what Sy Hersh describes as Dick Cheney’s “executive assassination ring” — or espionage-defendant/Chas Freeman-foe Steve Rosen’s lawsuit against AIPAC (woo — that’ll upset all manner of applecarts if they don’t buy him off settle) — or Bristol Palin’s first-ever smart move — or Justice David Souter’s remark about the “sort of annual intellectual lobotomy” he faces as a SCOTUS term begins.

Or maybe you’ll stay focused on the Masters of the Universe. In which case: torch or pitchfork, what’ll you have?

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Ruh-oh. Norm Coleman has messed-over his donors something fierce. TPM passes along a report from The Hill:

Last night, Coleman’s entire online donor list received an e-mail from a Wikileaks.org e-mail address, notifying them that their private information had been posted in a publicly accessible area of Coleman’s campaign site this past January 28, and has circulated out of public view. The e-mail also contained a link to the Minnesota statute requiring organizations to disclose “in the most expedient time possible” to any Minnesotan if they reasonably believe their private information was illicitly accessed, and informed recipients that they were being notified as a courtesy by Wikileaks, in case the Coleman camp hadn’t already.

The Wikileaks e-mail also includes a link to an Excel spreadsheet purported to contain all the donors’ names, addresses, employers, and the last four digits and CSC security codes on their credit cards.

Coleman spokesman Cullen Sheehan told The Hill that they had contacted federal authorities at the time, and after reviewing the site logs they did not believe that any unauthorized party had downloaded private information. However, he is nevertheless urging some serious precautions — encouraging supporters who may have donated to cancel their credit cards. …

Normie’s spokesman squeaks, “At this point, we don’t know if last evening’s e-mail is a political dirty trick or what the objective is of the person who sent the e-mail. What we do know, however, is that there is a strong likelihood that these individuals have found a way to breach private and confidential information.”

The problem with that, a TPM commenter points out, is that a Minnesota blog blew the whistle on Coleman’s bad site-security at the time: Fat chance he can blame it on anyone but his own chuckleheaded self.

(Meanwhile, back at ye olde election-challenge trial, the Strib expects Al Franken to rest his case today, so maybe one of these days sooner than later, we can go on about our business with 100 Senators. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?)

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I can’t get this to copy as an image, but if you go here, you may risk getting stuck for quite a while, playing with NYT’s interactive map of immigration to every county in the United States, from 1880 to 2000.

When I say “interactive,” I mean variously so. For instance, check out the slider at the top — move it in one sweep or click your cursor on the 10-year markers one-at-a-time to watch immigrants from various parts of the globe settle the US over time. Or set the date to 1880, 1920, 1960, etc., and on the map itself, place your cursor on a particular county to check its total and foreign-born population by that date.

NYT’s political reporters may be a sorry lot these days, but they sure have some fine work going on in other departments.

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Hill GOPers, thwarted in their attempt to sour the public on the President, thought they might have better luck souring us on Congressional Dems. According to Gallup’s latest findings, not so much:

In January of this year, Congress’ job approval rating among remained low at 19%, before jumping to 31% in February after the change in presidential administrations from Republican George W. Bush to Democrat Barack Obama. But this month brings an even more positive evaluation of Congress, with 39% of Americans now approving.

Biggest two-month jump for them since 9/11, according to Benen. Remarkable what a strong turn toward sanity can do for an institution’s JAR, isn’t it?

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Good morning, all. Developments since yesterday include:

Family members of a victim mourn in Samson, Ala. (Jay Hare/The Dothan Eagle, via AP)

Horror in southeast Alabama, where gunman Michael McLendon’s berserk rampage through Geneva County, just above the Florida line, wiped out most of his own family as well as unrelated adults, children, even infants in his path. He shot dead 10 people in all, including himself as police closed in. “I don’t know how we’re going to get through this,” one local told NYT. “I have no idea.”

Bernard Madoff’s guilty plea tomorrow (straight-up, no agreement with prosecutors) to 11 counts including securities fraud, money laundering, and perjury will assure that he dies a federal prisoner. But because many questions — including to what extent Madoff family-members and others were involved — still lack answers, the judge predicts that sentencing is still “several months” away. A summary of the charges appeared in a government letter to Madoff’s attorney filed late yesterday, a document (8-page pdf) that, for instance,

also accuses Mr. Madoff of luring new investors by promising some of them returns as high as 46 percent, well above the steady 8 to 10 percent most investors reported. But it does not explain how much those preferred investors may have known about their special status.

The government specifically accuses Mr. Madoff of taking in $10 million from approximately 35 labor union pension plans last September and, rather than investing it, converting the money “to his own use and the use of others” — but then does not identify the “others,” even in general terms.

This was the scene outside the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan yesterday — expect a bigger scrimmage tomorrow:

Josh Haner/The New York Times

Though the winnowing down of American correspondents in-theater makes sources and motive harder to analyze, the bombers are back in Iraq in a big way: since Sunday, two bombings, near a Baghdad police academy and at a market in nearby Abu Ghraib, have killed over 60, including several Iraqi Army officers. NYT worries that “jihadi militants and hard-line Baathists may be renewing their deadly partnership to threaten the largely calm Iraqi capital” now that U.S. forces are beginning to pull out.

On the Chas Freeman matter, James Fallows, David Rothkopf, Daniel Larison, Glenn Greenwald, and Andrew Sullivan‘s various takes (among others) unify around a central theme: both Israel and the U.S. suffer for much-too-much neocon Israel-firstism — which will obviously continue.

Paul Krugman blogs:

So I read this:

Boehner said Americans want government to practice the same financial restraint they have been forced to exercise: “It’s time for government to tighten their belts and show the American people that we ‘get’ it.”

and I wonder if this country can handle the crisis we’re in. Remember, John Boehner is, in effect, the second-most influential member of the GDP (after Rush Limbaugh). And while Democrats hold a majority, it’s not enough of a majority to make the minority party irrelevant.

So the fact that Boehner’s idea of economics is completely insane matters. …

I dunno, Paul, seems a few of us can’t handle this. In the Miami Examiner, Ron Moore reports,

The call by some right wing leaders for rebellion and for the military to refuse the commander in chief’s orders is joined by Chuck Norris who claims that thousands of right wing cell groups have organized and are ready for a second American Revolution. During an appearance on the Glen Beck radio show he promised that if things get any worse from his point of view he may “run for president of Texas.” The martial artist/actor/activist claims that Texas was never formally a part of the United States in the first place and that if rebellion is to come through secession Texas would lead the way. …

Heh. Y’all Lone Star foloers up for Texichuckistan?

Poor Blair Goldstein covered a Jackson mayoralty forum at Millsaps, at which the 50% of candidates who showed up took up the entire stage:

Nine of the 18 Jackson mayoral candidates, including Robert Amos (from left), David Archie, Dorothy “Dot” Benford, Marshand Crisler, John Horhn, Harvey Johnson Jr., Robert Johnson, Brenda Scott and Rick Whitlow, take the stage for a panel discussion Tuesday night at Millsaps College in Jackson. (Joe Ellis/The Clarion-Ledger)

… Questions were posed both by the event moderator, Brad Franklin, a local rapper known as Kamikaze, and by audience members.

A question posed by a member of the audience about the importance of promoting a healthier city sparked a moment of levity.

“Ninety percent of you are either overweight or obese; I can look at you and tell,” he said.

Almost all of the candidates responded to the comment.

Some talked about their plans to promote healthy living in the city. Horhn, for example, said he would hire a health officer to help city employees lose weight and conduct outreach to residents.

Other candidates simply laughed about their own weight-loss plans.

“You are very adept at observing people; I am overweight,” said Dorothy “Dot” Benford. “I am on a diet.”

Well me too, Dot, mere mesomorph though I be. I’ve vowed to limit my breakfast intake of foolishness, y’see, so this post concludes here.

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As Cujo359 noted, AntiCorruptionRepublican has replaced his original post on Ann Copland’s guilty plea with one including the Information (5-page pdf) that the prosecution filed a week after the Factual Basis (5-page pdf) that Copland signed on February 12.

ACR points out that Copland’s Factual Basis contains no evidence that the Feds are pursuing Thad Cochran (indeed, it identifies him only by position, not name), but also notes that the plea hearing occurred nearly a month after Copland submitted her Factual Basis; that the plea agreement, when it hits PACER, will undoubtedly obligate her to help prosecutors; and that

3. Like Ms. Copland’s “Information” and Todd Boulanger’s “Information”, Kevin Ring is part of the intended audience of Ms. Copland’s Factual Basis. Ms. Copland repeatedly asserts that Mr. Ring (along with Jack Abramoff and Mr. Boulanger) provided things of value to Ms. Copland in exchange for Ms. Copland taking “a variety of official actions” (See: Paragraphs 4-5, 7-10, 14-17). Mr. Ring is under indictment on similar charges. Mr. Ring rejected a plea bargain and has pleaded not guilty. His trial is scheduled to begin in September 2009.

4. Ms. Copland identified a few official actions related to the conspiracy to commit honest services fraud that I don’t recall seeing before. On March 11, 2002, Mr. Ring asked Ms. Copland to get her boss, Sen. Cochran, to sign a letter to the Small Business Administration on behalf of the Mississippi Choctaw (Paragraph 8). On December 9, 2002, Mr. Boulanger asked Ms. Copland to find another staffer to “facilitate” an extra $2 million appropriation to the Mississippi Choctaw (Paragraph 11)¹. Lastly, on March 9, 2003, Mr. Ring e-mailed 2004 appropriations requests for the Choctaw (Paragraph 15).

¹ The ACR Blog does not know if Ms. Copland actually identified another staff member to “facilitate” the $2 million appropriation. If she did, we obviously don’t know who facilitated the appropriation.

Likely Copland did or will identify that other person (presumably another Cochran staffer, though possibly not), since her document concludes (emphasis mine):

The preceding statement is a summary, made for the purpose of providing the Court with a factual basis for my guilty plea to the conspiracy charge against me. It does not include all of the facts known to me concerning criminal activity in which I and/or others engaged. I make this statement knowingly and voluntarily and because I am in fact guilty of the crime charged.

So the nervous days in and around Thad Cochran’s office probably aren’t over.

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