Ashcroft Spreads His Wings (into lobbying)

[ProSense]

Published on Tuesday, February 14, 2006

John Ashcroft Spreads His Wings

by Bill Berkowitz


Snip...

One of the Christian Right's most stalwart allies within the administration, Ashcroft hasn't written a book; hasn't barnstormed around the nation singing his self-penned paean to the United States, "Let the Eagle Soar" -- captured in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"; and he isn't going around throwing protective curtains over nude statues.

Snip...

The Ashcroft Group is also working with ChoicePoint, "a data broker that sells credit reports and other personal information to the FBI and other federal agencies". Another client, LTU Technologies Inc., is a Washington and Paris-based "maker of software for analysing large batches of video and other visual images".


Snip...

Attorneys general have tended to avoid the role of "a hired gun selling his connections", Charles Tiefer, a former deputy general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives and author of "Veering Right, How the Bush Administration Subverts the Law for Conservative Causes", pointed out.

"The attorney general is very much supposed to embody the pure rule of law like the Department of Justice's statue of 'Blind Justice' and he's not expected afterwards to cloak with the mantle of his former office a bunch of greedy interests," said Tiefer, who teaches law at the University of Baltimore.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0214-05.htm

[MadMaddie]

1. This is why a law needs to be enacted...

That any politican that has held office cannot be a lobbyist. It's a conflict of interest and it hurts other groups that don't have an inside connection.

[tanyev]

2. Let the Evil Soar....

[ProSense]

3. Ashcroft the wingnut

Tuesday, 02/14/06

Ashcroft defends death penalty as life-saving policy

Ex-attorney general refuses to comment on NSA's domestic spying

By KATE HOWARD
Staff Writer

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft endorsed capital punishment as an effective deterrent and lifesaver during a lecture last night at Vanderbilt University.

The death penalty can be credited with deterring some criminals — if not statistically, at least anecdotally, Ashcroft said.

"The death penalty saves both innocent and guilty lives, because those who aren't executed are free to commit more crimes in prison. … Further incarceration may deter deaths on the outside, but prison guards and inmates are still at risk," Ashcroft said.

Ashcroft, who held the Justice Department's top office from 2001 until January 2005, spoke as part of the university's "Project Dialogue" lecture series on crime and punishment. Comparing the 3,000 deaths from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with the 16,000 killings each year in America, Ashcroft said the loss of life carries the same intensity.

more...

http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060214/NEWS01/602140345/1006/NEWS