My letter from Don Siegelman in prison

[wtmusic]

I got this letter today, similar to that sent to "Nicole Belle" of Daily Kos and posted by Hissyspit on Saturday.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3015356



If you think justice has survived the Bush administration think again. What they have done to this poor man is appalling.
You can help:

http://www.donsiegelman.org

[chknltl]

1. My rec's are gone but this is important... kicked

This post should be on DU's front page imo!

[midnight]

8. This was posted in the Wisconsin forum by bushfire.

Should this issue come before the Senate, you can be sure
I will keep your views in mind.http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=186x24475

[angrycarpenter]

2. I've been telling my mom

She lives in Ala. and has no idea what is going on about this. There is NO coverage of this in Ala.

[wtmusic]

4. Not surprised.

There is very little coverage elsewhere. But it just might be one of those things they won't be able to sweep under the rug.

[trof]

5. Yep. Zero, zed, nada.

Locust Fork Journal (online) in N.E. Alabama is doing fantastic job.
All the big city newspapers are owned by one large corp.

[EFerrari]

21. I wonder if anything could be done on college campuses.

That's probably the next biggest audience after the corporate media and local outlets.

What about in churches? I know next to nothing about AL.

[blm]

10. The media has been a complicit partner with BushInc since before 2000.

The corporate media definitely set up an agenda against any Dem who Bush and Rove needed taken down.

[trof]

3. How long ago did you write him?

I wrote a couple of weeks ago and no reply so far.

[wtmusic]

6. Right around that time I sent him a letter and some money.

It's sad that he has time to write handwritten letters to a schmoe like me (not enough people who care, I guess).

[trof]

7. Yeah, I put $20 into his prison commisarry account.

Poor bastard had to 'bribe' his dorm mates with canned mackerel and tuna 'hors d'ouvers' to let him watch 60 Minutes.
And as you can see, they won't let him have stationery.

[Zoigal]

12. So what's the procedure for putting $$ into

his prison commissary account? Since he has been so limited to what he can have,
can he buy stuff and trade it with the other prisoners? Apparently, the 60 Minutes program
was cut off in parts of Alabama. Various reasons were given. Nothing made sense.
Thanks. z

[trof]

19. Here's how:

You can deposit money in his account through Western Union.
I couldn't get their online form to work so walked it through at the local grocery store.

Here's the info you'll need for the form:
Pay to: FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS
Code City: FBOP
Account Number With Company: 24775-001 Don Eugene Siegelman

The rest is self-explanatory, your name, address, phone #, etc.
I urge you to send him a few bucks if you can.
It cost me $5.95 to send the $20 money order.

[DutchLiberal]

9. I have literally only just found out about Siegelman's case, because...

it hasn't gotten any press coverage in The Netherlands (of course, the governor from New York and his call girl got a full week worth of attention). What's most stunning to me is not his conviction; it's that he got 8 years for bribery. 8 *YEARS*. You tell me you can get 8 *YEARS* in the US for bribery?... Wait, let me rephrase that: you tell me you can get *YEARS* for bribery? To me, it's unheard of. I knew US 'Justice' system was immensely though, but this even surprised me.

[angrycarpenter]

13. He was railroaded

He was convicted on false testimony.
He was given the sentence that you would give to an organized crime boss.
he was dragged away in shackles.
He was denied the right to appeal by a judge who would not release the court transcripts.
Rove had this done to him and clapped gleefully as American justice was used as an assassination tool.

All because he saw the success of the Georgia lottery and how it has transformed it's education system. He wanted the children of his state to have a good education in a safe building with up to date textbooks and computers. He wanted high school graduates to be able to go to college even if they could not afford it.

This is more than the wrongful conviction of a good man. It is also the willful sabotage of an educational system that tried to join the 21st century just to be slapped back to the 19th.

I was born there and I am so ashamed of the place that if it were not for having family there I would never go back.

[trof]

22. Folks in Alabama buy other state's lottery tickets.

Siegelman won election to the governorship in 1999. One of the main planks in his campaign was to establish a state lottery and for the profits to go exclusively to education.

His election caused him (and many others) to believe that the majority of voters wanted this. He mounted a campaign to bring it about.

What he didn't figure on, or even know about for a long time, was that Jack Abramoff's Mississippi Indian clients (casino owners) did not want that nearby competition for gambling dollars.

So he channeled millions through the Alabama Christian Coalition to produce slick and very one-sided TV commercials against the lottery. And they got their god fearin' people to the polls. The measure was defeated.

So we still support public education in FL, GA, and TN by buying their lottery tickets. And we go to the casinos in MS.
While our own children go begging in portable classrooms and porta-potties.
:grr:

[Kolesar]

26. The judge was a bush apparatchik who looked past the false testimony and convicted Don

The false testimony was offered in return for a reduced sentence by a real convict. That seems to be the fulcrum of this story.

Gulag Americano

[AzDar]

11. K & R....

:kick:

[Pastiche423]

14. A kick for Don

[horseshoecrab]

15. kicking

:kick:

horseshoecrab

[Senator]

16. K&R

[better tomorrow]

17. I sent this link to Dan Abrams, maybe he will report again

[wtmusic]

29. Thank you, good idea. nt

[Bombero1956]

18. k&r

The wrong man is jail.

[EFerrari]

20. Kick

[Hissyspit]

23. Old Pissed Off Liberal was the DKos poster who is friends with Siegelman. Nicole Belle is at Crooks

and Liars. She posted OPOL's original DKos diary at Crooks and Liars and that is where I first saw it - just to clarify.

[wtmusic]

28. thanks. nt

[jdadd]

24. K&R...This needs to be on the front page n/t

[chknltl]

25. Kicked

[Grinchie]

27. I hate to say this, but it looks like this road leads back to Clinton

I can't believe that the ongoing criminal case of Peter Paul vs Hilary Clinton et al. is not being discussed on DU.

If one examines the story of how Peter Paul was used for monetary gain for the Hilary senatorial campaign, discarded, then buried when he called out Hilary on violations of the FEC rules, it feels a lot like the US AG scandal.

Clearly, to get as much misinformation out into the MSM, one has to have very close relations with the dealers of power, the DOJ and the ability to finance it all.

Do not forget that if Hilary is indeed held accountable for what she did in 2000, she would be a convicted Felon.

We can't have that can we?

It feels like the Bush administration saw this angle and ran with it for their own gain, knowing that Hilary and Bill had their hand in it before BushCo even arrived.

I really want to see a discussion regarding the Peter Paul case here on DU. There are a lot of similarities that need to be examined by more than just me.

I ran across this a few months ago when I was researching both Hilary and Obama and was kind of shocked. Me being a skeptic, dug further then the following videos and found that this story has legs, but has been supressed over the years.

[Kolesar]

32. Somebody answered my post on a Siegelman thread by turning it to "Clinton"

He was ejected from DU that day. I did not watch your youtube videos, they are blocked here.

[mdmc]

33. those links don't work

[greyl]

30. kick nt

[DeeDeeNY]

31. K&R