Puppet Masters
Ex-Alabama Governor Don Siegelman's daughter, Dana Siegelman and former Alabama Congressman, Parker Griffith joined HuffPost Live host Jacob Soboroff to discuss the political conflicts of interest and judicial misconduct that played a major role in the former governor's indictment, conviction, and sentencing on bribery and mail fraud charges..
Siegelman had the temerity to be a popular Alabama Democrat who'd won every statewide office by 1998, when he first became governor. With Jewish and Catholic roots, and empathic appeal to minorities, he threatened the GOP "southern strategy" for a dominant one-party Republican nation. To the GOP, Siegelman was potentially Another Clinton -- as repellent to them as Another Cuba.
U.S. Attorney Leura Canary, a friend of Karl Rove's, incited Siegelman's prosecution for bribery, destroying his political career and hurting his family. Read this letter signed by 113 former attorneys general and other national leaders, both Democrat and Republican. They assert that the prosecuted "bribe" wasn't one, and that, if this conviction stands, it threatens every public official and contributor at every level of government. Such routine transactions, if prosecuted, would choke our courts.
Don Siegelman, the former governor of Alabama, returns to federal prison today to resume his six-and-a-half-year sentence on a controversial bribery conviction that has been compared to a political witch hunt. Siegelman and his supporters say he was the target of a plot, in part orchestrated by former Bush administration deputy Karl Rove, for belonging to the Democratic Party in a state with a Republican majority.
"No one wants to go to prison for something that is not a crime, and especially one orchestrated by Karl Rove," Siegelman said. "Everyone remembers the eight U.S. attorneys who were fired by Rove during the Bush administration because they would not pursue political prosecutions. Well, the U.S. attorney in Alabama, appointed by Bush, vetted by Rove, pursued a political prosecution." Siegelman has already served over nine months in prison, one month in solitary confinement and three weeks in a maximum security prison. Hours before he reports back to prison to resume his sentence, Siegelman joins us from a hotel room in New Orleans. [includes rush transcript]
"No one wants to go to prison for something that is not a crime, and especially one orchestrated by Karl Rove," Siegelman said. "Everyone remembers the eight U.S. attorneys who were fired by Rove during the Bush administration because they would not pursue political prosecutions. Well, the U.S. attorney in Alabama, appointed by Bush, vetted by Rove, pursued a political prosecution." Siegelman has already served over nine months in prison, one month in solitary confinement and three weeks in a maximum security prison. Hours before he reports back to prison to resume his sentence, Siegelman joins us from a hotel room in New Orleans. [includes rush transcript]
U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke says the 66-year-old turned himself in at the federal prison at Oakdale, La. shortly before 2 p.m. on Tuesday.
Reports from inside the secretive famine-hit pariah state, North Korea, claim a man has been executed after murdering his two children for food.
The grim suggestion that North Koreans are turning to cannibalism were reported by the Asia Press, and published in the Sunday Times.
They claim a 'hidden famine' in the farming provinces of North and South Hwanghae has killed 10,000 people, and there are fears that cannibalism is spreading throughout the country.
The reports come as sanctions are tightened against the backdrop of angry rhetoric over missile testing.
© AP
Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway
Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway
Diane Hathaway could face up to 18 months in prison under the terms of her deal with federal prosecutors. But her attorney, Steve Fishman, said after the hearing that he will ask a judge to sentence her to probation.
Hathaway, who resigned from the state's highest court last week, left the courthouse without commenting. U.S. District Judge John Corbett O'Meara had allowed her to answer "yes" to a series of questions about her misdeeds that were read by Fishman.
Fishman told reporters that her crime was "dumb. It made no sense." He believes the bank, ING Direct, would have allowed the short sale even if Hathaway had disclosed everything.
© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the army would remain a 'solid and cohesive block' on which the state could rely
General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the army would remain a 'solid and cohesive block' on which the state could rely
In an ominous warning, the head of Egypt's armed forces has said that continuing civil unrest may soon cause the collapse of the Egyptian state.
Parts of Egypt are in turmoil following five days of rioting in which 52 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured after protests against President Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood and police brutality turned violent. The unrest comes two years after the start of the 2011 revolution that toppled the former dictator Hosni Mubarak.
General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's comments have sparked fears that the military might once again intervene in the day-to-day governance of Egypt, a country effectively ruled for most of the past century by army officers.
© RIA Novosti / Grigoriy Vasilenko
Former General Aleksei Pukach of the Interior Ministry, charged with Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze murder, seen listening to the reading of his sentence at the Pechersky district court, Kiev
Former General Aleksei Pukach of the Interior Ministry, charged with Ukrainian journalist Georgy Gongadze murder, seen listening to the reading of his sentence at the Pechersky district court, Kiev
On Tuesday the Pechory district court in the Ukrainian capital Kiev ruled Pukach was guilty of Gongadze's murder and sentenced the former police general to life in prison.
Gongadze's case touches upon the highest echelons of power in Ukraine and triggered the events that led to the so called Orange Revolution in 2004.
Soon after the journalist's beheaded body was found in a forest near Kiev in 2000 an agent of the Ukrainian President's security service, Nikolay Melnichenko leaked a number of audio recordings claiming that Leonid Kuchma, who was president at that time, asked police commanders "to sort Gongadze out". The recordings were one of the most powerful tools used by the opposition in the ousting of Kuchma in 2004, dubbed by the media as the Orange Revolution.
© Guardian
British representatives are attending a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss the provision of troops as part of an EU mission to the African country. The EU estimates that 500 supplementary troops will be sent to Mali, some 350 of which will be British. This will include approximately 40 military advisers who will train soldiers in Mali and 200 British soldiers to be sent to neighboring African countries.
An ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States) force of West African troops - about 7,500 of them - are also coming into Mali to take over some garrison duties, and steadily take over the fighting role from the French.
The budget for the campaign, which has been set at around $950m will be financed through an international donors' conference based in Ethiopia.
© AP
A man falls as police fire water cannons at the anti-austerity protesters.
A man falls as police fire water cannons at the anti-austerity protesters.
Dozens of riot police were deployed to quell the tensions.
Many protesters are wearing respirators to protect themselves against the police crackdown.
