No wool over this judge's eyes

Wayne Madsen is the only reporter I've found covering today's DC madam hearing.
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in D.C. heard arguments on the Attorney General's motion to keep DC Madam Deborah Jeanne Palfrey's phone records that go back to 1994 restrained, but the U.S. attorney can't seem to keep the government's stories straight, and her honor ain't no chump.

Palfrey (right) has 46 pounds of phone records including numbers tied to Dick Cheney when he was CEO of Haliburton, Madsen has reported.

Kessler suggested that Assistant U.S. Attorney William Cowden appeared to be more interested in protecting the identities of PMA clients than in showing just cause why releasing the phone records would cause any harassment of potential government witnesses in the criminal trial of Palfrey.

Cowden says escorts could fear harassment, but when the judge asked him for evidence, he admitted no one has been harassed, despite ABC News having some numbers.

Then he admitted a "significant number of clients did have sex" with the madam's escorts, which led the wise judge to ask why this prostitution racketeering case isn't charging any of the johns, who all commit an equal crime of prostitution. Just how does one prove a prostitution ring without johns testifying they paid for sex?

"I don't know where the government is going in this case," Kessler told Cowden.

In claiming the government's motive to restrain the phone list is because the madam could sell them, Cowden admitted the AG doesn't have a copy of those numbers now and doesn't intend to call any of customers for the case, stressing it "is immaterial who had sex" with the madam's escorts.

Cowden's argument to maintain the restraining order on the phone list wandered all over the map. First, he suggested that after Palfrey's trial, the government would make access to the list subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Alternately, he suggested the list would be turned over to the Smithsonian Institution or "buried" in a government warehouse. Or, Cowden suggested, the government would give the list away.

Cowden also suggested that the government could order the list seized as an asset and put in in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. Cowden indicated that the government's desire to keep the list from becoming public was to "ensure the trial [of Palfrey] does not turn into a circus."

One of Palfrey's lawyers pointed out the same records are available from the phone company (did he add, available for the duration of the legal statute of limitations?)

Cowden responded that the list, which dates as far back as 1994, is valuable because "no phone company keeps records for 13 years, only five years." He added that incoming call records are only maintained for a few months.

So, to be straight, he wants to obtain and "bury" the madam's records because they are the only records with the numbers of the johns he isn't going to put on trial. I see.
I think Judge Kessler does, too.

Kessler stated that the government's argument that it is the information in the phone records that is valuable "raises First Amendment" issues.

I think I like this judge. I look forward to her ruling on this, "in the near future."

Roadblock to democracy

Remember when Rep. J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., was speaker of the House (before he got tied up in the Rep. Mark "I like boy pages" Foley, R-Fla., scandal) and made his outrageous policy announcement that only "the majority of the majority" would rule from that day on? That meant the American people and their representatives be damned, the 26 percent or so "majority of the majority" carrying water for George Bush would smother any measure Bush didn't want in committee so the rest couldn't even use their power to override a presidential veto.

Well, New Jersey's leadership is starting

to look like the same "majority of the majority." Gov. Corzine's re-assignment today of Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri to head the Turnpike Authority puts on the green light, whether he admits it or not, for "monetizing services." The Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike is a done deal, as far as this state's "majority of the majority" seems to have decided behind closed doors. I find this whole thing Mafia-esque, same as when "Denny boy" Hastert and Co. did it.

Even though the Republicans looooved the strategy when Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and her GOP majority did it in selling our public Motor Vehicles Services as "privatization," Republicans in this Legislature hate Corzine's Turnpike idea because, well, it's Corzine's idea.

Most of the Democratic voices and all of the public we've heard from on this also oppose the idea to lease road management, because it's, well, stupid.

To make profit, a corporation will have to raise or add tolls, let roads deteriorate and/or bust the labor abuses, all of which Corzine could do himself if he had the political guts. In the end, the corporation won't get something without us getting nothing. Those CEOs don't buy nothing to give something.

Is no one thinking of simply adding a 50/50 to the state lottery exclusively for paying that debilitating debt Whitman and Gov. James McGreevey sunk is into? New Jerseyans loooove 50/50s.

Wayne Madsen at Wayne Madsen Reports offers a novel proposal of his own on our dilemma.

If the privatization of the PA and NJ Turnpikes goes forward, let me offer up a civil disobedience idea. The day those toll booths become private, hundreds of thousands of motorists, including truckers, should run them through the barricadeless EZ-PASS lanes. Enough is enough and Rendell and Corzine don't have enough cops to stop that kind of mass (and easy) protest. They can only react by closing the turnpikes, at a tremendous loss in profit for the new owners. That is what is called a successful protest.