Just a sampling of stories you won't find consistently covered in commercial media outlets (though you will notice, many of the individual articles were published by commercial outlets--they just couldn't compete with Anna Nicole, TomKat, the assault on the Constitution (hey, how did that get in here?) or the 'war on terror.' During the Bush/Cheney Administration, several U.S. Attorneys were fired for insufficiently prosecuting democrats close to elections, or for pursuing prosecutions of republicans close to elections. One of the sleaziest opportunists,
Brad Schlozman, is still a US Attorney in my home state. Warning: Contains high concentrations of sleaze.

• Here's a good summary of what journalists have discovered, so far (as of April 15, 2008, 3:17 pm)
• The White House recently fired a series of US attorneys, replacing them with Bush supporters. And using an obscure law that bypasses Senate confirmation. Preparing for legal troubles down the road?
• The White House retreats. Sort of.
• Apparently the attorneys in place weren't sufficiently political. More evidence the White House and others are seeking to further politicize the judicial branch.
• Here's the next chapter in the story on firing US attorneys.
• Greg Palast says at least one of the replacements should be prosecuted under the 1965 Voting Rights Act. And there is new evidence he hasn't really ever tried a case (Karl Rove's protege, no less).
• This may shock you, but the attorney firings story leads . . . straight to the White House. And it goes back several years.
• Yet more evidence that the White House was purging the judicial branch (this one is about slowing the Jack Abramoff investigation).
• The story won't die (this one is about Attorney General Gonzales stopping an investigation that might have implicated him), but it doesn't always find traction in the mainstream commercial media.
• DOJ tried to stop a corruption investigation against republican "Duke" Cunningham.
• And how did it make it into mainstream media, anyway?
• Now it appears that Patrick Fitzgerald (who prosecuted the Scooter Libby case) was also on the _hit list of US Attorneys who hadn't 'exhibited loyalty to administration policies.' Think the DoJ doesn't worry about the news coverage? ' In an e-mail, Justice's deputy communications director, Brian Roehrkasse, wrote to Sampson and another aide: "The attorney general is extremely upset with the stories on US attys this morning. He also thought some of the DAG's statements were inaccurate.... I think from a straight news perspective we just want the stories to die."'
• And then there's this on post-facto memo-making to mollify democrats . . . Here's a juicy line:  "We'll stand by for a green light from you," Sampson told the White House. "Until the green light, we'll circulate the plan ... and ask that you circulate it to Karl's (Rove, that is) shop." If this were a student's term paper on government corruption, I'd have to fail it.
• Then there's the next chapter in the saga--a curious 16-day gap in email correspondence. (by the way, I'm focusing on this issue because it is a perfect glimpse at how the White House operates--it just got caught this time).
• The White House claims supboenas of its staff are 'unprecedented' (and 'generous' seems to be a talking point, too). Henry Waxman responds.
• Finally, someone is looking into the attorneys who didn't get fired . . .
• Just makes you wonder now who's on every case, doesn't it? Here's another in a tobacco lawsuit.
• Yet more testimony, this from the Seattle attorney who was fired.
• Five years of vote fraud investigations, taxpayer-funded, turn up very little. Residents in Florida and Ohio have yet to comment ...
• Attorney General Gonzales is caught in yet another lie.
• This story has a marathoner's legs (at least in the non-commercial media world) . . . the dog ate the White House's email server . . .
• As students of this White House could have predicted, the 'missing emails' goes well beyond incompetence.
• What may be more concerning than the 8 recently fired US attorneys are what the other 85 who weren't fired were being encouraged to do (electoral fraud and the difference between 'voter fraud' and 'vote fraud').
• The White House's new strategy: Trust us.
• Well this will shock you--apparently the White House is politicizing more than the Justice Dept., and has been holding meetings with many agencies about getting republicans elected for the last six years. Simply shocking.
• Separation of powers? That's for wusses. DoJ gets language inserted in "Patriot' Act reauthorization to protect one of Gonzales' right hand men.
• Here's a look at the republican playbook for using DoJ to influence elections--from Missouri in 2006.
• It's just plain hurtful what those democrats in Congress are doing to the DoJ political hacks ...
• As the information trickles out (another fired in Jan 2006), this seems like as good a justification as any for waterboarding ...
• Bring in the republican shovel brigade to manage the media fallout . . .
• The smoking gun may not turn into a mushroom cloud. In fact it looks more like Karl Rove on this one ...
• And there were apparently12 attorneys on the hit list
• Let the resignations begin . . . or continue.
• The Department of Justice--we probably have your name on a list somewhere . . . if you're a US attorney. And if we can find it.
• This is going to shock you--are you sitting down? It appears that the Justice Department scandal goes beyond the hiring and firing of US attorneys to include immigration judges.
• More sordidry. Maybe now the mainstream media HEY--was that Rosie and Liz that just went by??
• Well we can all rest now. The Justice Department has stepped up investigation of itself.
• Yet more--this about blocking an investigation of disenfranchisement of Native Americans, which brings together several of the rogues in one article.
• Partisan policies? Nothing could be further from the truth (or could it?) , sez a Justice Dept. Spokesperson (McClatchy papers are doing a decent job of covering this story). And pay no attention to those emails!
• Another Justice Department official speaks out (sample quote: "Gonzales has now shown himself to be so lacking as to defy complete description; words seem inadequate in the face of such blithe noncompetence. Suffice to say that his standing relative to other attorneys general comports with how this president compares with his own predecessors.")
• Falling back on old habits. Now it seems BushCo hired a PR firm to do damage control.
• Backlash in the courts now--what goes around comes around.
• Bradley Schlozman can't recall being a racist or a political hack.
• Well, now we have obstruction of justice and purgery. More pardons, um, commutations, in the works, Mr. President?
• Ten million missing emails. Or not? First we lost them, then we didn't? Or did we just throw them away?
• Here's Mother Jones' thread on the missing emails story
• David Iglesias, fired US attorney from New Mexico, gives Congressional testimony.
• Evidence grows that Siegelman was railroaded.
• Karl Rove, years later, cuts a deal to testify
• Sourcewatch page
• Timeline from NPR
• Timeline from Talking Points memo