Didn't get to this item, so here it is now: Former Attorney General John Ashcroft has taken his appeal to the Supreme Court. Yes, the man who toiled in the trenches of the culture wars to undermine America’s justice system, now is begging the High Court to throw out a lawsuit seeking to hold him personally responsible for improperly arresting a Muslim U.S. citizen in the post-911 atmos-Fear. Post-irony apocalypse or just another drop in the same cesspool that has poisoned public opinion for lo these (almost) ten years. Abdullah al-Kidd was one of at least 70 people detained under a law aimed at insuring that witnesses would be available to appear in court and testify at trial. Like many others, al-Kidd was never called to testify before a grand jury or in open court and was not charged with a crime. He sued Ashcroft, asserting that his arrest in 2003 stemmed from a policy announced by the then-attorney general less than two months after 9/11. At that time, Ashcroft touted the use of material witness warrants to detain suspected terrorists when the government did not have sufficient evidence to hold them on criminal charges.
And speaking of criminal charges...
The Oregonian ran an editorial Saturday expressing polite concern that the City Attorney deliberately withheld evidence of Police Capt Mark Kruger's Nazi games. But it failed to link his notorious record of violence against peace demonstrators to his dressup Nazi re-enactments and ideology. The fact is that the Police Bureau protected Kruger over the years and presumably leaned on the City Attorney to hide the Nazi commemorative plaques he nailed to trees on Rocky Butte. From the coy ‘Gee whiz’ tone one would get the impression that Kruger is an anomaly. But the Bureau has a long history of attracting extreme rightwing nutcases who influence a racist and anti dissent agenda. Let’s be very cautious clear; This isn’t an indictment of the whole police department, but rather a reminder that Kruger’s crude indulgence belongs to a tradition that begins with National Socialist sadism back in the 1930s. at that time in Portland Police Red Squad Captains Keegan and Odale devoted their time to suppressing the left, a task passed on to Capt Bill Brown during the McCarthy era. From the 60s to the 80’s, officer Winfield Falk, a John Birch member, stole records of dissenters which courts ordered destroyed and hid them in his garage until they were exposed by the Portland Tribune after his death in 2002. The Red Squad, which every Mayor since Joe Carson in the 30s has denied it exists, today goes under the name "Criminal Intelligence Unit" and lives on the 10th floor of police headquarters downtown.
- KBOO