You thought the Attorney General was busy with terror suspects and invading your bathroom with the Patriot Act? Think again.
While we were paying attention to Arnold Scwarzenegger, Kobe Bryant and our summer vacations, Ashcroft has turned into Edwin Meese and the self-proclaimed megalomaniac of American justice rolled into one scary monster. He must be contained - or thrown out - and pronto.
Number One:
U.S. Indicts Porn Sellers, Vowing Extensive Attack
Charges against a Valley video company and two executives signal that fighting obscenity has become a high priority for Atty. Gen. Ashcroft.
The Justice Department on Thursday charged a North Hollywood wholesaler of adult films with violating federal obscenity laws, launching the first of what it promised would be a wave of criminal cases against purveyors of pornography.
The 10-count federal grand jury indictment against Extreme Associates and its executives, Robert Zicari and Janet Romano of Northridge, raising alarm among adult entertainment companies in the San Fernando Valley, which is considered the capital of the nation's multibillion-dollar pornography industry.
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft promised upon taking office that he would crack down on the distributors of adult entertainment material such as movies, magazines and Web sites, much as his Reagan administration predecessor Edwin Meese III did in the 1980s.
With the government's Microsoft Corp. antitrust trial completed and the war on terrorism well underway, pornography has worked its way to the top of Ashcroft's agenda.
"Today's indictment marks an important step in the Department of Justice's strategy for attacking the proliferation of adult obscenity," Ashcroft said. The department will "continue to focus our efforts on targeted obscenity prosecutions that will deter others from producing and distributing obscene material."
Obscene by who's standards? ASHCROFT'S? The guy who had to put a dress on a topless statue in the Justice Department? This alone is frightening enough, but take a gander at...
Number Two:
Ashcroft Objects to Lenient Jurists
When judges impose terms shorter than called for under federal guidelines, the attorney general wants to know.
WASHINGTON — In a drive to challenge lenient judges, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft says he wants to be alerted whenever a federal judge imposes a criminal sentence that is less than called for by U.S. guidelines.
In a July 28 memo to U.S. attorneys' offices across the nation, Ashcroft said he had a "solemn obligation" to ensure that the laws setting punishments for federal crimes were "faithfully, fairly and consistently enforced."
Aides to the attorney general said he was seeking accurate data on sentencing patterns. It would be troubling if judges in Massachusetts and Arizona, for example, were regularly imposing different punishments for the same federal crimes, they said.
Ashcroft also wants to know of instances in which a judge's sentence represents a "downward departure" from U.S. guidelines so the Justice Department can file an appeal with a higher court.
Seems Ashcroft wants to micromanage the justice system AND become the country's watchdog of morals and entertainment.
This sort of prioritizing by this nut known as our nation's top barrister should send a chill down the spine of anyone who thought we finally moved on from the wrong-headed war on our domestic rights. If we don't push this clown out of his seat soon, we MUST do it in November of 2004 by voting out his zookeepers.
Enough of this. Enough.
