Investigations into the suspected murderer, Chechen Rustam Makhmudov, who has not yet been found, must be taken into account in the current trial of the four other men accused of being accomplices, said a judicial spokesman.And as noted here, Politkovskaya drew the ire of former Russian president Vladimir Putin for her courageous reporting on the Chechen wars…
'The decision means we're one step closer to clearing up the case,' said the Politkovskaya family's lawyer, Karina Moskalenko. 'But it's important to remember that it's already been three years since the murder took place.'
A spokesman for the state prosecutor's office warned that expectations should not be raised too high. 'We will go over the charges thoroughly,' he said. 'But much depends on finding Makmudov.'
The four men on trial face charges as accomplices in the contract- style slaying in Politkovskaya's Moscow apartment block on October 7, 2006. They were freed in February due to lack of evidence.
In the initial trial, prosecutors had accused two brothers of the suspected murdered Rustam Makmudov, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov, of being accomplices and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov of helping the killer get away.
The fourth defendant, Pavel Ryaguzov, was acquitted in a separate case. Ryaguzov, an agent of Russia's FSB security service, was accused of providing the killer with Politkovskaya`s address.
The identity of those who had ordered Politkovskaya's killing is still unknown.
Her excoriations of (Putin) insured isolation, harassment, and, many predicted, death. “I am a pariah,’’ she wrote in an essay last year. “That is the result of my journalism through the years of the Second Chechen War, and of publishing books abroad about life in Russia.’’From what I've read, the family and friends of Politkovskaya don't care so much about the four defendants currently in a legal limbo, as it were, as much as they are about trying to track down Rustam Makhmudov (ironic I guess that a Chechen is accused of killing her considering how she reported on the war affecting Makhmudov's countrymen).
Maybe someday justice will be done – maybe…
She laments the Eric Holder investigation into torture (which I already posted about here), does her “echo chamber” bit to make sure the whole “Black Panthers at the North Philadelphia polling place” thing isn’t justly deprived of oxygen (which I also already posted about here - second item), mentions how Holder was involved in the pardon of Marc Rich (as noted here, a certain one time US Attorney for the District of Manhattan named Rudy 9iu11ani was more concerned with prosecuting Rich into infinity than he was about making restitution), and also notes that New Mexico governor (and one time Commerce Secretary nominee…and veep candidate put forward by yours truly) Bill Richardson was neither charged nor exonerated here (and of course, since Richardson is a Dem, Flowers automatically alleges a conspiracy - let's at least wait and see if "another shoe drops," OK?).
But what really got me in Flowers’ screed today was this sentence (in the matter of trials and investigations by our government into real or alleged wrongdoing)…
The Watergate hearings were the real thing (though Democrats could barely hide their glee at the destruction of a GOP administration). The McCarthy hearings were not.Putting aside her ridiculous characterization of the Senate Watergate hearings (implying it was a "Dem only" show trial, even though the panel was composed of four Democrats and three Republicans), I don’t know what the sentence “The McCarthy hearings were not” means.
Does Flowers mean that they were a show trial, which of course they were? Or is she merely trying to deflect attention from the fact that Senator Joseph McCarthy was a Republican? Or the fact that McCarthy followed the work of the House Un-American Activities Committee (though there was no direct correlation between the two committees) and perhaps its most prominent member, a one-time Whittier, California Republican congressman named Richard Nixon?
As far as I’m concerned, this column doesn’t have anything to do with journalism. However, it has everything to do with propaganda.
Un-pure and simple.
PHILADELPHIA The owners of Philadelphia's two major newspapers are trying to rally support for local management of the business — taking on banks and other creditors that hope to win the company in a bankruptcy auction. And the creditors are trying to get the campaign stopped.Of course, Brian Tierney of Philadelphia Newspapers could always consider a “revenue source” such as the one depicted in this story (I’m sure some of the creditors in this case consider journalism in general to be the second or third “oldest profession” anyway).
The "Keep It Local!" slogan is blasted in full-page advertisements in The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, on Philly.com's home page and on delivery trucks, buttons and even subscriber bills.
The ads suggest that outside owners — "banks and hedge funds located in New York, Beverly Hills and elsewhere" — would slash news coverage and staff and perhaps close the smaller Daily News. The creditors object to the publicity blitz and want a bankruptcy judge to shut it down. They call the campaign "scare tactics" designed to demonize any outside bidders.
"The debtors have attempted to poison the prospects for any competing bidder ... with the debtors' unionized work force, with advertisers and with the community," a committee for some of the newspapers' creditors said in a filing Wednesday. "This is the antithesis of what the law requires."
A judge Thursday scheduled a hearing on the objection next week.
Even though the Obama Administration seems to be “all wobbly” on health care, cap and trade and Afghanistan (and is only marginally better on Iraq and on the question of investigating torture, basically “punting” that over to Eric Holder), there is still no denying that they are a distinct improvement from their predecessors on most other matters, particularly this one.
And if anyone disagrees with that, I have three words for you:
Vice President Palin!
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