Breaking: full details to come on SOCN and Jolly Rogers

As Glenn Beck reported on Fox yesterday Robert F. Bauer, Anita Dunn’s husband, has been offered the position of Chief White House Counsel.  What hasn’t been reported is that the firm, of which he is a partner; Perkins-Coie,  not only is defending Osama Bin Laden’s driver but is also responsible for the ethics complaints filed against Sarah Palin’s Alaska Defense Fund.  Of course, the charges were completely bogus but the firm tried to do as much damage as possible by bringing them.

More details and analysis are forthcoming Jolly Rogers.

UPDATE: Analysis

September 24, 2009

reprinted in part from Jolly Rogers for full article go here

Who is Bauer? In addition to being the alleged source of Obama’s decision to forgo general election spending limits, he was chief counsel to Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. Bauer was also counsel to Bill Bradley’s failed run for the presidency and is the current chairman of the Political Law Group at the Washington Firm of Perkins Coie LLP.

And of course Perkins Coie is known for the pro bono defense of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, aka Saqr al-Jedawi, Osama Bin Laden’s former chauffeur and good buddy of Nasser Al-Bahri who was linked to the bombing of the American Destroyer U.S.S. Cole. The case, which the law group brought to the Supreme Court: Salim Ahmed Hamdan versus Donald H. Rumsfeld, et al. With charges dropped as unconstitutional, Hamdan was held as an enemy combatant and brought up on new charges July 21, 2008. He was sentenced to five and a half years imprisonment, but had already served five. He was cleared of terrorism and conspiracy charges and transferred to Yemen where he was released January 8, 2009.

That isn’t the end of the strange coincidences involving Bauer and Perkins Coie. This law group hasn’t only been involved in backing folks like Hamdan (which set the course for the whole question of Guantanamo Bay detainees, the War on Terror and military commissions versus civil trials, etc.), but they’ve been involved in American politics – deeply.

Perkins Coie is the group responsible for boosting the intensity of one of the most persistent ethics attacks against former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

In an e-mail dated July 14, 2009 Kim Chatman, a blogger in Alaska, filed an ethics complaint against Sarah Palin, making the allegation that the governor established a trust fund for the purpose of soliciting donations from members of the public. The original report on this complaint was published in the Anchorage Daily News. Chatman was a co-plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against Palin and filed a complaint regarding Palin’s use of per-diem monies. In all, Chatman leveled

The Alaska Personnel Board asked Perkins Coie to review the complaint. Their nine- page report to the Alaska Personnel Board found essentially nothing, but combined with the pressure of 17 other complaints against the Governor and former candidate for Vice President, may have contributed to her finally leaving office. This complaint was number 13 in that long list.

Perkins Coie has offices in Anchorage, Beijing, Bellevue, Boise, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Madison, Melo Park, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Shanghai and of course, Washington, D.C.

But it’s the firm’s experience that makes it most interesting. Listed on its’ website are the areas which it excels at. These include Industry, clean-tech, communications, e-commerce, electronic financial services, energy, energy commercial transactions and project finance, energy litigation, energy project permitting and development, energy regulations and policy, forest products, franchising and distribution, hotels and leisure, interactive entertainment, life sciences, mining, renewable energy, retail and consumer products, semiconductor, senior housing and winery and vineyard.

So, knowing that, we can understand why there is an office in Anchorage, Alaska, and we could understand in a basic sense why the Personnel Board may have asked that firm to review the complaint and offer their opinion – after all, they have a big office there in Anchorage. But isn’t it strange coincidence that the very firm they ask to offer a review is so deeply involved in alternative energy concerns, and has made such a big mark by going up against Donald Rumsfeld, allowing a scumbag like Hamdan to walk – and in that single stroke, producing the firestorm of legal problems that Guantanamo creates. One might just have to wonder who is benefiting from this? More lawyers? And who benefits from the quick passage of Health Care Reform without addressing tort reform?

More lawyers.

And who benefits from taking Sarah Palin out of the game – people like Bauer and people like Obama – more lawyers. Why Perkins Coie? What do they have to gain? Well, they’re not just lovers of Guantanamo detainees. Perrkins Coie is connected to Boeing, Google, Nintendo, Microsoft, Craigslist, AT&T, Western Urban Water Coalition, Dragonslayers (wildfire mitigators) and something called America Votes.

America Votes claims to be the largest grassroots voter mobilization effort in the country. Its’ website has the following on the home page: “America Votes is the centerpiece of a permanent progressive campaign infrastructure nationally and in the states. America Votes and our coalition partners, coordinate independent electoral activity, share innovative strategies and resources, maximize electoral impact and build lasting capacity.

If you’re unsure what that really means, you can get a better explanation from the column on the right of the page. The organization, which is connected to Perkins Coie, is designed to improve “progressives’ ability to succeed in the long term.” The site explains that this effort “is directly linked to the work we do today to build the infrastructure in the states.”

The question I have is “what is the real infrastructure being built and how much of this really has the specific aims of destroying the country regardless of who gets in the way?” And the more obvious this becomes – the more of this structure is uncovered, the faster everything will change. And it won’t be Obama’s “change.” All that will be finished.

Because I think they counted Sarah Palin out too early. She’ll be coming back swinging along with an enraged public.

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