Protecting the Children

August 2006:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced a new public service campaign Monday that will warn teenage girls against posting information on the Internet that could put them at risk of attack by child predators.

"Every day, these predators are looking for someone to hurt," Gonzales said at the 18th annual Crimes Against Children Conference in Dallas. "Every day, we must educate parents and children about the threat."

  CBS article

Protecting them from the likes of Congressman Mark Foley, R-Fla, I suppose.

Protected against child predators unless your child somehow ends up in the hands of the Texas Youth Commission....

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, both already under siege for other matters, are now being accused of failing to prosecute officers of the Texas Youth Commission after a Texas Ranger investigation documented that guards and administrators were sexually abusing the institution's minor boy inmates.

[...]

The Texas Youth Comission controversy traces back to a criminal investigation conducted in 2005 by Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski. The investigation revealed key employees at the West Texas State School in Pyote, Texas, were systematically abusing youth inmates in their custody.

[...]

Burzynski presented his findings to the attorney general in Texas, to the U.S. Attorney Sutton, and to the Department of Justice civil rights division. From all three, Burzynski received no interest in prosecuting the alleged sexual offenses.

[...]

Angle says that while the U.S. Justice Department and Texas attorney general's office were not prosecuting in this case, they were actively pursuing minor voter fraud issues with only a handful of allegations to go on.

On March 2, 2007, Governor Rick Perry appointed Jay Kimbrough, his former staff chief and homeland security director, to serve as "special master" to lead an investigation into the Texas Youth Commission sex abuse scandal. Shortly thereafter, the commission stopped a hiring practice that had allowed convicted felons to work as administrators in the system. The practice had involved a requirement that prior criminal records be destroyed for employees hired by the commission.

On March 17, 2007, the entire Texas Youth Commission governing board resigned.

  Free Republic article

And here's how easy it is to fall into the hands of the Texas Youth Commission...

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

DALLAS - A teenager has been jailed for more than a year for shoving a teacher’s aide at her high school, a case that has sparked anger and heightened racial tensions in rural East Texas.

Shaquandra Cotton, who is black, claims the teacher’s aide pushed her first and would not let her enter school before the morning bell in 2005. A jury convicted the 15-year-old girl in March 2006 on a felony count of shoving a public servant, who was not seriously injured.

The girl is in the Ron Jackson Correctional Complex in Brownwood, about 300 miles from her home in Paris. The facility is part of an embattled juvenile system that is the subject of state and federal investigations into allegations that staff members physically and sexually abused inmates.

Under the sentence handed down by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville, she will remain at the facility until she meets state rehabilitation standards or reaches her 21st birthday.

  Boston Herald article

And how is Gonzo Gonzales faring these days?

Princes of Darkness

In 2005, investigators from the Texas Rangers found that guards and administrator [of the Texas Youth Commission] were sexually abusing institutionalized youths, who were recruited to provide "entertainment" during night-long orgies.

[...]

The Texas Rangers submitted their report of sexual abuse to the A.G. in Texas and to the U.S. Attorney for that state, Johnny Sutton, and to the Department of Justice. The Rangers wanted someone to prosecute the bad guys, and they felt they had a strong case.

Now, Johnny Sutton -- unlike, say, Carol Lam -- was never in danger of losing his gig, since he is considered one of the "loyal Bushies" among the U.S. Attorneys.

[...]

When the Texas Rangers asked to have the Texas Youth Commission abuses prosecuted, Sutton's chief assistant sent an extraordinary response: The office had decided not to pursue the matter because the sexually abused boys had not sustained "bodily injury."

[...]

The Alberto Gonzales Department of Justice declined prosecution as well. The paperwork is here. Matt Angle of the Lone Star Project believes that the case was shut down on direct orders from Washington.

  Cannonfire post

Update 3:20pm: TJ at POAC reminds me of Gonzales' recent claim under fire: "I'm not going to resign," he said. "I'm going to stay focused on protecting our kids."

Matt Angle, you note, doesn't "know", but "believes". However, I can understand that belief, considering how past Republican White Houses involving the Bush name have managed to avoid investigation in this hideous realm.

And I guess we shouldn't have expected the Texas "Justice" Department to do anything other than to tie a criminal action in a sexual abuse case to "bodily injury". The paper reads:

As you know, our interviews of the victims revealed that none sustained "bodily injury". Federal courts have interpreted this phrase to include physical pain. None of the victims have claimed to have felt physical pain during the course of the sexual assaults which they described.

Just taking their cue from the AG's office - the guy who defined torture as something producing organ failure.

I always think I can get away from this subject, and the view of the Bush circle as fiends, but it just keeps coming back up. It's not like I haven't completely been convinced of their involvement in narcotics, or that they truly are a Crime Family, but there's something so much more insidious and heinous about this that I subconsciously continue to put it aside. Which may be why it keeps coming back into my window.

Just about two years ago, when the Jeff Gannon case brushed up against this dark story, I asked a question on YWA:

Will this hideous business finally break into the light of day and the criminal predators in our government be stopped? Or will it be buried again?

Apparently the latter