A Travesty of Justice

post from What Happened to My Country? on 08 February 2007 12:02:08 PM. © What Happened to My Country?

Border agents arresting and detaining drug smugglers and illegal aliens, many of whom end up serving prison time, are no different than other officers of the law. Placing them in prison with the type of criminals they have apprehended is life threatening.

That is just one reason why it is outrageous that two border agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, were each given over a decade prison sentence for trying to apprehend a drug smuggler who was trying to elude them in a van loaded with marijuana. Ramos has already been attacked and beaten in his Mississippi prison.

Yes, the agents lied about shooting at and hitting the smuggler in the buttocks. In the heat of the chase they were trying to guard the border.... doing their job. They tried to avoid the paperwork surrounding such a shooting, so they let it go. And that has cost them dearly. Too dearly. The drug smuggler was given immunity to testify against them, and after a later apprehension for smuggling an even larger amount of drugs across the border, was again given immunity.

Rep. John Culberson (D-TX) said Ramos and Compean "may not have followed proper procedures following the shooting, which at most should have resulted in their suspension from the force, but not criminal procedure." (WaPo)

So, just who is this zealous U.S. prosecutor.... Johnny Sutton. Sutton was then-Texas-governor George W. Bush's Criminal Justice Policy Director from 1995-2000 advising Bush on all criminal justice issues.

Bush has been implored by many in his own party to grant pardons, but has claimed he didn't know enough about the case and has thus far refused pardons. If you believe that, there is a brick from our border fence I want to sell you.

This is Bush's so-called justice, blindfold firmly in place. It was his boy who ran the agents to ground and made sure they are facing stiff prison time.

Bush seems determined to keep our borders open even if it leads to aiding and abetting drug smugglers and terrorists.... part of his perverted vision for a North American Union. Justice be damned.

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Lieberman: Independent DEMOCRAT I dont think so

post from Crooks and Liars on 08 February 2007 11:52:53 AM. © Crooks and Liars

NYTimes:It came as little surprise that when Senate Republicans blocked debate Monday on a resolution that would have opposed President Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, erstwhile Democrat, sided with them.But Mr. Lieberman also went further, accusing Democrats of giving strength to the enemy and abandoning the troops, and [...]

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Falwell has his eyes on '08, wants to turn the
clock back, way back

post from Capitol Talk - Front Page on 08 February 2007 11:52:34 AM. © Capitol Talk - Front Page

Wow, Jerry Falwell isn't dead yet? Nope, he's still promoting hatred of gays, blacks, woman, and doing all those other things religious zealots love him for. He's got his little bigot heart set on keeping a Republican in the White House come 2008 too.

His influence may be diminished but his zeal is undaunted. Evangelist Jerry Falwell is on a mission to keep a like-minded Republican in the White House and get at least one more conservative judge on the Supreme Court.
Despite his years in the trenches of America's culture wars, Falwell -- who founded the Moral Majority political movement in 1979 and helped propel the rise of the religious right -- said a major victory in his broader crusade to restore the country's moral righteousness has so far eluded him.

Falwell went on to say that he felt the 1930s and 1940s brought out the best in America:

By a long road back Falwell was referring to his youth in the 1930s and 1940s -- a period he feels brought out the best in a strong nation that adhered to "old fashioned values."

Yeah, because beating your wife, and dieing of polio were such good times, right!?

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The Daily Muck

post from TPMmuckraker on 08 February 2007 11:51:38 AM. © TPMmuckraker

Russert Denies Role in Plamegate Testifying as the final prosecution witness in Scooter Libby's perjury trial, NBC News journalist Tim Russert denied ever mentioning CIA officer Valerie Plame's name, asserting that he discovered her identity only after reading an article...

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Not all presidential staffers are equal.

post from Think Progress on 08 February 2007 11:44:00 AM. © Think Progress

Media Matters documents how liberals get scrutiny while conservatives get a pass.

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Momentum Stock: Longs Drug Stores (LDG)

post from Jutia Group on 08 February 2007 11:40:56 AM. © Jutia Group

The Company operates in two business segments: retail drug stores and, through its RxAmerica subsidiary, pharmacy benefit services. Through its retail drug store segment, the Company is recognized retail drug store chains on the West Coast of the United States and in Hawaii, with 476 stores in California, Hawaii, Nevada, Washington, Colorado and Oregon [...]

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Laura Hasn't Been Seen Around Much Lately as a
Bush Prop. This Tabloid May Know Why.

post from BuzzFlash - Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 08 February 2007 11:32:27 AM. © BuzzFlash - Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

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Canard Watch: It Quacks Like Nader

post from TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed on 08 February 2007 11:31:29 AM. © TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed

In an interview with Ralph Nader the other day, Wolf Blitzer showed clips from the documentary ?An Unreasonable Man? in which Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen and I, independently, denounce Nader for having campaigned, in 2000, in swing states like notorious Florida rather than pick up easy votes in New York, California, and other safe zones?which on the face of it he should have done had his sole objective been to pick up 5 percent of the vote and thus guarantee Federal funds for the Greens in 2004.

(Blitzer falsely?in fact, ridiculously--calls me a ?supporter? of Nader. But moving on.)

Nader says this:

The film has a professor at Harvard who looked over our schedule. I spent 28 days in California, two and a half days in Florida, for example. So those statements are factually false.

Nader is referring to the Harvard political scientist Barry C. Burden, and the article in question, if you want to get technical, is ?Ralph Nader's Campaign Strategy in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election,? American Politics Research, Vol. 33, No. 5 (2005), pp. 672-699 (2005). I have read it. It?s not the exculpation Nader devoutly wishes.

Burden's method is to try reading Nader?s 2000 mind by starting from the assumption that ?candidate appearances are perhaps the most instrumentally rational form of presidential campaign activity.? (Love that ?perhaps.?) So if the pattern of where Nader chose to campaign doesn't demonstrate that he chose to bump off Gore, then that was not his intention--that's Burden's idea.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Burden is correct when he concludes, strictly from statistical analysis of Nader's 2000 appearances, that the goal was strictly ?maximizing votes, not throwing the election,? and that ?Nader?s campaign travel plans were developed with no real regard for the closeness of the race.? Is Nader to be congratulated for ?no real regard?? How resplendent was his acumen when he insisted that Bush and Gore were Tweedledee and Tweedledum?

Burden does not note Nader?s exultant press conference the morning after Election Day 2000. If Nader?s sole goal had been to pile up votes on his way over the 5% threshold to win Federal funding for the Green Party, he had failed?failed badly. Yet he rejoiced! He was thrilled--because he had accomplished his visceral goal, punishing the Democrats. If Burden is right and his travel schedule didn?t entirely match up with his emotions, credit the recklessness of his emotions.

This is not of merely antiquarian interest. In the same interview, Nader contemplates a 2008 campaign, trashes Hillary Clinton, and?here we go again?celebrates Michael Bloomberg:

BLITZER: You like Bloomberg?

NADER: I'm saying he'll give more diversity for sure, and he'll focus on urban problems. And I might say, he has got the money to do it, doesn't he?

The Corporation-Hater has spoken.

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New York City police held GOP convention
protesters longer than bank robbers in 2004

post from Capitol Talk - Front Page on 08 February 2007 11:29:52 AM. © Capitol Talk - Front Page

This is pathetic, but really not too surprising given the way the Constitution has been disregarded by the GOP, and law enforcement as a whole over the past decade or so. In 2004, protesters arrested during the Republican National Convention in New York City were held up to six times longer than people arrested for charges unrelated to the convention.

The legitimacy of the arrests was challenged on civil rights grounds in lawsuits brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of some of those detained.
A judge last month rejected the city's effort to keep secret most of the files and videotapes documenting the arrests, leading to their release.

Continue reading after the jump.
Christopher Dunn, an associate legal director for the NYCLU said:

The documents "reveal that the long detentions of the thousands of protesters arrested for minor offenses at the convention were the result of deliberate policy decisions by the NYPD."
"During the convention, you got to a judge much faster if you were a bank robber than if you were charged with parading without a permit," he said.

In jail longer for protesting our law breaking President, than those accused of robbing a bank? How absurd is that!?

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It's Official: Jonah Goldberg's judgment is
inferior.

This is it. The moment you've all been waiting for.

Let me take you back to February 8, 2005. It was exactly two years ago, when aspiring pundit Jonah Goldberg declared, for all the world to see:

Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to his when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn't want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I'll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now).

Today, that "bet" comes due. And today:

Iraq is in a state of civil war
Iraq does not have a viable constitution
a majority of Iraqis do not agree that the war was worth it
a majority of Americans do not agree that the war was worth it

There's no way to be more wrong.

Jonah, of course, washes his hands of things by clinging to Cole's refusal to accept the bet. Fair enough, as far as the money goes. But then there was this:

As a matter of intellectual honesty, I'm perfectly willing to admit that, had Cole had the courage to accept the wager, he would have won and I would have made good on it. But, since he didn't, I won't be jumping through hoops for this crowd beyond this post.

As a matter of intellectual honesty.

As a matter of intellectual honesty. Wow.

Well, here's why that falls short. As a matter of intellectual honesty, we're going to need far more than Jonah's admission that he would have been on the hook for $1,000. Let's take another look at the originial introduction of that wager:

Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to his when it comes to the big picture....

See, to my mind, where intellectual honesty is demanded is right there. It doesn't take an intellectual, nor a particularly honest person, actually, to see that had Cole accepted the bet, Jonah would owe him $1,000. That's not really intellectual honesty, that's good, old Joe Six-Pack honesty. You bet, and had it been accepted, you would have lost, and been obligated to pay.

Where "intellectuals" would demand honesty is in the premise of the bet: that Jonah declared his judgment ("when it comes to the big picture") to be superior to Cole's.

It clearly is not. That much, you probably knew in your gut, even before he offered this bet.

But today at 11:53 am EST, it becomes officially, objectively, provably so.

Today, newspaper editors around the country who syndicate his writing should be asking themselves, "Why do I pay to run the column of someone whose judgment -- when it comes to the big picture, no less -- is objectively inferior? Why pay for something so clearly and spectacularly wrong, on so many levels?"

The newspaper business, though -- and this is true to an even greater extent of the punditry business in general -- makes no damned sense. It can't, or it would have to eat itself whole at the dawn of each new day.

So there's not likely a whole lot that flooding their e-mail boxes would do. And we know there's nothing flooding Jonah's e-mail box would do, even if he was intellectually honest.

But here's an idea from Terry Welch at Nitpicker: we'll pay Jonah's "debt," that is, the $1,000 he figured on winning and donating to the USO. After all, Jonah wouldn't dream of profiting personally from the wager. Because he's a magnanimous guy, whether in victory or defeat. Witness his character and "intellectual honesty":

One caveat: Because I don't think it's right to bet on such serious matters for personal gain, if I win, I'll donate the money to the USO. He can give it to the al Aqsa [sic] Martyrs Brigade or whatever his favorite charity is.

A real mensch, wouldn't you say?

Still, Welch's simply a better person than Jonah is. And so he proposes we not only cover the debt, but do so by donating as if Jonah had won -- that is, to the USO. On one condition:

[A]ll I ask that you do in return for the fact that we lefties are covering your bet is admit clearly and publicly that Juan Cole's judgment is superior to yours when it comes to the big picture.

In fact...

The USO will get the money no matter what you decide, Jonah. As someone who slept in a few airport USOs while in the service and drank plenty of the coffee at the USO on Bagram Air Field, I know how helpful the USO is to soldiers away from home. I hope, however, you can see your way clear to the admission that Professor Cole deserves.

And if you'd like to join in the effort to pick up the slack Jonah dropped: