Day: May 4, 2006

Texas Repugs Celebrate Patriotism by Pretending to Shoot Immigrants

Trish

Some Texas Republicans are confused about the meaning of patriotism, supporting our troops, and who our actual enemies are. Their recent “support our troops” rally morphed into a “shoot up immigrants” fest. The meeting was held — as you might expect — in a church. Dallas Morning News:

Critics of church-based, GOP pretend immigrant slaughter need to “lighten up.”

Some Greater Irving Republican Club members who attended the meeting at First Church of the Nazarene were dressed in military garb or carried toy guns. Silhouettes – one riddled with pellet-like holes – were on display…

Club leaders said that the meeting about homeland security and other matters was benign. Attendees dressed up because the club has a different theme each month, club president Sue Richardson said. April’s theme was designed to support the troops, she said.

And yet the speaker for the yellow-ribbon-magnet-on-the-back-of-
your-SUV meeting was an immigration official. Huh?

Ms. Richardson said the meeting included a presentation by a representative from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on the topic of sealing off ways for terrorists to enter the U.S. undetected…

“[We’re] being patriotic and standing with our troops and trying to fight the war on terrorism,” she said. “We’re at war, and it’s not business as usual.”

Amazing how that “war excuses everything” line crops up among Repugs, even at the local level. It’s not really working for me. Reactions to the odd pairing of human targets and a talk on immigration were…well, see for yourself.

Lico Reyes…said the meeting – particularly the use of the silhouettes – was insensitive and not well thought out. Mr. Reyes said he looked into the meeting after concerned residents contacted him. He and other critics linked the silhouettes to immigration concerns…

Church pastor Rick Thomason said he looked into the matter and was satisfied with an explanation of what happened. The group will continue to be allowed to meet at the church, he said.

Irving City Council member Lewis Patrick said he visited the gathering but left early to attend other meetings…

“I’m not going to get in the middle of it,” he said. “It could get political.” [Editor’s note: Gee Lewis, ya think?]

Ms. Richardson attributed criticism of the meeting to people who are “spreaders of misery.”

“They don’t like a lot of people in the club, and they’re always complaining,” she said. “They need to lighten up.”

Yes, just lighten up for pete’s sake. I mean, it’s not like they’re not real guns. Those are still out in our glove boxes and trunks.

Bush: Veto? I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Veto

Buck Banks

Neato veto trick: With George Bush threatening to launch his first veto ever over Congress’ supplemental spending bill, few congressional leaders are taking him very seriously. And why should they? Bush has made a habit of signing bills and then appending a little addendum that says, basically, “Applies to everybody but me.”

According to a largely ignored series in the “Boston Globe,” Bush has done that over 750 times.

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ”whistle-blower” protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

‘He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises …’

This has Alberto Gonzalez’ smirk written all over it. But Bush’s above-the-law antics are starting to attract attention from political scholars and even — gasp! — lawmakers who for some reason feel that after they put a lot of time into passing laws that the laws should apply to EVERYBODY.

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation’s sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ”signing statements” — official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills — sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

”He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises — and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened,” said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

Pulling bait-and-switches on Congress, stacking the Supreme Court, installing a Machiavellian attorney general — Bush certainly appears to be creating an imperial presidency.

Here are some examples of Bush’s fingers-crossed, take-back “signing statements”:

March 9: Justice Department officials must give reports to Congress by certain dates on how the FBI is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.

Bush’s signing statement: The president can order Justice Department officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.

Dec. 30, 2005: US interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

Bush’s signing statement: The president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.

Dec. 30: When requested, scientific information ”prepared by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay.”

Bush’s signing statement: The president can tell researchers to withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of the executive branch.

Aug. 8: The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its contractors may not fire or otherwise punish an employee whistle-blower who tells Congress about possible wrongdoing.

Bush’s signing statement: The president or his appointees will determine whether employees of the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can give information to Congress.

Dec. 23, 2004: Forbids US troops in Colombia from participating in any combat against rebels, except in cases of self-defense. Caps the number of US troops allowed in Colombia at 800.

Bush’s signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can place restrictions on the use of US armed forces, so the executive branch will construe the law ”as advisory in nature.”

Man, there ought to be a law against that. Maybe there is, but it doesn’t apply to Bush.

Bush Can’t Try al Qaeda Leaders in Custody Because Testimony Would Reveal They Were Tortured

Jon Ponder
The “New York Times” said that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is being water [boarded], which is a technique somewhere between abuse and torture, where you make somebody — you put somebody’s head into the water and you make them think they’re drowning.

The jury’s decision yesterday to give wannabe terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui life in prison instead of the death penalty was a public relations disaster for the Bush Administration. They needed a kill in the case in order to show progress in ridding the world of evildoers, but the jury heard convincing evidence that Moussaoui was shunted aside by al Qaeda big wigs well before 9/11 because he was a mentally deranged loose cannon.

Moussaoui was small fry but the administration has two of al Qaeda’s top leaders in custody and while it might seem obvious that they could salvage something out of the Moussaoui disaster by trying, convicting and frying the genuine coup plotters, it ain’t gonna happen.

Yesterday on CNN, terrorism expert Peter Bergen explained that the high-ranking terrorists will never be tried in a court of law because the Bush team permanently tainted any testimony they might provide by subjecting them to torture:

BERGEN: [The] real tragedy here is that I think it’s very unlikely that the people really responsible for 9/11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and [Ramzi Binalshibh], who were the operational planners, it was their idea, their execution. They’re in American custody, and I don’t think they’re ever going to see the inside of an American courtroom. I think most Americans would be surprised by that. Why will they not see inside an American courtroom? Very possibly because [they’ve been] treated in such a way that their evidence would be inadmissible. The “New York Times” said that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is being water [boarded], which is a technique somewhere between abuse and torture, where you make somebody — you put somebody’s head into the water and you make them think they’re drowning.

In the Los Angeles Times this morning, Clinton terrorism expert Michael Greenberger, who is now a University of Maryland law professor, agreed:

“They cannot be prosecuted because of the way they have been interrogated,” said [Greenberger]. “They have been subjected to very aggressive questioning, and any statements they made now can’t be used against them.”

An open trial for the Al Qaeda leaders could reveal that U.S. agents used harsh methods, even torture, to extract information, he added.

“That has been the irony of the Moussaoui case from the beginning. We have prosecuted a marginal character who appeared unmoored from reality, while the real planners of the crime will not be brought before justice in the United States,” Greenberger said.

Is there anything about the so-called War on Terror that this gang has not screwed up?