Who Will Bush Pardon Today?

Last week hack Republican pols, led by Snarlin' Arlen Specter, did all they could to associate self-serving and outrageous pardons with Democrats through the Eric Holder confirmation hearings. No one thinks Holder isn't going to be confirmed but Republicans are happy to smear him and stick his shaken and damaged credibility-- at least among Fox News and Rush Limbaugh consumers (those who Krugman includes this morning, in another context, as cranks, charlatans, and Republicans)-- in the bank for future use.

Of more immediate use is the breathing room Bush needs as he prepares to flee town, his tattered Bush Legacy Program stuffed into bags, his own pardons left behind. Yep, today's the day for the Bush pardons. Josh Gerstein has a list of the most likely recipients over at Politico, although he left off big Republican donor Roger Clemons and convicted cranky old ex-Senator who knows where the bodies are buried Ted Stevens.

I guess the preemptive pardon for Cheney is out (same for himself), but the case I'm most interested in following is that of former Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham, convicted of taking more bribes than any other member of Congress ever. One of Cunningham's "clients" was another GOP crook, Gus Kontogiannis who paid Cunningham $400,000 to get him a pardon from Bush. That $400,000 has never been fully accounted for and many think it will now go towards buying Cunningham himself a commutation (if not a pardon). Politico rates Cunningham's chances a mere 50 to 1 shot; I think they're wrong. We should know by the end of the day. I sure would love to hear from a disappointed and vindictive Duke Cunningham.


UPDATE: THE PARDONS

Wingnuts of the Lou Dobbs variety will be dancing in the streets. Bush just commuted the sentences of border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean who shot a fleeing drug suspect in the back (and then tried covering it up). It's not a black-and-white case that lends itself to simple answers and Alex Koppelman at Salon did the best writing I've found on it, back in 2007.

With the help of reporters and activists promoting -- and embellishing -- the defense's version of the case, the two convicted agents were transformed into martyrs for the battle against illegal immigration. Instead of rogue officers who shot a fleeing, unarmed suspect and then lied about it, they became stand-up cops who were forced to shoot an armed drug dealer and then sent to prison by a legal system run amok. After they went to prison in January 2007, they even became the tragic heroes of a country song called "Ramos and Compean."

Nearly 400,000 people have signed a petition demanding a presidential pardon for the agents. There are two bills to pardon them pending in Congress, one with more than 100 cosponsors, including five Democrats [xenophobic reactionaries Zach Space, Bart Gordon, Tim Holden, Lincoln Davis and Buddy Cramer].

How did Ramos and Compean get reinvented as right-wing heroes? The answer lies in the way Americans get their information, from a fragmented news media that makes it easier than ever to tune out opposing views and inconvenient truths. When people seek "facts" only from sources with which they agree, it's possible for demonstrable untruths to enter the narrative and remain there unchallenged. The ballad of Ramos and Compean is a story that one side of America's polarized culture has gotten all wrong and that much of the other side-- and the rest of the country-- has never even heard.

Federal prosecutions of law enforcement agents are not undertaken lightly. "No prosecutor ever wants to be in a position of prosecuting a cop or a federal agent," says Johnny Sutton, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, whose office prosecuted Ramos and Compean. "They're our co-workers, they're our friends, we represent them in court ... But when one steps over the line and commits a serious crime, it's very important that they be held accountable ... [and] most agents would say what these guys did was outrageous."

Prosecutors in Sutton's office considered the conduct of Ramos and Compean outrageous enough that the two men were charged with seven and nine counts, respectively. Both were charged with assault with intent to commit murder. At trial, government prosecutors presented a case, supported by eyewitness testimony, that alleged the following: On Feb. 17, 2005, Aldrete-Davila led Border Patrol agents on a high-speed car chase that ended at a ditch about 120 yards from Mexico. Aldrete-Davila abandoned a van with 743 pounds of marijuana inside and made a dash for the border. Compean, on foot, intercepted Aldrete-Davila, who put his hands in the air to surrender.

The NY Times is reporting that that's it for Bush and he's not going to grant any other commutations or pardons in the hours left of his term. This one means that "the prison sentences of the men, both from El Paso, will expire on March 20, the Justice Department said. The supervised release and fines will still apply."

“These agents shot someone whom they knew to be unarmed and running away,” said the prosecutor, United States Attorney Johnny Sutton. “They destroyed evidence, covered up a crime scene and then filed false reports about what happened. It is shocking that there are people who believe it is O.K. for agents to shoot an unarmed suspect who is running away.”

...The leniency was granted to the former agents even though the Justice Department had not completed its review of the case, according to officials at the agency. A president’s constitutional power to grant pardons or commutations is unfettered, but Justice Department officials sometimes feel resentful if leniency without their full review.

A commutation is not as generous as a presidential pardon, which essentially erases a crime from a defendant’s record. There had been speculation that President Bush would grant clemency to some high-profile defendants, but the White House official said the two ex-agents would be the last to benefit.

I. Lewis Libby Jr., former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, could have been granted a pardon for his role in the leaking of a C.I.A. agent’s name and an attempted cover-up. In July 2007, Mr. Libby’s prison sentence was commuted. Nor was there any clemency for former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who in late October was convicted of ethics violations for not reporting gifts and services given by friends. Mr. Stevens would lose his bid for a seventh term.

UPDATE: NO MORE PARDONS

Michael Isikoff is confirming: no pardons for Scooter Libby, Alberto Gonzales, Duke Cunningham, Michael Milken, George Ryan, Conrad Black, Edwin Edwards, Ted Stevens, Roger Clemens, et al. On his last day in office, Bush finally does something right!

A WEEK IN THE LOOKING GLASS

-by Noah

I think about doing a post like this every week. Certainly, the material is available, but it just seems that every time you think our world has gotten as dysfunctional and warped as it can possibly be… Last week was special.

It Just Gets More And More Absurd

New Yorkers have to take their amusements wherever they can find them. It’s part of the defense mechanisms one needs to live here, in a harsh environment. One source of amusement, for me, has always been the headlines of our daily newspapers. I hit the street everyday (we walk a lot in NYC. It’s faster.) and I can’t wait to see what the nearest newsstand (limit, 3 per block) has to flash at me. The best in headline history may be the NY Post’s "Headless Body In A Topless Bar" from about 25 years ago, but the competition goes on and on. It’s not just the tabloids, though. The NY Times, our stuffy would be protector of the elitist establishment status quo, is known for its own unique headline style. Their specialty is the ridiculously reserved or inadvertently understated headline; a headline so coy that it seems to be hiding something, like for instance the truth or a truth they’d really rather not come out and say. One such headline appeared on Saturday. It even used the word understated; perhaps breaking new ground. The headline reads "Unofficial Tallies In City Understated Obama Vote." The first line in the story immediately belies the headline. "Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama. That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district." Read it again if it hasn’t sunk in. Now, I don’t want to assume that just because there are great multitudes of humans of African descent and huge numbers of young college students in my town that they would all vote for Senator Obama, but none? NONE is a pretty understated turnout for any candidate, let alone one who generates the enthusiasm of the Senator from Illinois. For instance, in Harlem’s (!) 70th Assembly District, not a single vote ended up in the Obama column. That’s according to the unofficial count. Incredibly, there are 80 more election districts in NYC where Obama DID NOT RECEIVE A SINGLE VOTE. Kinda hard to believe isn’t it? This reminds me of those old elections in the U.S.S.R. where Khrushchev got all of the votes, every one of ‘em. Oh, I know you might say, "well, New York is where Senator Clinton is from". Believe me, we don’t love her that much. In fact, most people I know, barely tolerate her. We look at her and we don’t see the funny pant suits. We look at her and we see a t-shirt emblazoned with "The Lesser Evil." I personally know a couple of people who voted for her. I know dozens who voted for Senator Obama. Clinton is our Senator and she can expect a lot of votes in New York City, but not all of them. Something is amiss. Or, as the Times might say it: "Some Theorize Something May Be Amiss."

In an even more ethnically African-American district in Brooklyn, the vote on primary night stood at 118 to 0 for Senator Clinton. Since then, more votes have been "found." She now leads 118 to 116, still a suspicious count. Back in that Harlem district, the count is now 261 to 136. Well, I guess 136 is better than the ZERO. ZIPPO. NONE Obama was credited with a week ago. Is this home field advantage? Is this love for the local Senator, or, is this confusion?

Has Jeb Bush been spotted in NYC? With all of the time Bill has spent with Daddy Bush, did he get a few pointers? New York’s delegates are apportioned by proportion of vote count. The more zero counts Senator Obama gets, the fewer delegates he gets. Guess who gets those. We all heard about the Super Delegates and the war for delegates past this week but, this is getting really dirty and suspicious. It may get Senator Clinton more delegates but it sure won’t increase her likeability quotient. We’ve spent 8 years pointing at Bush and Rove and what happened in Florida and then, the last four years, at what happened in New Mexico and Ohio. We’ve spent 8 years seething about Republican corruption and the sleaziness of the Bushes. Now, it looks like instead of rectifying the corruption, someone is adopting the same methods of "electoral" politics. It’s not new, of course, but, it is sickening. The Clinton Machine is a mighty big machine. I can’t wait ‘til the dead people rise up from the grave and start voting. I can just see Ann Coulter leading them to the polls for Hillary, directed by Roger Corman, no doubt.

And Doncha Come Back No More

Back in the middle of the week, on Valentine’s Day, Rep. John A. Bo(eh)ner, of Little Germany, er, te northern Cincinnati suburbs, stood up in our House Of Representatives and threw one of those 14 year old girl tantrums that he is so known for. This time it was about FISA, the Immunity For Bush And His Telecom Buddies Act of 2008. He just couldn’t believe that some dastardly Americans, including all too few of their elected representatives were against Bushie’s cherished FISA bill. It didn’t matter that even Bush, in a moment of carelessness or once in a lifetime honesty, had already publicly admitted that he had broken the law over the wiretap issue. No, this bill was an absolute must if America was to be saved from "the terrorists." By America, of course, he meant the huge campaign contributors that they so generously give to campaigns and, oh yeah, just happen to run the telecoms. He also meant, I’m sure, virtually the entire A-team of the Bush administration, Bush, Cheney, Rice, former Attorney General Gonzales et. al. After all, it is a little known aspect of the bill that it would not only grant immunity for the telecoms and the slime that sit in their corner offices; it would also grant the Bushies immunity from prosecution, strip away a high crime and misdemeanor that they could be impeached for during or after the long national nightmare of their regime, and, quite neatly, protect everybody from lawsuits that could potentially be filed against them by the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been illegally spied upon.

For some reason, the media doesn’t talk about all of that very much. Oh, that’s right! They just happen to be part of the telecom industry. I’m sure what they think is that what we, the public, don’t know won’t hurt us, or is it them. Make no mistake, this bill isn’t about protecting Americans. Bush and his lapdogs in Congress care more about protecting their own butts and those of the telecom giants than you or I. But, J.A. Bo(eh)ner got so worked up that he said words to the effect that he just wasn’t gonna stand for "the other side of the aisle," or those who want to protect the Constitution that all congressional representatives are sworn to uphold with or without their fingers crossed behind their backs, opposing his and his dark master’s desires. The J. A., as I like to call him, wasn’t about to stand for a bill that was amended so that it didn’t grant all of those blessed immunities, so, he walked out and walked out with all but around 30 Republican representatives. The Republican congresscreeps ran out so fast you woulda thought there was a Valentine’s Day half-price sale on male hookers in back of the dumpster down the street, or, maybe they heard Tucker Carlson was doing a pole dance out on the Mall with the Washington Monument as a backdrop. In either event, don’t let the door hit you, J.A. (unless, of course, you kinda like that sort of thing). Oh, and J.A., while you were running down to the dumpster, the rest of Congress voted contempt citations for administration officials Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers. Yeah, if I was you, I’d wanna avoid that vote and I’d be afraid of what they might say before Congress too, if only they were compelled to talk. I could say you and your filthy colleagues walked out on the American people who hired you to work for them and defend the Constitution, but, you guys walked out on us long ago.

Three Ring Circus

One ring is named Clemens. One ring is named McNamee. And, one is a congressional panel headed up by a guy who is almost always one of our very best Congressmen, Rep. Henry Waxman. I guess he had to hold the hearing since Roger Clemens requested it, but, although somewhat riveting, it sure was a circus. Watching it was like watching a train wreck that you have advanced knowledge of and can do nothing about. I made a comment to one of Howie’s posts earlier in the week about the whole thing. For those who didn’t see it, I offer a couple of observations on some subtext of the whole thing. Both Clemens and his accuser came off quite badly, but what was interesting was that the Republicans on the hearing supported Clemens while the Democrats leaned toward McNamee. There was a clear partisan divide. Behind it all was a subtext. First of all, Clemens is a longtime buddy of both Dubya and Daddy Bush. This goes back to a time when Sonny Bush owned the Texas Rangers ballclub. Maybe some on the panel received a word from on high. Maybe they didn’t. Secondly, I really enjoyed seeing Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana tear apart the trainer sleazo, but, hmmm, aren’t there some Big Pharma companies based in Indiana? Do you think they might like Republicans these days? Gee, maybe they even contribute big sums of moola to Burton. Is McNamee being assaulted by Repugs because of sleaze or because he upset the apple cart? Is this all coincidence? I doubt it!

Now consider that some of the biggest (literally) stars in sports are poster boys and girls for the results that can be achieved through the use of Big Pharma’s products. To Big Pharma and their lapdogs in Congress, it’s "how dare anyone damage the reputations of our sports hero customers and, by connection, our products!" Lastly, doesn’t Congress have more pressing business on its plate? I don’t want to see high school athletes ruining their bodies and lives, but, such hearings smack of grandstanding. Now, I hear that Sen. Arlen "Single Bullet Theory" Spector wants to investigate the video taping habits of the New England Patriots, another great use of time and taxpayer money. More grandstanding for the public. The clowns have been already sent in.


David Shuster

Last week, on MSNBC, David Shuster referred to Chelsea Clinton as being pimped out by her parents. Poor choice of words, even if true. He shouldn’t have said it, at least not that way. To many, particularly younger people, the word pimp no longer carries the baggage that it does for older folks like myself and Senator Clinton. You see, Senator Clinton got very upset about the comment Shuster laid on her daughter. Any parent would. The difference is that Clinton has access to the upper management of NBC and was provided with an opportunity to abuse her perceived power. And, she is so arrogant that she felt she could suggest that Shuster be fired. Excuse me Frau Clinton, we already have an arrogant prick in the White House. We really don’t need another one. Is it that you feel that being an arrogant prick is a job qualification? Were Reagan, JFK, Eisenhower, FDR, Carter, Truman etc. all so arrogant? OK, I left out LBJ, for one.

Not that you care, but if you ever do wonder why so many people don’t view you as likeable, why do you continue to make yourself so UNlikeable? I gotta tell ya: If the 2008 Presidential election comes down to you and Mr. Straight Talk Out Of Both Sides Of His Mouth and it comes down to just who is more likeable, YOU LOSE, and so do the rest of us. Chelsea is a big girl, 27 and out in the world, the corporate world no less. She is leading a very public life. She can stand up for herself. You’re both in public life. Things get said. Thicken your skin and let it go. Please for your own sake and the sake of your campaign, lighten up a little. Have you ever called for the firing of the numerous conservative commentators that say bad things about you and your family? On the scale of saying your kid is pimped out vs. accusing you of murdering Vince Foster…

CNN To Become Public Access Television

Oh sure, they call it "Citizen Journalism" but CNN’s iReport is a new low in journalism. It’s also an indication that CNN is throwing in the towel. They are now taking "news reports" from the public at large. Anyone with a camera can play. Now, you can be a TeeVee journalist! It’s like those public access TV channels that feature things like Tele-psychic and people who spend hours talking about their sex lives, or just go around to horrible clubs interviewing junkies and fashion disasters. It’s like CNN either doesn’t know what news to report or they don’t know what news people want to see. I’d like to think that CNN might now actually cover and expose some truths but they’ve already had ample opportunity to do that kind of serious investigative reporting and have passed. iReport is desperation in a quest for ratings. It’s the turning of journalism into American Idol, complete with long lines of wannabees who wouldn’t know news if it bit ‘em in the butt. Oh wait, that’s what CNN already has! I mean, how is Glenn Beck different than any public access TV loon? And CNN gave him $50 million to sit on camera and babble his bug-eyed drooling nonsense.

Now, get ready for endless tales of people reporting their abductions by aliens and in depth reporting of the weekly appearances of the Virgin Mary on pieces of French toast. Get ready for some goofball reporting that he saw Nixon having ultra-caffeinated coffee with Bin Laden and E. Howard Hunt coffee at a Starbucks way back in 1976. Wait. No. That was ME!

What I Want To See

It looks like McCain has the Repug nomination all wrapped up, but, it looks like all of his campaigning is aging him fast, faster than normal. The Presidency ages people very fast. I remember my father watching JFK on the telly in early1963. He commented on how much Kennedy had aged in a little over 2 years. It was true. Kennedy was a young man, in his early 40s, but he looked 10 years older than he had just 2 years before. McCain is already 72. Reagan had alzheimer’s disease in his second term, if not earlier. I think that, by now, the 2008 campaign is aging all of us. The 24 hour coverage is over the top. Make it stop! Can’t we have those last three debates between the two finalists, one from each party, and be done with it? I have one suggestion, though. If it’s Obama vs. McCain, let’s dispense with the silly podiums that each candidate stands behind. I say we put Obama and McCain on treadmills, in front of a national audience while they debate. That should tell us something!