Finally: Ramos and Compean Sentences Commuted

Well, it isn't a pardon but it gets them out of prison.

WASHINGTON (AP) - In his final acts of clemency, President George W. Bush on Monday commuted the prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer ignited fierce debate about illegal immigration.

Bush's decision to commute the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who tried to cover up the shooting, was welcomed by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. They had long argued that the agents were merely doing their jobs, defending the American border against criminals. They also maintained that the more than 10-year prison sentences the pair was given were too harsh.

Comments

[IslamoLlama]

"-- and Jose Compean, who tried to cover up the shooting --"

Yes, nothing says, "I'm just doing my job" like a government cover-up.

"-- Isaac Robert Toussie of Brooklyn, N.Y, convicted of making false statements to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and of mail fraud, was among 19 people Bush pardoned just before Christmas. --"

"-- Bush saved Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, from serving prison time in the case of the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Libby was convicted of perjury and obstructing justice. --"

What is it about Bush and pardoning liars?

[North Dallas Thirty]

"What is it about Bush and pardoning liars?"

Says she who worships Bill Clinton.

Oh, and as far as Scooter Libby goes, no one has yet explained to me why Valerie Plame, who screamed that she was a doubleplusultratopsupersecret spy who no one knew worked for or was in any way affiliated with the CIA, was known by all of her neighbors, friends, and acquaintances to be a regular on the commute every day to CIA headquarters.

[templar knight]

"What is it about Bush pardoning liars?"

And speaking of liars, it takes one to know one. You would be in familiar territory with these guys, Moe. You've been caught lying and making insane comments on this blog so many times it takes quite a lot of gall for you to even show up here. Fucking idiot that you are.

[Lala]

Too bad he didn't pardon them instead of just commuting the sentence.

[WAHOO WILLIE]

"Too bad he didn't pardon them instead of just commuting the sentence."

Yeah, that they were sentenced (by the government) and had those sentences commuted kinda blows such stupid statements as "government cover-up" right out of the water.

[templar knight]

Exactly, Lala. They should have been pardoned and given a medal for their service, and their jobs with back pay. And an apology for having their lives ruined.

[Lala]

Temp, I picked this up somewhere and they say it's from a website called "the way things work". If true, then I see the reason for the commutation.

"They get out of prison with a commutation. A pardon would mean they'd have to wait, typically, five years after serving their time."

[Totally Heterosexual Conservative]

Nothing says "wingnut hero" like folks who shoot an unarmed brown person in the back, and then cover it up. Lemme guess: MLK totally would have been behind such behavior. Jesus too!

[IslamoLlama]

"-- They should have been pardoned and given a medal for their service, and their jobs with back pay. And an apology for having their lives ruined. --"

Or, you know, they shouldn't have been taking pot shots at folks when they weren't authorized to do so. What's more, it probably would have been nice if they didn't proceeded to lie and cover up the mess, given that they both realized that a crime had been committed.

"It's not the crime, it's the cover up." At least if the agent had had the balls to pony up and confess he could play the "I was just serving my country" card. Instead, they took the pussies way out and tried to scrub their records.

"-- no one has yet explained to me why Valerie Plame, who screamed that she was a doubleplusultratopsupersecret spy who no one knew worked for or was in any way affiliated with the CIA, was known by all of her neighbors, friends, and acquaintances to be a regular on the commute every day to CIA headquarters. --"

I guess it all comes down to who you are going to believe. CIA Director Michael Hayden:
"During her employment at the CIA, Ms. Wilson was undercover. Her employment status with the CIA was classified information, prohibited from disclosure under Executive Order 12958. At the time of the publication of Robert Novak's column on July 14, 2003, Ms. Wilson's CIA employment status was covert. This was classified information. Ms. Wilson served in senior management positions at the CIA in which she oversaw the work for other CIA employees and she attained the level of GS-14 — Step Six under the federal pay scale. Ms. Wilson worked on some of the most sensitive and highly secretive matters handled by the CIA. Ms. Wilson served at various times overseas for the CIA."

Or Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh makes some very valid points. For instance, the CIA is really, really liberal. And this is all a Witch Hunt. And Bill Clinton something something Democrats are worse.

However, Hayden was the Director of the CIA. So I think he might trump the multi-million dollar radio BJ artist.

All that said, it doesn't change the fact that Libby lied under oath. And Bush then proceeded to jail break his criminal pale a la sentence commutation. Nor does it change the fact that Toussie or Compean made false statements to investigators and still received their GOoPer "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards.

Bush pardons liars.

[WAHOO WILLIE]

THC are you talking about Leon Horuchi?

[WAHOO WILLIE]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardons_controversy

[Lala]

Boies and Novak re Libby conviction

BOIES: And if you're conducting an investigation where you really need to get people's testimony, and they lie, they need to be prosecuted, even if you ultimately conclude there was no underlying crime.

But that's not really the situation here, as I see it, because, from the outside, it looks like the prosecutor knew before some of this testimony was taken that there was not an underlying crime. And then to go forward and try to get people maybe to slip up, make a mistake, so you can bring a perjury or obstruction charge, I think that is what's troubling here.

HANNITY: Bob Novak, there are a lot of people that had faulty memories here. Ari Fleischer had a faulty memory. Judith Miller had a faulty memory. The CIA operative that testified had a faulty memory in this case. There was even issues involving Tim Russert's testimony in here, what he had said to the FBI versus what he ultimately testified to. But yet there was one guy who was prosecuted. Does it seem fair to you?

ROBERT NOVAK, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: No, it doesn't. But I think Mr. Boies has it exactly correct, when, first -- but I would go a step beyond that. I don't believe there ever should have been a special counsel appointed. I think the president and the then-attorney general, Mr. Ashcroft, are to blame for that. This should have been handled in the Justice Department.

They knew, they knew, three months before Mr. Fitzgerald was named as a special counsel, they knew that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the source who gave me Valerie Plame Wilson's name. They knew that at that time, and so there was absolutely no need for a special counsel. They could have decided whether the Agents Identity Act had been violated or not.

HANNITY: And we do know, Laura Ingraham, that, in fact, it was not identified. I had spoken with, you know, Victoria Toensing, who was one of the authors of the 1982 act. She [Plame] was not covert. She did not meet the criteria, in any way, shape, matter or form as a covert agent.

And, number two, they knew who the leaker was very early on here, so then it raises the question, once it was appointed, once the prosecutor was appointed, and once the prosecutor knew these facts, why didn't he just dispose of it at that point?

[Totally Heterosexual Conservative]

Right on cue, Willie.

[templar knight]

Hmm...totally queer liberal, it was brown people doing the shooting. I guess that cancels out the hero status if we were to use your insane logic. You could care less about all the people whose lives have been shortened or made miserable by the actions of these drug dealers. That says everything I need to know about you.

[Lala]

Maybe the drug runner was lame-o's dealer.

[Lala]

"Isaac Robert Toussie of Brooklyn, N.Y, convicted of making false statements to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and of mail fraud, was among 19 people Bush pardoned just before Christmas. --"

I believe Toussie's pardon was rescinded after people he defrauded spoke up about how he ruined their lives.

[Lala]

It's too bad Clinton and Holder never spoke to the victims of the FALN terrorists who they pardoned in order to get Hillary elected as a NY Senator.

[templar knight]

"It's too bad Clinton and Holder never spoke to the victims of the FALN terrorists.."

Great point, Lala. Looks like the Democrats prefer to pardon murderers rather than liars. Given a choice, I'd rather have a liar pardoned than a murderer.

[North Dallas Thirty]

And still, Totally Heterosexual Conservative, no one could explain why, if the fact that Plame worked for the CIA was supposed to be top-secret, she drove into Langley CIA headquarters every single morning.

Furthermore, people who weren't trying to backstab Bush pointed out the following facts about Plame Girl and her CIA "cover".

"After Plame was transferred back to CIA headquarters in the mid-1990s, she continued to pass herself off as a private energy consultant. But the first CIA veteran noted: "You never let a true NOC go into an official facility. You don't drive into headquarters with your car, ever."

A senior U.S. intelligence official, who like the others quoted in this article spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that Plame "may not be alone in that category, so I don't want to suggest she was the only one. But it would be a fair assumption that a true-blue NOC is not someone who has a headquarters job at any point or an embassy job at any point."

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/03/14/1457191.htm

The really hilarious part is watching Plame's pathetic BDS-afflicted defender Larry Johnson try to spin that this is normal -- and in the process, stating that the CIA uses as undercover agents people who anyone could see going in and out of CIA headquarters on a regular basis.

"JOHNSON: People saying that just demonstrate their further ignorance of the CIA. At least 40 percent of the people driving through those gates every day are undercover. They are -- sometimes, they are here in the United States for two or three assignments, then they go back overseas. Their acknowledged relationship with the CIA is unacknowledged. They're presumed to work for some other U.S. government agency. Their covers are backstop.

So, just because they are driving through the gates there doesn't mean that they're not undercover. I was out there for four years driving through the gates. I was undercover until the day I left. And the only one who knew I worked with CIA was my wife."

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0510/26/sitroom.03.html

The really hilarious part is that, in that same transcript, Johnson is forced to admit that Plame had been yanked back to the United States unceremoniously after the CIA determined that her identity had been compromised by Aldrich Ames. Therefore, in their infinite wisdom, the CIA supposedly allowed this woman, who they knew had been outed, to continue as an undercover agent overseas because -- chuckle -- the fact that she lived in the United States apparently erased the fact that anyone with any connection whatsoever to the Eastern Bloc knew she was a CIA agent.

My personal theory is that the CIA isn't that dumb, and that Plame was given a ceremonial position and told she was a NOC to keep from hurting her feelings, to make happy her Clinton-insider husband (and thus Billy and Hilly), and perhaps as a counterintelligence subterfuge. Then again, the Democrat-dominated CIA could literally have been dumb enough to use a compromised person who anyone with eyes could see worked at Langley as an undercover agent.

[A Reader]

Agents Ramos and Compean’s conviction was not only a gross miscarriage of justice and a violation of common sense, but was also unconstitutional and, therefore, unlawful, as the article linked below argues in great detail:

The Blessings of Liberty
http://tinyurl.com/koywm

And to all those who are (wrongly) suggesting that an unusually harsh sentence was necessary to prevent abuse of power by Border Patrol agents, consider this.

Mistreatment of border violators, and this includes drug smugglers who shoot at BP agents, are as rare as total eclipses of the moon, and once they happen, they are being reported and broadcasted coast to coast on all major TV networks.

On the other hand, border violations are overwhelming the existing means of enforcement and are on the rise. Up to four million intruders a year illegally crosses the American-Mexican border headed north. This, however, is not news that you would see on MSNBC or CBS, and the perpetrators, if at al caught, are being given a slap on a wrist for the damage that they have inflicted to our country.

Deterrence of criminal acts is one of the main objectives of the punishment. Judging from the results, punishments of border enforcement personnel must have been more than adequate deterrent, while punishments of the border violators were not.

So, if you are so concerned about lawbreaking that may get off hands, soon, the logical conclusion should be to go after the border violators, and not the Border Patrol agents, with harsh punishment that would discourage others for disrespecting our country, its border, and the laws.

[Lala]

Canada gets it -

Report: Canada refuses to admit Bill Ayers
January 19, 2009 11:07 AM | 8 Comments

Bill Ayers, a Chicago resident and one of the founders of the Weather Underground, was turned back at the Canadian border Sunday night. Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago, was scheduled to speak at the Centre for Urban Schooling at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. But that appearance has now been temporarily cancelled, the Toronto Star reports.

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/01/report-bill-ayers-turned-back-at-canadian-border.html

[Lala]

And don't forget this Clinton/Holder pardon - (Bill Ayers friends)

In 1985, former Weather Underground members Susan Rosenberg (who also was implicated in the Nyack robbery) and Linda Evans were apprehended while transporting 740 pounds of explosives which they both acknowledged were slated for use in additional bombings. Rosenberg was sentenced to 58 years in prison, Evans 40; President Bill Clinton pardoned both women in January 2001.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6808

[SacTownMan]

Wow Lala Canada bans the dumb ass terrorist Ayers and Patterico's bans the dumb ass Harpo.

There is a god

[Lala]

I think harpo has been banned elsewhere, don't you?

[SacTownMan]

"I think harpo has been banned elsewhere, don't you?"

I'm sure this loser has been tossed out of many a lowlife drinking establishment or two!

Can't imagine too many people able to stomach much of his sorry ass in person! Besides his drunken golf buddies and a bunch of aluminum hat wearing 9/11 truther freaks that is!

[SacTownMan]

And in the interest of truth THC Abuser the low-life drug dealer was shoot in the ASS, not the back. At least get the facts straight when you fake your outrage!

[templar knight]

The drug dealer was shot in the THC, eh, SacTownMan? LOL.

[IslamoLlama]

"-- Great point, Lala. Looks like the Democrats prefer to pardon murderers rather than liars. Given a choice, I'd rather have a liar pardoned than a murderer. --"

Or you could pull a Huckabee and cut loose the serial rapists.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTcyMTM5YzRiMzVjMjA3MGEwMjUwM2Y3NGJiMzM1YWY=

[WAHOO WILLIE]

Wow, can't make an argument on presidential pardons so let's start dragging governors into the mix.

[IslamoLlama]

"-- Agents Ramos and Compean’s conviction was not only a gross miscarriage of justice and a violation of common sense, but was also unconstitutional and, therefore, unlawful, as the article linked below argues in great detail: --"

Hahaha. This guy is making the rather laughable claim that you are legally allowed to murder non-citizens on US soil because they aren't protected by the first three lines of the Constitution. What a fucking joke.

Remember that the next time you're in Canada. Your life is in their hands, bucko. Step onto the wrong side of the Washington / Columbia border and you are as good as fucking dead if a Mounty decides you looked at him funny.

Then he goes on to try and deconstruct the 4th and 14th Amendment to a rather laughable degree.

Of course, all of this fails to address the fact that Compean deliberately obstructed a police investigation. This may come as a shock to all the Constitutional Scholars on this board, but you aren't free to cover-up evidence from the police even if said activities are technically legal.

Compean was an accessory to the accused. In many ways, his crime was actually worse than that committed by Ramos. At the very least, Ramos could claim he was acting in the line of duty. Ramos could have claimed that he'd made an error in judgment, acted in haste or in a panic, or otherwise simply fumbled in his obligations as a Border Patrol Agent. But Compean went the extra mile by deliberately seeking to foil police proceedings against his friend. There's no "oops" room in that. Get in a gun fight with a drug smuggler? Hey, that's forgivable. Scrub yourselves of evidence and deny knowledge of the affair to investigators? That's not exactly the sort of way an "innocent" pair of Border Agents acts.

"-- After the shooting the officers disposed of their shell casings, made no further attempt to apprehend the suspect, lied to their supervisors, and filed a false investigative report. --"

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/txw/press_releases/2007/compean_ramos_suttonstatement_1_17_07.pdf

Let's assume they aren't a pair of cold blooded murderers. They are, at the least, a pair of traitors and subversives - no less vile than a pair of al-Qaeda terrorists with similar intent - with no loyalty to their country or interest in exercising their duty as law enforcement officers.

They know they did wrong. The fact that they tried to bury the evidence more or less proves it. And I doubt Bush's pardon will do much to erase the scorn this country has for them or the burden of conscience they'll be forced to bare throughout the rest of their lives.

[WAHOO WILLIE]

LLama; that's the kind of argument you can make that causes me to wonder if there are two of you, an adult with skills and a snotty coed....or should you be called Sybil? I'm now challenged to dig deeper where normally I couldn't care less who a president pardons. Good show.

[Lala]

The border agents didn't murder the guy, they shot him in the buttocks. He ran back to Mexico, I believe. They probably didn't report it and when it came to light they were stuck. The smuggler was invited back into the US to testify against them, he has since been convicted in two smuggling cases. The sentences were too harsh, plus their lives were at risk in the jail they were in.

[Lala]

Speaking of Governors and criminals, remember this? Imagine letting murderers go home for the weekend? No wonder crime was so out of control.

Dukakis & Willie Horton

By Editorial Staff
Published October 1988

The Willie Horton case

In Massachusetts, first-degree murderers used to get out of prison for the weekend …

Governor Michael Dukakis believed that it was “rehabilitative” for prisoners to be allowed to roam the streets unsupervised in what was known as the Prison Furlough Program.

http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0158_Dukakis__Willie_Hort.html

[Lala]

Willie, how did lame-o come up with murder?

[WAHOO WILLIE]

"Willie, how did lame-o come up with murder?"

wishful thinking? BDS?

[SacTownMan]

This butt wound argument reminds me of an attempted murder trial I was on.

It started two days after the WTC bombings and lasted until the week after Thanksgiving. There were 4 defendants and 2 separate juries. I had 3 months of jury duty and my company only paid 4 weeks!

One family was constantly harrasing the family accross the street. The dad had enough and decided to move his 5 daughters and wife to Colorado. The family was loading up the moving van and the drunks across the street came back for one final "goodbye".

These folks basically sit out in their driveways of their low income housing project and "par-t-ee" all day, you know Harpo's kind of folks!

The lady that started it all testified to having 12 or 14 "foddees" that day. (That's 14 forty ounce malt liquor beverages for the unenlightened.) Well it turns out about a half dozen of those empties ended up being tossed through the window of that moving van's windshield just after it turned dark.

The real fun involved a group of about 15 in the street and 7 in the driveway when the yelling and pushing began to get out of control. Then the dad goes up and gets his 22 rifle and runs down the driveway yelling "get out of here or I'll shoot" Well the stupid factor was already running on overdive this night so they start coming up the driveway and the dad snaps! He starts chasing the folks away shooting as he runs to the edge of the street. 7 people shot a total of 19 times and no one died.

To make a long story short when we deliberated the case we got stuck. The main charge of "Attempted Murder" was not moving along and after 8 days of deliberating we went back to the judge and asked for instructions. You see there were half of us that said it wasn't murder but "Attempted Manslaughter". You must vote "Not Guilty" of "Attempted Murder" before you can consider the lesser charge of "Attempted Manslaughter". The judge gave an example of "Attempted Murder" and "Attempted Manslaughter" where a guy comes home and see's his wife asleep and just looks at her and say's "man I hate that bitch" and shoots her..Murder! The same guy comes home and finds his wife in bed with his best friend and snaps and shoots em..Manslaughter!

So with this fresh perspective we returned to the jury room and reviewed the information again. So to break the ice I suggested we review some of the pictures and testimony. One guy said that the dad had told of shooting cans from a hundred feet or so and he was a pretty good shot. Reveiwing the picture of bullet wounds in the drunks across the street we were struck by two things. First these were some HUGE women. I mean "baby got back" sized ladies. I would guess the average weight here around 275!

The final piece of the pie was when we realized that 14 of the 19 bullet holes were BUTT SHOT'S, The other's were leg and arm wounds. 30 minutes later we found the guy quilty of the lessor charges!

[WBestPresidentEver]

THANK YOU PRESIDENT BUSH. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE MY PRESIDENT AND I THANK YOU NOT ONLY FOR PARDONING THESE 2 GUYS BUT THANK YOU FOR BEING MY PRESIDENT FOR THESE LAST 8 YEARS. MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND YOUR BEAUTIFUL WIFE AND FAMILY ALWAYS AND MAY YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL LIFE AHEAD.
http://img514.imageshack.us/my.php?image=introthankyouwb9.gif

[North Dallas Thirty]

"This guy is making the rather laughable claim that you are legally allowed to murder non-citizens on US soil"

Who wants to be the first to explain to her that, in order for it to be murder, the person would have to have died in the process?

I love the hypocrisy of people like her. She insists that terrorists who kill Americans aren't murderers, but American law enforcement agents that shoot at and wound criminals who go on to commit more crimes are.