George W. Bush is apparently trying to get out of town ASAP, but he still has a few hours to go to pardon members of his administration for their illegal spying on Americans, torture, and other such crimes. This is a running post that's going to be updated throughout the day with Bush's pardons as they happen.
Update #1: Bush commutes sentence of two Border Patrol agents convicted by a jury of shooting a unarmed Mexican man in the back then tried to cover it up. Because, apparently, shooting an unarmed "cockroach" in the back should get a commendation, not a prison sentence, oKKKay?
Update #2: It is now past midnight in Washington D.C. and Bush's pardon power has turned into a pumpkin. Unless he unloads a whole stack of'em signed today on tomorrow morning with that shit-eatin' grin of his, that's all, folks. Makes you wonder what he has on Obama such that he's so sure Obama isn't coming after him or his administration for what they did, illegally spying on Americans and all that. Or maybe he figures that with a Supreme Court stacked with his and his daddy's appointees, any attempts at prosecuting him and his cronies will run into a Supreme blockade. Or maybe he just doesn't give a shit anymore, made sure his own hands were clean and doesn't give a shit about anybody else in his administration, and will laugh and laugh and laugh when the Bigus Dickus gets indicted for outing a CIA agent in retaliation for her husband's coming out against the Iraq war or gets indicted for war crimes for ordering the torture of prisoners of war...
-- Badtux the Watching Penguin
If you shot a drug smuggler in the butt, where I live, you wouldn't get a prison sentence. One of your relatives would take you to a Cracker Barrel for a celebratory meal.
ReplyDeleteThe Intellectual Redneck
Absolutely, because in AmeriKKKa, we don't need trials and shit to know that someone is a drug smuggler, all we need is to see brown skin. And the death penalty for smuggling, yessiree!
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the good old days when we could just hang darkies for looking at white girls wrong. Them good ole' boys who lynched Emmett Till shoulda gotten taken to Cracker Barrel for a celebratory meal, not arrested and tried for murder forty years later. That's AmeriKKKa, bay-bee!
Oh yeah, that Constitution thingy that says, like, we gotta give folks DUE PROCESS, like, a TRIAL, before we execute them? Toilet paper. Just wipe yer ass with it, baybee.
In the case of these two cops, a jury of their Texas peers decided they acted wrongly. Do you know exactly how bad the evidence has to be against them to get a conviction by a Texas jury for shooting a Mexican in the back? Crap, it had to be so goddamned open and shut that a blind man presented with that evidence could come to the same conclusion. But hey, I forgot, this whole Constitution and trial shit, we don't need that in AmeriKKKa. Just lynchings, bay-bee! Wipe our butts with that there Constitution thingy, yee-haw!
- Badtux the Snarky Redneck Penguin
but poor unca teddy stevens...and what about Top Gun Duke Cunningham ????
ReplyDeletehehe...
nope...
he didn't pardon them..
he has until MN....
8 minutes ago...
I can't believe he hasn't done it. For months, I've been expecting a blanket pardon at the last minute. Of course, I also expected a declaration of martial law in 2006 and 2008, an attack on Iran and all manner of other paranoid things. Maybe stuff's not as bad as I fear! In that case, it's all good.
ReplyDeleteMy paranoid side wonders whether Bush has signed, dated and made official a raft of pardons. Only he's kept them secret. They won't be revealed until after he's gone, in a case-by-case basis. If he can have "signing statements" that make him exempt from the law, why can't he whip out pre-sealed pardons even though he's no longer president? What Supreme Court is going to stop him?
Then again, as you say, maybe the departing fascists are looking forward to years of battles in the law courts and the courts of public opinion. It would rally the base and gove them something to further divide the country. That could be a Rove calculus. They'll get their civil war yet!