Bush and his lackeys continue their seemingly endless quest to wreck the Republican Party and drive conservatives away. ********************************* Ex-lawman jailed, fined in shooting By Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES March 20, 2007 A former deputy sheriff who said he fired shots at a sport utility vehicle after the driver tried to run him down was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Del Rio, Texas, to one year and one day in prison and ordered to pay $5,347 in damages to an illegal alien injured in the incident. U.S. District Judge Robert T. Dawson also ordered Edwards County Deputy Sheriff Guillermo F. Hernandez to serve three years supervised probation and to pay an additional $5,000 fine. Hernandez, 25, has been held without bail since his Dec. 1 conviction on charges of violating "under the color of law" the civil rights of Maricela Rodriguez-Garcia. The woman, a Mexican national, was being smuggled into the United States when she was struck in the lip by metal fragments after an 11:50 p.m. traffic stop in Rocksprings, Texas, in April 2005. Hernandez told investigators and Edwards County Sheriff Donald G. Letsinger that the driver of the vehicle tried to run him down after he stopped him for running a red light. He said as he approached the vehicle on foot, he spotted at least eight persons lying down inside it. He said he fired shots at its rear tires as it sped off. Sheriff Letsinger has questioned why U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton -- who last year also convicted two U.S. Border Patrol agents who shot a drug-smuggling suspect as he fled back into Mexico -- ever brought charges. The sheriff said Hernandez "followed the letter of the law" in defending himself in the incident. But in a statement, Mr. Sutton said a jury of 12 Texans heard the evidence and unanimously found Hernandez guilty of using unreasonable and unlawful deadly force when he repeatedly fired into the back of a fleeing vehicle he knew was loaded with people and not a threat to him. "In America, we admire our law-enforcement officers for their courage and dedication," he said. "However, police officers are not above the law they enforce." Rep. Sam Johnson, Texas Republican, said the deputy fired shots at the rear tires of a fleeing vehicle after the driver attempted to run him over. Mr. Johnson said that although an initial investigation cleared the deputy, the Justice Department began its own investigation a year later based on the testimony of illegal aliens in the van. "This is the third law-enforcement official protecting the border unjustly convicted for doing his job by the office of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton," Mr. Johnson said, calling on President Bush to pardon the deputy. "What kind of mixed signals are we sending to those enforcing the law along our borders? "Protect our borders ... but we won't protect you when illegal immigrants try to run you over," he said. Paul Kamenar, senior executive counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation, said he was disappointed the court did not give probation to the deputy as his group had urged in a brief, but happy the court rejected the government's "outrageous recommendation" that Hernandez serve six years in prison. "We're hopeful the conviction will be overturned on appeal since Deputy Hernandez did not intend to violate the illegal aliens' civil rights when he shot at the tires of the vehicle smuggling a load of illegal aliens that tried to run into him after he stopped it for running a stop sign," Mr. Kamenar said.
It gets worse. The Homeland Security Inspector General was out defending the skinheads from HS who had lied to republican congressmen to try to get them to back off their protests over the absurd prosecution and long prison terms handed out to two Border Patrol agents for doing their jobs. ******************************* Agency staffers defended on 'shoot Mexicans' rumor By Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES March 20, 2007 The Homeland Security inspector general yesterday said his staffers did not lie when they told Republican congressmen falsely that U.S. Border Patrol agents who shot a drug-smuggling suspect "were out to shoot Mexicans." Richard L. Skinner said his investigators later learned that the accusation was "inaccurate" and blamed a public uproar over the discrepancy on Rep. Michael McCaul, Texas Republican, a member of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations who sought a briefing on the case. He said terms of the briefing for Mr. McCaul and others were violated when the accusation was released to the press, noting that it was never included in a final report on the case by his office. "Mr. McCaul and the other members understood the information my office was providing was not public and was not to be made public," he said. "My staff made some misstatements during the briefing, but nothing that affected the investigation, the trial, the convictions or the sentencings" of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. "The only reason the statement that Mr. Ramos and Mr. Compean allegedly said they wanted to shoot a Mexican has become public is because ... others have publicized that inaccurate information and reported it to the media," he said. In a two-page statement, Mr. Skinner said the agents acknowledged that they intended deadly force when they fired shots at the drug-smuggling suspect, thinking he was armed, but there is no explanation how his staffers took that to mean they "wanted to shoot Mexicans." Mr. McCaul said that Mr. Skinner sent his staff to brief him and three other members of Congress on the Border Patrol case and that during the Sept. 26 meeting, they were told that Ramos and Compean had said "they were out to shoot Mexicans." He said Mr. Skinner's staff made the statement several times during the briefing. "Why wouldn't we believe them?" he said. "Didn't they have the facts of their investigation by that point? It was just two weeks later that these Border Patrol agents were sentenced. "Mr. Skinner admitted that his staff made mistakes during at least two different congressional hearings," Mr. McCaul said. "He should fix the mistakes, make sure they don't happen again and move on." In February, Mr. Skinner retracted the accusation during a follow-up subcommittee hearing. At that session, Rep. John Culberson, Texas Republican, said Mr. Skinner "admitted under oath" giving false information to Congress "painting Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean as rogue cops who were not in fear for their lives and who were 'out to shoot Mexicans.' " Mr. Culberson called for Mr. Skinner's resignation because "he lied to us." Ramos, 37, and Compean, 28, were convicted on charges of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in a crime of violence and a civil rights violation in their attempted arrest of Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, a Mexican national. Their 11- and 12-year sentences, respectively, have drawn widespread criticism, including from some members of Congress -- 90 of whom are co-sponsors of a bill by Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, calling for a congressional pardon. Although Mr. Skinner said that while the claimed statement by the agents was inaccurate, it "was not reported by my office to anyone other than ... McCaul and the other members and their staff in attendance at the closed briefing." At the briefing, he said, his staff "did not have the benefit of a trial transcript or even a written report of investigation" when they erroneously said the agents wanted to shoot Mexicans.
Meanwhile, Bush is determined to try to rescue some shred of legacy from the Iraq debacle, no matter how much it costs or how many troops are killed. Someone remind me again why it is our job to police their country. Because our President is incompetent, our troops are sent on hopeless urban warfare missions where they either get shot or blown up or, if some lawyer sitting back in the Pentagon decides they were too aggressive, they get prosecuted by their own government. We elected a Republican president to give us this? **************************** Page 1 of 2 next » | Email | Print | Subscribe Add To Insider Newsclips | Click-2-Listen advertisement 'Courage, resolve' key to Iraq win, Bush says By Jon Ward THE WASHINGTON TIMES March 20, 2007 President Bush yesterday told the country -- on the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- that America can still achieve victory there, while Democrats in Congress said the United States has already failed. "Four years after this war began, the fight is difficult, but it can be won. It will be won if we have the courage and resolve to see it through," Mr. Bush said in an eight-minute speech from the Roosevelt Room in the White House. Mr. Bush, who decided over the weekend to mark the Iraq war's fourth anniversary, said that his plan to send 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq and Afghanistan must be given "months, not days or weeks" to succeed. But Democratic leaders in Congress said they want the roughly 140,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq to begin leaving soon. "After four years of failure in Iraq, the president's only answer is to do more of the same," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat. "To succeed in Iraq, we must have a new direction." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said, "The American people have lost confidence in President Bush's plan for a war without end in Iraq." "That failed approach has been rejected by the voters in our nation, and it will be rejected by the Congress," Mrs. Pelosi said. The Democratic majority in Congress is headed for a showdown with the president in the next few weeks over an emergency-funding bill for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The current $95 billion House bill would require U.S. troops to leave Iraq no later than the end of 2008, and has also been stuffed with an additional $21 billion in earmarks for legislators' pet projects. "As the bill is presently constituted, the president would have to veto it," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "Democrats know that. So our view is that we ought to just go ahead and sit down and negotiate a responsible bill now." Mr. Bush said Congress has "a responsibility" to get a supplemental war-funding bill "to my desk without strings and without delay." House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, responded that "the only strings attached are those benchmarks and standards endorsed by the president himself." "This legislation is the justified response ... to a policy that is failing and a president who insists that we must continue to stay the course," Mr. Hoyer said in a speech on the House floor. As of yesterday, 3,220 American servicemen and women had died in Iraq, and more than 24,000 had been injured. "It can be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home," Mr. Bush said. "That may be satisfying in the short run, but I believe the consequences for American security would be devastating." Mr. Bush yesterday denigrated polls showing lagging public support for the war during an appearance at the White House with the University of Florida football team, which won this year's NCAA national championship. "All the pre-game polls said you couldn't win," Mr. Bush said. "So much for polls." Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that the U.S. occupation and reconstruction efforts in Iraq have been mishandled in some ways. Miss Rice, who appeared on several morning TV shows, said that U.S. military forces should have had "enough forces to clear an area and then hold it so that building and governance can emerge." "That was probably not pursued at the very beginning," she said on CBS' "The Early Show," but said that the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David Petraeus, is now following that strategy. Miss Rice asked Americans to "be patient. ... It's worth the sacrifice." *********************************** That's the question, isn't it? Is it worth the sacrifice? If democracy is worth so much sacrifice, why didn't we also impose it on Kuwait after we liberated that country? And what about Saudi Arabia? Wouldn't they also benefit from it? Look how great it has worked in Iraq.