In the Obama administration, terrorist attacks are no longer to be called "terrorist attacks," at least not according to Janet Napolitano, Obama's new Director of Homeland Security. During an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel (that's The Mirror to you yokels who don't sprechen Deutsch):
SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?
NAPOLITANO: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.
Did she say "man-caused" disasters? Sigh, these Lefties are always about "nuance" aren't they?
Even the illegal aliens can't find work, so they are self-deporting. I received this email in my inbox at work yesterday. The names have been deleted.
Dear Staff,
Yesterday I spoke with ******'s mother who informed me that ****** will be disenrolling from school in a few weeks, and moving to Mexico. I asked Mom why and she said that her husband was recently laid off from work and cannot apply for unemployment because of his illegal status here in the United States, and the same goes for Mom. In addition, they cannot apply for any public assistance either. She told me that she told the children on Sunday that their beds will have to be sold because they need money for rent. Without going in too many details, ****** and her mother came to the US in order to be safe.
So basically, they have no money to survive on while they prepare to transition to Mexico where they have family.
I contacted the homeless liaison at the district to see what assistance he can provide the family until they leave, and [our principal] suggested I email the staff to see if anyone would like to make a monetary donation.
Very Truly Yours,
[the school secretary]
I have this student in class and she is a very well-behaved, considerate, and conscientous student. I hate to see her go. On the other hand, she is a victim of poor choices made by her parents. When they came here illegally, they must have known that something like this could happen. It's a shame they have to drag their daughter down with them.
I was forwarded the text of an outstanding and devastating (to the global warm-ongers) speech given by California congressional representative Tom McClintock. The occasion for the speech was the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, held in New York City earlier this month by the Heartland Institute.
There were a couple things I especially enjoyed about McClintock's speech.
First was his sarcastic, flippant tone that he used in the delivery. Remember, I only read the text, I didn't hear him speak; yet the words he used deliciously dripped with amused contempt for these people - dubbed "Leftist Luddites" by McClintock - who want to reduce our standard of living and our life expectancy in the name of solving a crisis that does not even exist: man-made global warming. People on the left get apoplectic when you laugh at their misguided beliefs, which for them, border on the religious in their intensity. This is one of the reasons that after twenty years on the air, Rush Limbaugh still drives the left crazy. He laughs at them; he makes fun of them. McClintock does likewise in this speech.
Second, McClintock pointed out the absurd contradictions of what the Luddites want to do in order to combat our so-called climate crisis. Observe:
In fact, I had a friend who paid $45 for one of these “carbon offsets” for his Lincoln Navigator. By paying $45, this company sends him a very attractive 10-cent decal that certifies his SUV now has absolutely NO carbon footprint. But then he discovered that Priuses, which do have a carbon footprint, get to use our diamond lanes for free, while his Lincoln Navigator – which for just $45 now has no carbon footprint whatsoever – has to sit in bumper to bumper traffic with all the rest of us carbon sinners...
{Snip}
These carbon offsets are supposed to be used for such activities as planting more trees to absorb carbon dioxide. After all, young trees absorb much more of this “greenhouse gas” than old trees. But isn’t replacing old-growth timber with young-growth timber exactly what lumber companies used to do until Al Gore’s acolytes stopped them? Trees are also very important to reducing energy demand – we’re told that to conserve electricity we need to plant lots of shade trees to shield our roofs from the sun so that we don’t use our air conditioners. We’re also all supposed to install solar panels on our roofs, although they don’t work so well in the shade from our trees...
{Snip}
In fact, there are only two ways of generating vast amounts of clean electricity for electric cars and trains: hydroelectricity and nuclear power. But there’s no faster way to send these Luddites into hysterics than to mention that inconvenient truth. The politically correct replacement is solar energy. Solar energy is roughly 17 times more expensive than either nuclear power or hydroelectricity – meaning, of course around 17 times LESS electricity to run electric cars and trains. Energy conservation, then, is the answer, which is why we’re required only to use energy efficient fluorescent lights rather than the warm and fuzzy incandescent bulbs. But wait – California has banned the disposal of fluorescent lights with your trash because of the extreme environmental hazard they pose in our landfills...
That is just a taste folks. Read the rest of Tom McClintock's speech right here.
My latest issue of EducationMatters, the monthly newsletter from the Association of American Educators had an article about the abysmal state of our country's civic knowledge., based on the results of a civics quiz taken by over 2,500 Americans. The most amusing part is that of the 33 questions on the quiz, people who self-identified as elected government officials did worse than the average citizen on 31 of those questions.
Take the quiz for yourself and see if you can best the average score of elected officials and perhaps the stellar score of yours truly.
By the way, on one of the answers I got wrong, I could argue that I shouldn't have.
Pocketknives. They used to be something that men were simply expected to carry. I remember receiving one from my Dad for Christmas one year, and as a kid, I carried one quite often. Somehow, over time, I stopped carrying one. After reading this column, I have reversed course, and have added a pocketknife to the small pile of items that I stuff into my pocket in the morning. Not only to pocketknives come in handy, but they can also save a life:
...There was a time when the average boy, and the man he became, carried a pocket knife as a matter of course. As we have become more urban and less rural, many citizens have lost touch with the need to carry a knife. You see these pacified, civilized, emasculated citizens tearing at vending machine packages of potato chips with their teeth or their car keys. That would be comical, if not a bit sad... except that the stakes are a lot higher than being unable to open a Christmas present or a bag of pretzels. In some cases, the lack of the most basic technology results in the death of a human being....
I have probably 8 to 10 pocketknives that I have acquired over the years, and until I read this article, they were collecting dust in my dresser drawer. No more.
Wanna go to a Tea Party? So far, 115 cities have signed up to protest the out-of-control spending in which our government is engaging.
Go to TaxDayTeaParty.com, and see where your nearest protest will be held. Unfortunately, April 15th is a work day, so attending a protest won't be easy; but what the hell? Our salaries are being raped anyway.
I will be checking with "She Who Keeps the Calendar" to see if I can take a half day off.
"You can't take a trip to Las Vegas or down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime...."
So said President Barack Obama back on February 10 of this year. His remarks were directed toward the CEOs of companies who made a devil's bargain and accepted the bailout money that was doled out by the Democrats earlier this year.
On a visceral level, Obama's comment initially seems reasonable: How dare a financially strapped company receive the lifeblood of the American taxpayer and then spend it on hotels and parties in Sin City?!
Upon more thoughtful deliberation, there are two problems with this line of thinking.
First, putting aside the fact that this writer does not believe that the taxpayers' money should be used for this sort of thing in the first place, the bottom line is that it has indeed been given to these companies, presumably with the goal of making them financially solvent again. One of the ways that companies stay profitable is to drum up business. This is done in a myriad of ways, to include, yes, wining and dining potential clients and customers in places like Las Vegas. Like it or not, that is how business gets done. To deny this marketing strategy to companies that have accepted federal bailout dollars is to ensure that they will not be competitive in the free market, and they will most likely fall further behind, thus wasting the sweat and toil of the taxpayers.
Second, I thought Obama and the congressional Democrats are trying to stimulate the economy by creating new jobs and saving existing ones. When these companies go to Vegas and spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, who do you think benefits from that spending? The waiters and waitresses; the casino table workers; the event planners; the alcohol and food suppliers; the mechanic who repairs the vehicles of the alcohol and food suppliers; the list is endless.
On today's Drudge, there is linked an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal that brings up my latter point. In the last 90 days, over 340 events have been cancelled, costing the city an estimated $131.6 million. The article suggests that the mayor of Las Vegas should send Obama the bill for this loss of income.
As misguided as Obama's stimulus plan is, if it is to be forced upon the American taxpayer, perhaps it would be a good idea if our Dear Leader didn't sabotage our economy's attempted recovery by opening the gaffe-prone hole under his nose.
They did it again. This time, it was the actress who plays the president, Cherry Jones, who did a PSA during 24 tonight, informing us that while "the events on 24 may be fiction, climate change is not."
So go to Fox.com everyone, and find out what you can do to reduce your carbon footprint in an effort to solve the problem of global warming. At least she also uttered "global warming" and not just "climate change."
These Hollywood types are such cause junkies; and to make matters worse, their causes are usually a bunch of misdirected hokum.
Jason Mattera of Young America's Foundation and Hot Air (see blogroll) has done a wonderful recurring series of ambush interviews where he corners these Congresscritters where they live and then asks them the questions that the lamestream media should be asking, but don't.
Past targets have included John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy, Jack Murtha, and "Dollar Bill" Jefferson. The latest object of Mattera's ire is that pathetic Kleptocrat Charles Rangel (D-NY). Feel the arrogance of this POS as he waves off Mattera with profanity. Actually Congressman, it is my "Goddamn business"!
Right there is the attitude of too many Congresscritters out there in DC Land. They have apparently forgotten that they work for the American People, not the other way around.
Or is it that simple? A friend of mine forwarded me a ten-minute video that explains the various major forms of government, and it turns the whole left-right paradigm on its head, along with verifying what I have been saying for years: Democracy sucks!
I am a little late with this post, as the Oprah episode in question aired back on February 25th, but my lovely bride has quite a stack of unviewed episodes of Oprah on the DVR, so she got around to watching that particular episode just the other day.
I happened to be in the living room that afternoon when my wife sat down to watch Oprah - I usually retire to the office and do some blogging - but what was unique about this particular episode was that it was shot in my city of residence, Sacramento. Oprah had her investigative reporter, Lisa Ling (who is from Sacramento) do a story on the newly homeless here in the capital city. These newly homeless apparently had homes until the recent downturn with the economy. Not surprisingly, Oprah and her producers tried their best to make these Sacramentans look as sympathetic as possible, but I thought that "pathetic" was a more fitting adjective.
One family in particular caught my attention. Favor and Ryan Whitesides and their three children became homeless last year when the bank foreclosed upon their house due to the Whitesides' inability to make their payments. Now, Favor and the three kids walk the streets in an unsavory section of Sacramento because it is near the Loaves and Fishes homeless shelter where they spend their nights and the kids attend school.
I'm sure that if Oprah could have left it at that, she would have, because with each new piece of information about this family, my B***S*** detector began to go into overdrive. First, it was revealed that only the wife and the three kids, ages 13, 11, and 9, have to walk the streets and sleep in shelters with their worldly possessions in garbage bags. The husband lives in an apartment with friends. Way to live up to your husbandly and fatherly duties there, Ryan.
Next, it was revealed that the Whitesides had an adjustable rate mortgage. Disagree with me if you wish, but unless you have some damn unique circumstances, the necessity of an ARM means you shouldn't even be buying a house in the first place.
Next, it was revealed that until they lost their jobs, Favor was a home care provider, and Ryan did clerical work; both of these jobs are minimum wage or just over. But it gets better: in addition to losing their house, they also had to get rid of their... Lincoln Navigator.
Are you starting to get the picture?
But the Whitesides weren't done. At one point, Favor was being interviewed by Oprah's crew inside a homeless shelter. There is Favor, sitting on a couch in a lobby, telling her woe-is-me tale of poverty and homelessness - her brood sitting around her to remind us all that there are deprived children involved here. And what is Favor's 13 year-old daughter doing during this interview? She is sitting next to her mother, texting on a cell phone!
I am sure that there really are some hard-luck cases out there where people truly did the right thing but have still ended up in financial and residential straits. However, I must agree with radio host Neal Boortz, who often says that the reason the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is because the rich keep making wise choices that make them richer, and the poor keep making unwise choices that make them poorer.
Too bad Oprah, Lisa Ling, and the rest of the Oprah crew were too cowardly to question any of the unwise choices of the family that they hoisted up as the poster children of homelessness in Sacramento.
One of my few guilty pleasures of the fictional variety on television is 24.
There I was tonight, shaking with anticipation as terrorists are on the way to put the White House under siege, and Jack Bauer is - ahem - interrogating a suspect with a taser gun that Bauer had lifted off of a White House guard he pummeled.
Then cut to commercial, and what do I see? A PSA with Kiefer Sutherland telling us all about how the production staff at 24 has instituted changes in order to make their productions more "green" in an effort to combat "climate change." Oh, gag me harshly.
I clucked my tongue a bit when they cast that disgusting America-hating hag, Jeanene Garofalo, as an FBI office drone. But when you cut from Kiefer Sutherland acting like a deliciously sociopathic badass to him practically wimpering before the camera about so-called climate change, it seriously messes with my ability to suspend disbelief.
Friday is often test day in the Chanman classroom. As I was briefing my 7th period 8th graders with their instructions for the test, I imparted some last-minute piece of obscure historical information in order to further explain something about the War of 1812 that the students kept not getting. Do I remember what the obscure info was? Nope.
I must have impressed the students, because I got the question I sometimes get from my students: How do you know all this stuff? My standard answer is that I'm a history teacher; I have to know this stuff. Some students then decided to put me to the test by asking me about the Presidents, such as who was the 19th president? Rutherford B. Hayes; who was the 23rd president? Benjamin Harrison, and so on. In fairness, they picked the wrong topic, because I have had the chronological order of presidents memorized since the fifth grade. After discovering they weren't going to stump me with the presidents, someone got cute and said, "What year did Mac Dre die?"
"2002," I said - eyes began to widen.
"How about Tupac?" said another student.
"1996," I said - murmurs of amazement began to ripple through the classroom.
"What about Biggie Smalls?" said another student.
"1997," I said - Now the murmurs became a cacophany of "No way!"
"How about Aaliyah?" said another student.
I said, "This is the last one and then we have to get the test started... she died in 2001."
Of course before we could start the test, my students wanted to know how I, a lame-o 36 year-old white guy who doesn't wear saggy pants and sometimes listens to Elton John during the last few minutes of class and who was their age in 1986 (they didn't say all that, but you can bet they were thinking it), could possibly know this critical information about their favorite thuggish hip-hop artists.
In Barack Obama's speech before the joint session of Congress the other night, the quote that was easily the most absurd of the night was this little ditty:
"My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we've inherited - a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession." Yes, that can be such a bother to inherit a trillion dollar deficit, Mr. President. Say, what is your proposal to address this "stark reality"? Oh yeah, it is to saddle us with yet another trillion-dollar deficit, and according to the spending you plan for the future, your are just getting warmed up.
As this train-wreck of an administration continues its swath, I am tempted to chuck my sign-off of "Good Day to You, Sir" and go with "We Are So Screwed" instead.
I have a friend/neighbor who works with the Republicans at the State Capitol here in our state's capital. Back on February 11, he invited me to attend a presentation/discussion about the film Frost/Nixon that was held after hours at the Capitol in the office of the Leader of the Senate Republicans. The featured speaker was a man named Ken Khachigian, who has been described as a "lion" of California GOP politics. He served as Nixon's Deputy Special Assistant, and also served as Ronald Reagan's head speechwriter. If you read The Reagan Diaries, Mr. Khachigian is mentioned several times, almost always in the vein of Met with Ken Khachigian today to talk about the convention/acceptance/upcoming speech or Had dinner with Ken Khachigian and his wife this evening.
So if you look back through many of Reagan's famous speeches, including the ones he gave at the 1980 and 1984 Republican conventions, those were Ken Khachigian's words. Here is a photo of Mr. Khachigian with President Reagan that I found on Khachigian's Wikipedia entry:
Even after Richard Nixon left office, Mr. Khachigian stayed on board as an advisor, and attended the actual series of interviews in 1977 between Nixon and David Frost, having been Nixon's head researcher for the interviews beforehand.
Mr. Khachigian requested that his presentation and any questions and answers afterward remain off the record, and I will of course honor that. I can tell you that Mr. Khachigian took us through the events leading up to the Frost/Nixon interviews, and told us what was accurate and not-so-accurate about the events depicted in the film, and the play that preceded it. It was an enjoyable and unique experience for me to have the opportunity to attend this function while surrounded by several state senators and assemblymembers. I just sat back and took it all in.
After the event ended, the cameras came out. Here is the result:
From left to right: Yours Truly, Ken Khachigian, and my friend/neighbor
You can tell which one of these three gentlemen doesn't work in politics; I'm the one not wearing the ubiquitous dark power suit.
In addition to teaching, my wife does editing projects for a to-remain-unnamed textbook company. She edits and sometimes creates questions for tests. For some projects where my wife is tasked with creating questions, she is required to come up with a theme that involves a fake website, bibliography, and labeled schematic drawing, with a series of questions based on the information found therein. For instance, she once created one of these with sharks being the theme. She came up with a list of fake websites about sharks, a bibliography of imaginary books that were all about sharks, and a drawing of a shark with its major body parts highlighted and labeled.
Recently, my wife was tasked with creating another of these test-taking themes. She was tired of animals, so she came up with the idea of basing it on military vehicles. Same thing: list of military vehicle websites and books, and a labeled drawing of a tank that points out the turret, tracks, hatch, main gun, etc. After completing the theme, my wife got an uneasy feeling about the acceptability of her creation, and checked with her editor just in case. Sure enough, her editor nixed the idea of using military vehicles, because they can't "depict guns" or show any "bias." OK, I get the whole showing guns thing - I don't agree with it, but I get it. But what exactly did the editor mean by "bias"? Bias toward boys instead of girls, since the theme was military in nature? Bias toward our country because the military vehicles were American? In both cases, what is wrong with that?
I am becoming very weary of the bias that many people have against anything masculine. Being the father of a son who is approaching the age of five, opportunities for me to experience this bias abound. For instance, I was in the military and I like guns; I own a few, and I shoot them when the opportunity arises. Naturally, my son is therefore fascinated by the military and guns as well. In today's culture, that simple statement I just made would cause many people to get the vapors and be shocked at the fact that my four-year-old son would be exposed to such horrible things. That's a crying shame, because once upon a time, the way I raise my son was nothing unusual. In some parts of the country, it still isn't. However, the overall culture of our country is one that frowns upon certain expressions of masculinity, and often seeks to extinguish it. Not allowing the depiction of a tank on a test is a prime example.
Pundits and authors are taking notice of this trend. Not long ago, columnist Ilana Mercer lamented that there are not more "Sully" Sullenbergers out there; referencing the take-charge manliness of the pilot who successfully crash-landed his airliner into the Hudson River and saved every soul on board. Said Mercer:
...Missed by the perennial purveyors of pop culture and political correctness was a story about the value of an endangered, and vital, virtue: manliness.
Witnessed in that cockpit was old-fashioned manliness. The feminization and regulation of American society over the last 20 to 30 years has meant that life-saving manliness is increasingly confined to corners where women are less likely to encroach: like the cockpit....
This "feminization" of our culture has been ongoing since the late 1960s when women became more militant, and the ideal man became more "sensitive." This change in the outlook of what makes a man became especially apparent at the movie theater. To the dustbin went the masculine actors like William Holden, Robert Ryan, and John Wayne. Instead, the ideal male leads started going to wimpier, more sensitive fellas like Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty. If the masculine actors were still used, it was often in telling roles like Holden and Ryan in "The Wild Bunch" or John Wayne in "The Shootist" where they played men past their prime who were hanging on to a way of life that was no longer tenable. In the case of Clint Eastwood in 1971's "Dirty Harry", the whole point of the movie was that his masculine character was no longer the norm, and that he was hopelessly out synch with the rest of his more sensitive San Francisco police department.
In our world today, we need look no further than the Oval Office for an example of what is considered the ideal man. I mean, seriously, can you think of many men who are less manly than Barack Obama? For another prime example, check out Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs. To me, he is the epitome of the pasty-faced anti-male persona that permeates our society:
In his book Tender Warrior, author and minister Stu Weber talks about masculinity and what it is that makes a man. He identifies four pillars: King, Warrior, Mentor, and Friend. In today's society, Weber recognizes that only some of these pillars are still respected:
Unfortunately, the King and Warrior qualities of manhood are suspect today. Of the four pillars, they are the most tarnished and eroded in our culture. Few object to a man being a mentor or a friend. Many resist the King and the Warrior. Authority and strength seem to be questionable virtues in our day. But we miss them in this turbulent, rootless culture of ours. Oh, how we miss them! Without them, we are hollow men. We are men without chests.
It's a sad time in this country when boys cannot act like boys without looks of concern from the general public who are uncomfortable with outward displays of masculinity. On the other hand, to a certain degree, I don't totally blame the general public's attitude. If you further read Weber's book, he speaks of keeping your commitments as being one of the ultimate signs of masculinity. A father walking out on his children and leaving those children to be raised without a father is a definite violation of the commitments of which Mr. Weber speaks. These fatherless children are often left to develop on their own or with their friends - who are also often fatherless - a twisted and grotesque form of what they believe to be masculinity, which menaces society rather than protects it.
These social pathologies aside, we must change course in this country in how we treat our young males. Instead of guiding and channeling their natural aggressive tendencies into something positive, too often these tendencies are treated as some sort of disease that must be purged from our midst. This must stop.
Attorney General Eric Holder has declared that we are a nation of cowards when it comes to discussing race. Watch Pat Buchanan and Michael Eric Dyson take Holder up on his challenge:
California finally has a budget! As if Californians are not already overcharged enough by our free-spending legislature, we will now have to pay even more of our hard-earned dollars if we want to continue living in the late, great state of California. The bright side, if there is one, is that had a single Republican state senator named Abel Maldonado not dug in his heels and held his ground, the budget that was passed would have not just been bad, it would have been calamitous. The not-so-bright side is that Maldonado didn't dig in his heels nearly enough.
Gone from the final bill was a 12 cent hike of the state gasoline tax on what are already the highest average gas prices in the nation. At one point, this gas tax was seemingly a done deal. Also gone was what was essentially a 5% increase of state income tax liability on what are already the highest state income taxes in the nation. Of course, instead we now have a 0.25% increase in the state income tax. Keep in mind, these increases are being imposed on an already overtaxed and overpriced state.
While these concessions by the Democrats are good news, the fact still remains that this budget includes increases on our state taxes, and not mentioned in the attached article is any news about the proposed doubling of vehicle license registration fees. I will be interested to find out if that passed as part of this budget deal.
I think what made me most angry about this whole budget ordeal was the statement made by President Pro Tem of the state senate, Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat from the Sacramento area. Duing an impassioned speech on the senate floor, Steinberg said to his Republican colleagues,
"I wish to God, that you could deviate just a little bit, just a little bit, from your philosophy, just a little bit, from the endless mantra of no new revenue, no new revenue ever, and be a participant and partner with us in solving this problem."
No, Senator Steinberg, how about you deviate just a little bit, just a little bit, from your philosophy, which, like a broken record, always includes tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend. And don't you love how Steinberg uses the crafty little word "revenue" instead of "taxes." That's putting the cart before the horse. Revenue is what a government receives as a result of taxes that are paid. Using the economic theory endorsed and successfully instituted by Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush II, lowering taxes actually leads to increased revenues. Apparently, there are still plenty of politicians - most on the Democrat side of the aisle - who have yet to learn this lesson. Nice try with trying to sell this boondoggle of a budget with your semantic trickery Senator Steinberg, but I'm not buying it.
While I am happy that not everything that our state legislature wanted to do to us came to fruition, the fact remains that we got royally screwed. I liken this to being mugged and then being relieved that the criminal only got away with my wallet and let me keep my cell phone. The bottom line is that I still got robbed.
Our illustrious Attorney General, Eric Holder, thinks we Americans are "cowardly" for being hesitant to talk about race in this country. I see a couple problems with this statement. First, I have the sneaking suspicion that Holder would like any conversations about race to occur in the paradigm of "black=victim, white=victimizer" and leave it at that. Second, and on a related note, how is our country supposed to talk about race when any white person who is the least bit critical about anything a minority does would immediately be labeled as a racist? Those conditions do not make for a useful dialogue.
For instance, what would some people instantly think of me if I said the following clip (which, coincidentally, happened today) shows a symptom of a decades-long culture of fatherlessness and glorification of crime and nihilism in the black community?
On a side note, this clip also shows how utterly absurd the whole sagging pants thing can be. I saw at least two combatants have to take a time-out from the melee so they could pull up their damn pants.
Two U.S. Border Patrol agents whose sentences were commuted by former President Bush after spending two years in prison for shooting a Mexican drug dealer were released from prison today.
Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean will have to spend another month on house arrest, but being home with their families should be quite a consolation for that inconvenience.
President Bush was given a lot of flak by supporters of Ramos and Compean for only commuting their sentences and not giving them an outright pardon. There was a method to Bush's madness: the two men did not ask for a pardon. In an interview with radio talk host Mike Gallagher that took place just a day or two after the commutation was announced, I listened to the wife of one of the agents (I can't remember which) tell Gallagher and his audience that to receive a pardon, you have to sign document admitting guilt to your crime. Since Ramos and Compean both maintain they did nothing wrong, they refused to ask for a pardon if that meant admitting guilt. With a commutation, the two men are free to continue pursuing their case in an effort to be fully exonerated.
The man who Ramos and Compean shot (in the ass, by the way) was in the process of transporting 750 pounds of marijuana across our border. During the agents' trial, the drug dealer was given immunity by the U.S. attorney so he could testify against the agents. While the trial was going on and while the scumbag had immunity, he was caught yet again transporting hundreds of pounds of marijuana across our border. Boy, there's a reliable witness!
Thank God for President Bush seeing the light on his last day in office and signing the commutations for Ramos and Compean. Were his feet not held to the fire by many politicians, talk radio hosts, family members, and citizens, I am confident that Bush would have allowed those two men to rot in prison.
