Der Parson's rant

Can President Bush pardon people who haven't even been charged with a crime? - By Jacob Leibenluft - Slate Magazine: "Pre-emptive Presidential PardonsCan you be pardoned for a crime before you're ever charged?
By Jacob Leibenluft
Posted Monday, July 21, 2008, at 6:36 PM ET

With six months to go before President Bush leaves office, the White House is receiving a flurry of pardon applications. The New York Times reported that 'several members of the conservative legal community' are pushing for the White House to grant pre-emptive pardons for officials involved in counterterrorism programs. Wait—can a president really pardon someone who hasn't even been charged with a crime?"

Yep. In 1866, the Supreme Court ruled in Ex parte Garland that the pardon power "extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment." (In that case, a former Confederate senator successfully petitioned the court to uphold a pardon that prevented him from being disbarred.) Generally speaking, once an act has been committed, the president can issue a pardon at any time—regardless of whether charges have even been filed.

Why doesn't this surprise me? Conservatives that claim to be all "tough on crime" are wanting to be pardoned for crimes they aren't even charged with. In all honesty with people like Pelosi running congress, they don't have to worry much about being charge with any type of crimes.

I added a link for Montagano for Congress. In the upper left corner. He's a young man that we could really use in Congress, and he would unseat our long time (like 14 years) congressman Souder. It's really time we get some younger people that aren't part of the "good 'ol boy" network into congress and senate. We need people that aren't corrupted by the lobbies to get into congress and make some need changes. Hopefully as things die down a bit were I work I can make some time to get more involved in this campaign and help out if possible.

Robert Rouse has video and the best info. so I'm linking to his post.
Left of Centrist » Michael Montagano officially announces bid to unseat Mark Souder

Kucinich getting out
CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Kucinich getting out - Blogs from CNN.com: "WASHINGTON (CNN) — Rep. Dennis Kucinich will announce he is abandoning his long shot bid for the White House in a news conference Friday, his campaign confirms to CNN."

Wow, another one falls out of the Presidential race. It must be true because his website has been changed over to "Re-elect Democrat Dennis Kucinich for Congress". In other bad news they don't have pictures of his wife on the new site. I guess it doesn't matter what your wife looks like if your running for Congress.

9 Dems Say No To Christmas Resolution In Congress - Politics on The Huffington Post:

"Rep. Jim McDermott says he is no Grinch, even though he voted against Christmas. The Democrat from Washington state says he was protesting an expected veto of a children's health insurance bill when he voted against a resolution recognizing the importance of Christmas. 'While the Republicans are passing a resolution celebrating Christmas, the president was vetoing health care for children. There's a little bit of irony going on around here,' McDermott said Thursday."

Wow you really showed that evil George Bush. What's next cooking up the Easter Bunny for a nice rabbit stew? I bet ol' George will think twice before asking for more Iraq money, you guys have him shaking in his cowboy boots now. Oh brother. These Demos can't show any backbone when it comes to war funding because they worry about how it will look. So they take a stand against Christmas. The Republicans play these guys like a fiddle, they know damn well if they but a resolution up about celebrating Christmas there will be some Dems that vote against it because they respect other religions. Wait 'till the next time one of those Dem's seats are up for election. The Republican's will dig up this Christmas vote and slap that all over the MSM. I would rather these guys vote against the war then vote against Santa.

Turkey recalls ambassador to U.S. over Armenians - Yahoo! News

"The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved on Wednesday a resolution branding the killings during World War One as genocide."

The non-binding resolution now goes to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democratic leaders say there will be a vote by mid-November.

Why is this a issue for The House of Representatives to vote on? Don't they have better things they should be doing, like children's health car or ending a current war? I wonder what is next, a resolution against the Greeks for sacking Troy? The Romans for taking over most of Europe? Tax dollars at work I suppose.

The issue of the Armenian massacres is deeply sensitive in Turkey, where it is a crime to portray them as "genocide."

Apparently they think they can force other countries to follow this ridiculous law.

The United States relies heavily on Turkish bases to supply its war effort in Iraq. Any Turkish offensive into northern Iraq would seriously strain ties with Washington and possibly hurt Turkey's bid for European Union membership.

Ankara will lobby Congress to prevent the bill from being approved and Erdogan is due to travel to Washington in early November for talks with U.S. President George W. Bush.

I guess on the other hand maybe this is a trick by the Democrats to end the war by pissing off one of Bush's allies in the "war on terror", making it really hard for them to keep the war supplies flowing. It might help cut off a attack on Iran.

Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap Powers - New York Times

All Bush needs to do now is teach the Democrats to roll over and play dead, he seem to already have them housebroken.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 — Two months after insisting that they would roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration, Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency.

Administration officials say they are confident they will win approval of the broadened authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed toward recess. Some Democratic officials concede that they may not come up with enough votes to stop approval.

Which really means "we are worried about try to get a little bit of the conservative vote when it's time to be re-elected, so we can't look like we are too liberal." George is probably sending these Democrats some special kool-aid to help them sleep at night. Hillary will probably be the first one to vote yes on this bill.

Comcast.net News - Bush Vetoes Child Health Insurance Plan:

"The president argued that the Democratic bill was too costly, took the program too far beyond its original intent of helping the poor, and would entice people now covered in the private sector to switch to government coverage. He has proposed only a $5 billion increase in funding. After Bush's speech, White House counselor Ed Gillespie said the president's offer of more money meant more than the $5 billion extra, but he wasn't specific about how much more."

I know us bloggers are suppose to say something like "Bush hates the children" when we see this story. I don't really see it that way. I think it's the Democrats that aren't thinking of the children. At least not thinking things all the way through. They want to push through a child health care bill so they can pat each other on the back and get Hillary a few more votes come election day, and there is the added benefit of making the Republicans look bad. The Republicans don't need help too look bad.

My concern with the health care plan is this part "and would entice people now covered in the private sector to switch to government coverage." If Bush signed that bill, I can almost guarantee when you went to work Monday morning, you would be having a special benefit meeting. In this meeting they will tell you the company health care will no longer cover your children. Why? because you can get the government to cover them now. Why should your employer foot the bill? Were I work we pay a percentage of the insurance and the company pays the rest so dropping you children would save them money.

Do you really want a government lead by George Bush to be running your child's health care? As if HMOs aren't bad enough. Look at all the welfare scams that go on already with low income people having more kids just to get more welfare money, this plan may open the system up to more abuse. The Democrats need to come up with a bill to clean up the system and get it back on track, the Republicans love that kind of thing and would be more likely to sign on to it.

House Approves Changes in Eavesdropping - New York Times:

"WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 — Under pressure from President Bush, the House gave final approval Saturday to changes in a terrorism surveillance program, despite serious objections from many Democrats about the scope of the executive branch’s new eavesdropping power."

The Democrats give in to Bush because he made them work on Saturday?

"If it had stalled, that would have left Democratic lawmakers, long anxious about appearing weak on national security issues, facing an August spent fending off charges from Republicans that they had left Americans exposed to threats."

It's better to throw the Constitution out the window then to look weak in front of the Republicans?

The House Democratic leadership had severe reservations about the proposal and an overwhelming majority of Democrats opposed it. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure “does violence to the Constitution of the United States.”

Pelosi, you just a tool for Bush to get what he wants. If you were so concerned about doing violence to the Constitution you would be impeaching Bush right now.

Watching Bill Maher tonight, actor Ben Affleck really hit the nail on the head about democrats and how they whimped on the Iraq funding bills. (I hope I can find a video on Youtube later). Democrats are so affraid of being called pussies and being critized they caved in. Instead of standing up to Bush they caved in and gave him a bill he would sign. I'm amazed that after most of Ben Affleck's movie perfomances (Daredevil comes to mind) he's actually pretty smart.

I'm not going to become a Republican by any means, but Democrats are really letting me down.

Bill has Ron Paul(R. Texas) on now, he's saying some pretty good stuff. One good point if we would gain some respect, we wouldn't get attacked. Haven't the fucking republicans ever hear the phrase "keep your friends close but your enemies closer"?

Bill made a great point, you don't get to be the worst President ever without some help from the other side. Guess who the "other side" is Democrats?