crimes

Immigration is supposed to be a big topic at tonight’s Republican debate. I wonder how they will address this?

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton says his agency deported nearly 400,000 individuals during the fiscal year 2011 that just ended in September.

Morton announced in Washington on Tuesday the number was the largest in the agency’s history.

ICE said about 55 percent of those deported had felony or misdemeanor convictions. Officials said the number of individuals convicted of crimes was up 89 percent from 2008. But officials could not immediately say how many of those crimes were related to immigration violations.

Bush’s last year in office we saw 350,000 deportations. Every year since Obama has been President that number has gone up. Of course the Republicans will dismiss that as being false numbers or claim it should be a much higher number. The big question though is how the Republicans plan to keep deportations high when all they want to do is get rid of revenue coming into the federal government?

At the end of March an atrocity happened in the Supreme Court, one that can redefine our system of justice and put us more on track to become a third world nation governed by dictators.

John Thompson was convicted of murder and robbery in the 1980’s in New Orleans. He was then sentenced to death. For the next 14 years he resided on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary until it was uncovered that prosecutors hid evidence that exonerated him from the crimes. Today Thompson tells his story in the New York Times:

I SPENT 18 years in prison for robbery and murder, 14 of them on death row. I’ve been free since 2003, exonerated after evidence covered up by prosecutors surfaced just weeks before my execution date. Those prosecutors were never punished. Last month, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to overturn a case I’d won against them and the district attorney who oversaw my case, ruling that they were not liable for the failure to turn over that evidence — which included proof that blood at the robbery scene wasn’t mine.

Because of that, prosecutors are free to do the same thing to someone else today.

Read the entire thing and you will realize the horror that any of us could easily go through. Not just the fear of being put to death, but the loss of 18 years of your life for something you never did. You might even think you’re reading a John Grisham book, but this is real life.

About damn time:

A team of top federal prosecutors and investigators has taken the first steps toward a formal criminal investigation into oil giant BP's actions before and after the drilling rig disaster off Louisiana.

The investigators, who have been quietly gathering evidence in Louisiana over the last three weeks, are focusing on whether BP skirted federal safety regulations and misled the U.S. government by saying it could quickly clean up an environmental accident.

The team has met with U.S. attorneys and state officials in the Gulf Coast region and has sent letters to executives of BP and Transocean Ltd., the drilling rig owner, warning them against destroying documents or other internal records.

Now that BP officials are starting to plead the 5th about the explosion, it's past time to get them into a criminal court. And this shouldn't end up as the status-quo for corporations charged with crimes. People need to go to jail for this and BP needs a fine well beyond the typical amounts we hear, most of which would amount to about a day's profit for the oil giant.

This guy is a total disgust to humanity.

Roberts: Bill is good but you cannot link homosexuality to a pedophilia crisis in the Catholic Church.

Bill Donohue: It’s not a pedophilia… most of the victims were post pubescent…

Roberts: You know…

Donohue: You’ve got to get your facts straight. I’m sorry. If I’m the only one that’s going to deal with facts tonight so be it. The vast majority of the victims are post pubescent. That’s not pedophilia buddy. That’s homosexuality.

So what does Bill consider post pubescent?

King: What is the age?

Thomas: Ah… I don’t know. Let’s ask Bill. He seems to be the authority on post pubescency.

Donohue: 12, 13 years of age. Look, all I’m saying (crosstalk).

That’s your moral authority America. Go ahead and have sex with some 12-13 year old boys. It’s no longer pedophilia according to the legal authority of Bill Donohue.

There is a special place in hell for child molesting apologists like Donohue and his Catholic league. That place is actually below the priests who committed the crimes.

Finally justice is served on another person whose power in Congress became a catalyst for greed:

Former Rep. William Jefferson was sentenced Friday to serve 13 years in prison for what the lead prosecutor described as "the most extensive and pervasive pattern of corruption in the history of Congress."

While the sentence by federal Judge T.S. Ellis III fell well short of the 27 to 33 years recommended by the government, it is by the far the stiffest jail term ever imposed on a member or former member of Congress for crimes committed while in office.

Jefferson, 62, was found guilty Aug. 6 on 11 charges, including soliciting bribes, depriving citizens of honest service, money laundering and using his office as a racketeering enterprise. 

I have heard that every time a corrupt politician goes down like this that an angel gets it’s wings. Given how rampant corruption is in American politics, there must be an awful lot of angels waiting.

I guess they realized posting an article advocating for a military coup against the President of the United States isn’t such a great idea. Unfortunately for them we do have the internet time machine and you can still view the article there. Also I have attached a screen grab of the article for even better preservation of their advocacy of constitutional crimes.

This is amazing. Last night 60 Minutes ran the segment on Karl Rove's involvement in the Don Siegelman conviction. If what has happened in Alabama doesn't seem communistic enough for you, there is more. All last week the White House was pressuring CBS to not air the segment. Well it did air last night, but was magically blacked out in parts of Alabama.  

This can not be written off as some sort of glitch. This is the kind of stuff you hear about from communist nations, not the United States. Unfortunately, under the regime of George W. Bush, we have become more like our advesaries of the last century.  It is time for Congress to act and stop this  from going on. We can not spare another 8 months of this happening. If the Bush White House was involved in the blacking out of this then they must be charged with crimes against the Constitution.

Five women killed in what is being described as a store robbery in Illinois. As our economy continues to tank I am sure we can plan on seeing more of these crimes. It's just a simple fact - when people are down and out they will turn to extreme measures. What can be more down and out then losing your home?