Breaking News: Bush commutes sentence of US Border agents

ramosandcompeanSo much for the rule of law.  President Bush bowed to pressure from the extreme right wing and commuted the sentences of two border agents who shot an unarmed man and covered up their actions. 

Read about it here. 

Scooter Libby must be up next for a full pardon.

The prison sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Joe Compean will now end March 20. Ramos had received an 11-year prison sentence; Compean had received a 12-year sentence.

“The president has reviewed the circumstances of this case as a whole and the conditions of confinement and believes the sentences they received are too harsh and that they, and their families, have suffered enough for their crimes,” a senior administration official said.

“Commuting their sentences does not diminish the seriousness of their crimes. Ramos and Compean are convicted felons who violated their oaths to uphold the law and have been severely punished,” the official stated.

“This commutation gives them an opportunity to return to their families and communities, but both men will have to carry the burden of being convicted felons and the shame of violating their oaths for the rest of their lives.”

6 Comments

    • Hey Gustavo,

      As with all things web-related the best laid plans…

      Anyway, I am implementing a design/layout change and it has temporarily messed up some of my side-bar widgets. The new layout should go up soon and the launching pad, with all the RSS Feeds, will be back up.

  1. Don't want to get in the way of the discussion about the Limp Launchpad but Dan, Representaitves Linda Sanchez and (now COS to POTUS) Rahm Emmanuel are hardly right wing and they signed on to H. Con. Res 267 asking Bush to commute the sentences to time served. The sentences were far out of porportion to the crime and there was more to it than you mentioned in your brief description. This was an appropriate situation for a commutation.

    • There was a great article about this case in Slate. These guys were convicted by a jury of their peers and shot an unarmed man and then lied about their actions to cover up their crime. Sorry, I disagree that the sentences were out of line. And while I am acutely aware there are a number of Democrats who supported a pardon for these two, I happen to disagree with them.

  2. I didn't know that Dianne Feinstein, Linda Sanchez, Anthony Weiner and Rahm Emanuel were the extreme right wing. They all supported commuting the sentence, as did many other liberals like myself.

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