Monday, July 20, 2009

Congress and DHS's Dirty Deeds.

Congress needs to put the smack down on F-22s; not only are not even used on today's battlefields, their renewal make troops less safe by diverting money (1.75 BILLION DOLLARS)away from other needed technology. I mean for pete's sake, the Secretary of Defense doesn't even want them! It is disappointing but politically typical to see Ted Kennedy and John Kerry supporting the F-22 inclusion in the military spending bill but not surprising that the fair-weather spineless necon Joe Lieberman supports them. Obama has promised to veto the bill if the F-22s are included.

A recent decsion by the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) to extend 287(g), a nefarious and unjust Bush administration program in which law enforcement officers target and arrest illegal immigrants, is totally incomprehensible to me. It has created monsters of some law enforcement officials - inflating their jobs with too much power - and forced others to do a job they don't feel they should be doing. In my humble opinion, this was one of the most disgusting programs of the Bush administration; and we all know there were a lot. But this one, like the torture programs, treats human beings in such an unbelievably unjust manner simply because they are not American. What kind of message does this send to our own citizens? And to the world? Here's a telling editorial on the impacts of the program on families from last year.

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