Bush names immigration chief by bypassing Senate in recess appointment...

[Engineer]

Click me!

You know, one would think that Bush learned from the FEMA/Brown fiasco, but with this guy, the hits just keep on coming. Looking at the people associated with this woman, I guess it's not hard to see why Bush and crew thought that she should be in charge of the Immegration department, regardless of "true" qualifications. Wow, just wow...

Bush names immigration chief
He bypasses Senate; some see cronyism
Julie Mason, Houston Chronicle

Friday, January 6, 2006

Washington -- President Bush has appointed a 36-year-old lawyer to head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Homeland Security Department, despite critics' concerns about her qualifications.

Bush's recess appointment of Julie Myers earlier this week was an end run around the Senate, where her nomination to lead the huge, troubled immigration and customs operation had been stalled.

"It's disappointing," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing 9,000 Border Patrol employees.

"This is further evidence of this administration's lack of commitment to meaningfully addressing the illegal immigration crisis," he said. "It is just blatant cronyism, and I am sure she is a bright and talented young woman, but this is not the place to put someone with such a steep learning curve."

Myers worked for Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as his chief of staff when he headed the Justice Department's criminal division. Her husband, John Wood, is Chertoff's chief of staff at the Homeland Security Department, and her uncle is Gen. Richard Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

With a workforce of nearly 20,000 and an annual budget of $4 billion, Chertoff's department is the second-largest law enforcement agency in the federal government. It is responsible for policing the border and enforcing immigration laws.

By installing Myers while Congress is in recess, Bush circumvents Senate approval of her nomination. Her appointment will expire next January.

Myers was among 17 recess appointments announced Wednesday night by the White House.

In October, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved Myers' nomination on a 9-6 vote, with all of the committee's Republicans in favor and six Democrats objecting, primarily on the grounds that she appeared unqualified.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was created March 1, 2003, when the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service were merged and placed in the Homeland Security Department.

By federal statute, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is required to have at least five years of experience in both law enforcement and management. Myers' supporters and her critics are at odds over whether she meets the requirements.

 

[WyteWatt]

Just another step closer to opening the Mexican flood gates! Taco Bell, USA here we come!

 

[Moonbeam]

A few more years of Bush and millions of Americans will be looking for jobs in Mexico.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
A few more years of Bush and millions of Americans will be looking for jobs in Mexico.

Sort of OT, but Mexico is a strange country when it comes to employment. Mexico, as a whole, has 40% unemployment (IIRC), however, the border towns, such as Reynosa, can't keep enough people to fill their jobs and the turnover rate is terrible. One of our plants have around 500 people and the turnover rate for the last two months has been 42 per week! :shocked:

Seems many take a job, eat a few meals (inccluded in payment for job), get a few pesos and move one quickly. Strange indeed, IMO.

 

[Strk]

I still can't figure out why people support this administration.

 

[Darkhawk28]

Originally posted by: Strk
I still can't figure out why people support this administration.

The "R" after the name.

 

[Cruise51]

One word... Manipulation.

 

[trenchfoot]

apparently, the idea that we must search for the best and the brightest to run our government got squashed when it was perceived by the current administration that hiring the best and the brightest constitutes a threat, as this type of person will not tolerate being led by incompetent and corrupt managers. in other words, "disloyal".

the type of persons that are willing to be led by incompetent and corrupt managers are just like (if not worse than) the very inept, corrupt managers they work for. in other words, "trustworthy".

*edit*- forgot to add: there must be a hiring rule practiced by the current administration that stipulates "you cannot be any smarter than your boss".

 

[dahunan]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
A few more years of Bush and millions of Americans will be looking for jobs in Mexico.

Sort of OT, but Mexico is a strange country when it comes to employment. Mexico, as a whole, has 40% unemployment (IIRC), however, the border towns, such as Reynosa, can't keep enough people to fill their jobs and the turnover rate is terrible. One of our plants have around 500 people and the turnover rate for the last two months has been 42 per week! :shocked:

Seems many take a job, eat a few meals (inccluded in payment for job), get a few pesos and move one quickly. Strange indeed, IMO.

Move quickly eh..

They move north to escape the crime in the border towns..*that is my guess.. and North = USA

 

[BaliBabyDoc]

More proof that the Democrats are irrelevant . . . legions of conservative wanks feel compelled to talk about GOP idiocy.

debbie schlussel

Uh-Oh. New recess-appointment ICE Princess, Julie L. Myers, doesn't begin the job at Immigration and Customs Enforcement until Monday. But she's already hired an even more experienced and incompetent side-kick/advance boy, Daniel T. Fahner (he's been at ICE for a month, preparing for her arrival and reporting back to the Princess about the goings on). Oh, and he has cronies in high places . . . just like Julie Myers.

Myers claimed that, to overcome her absolute lack of law enforcement experience, she'd surround herself with seasoned ICE people. Not quite.

Daniel Fahner is only 30, and, until recently, was exclusively a litigation attorney at disgraced felon/lobbyist Jack Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig. Here's his bio (the firm removed it, but thank Heaven for google's cached files). The guy looks like he just had his Bar Mitzvah, yesterday. Her first hire . . . not a very good sign.

 

[DealMonkey]

How many unqualified women named "Myers" can one man appoint? Sheesh. And this whole business of ramping up recess appointments so you can go around the senate approval process is standard operating procedure. I mean, what other rules have the Bushies made an end-run around? Geneva convention? FISA warrant procedure? This administration respects nothing.

 

[DealMonkey]

d/p

 

[nageov3t]

the New York Times published a pretty good editorial on the issue today.

Editorial

President Bush at Recess

Published: January 9, 2006

It is disturbing that President Bush has exhibited a grandiose vision of executive power that leaves little room for public debate, the concerns of the minority party or the supervisory powers of the courts. But it is just plain baffling to watch him take the same regal attitude toward a Congress in which his party holds solid majorities in both houses.

Seizing the opportunity presented by the Congressional holiday break, Mr. Bush announced 17 recess appointments - a constitutional gimmick that allows a president to appoint someone when Congress is in recess to a job that normally requires Senate approval. The appointee serves until the next round of Congressional elections.

This end run around Senate confirmation was built into the Constitution to allow the president to quickly fill vacancies that came up when lawmakers were out of town, to keep the government running smoothly in times when travelers and mail moved by horseback and Congress met part time.

Modern presidents have employed this power to place nominees who ran into political trouble in the Senate. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton made scores of recess appointments. But both of them faced a Congress controlled by the opposition party, while the Senate has been under Republican control for Mr. Bush's entire five years in office.

In some cases, Mr. Bush has used the recess appointment power to rescue egregiously bad selections that would never pass muster on grounds of experience and competence. (Remember last year's recess appointment of the undiplomatic and Congressionally unacceptable John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations.) In other cases, he has merely sought to avoid logjams that the White House created for itself by refusing to accommodate reasonable Democratic requests for information, documents and consultation.

Among those Mr. Bush unilaterally elevated to important posts this time around was Julie Myers, a government lawyer with ultrathin credentials whom Mr. Bush appointed to head the 15,000-person Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the government's second largest investigative force.

Also on the list was Ellen Sauerbrey, the unqualified political crony Mr. Bush chose to head the billion-dollar-a-year State Department office that helps coordinate emergency relief efforts for refugees abroad, and whose nomination had stalled for just cause in the Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr. Bush also bypassed Senate hearings on a new deputy defense secretary and for three of the six seats on the Federal Election Commission. The election commission appointees include Hans von Spakovsky, a Justice Department lawyer who overrode the objection of career lawyers to gain approval of a Georgia voter identification plan almost certain to harm black voters.

The White House regularly accuses Senate Democrats of unfairly blocking the president's nominees, and it is true that one determined senator can freeze an appointment. But Mr. Bush's record in this area owes less to unreasonable Democrats than to the low caliber of some of his choices, his disinterest in bipartisan consensus and his aversion to any form of accountability, whether to the Senate, the courts or the public.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/09/opinion/09mon1.html

 

[bctbct]

THis is probably mute since Bush will never move to actually secure our borders anyway.

Does anyone else here remember when people used to resign in disgrace when things like this came to light.

Just one more thing to add to the list of things King George has done since stealing the country.

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
A few more years of Bush and millions of Americans will be looking for jobs in Mexico.

QFT

Moonie, you have a way with words. Damn, I wish I'd said that! :laugh:

That's great material for a political cartoon. If I could draw I'd use it -- with proper credit given, of course.

I was just reading the NY Times editorial that Conjur posted and came to P&N to see if it had been posted or if it was just another King George insult to democarcy that would fade behind the really important news that the liberal media is covering 24/7 like Baby Noor or Ariel Sharon or the ongoing saga of the West Virginia mining disaster (that probably could have been prevented if the coal industry was forced to put safety above profits. But that's highly unlikely as the energy industry is currently in charge of writing America's energy policy through the auspices of the Vice-President's Office.

Not that those aren't valid news stories but it just strikes me odd that the carnage in Iraq isn't getting that kind of coverage. Or the Bush/NSA constitutional crisis. Or the DeLay scandal. Or the Abramoff scandal.

It makes me wonder who gets to pick the lead stories in the MSM newsrooms.

The editors' last paragraph...

The White House regularly accuses Senate Democrats of unfairly blocking the president's nominees, and it is true that one determined senator can freeze an appointment. But Mr. Bush's record in this area owes less to unreasonable Democrats than to the low caliber of some of his choices, his disinterest in bipartisan consensus and his aversion to any form of accountability, whether to the Senate, the courts or the public.

America witnessed the results of Bush cronyism during Hurricane Katrina. It's good to see that even after the outright criminal malfeasance of the Bush White House/Dept. of Homeland Security/FEMA during and after Hurricane Katrina that nothing has changed in the Bush administration. That's not the way things work in the Bush crime family. Loyalty and "Omerta" are the only rules. Instead of heads rolling Bush will probably give "Brownie" and Chertoff and himself the Medal of Freedom.

But the way Bush hands them out they're worthless anyway. If Tennet, Bremmer, and Franks deserve the Medal of Freedom for their performance then it's more of an honor to NOT get one.

Along with summarily rescinding international treaties (which once signed have the force of U.S. law) as well as Bush's imperious suspenions of the Bill of Rights, this is just another example of an executive branch run amok. American government is run by a system of checks and balances, not by decree, and for good reason.

Bush is not an emperor but he's being allowed to rule like one. Worse, his leadership sux. When are people going to wake up and say ENOUGH?

 

[MicroChrome]

You know. Out of all the failures Bush has had. You'd think a lot of people would not stand for it or swallow it up...

I swear the more this guy messes the more he has the goofy smile... His numbers go up... I don't get it... It's almost like they are glad he is failing.

I give up tho. It's not even worth it to even care about it anymore.

 

[BBond]

PS We're already sending millions of Americans to Mexico...

American guns.

Report: 95% of Illegal Weapons in Mexico Originate in US
This news from Mexico ? the Los Angles Times is reporting an estimated 95% of weapons confiscated from suspected criminals in Mexico were first sold legally in the United States. Mexican officials interviewed by the Times blamed the US? lax gun laws, which are a stark contrast to Mexico?s. There are fewer than 2,500 registered gun owners in Mexico, yet police say they confiscate more than 250 weapons a day.

See Democracy Now! link in for verificiation.

 

[zendari]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
How many unqualified women named "Myers" can one man appoint? Sheesh. And this whole business of ramping up recess appointments so you can go around the senate approval process is standard operating procedure. I mean, what other rules have the Bushies made an end-run around? Geneva convention? FISA warrant procedure? This administration respects nothing.

It is standard operating procedure.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

 

[BBond]

The problem with Bush is, naming total incompetents to those posts is "standard operating procedure" as well.

 

[nageov3t]

Originally posted by: zendari

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
How many unqualified women named "Myers" can one man appoint? Sheesh. And this whole business of ramping up recess appointments so you can go around the senate approval process is standard operating procedure. I mean, what other rules have the Bushies made an end-run around? Geneva convention? FISA warrant procedure? This administration respects nothing.

It is standard operating procedure.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

but presidents, and of course I'll include Clinton in this one, have been widely abusing this power far beyond its original scope.

I think GW is the most extreme abuser to date, placing totally unqualified people in charge of vital programs.

I don't think anyone is saying it's illegal, but ethically, I don't understand how anyone could support this kind of abuse.