While the Obama administration deservedly revels in the success of the US operation to kill Osama bin Laden this week, one question remains: Why is the Justice Department threatening criminal prosecution of the men who made the mission possible?Compounding the idiocy, Obama the other day turned his back on Debra Burlingame when pressed on this outrage.
CIA Director Leon Panetta has acknowledged that the initial information that led to the discovery of bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad came, in part, from information obtained by "enhanced interrogation techniques against some of those detainees." Yet Attorney General Holder persists in what appears to be a vendetta against these very CIA interrogators.
In August 2009, Holder ordered a continued investigation into "enhanced interrogation" techniques used by the CIA, even though an earlier investigation by career prosecutors concluded that no crimes were committed. The irony in all of this is made worse by President Obama's acknowledgment of intelligence agencies' role when he announced that bin Laden had been killed.
So with that in mind, here's the focus of Eric Holder this week.
A dancer from Venezuela who married an American man in a same-sex ceremony had his deportation placed on hold yesterday, one day after Attorney General Eric Holder set aside an immigration ruling in a similar case.In Eric Holder's world, gay illegal aliens have more rights that our military heroes.
Henry Velandia, 27, a professional salsa dancer from Caracas, wants to be allowed to remain in the United States as the spouse of US citizen Josh Vandiver, 29. The couple live in New Jersey but were married last year in Connecticut, where same-sex marriage is legal.
Yesterday, an immigration judge in Newark adjourned Velandia’s case until December, citing Holder’s decision a day earlier. In that case, Holder set aside a Board of Immigration Appeals ruling allowing the deportation to Ireland of Paul Wilson Dorman, a gay man illegally in the United States is in a civil union with his partner.
The board based its decision in the Dorman case on the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Holder asked the board to determine if Dorman would be considered a spouse under immigration law were it not for the act.
2 comments:
Ah, but you see Jammie, he's not an "illegal alien" -- he was married legally to a person where state's rights said the marriage was legal, and thus he should indeed be in the country legally with his spouse. Alas, DOMA says that's not true -- for while they are married they are not married -- at the same time. In fact, DOMA sort of set up a bill of attainder situation, but here's not the place to present that theory. Basically though, the law is specifically targeting this couple and disolving their marriage contract by legislative fiat and not by their own doing. That's attaining. And too, we gay folks would rather not have Holder deal with us at all. That's the problem with DOMA, that's why we gays want it gone. Alas, too, in another misplaced priorities, the Speaker of House is hiring outside counsel -- avoiding using in houose council, to keep DOMA on the books -- and using gay tax dollars to do so, ironically. The nation is broke, and many a state too, and legislatures all across this land and in DC are with weeks of hearings on the issue of gay folks. We would rather it all be gone, this discussion about us. But Boehner is of course working to make sure that cases such as these guys' keep coming to the Attorney General's attention.
On the other hand, gay folks don't as a whole have a position on the other matter of your post -- the SEALS. Most gay folks I know are proud of those guys, and wouldn't want a one prosecuted for anything. Oh, I'm sure there are some of us whom are liberal, but most gay guys I know don't really have many thoughts on the SEALS except pride in what they do to preserve our liberties --even those denied to us.
And so in a way the juxtaposition is unfair. But I hope, and I don't think you are intentionally, that you're not blaming us gay folks for Holder's prosectution of any soldier just because we want to stay together as a legally married couple in a state which let us get married.
'james hlavac' said it better than i could.
JWF: what's the point of conflating these issues (and calling one 'more important') other than to stir up anti-gay sentiments in your readers ?
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