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George W. Bush: After being pummeled by his successor, the 43rd president ends his silence on America's slide into socialism and timidity. He reminds us leadership is not something that comes off a teleprompter. Perhaps tired about being publicly blamed by the current administration for all our current ills, Bush spoke out in Erie, Pa., on Wednesday at the 104th annual gathering of the Manufacturers and Business Association. On the same day President Obama announced expanded policing authorities for the Fed to deal with a "culture of irresponsibility," another move many feel will stifle the risk takers and entrepreneurs needed...

U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Lehigh Valley, today is sending a letter to President Bush, urging the outgoing president to pardon two former Border Patrol agents who are in prison for shooting a drug smuggler. Dent wrote that the two agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, "were acting in fulfillment of their duty and responsibility to protect our borders and enforce the law, and they have been unjustly punished for their actions." Though Dent's congressional district is hundreds of miles away from the Mexican border, the congressman has taken an interest in border-related issues because he sits on the House...

The Obama Administration will end the Department of Transportation's cross border trucking program, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., a staunch opponent of the project, predicted Friday. "Both President-elect Obama and Vice-President-elect Biden voted to end the program in 2007, and it is expected that the new administration will uphold the intent of Congress and shut down the program in 2009," Dorgan said in a statement. The program, which allows trucks from the United States and Mexico to drive beyond commercial border zones is part of the North American Free Trade Agreement but has garnered bi-partisan criticism from lawmakers and others on...

President Bush, who apparently uses the same pen for veto’s and pardons, has given out 14 and commuted the sentences of 2 others. All were pretty much low level scumbags who pretty much hurt no one but themselves, but what about the border agents? Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., noted that the list also did not include former Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were convicted of shooting a drug smuggler and trying to cover it up. Ramos and Compean are each serving sentences of more than 10 years for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the buttocks while...

Black Leader Condemns Bush for Not Pardoning or Commuting Sentences of Jailed Border Agents During Pre-Thanksgiving Round of Executive ClemencyWashington, D.C. - Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie is condemning President Bush’s inaction regarding incarcerated Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean and is reiterating his call for a pardon or commutation of the agents' sentences before the President leaves office in January. Massie’s call comes as the White House has announced that President George W. Bush granted pre-Thanksgiving pardons to individuals involved in the distribution of drugs and bank embezzlement and commuted the sentences of two men given...

(CNSNews.com) – In the waning days of the Bush administration, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is mulling whether to recommend a commutation for the two former Border Patrol agents jailed for more than a decade each for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler in the buttocks. The case is now before the DOJ’s Pardon Attorney Donald Rodgers. The Office of Pardon Attorney works in consultation with the attorney general’s office to assist the president, who has sole power of clemency in federal cases under the Constitution. Ultimately, it is the president’s call regardless of what the Office of Pardon Attorney recommends....

As the Bush administration winds down and the Obama administration ramps up, immigration policy is right where it was at the start of the Bush administration: an unfulfilled promise, many Hispanic advocacy groups and immigration policy researchers say. “It’s been disappointing,” says Dr. Michele Waslin, a senior policy analyst with the Immigration Policy Center. “President Bush had spoken very strongly about the need for immigration reform. He came from Texas. He really understood the need for immigration reform. But, unfortunately, that fell apart in Congress.’ The failure to pass a bipartisan immigration reform bill in the spring of 2007 is...

DOBBS: And a major setback for one -- for both of the former border patrol agents who are at the center of an outrageous, miscarriage of justice. That story is next. # # Well a judge today refused to overturn Ignacio Ramos' most serious charge in the federal court hearing. This comes even as the appellate court threw out some of his other convictions. Casey Wian has our report from El Paso, Texas. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Former border patrol agent Ignacio Ramos acknowledges supporters as he arrives for re- sentencing at an El Paso, Texas federal...

Tonight a new setback for supporters of the former border patrol agents at the center of an outrageous miscarriage of justice DOBBS: Now developments in the case of former border patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos. A judge today upheld Compean's 12-year sentence for shooting a criminal illegal alien while he was fleeing. and was given immunity to testify against those two border patrol agents while still running drugs, of course. This comes even after some of his other convictions in this case were overturned by an appellate court. Casey Wian has the latest on this case of absolute...

America’s war on terror has come full circle. By pledging his support of Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia, President George W. Bush has sanctioned the genocide of thousands of Serbian Christians in the Balkans and the creation, thanks to al Qaeda, of a radical Muslim state at the doorway to Europe. After announcing their independence from Serbia on February 16, thousands of ethnic Albanians (Muslims) took to the streets waving American flags and singing patriotic songs. While the national press provided glowing coverage of these demonstrations as proof that the “Kosovars” were adamantly pro-America, few media outlets took notice...

History has been a harsh critic of Neville Chamberlain's decision in 1938 to allow Adolf Hitler to trash the WWI Versailles peace treaty to seize control of and change the borders Europe, first France in the Rhineland, then Czechoslovakia and Poland. President George W. Bush's quick acceptance of the efforts of the Albanians in Kosovo to change the borders of Serbia will also be viewed in history as an appeasement that did not work. World War II actually began when Adolf Hitler marched a mere 14,500 troops into the Rhineland on March 7, 1936, in violation of the Treaty of...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — President George W. Bush authorized Wednesday supplying Kosovo with weapons, signaling the establishment of government-to-government relations after recognizing its independence, the White House said. In a memo to the State Department made public by the White House, Bush said: "I hereby find that the furnishing of defense articles and defense services to Kosovo will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace." A senior official said the authorization followed US recognition of Kosovo's independence and was part of the normal process of establishing relations with a new government. In a comment apparently meant to...

No Pardon Promise for Ex-Border Patrol Agents By Fred Lucas CNSNews.com Staff Writer July 19, 2007 (1st Add: Adds background.) (CNSNews.com) - President George W. Bush Thursday praised the federal prosecutor who was grilled two days earlier by a Senate panel for his role in the conviction of two U.S. Border Patrol agents for the shooting a drug dealer. Taking questions from members of the Nashville, Tenn., Chamber of Commerce after a speech, Bush declined to promise to pardon the two agents, as a growing number of lawmakers are urging. "I'm not going to make that kind of promise in...

Three Afghanis were arrested Wednesday at an international airport in India’s Kerala state for flying with forged Mexican passports. They had just arrived there from Kuwait, where officials examined the passports identifying them as “Antonio Lopez Juan,” “Javier Sanchez Alberto,” and “Atonio Lopez Ernesto,” and found that they didn’t understand any Spanish. Maybe they were also suspicious of these inept attempts to ape Spanish names. “Antonio,” “Javier,” and “Atonio” insisted they were trying to get to France, but given their newly-minted Mexican identities, that seems about as likely as the possibility that Hillary Clinton will cede the Democratic nomination gracefully...

Mexican truck drivers allowed to travel throughout the U.S. under a Bush administration demonstration project may not be proficient in English, despite Department of Transportation assurances to the contrary. A brochure on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's website instructs Mexican truck drivers, "Did you know … You MUST be able to read and speak English to drive trucks in the United States." Still, at the Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing Tuesday, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and DOT Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III reluctantly admitted under intense questioning from Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that Mexican drivers were being...

Robert Novak reports that President Bush won’t support Mitt Romney because he changed his mind about shamnesty (hat tip - reader Rosebud). While President George W. Bush has maintained neutrality among contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, he privately expresses to friends his exasperation with Mitt Romney’s hard-line stance on immigration. Bush is upset that Romney changed his position on the issue, compared to what it had been when he was governor of Massachusetts, at the expense of the president’s immigration reform. Bush and Sen. John McCain are not close, but the president is grateful for McCain’s support on Iraq...

TUCSON, Ariz. – Jurors deliberating the case of a U.S. Border Patrol agent charged with fatally shooting an illegal immigrant from Mexico said Thursday that they are deadlocked. The jury had spent about 11 hours deliberating when they sent a note to the federal judge hearing the case late in the morning. The judge sent them back after telling them to redouble their efforts to reach a verdict. But U.S. District Judge David C. Bury told attorneys after jurors left the courtroom that he was inclined to declare a mistrial if they couldn't reach a verdict by the end of...

A federal appeals court considered Tuesday whether the Bush administration can go ahead with a pilot program that allows a small number of Mexican trucks to travel freely on U.S. highways, despite a new law by Congress against it. Members of the Teamsters Union and their supporters packed a courtroom at 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where an apparently divided three-judge panel heard arguments in the case, which may boil down to the meaning of "establish." Several tractor trailers also were parked outside the courthouse and union members and their supporters carried signs opposing the program, which allows participating...

WASHINGTON – In her first public statements on the Mexican trucking controversy, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters defended yesterday the pilot program that allows Mexican trucks to travel throughout the United States in defiance of a congressional order. U.S. officials also responded to complaints that a Mexican carrier that withdrew from the program several days ago never should have qualified because of an allegedly poor safety record. Peters got an earful of criticism from several lawmakers during a House appropriations transportation subcommittee hearing on President Bush's proposed budget. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, accused Peters of being in violation of the...