Army and Marines welcome terrorists into their ranks

In what has to be the richest ironic twist I’ve seen in my life a CNN article titled “Army, Marines give wavers to more felons” it’s reported that both the Army and the Marines have decided to go ahead and let known and convicted terrorists join them while fighting their fellow terrorists.

Recruits were allowed to enlist after having been convicted of crimes including assault, burglary, drug possession and making terrorist threats.

Hello? Is anybody paying attention?

I’ve been meaning to write up a few things about things that are currently going on in the news that absolutely shock me. Today I was tipped over the edge by news that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales says prosecuting journalists over leaks is a possibility.

  • Gonzales Says Prosecutions of Journalists Are Possible – I hope he plans on prosecuting Robert Novak first thing. The chilling effect and erosion to our first amendment rights if this comes to fruition is staggering and alarming.
  • Wired news publishes AT&T documents – The phone companies turned over your phone records to the NSA so the government could mine that data for suspicious activities without a warrant. In fact, they didn’t even bother to get a FISA warrant, which are handed out like candy. Fuck you, get a search warrant like the constitution tells you to do.
  • Some Republicans want to make crossing the border without papers a felony. Where the hell are we going to put these people? The prisons are so overcrowded that we regularly let convicted rapists and murderers out too early. This simply doesn’t make any sense.
  • Bush wants to use the National Guard to patrol the border. These are the same men and women are have spent months in Iraq away from their families. These are the same men and women that are trained to do the following: kill people, repair tanks, blow shit up, recover from national disasters. On top of it they’d be patrolling the border in 2-3 week shifts. I don’t know about you, but doesn’t it make more sense to, you know, hire real border personnel?

Does this make sense to anybody? Why aren’t people alarmed by the possibility of prosecuting journalists? Why aren’t we questioning stupid ideas like putting National Guardsmen on border patrol? Why aren’t we calling for the resignation and impeachment of a President that has repeatedly broken the law to spy on his fellow countrymen?