Tuesday, October 27, 2009

President Reagan Puts Cheney In Jail

Ronald Reagan was in office as U.S. President from 1981 - 1989.

In 1983 his DOJ prosecuted a republican Texas Sheriff for the crime of waterboarding:
In 1983, Texas Sheriff James Parker was charged, along with three of his deputies, for handcuffing prisoners to chairs, placing towels over their faces, and pouring water on the cloth until they gave what the officers considered to be confessions. The sheriff and his deputies were all convicted and sentenced to four years in prison. [NPR Link]

Humpy Parker was at the center of a law enforcement scandal in the 1970s and 80s that was finally interrupted in 1983 when an undercover FBI agent was arrested and subjected to water torture and other illegal tactics. Gary Parker was a patrol sergeant at the time the corruption scandal was uncovered. Parker’s deputies testified at trial that they would park on U.S. 59 and watch for “long-hairs” driving vehicles displaying a bumper sticker for Houston radio station K-101.

“Humpy” Parker died in 1999 of cancer after he served a 10-year sentence in federal prison. The American Civil Liberties Union also won a judgment against San Jacinto County for three Kentucky residents and a Baytown man. The county was ordered to pay $40,000 per year until each person named in the class action lawsuit received $1,500. News reports at the time indicated thousands of people may have joined the class action lawsuit. The long-running corruption scheme was the subject of a book and movie, “Terror on I-59.” [East Texas News]
(Amazon Askville). Dick "Chain Man" Cheney is openly advocating the use of waterboard torture in the United States, which is the same as telling people to commit felonies.

He and his cronies, like Rush Limbaugh, are talking about how Ronald Reagan is their mentor, as they try to justify the federal crime of torture.

Ronald Reagan would have been their jailer, not their mentor.

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