John Ashcroft
Each time he has
been sworn in to political office, he is anointed with cooking oil, in the
manner of King David, as he points out in his memoirs Lessons from a Father
to His Son.
He anointed himself before each of his two terms as Missouri's governor.
When Mr.
Ashcroft was in the Senate, the duty was performed by his father,
a senior minister in a church specialising in speaking in tongues, the Pentecostal
Assemblies of God.
When he became Attorney General, Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court justice, did the honours.
"The
act of anointment, he wrote in his largely autobiographical book, replicated
the practice of 'the ancient kings of Israel, David and Saul,' who
Mr. Ashcroft said
"were anointed as they undertook their administrative duties."
John Ashcroft
lost his Senate seat in November 2000 to a deceased candidate, Mel Carnahan,
whose widow Jean ran against John Ashcroft in his place, and won, with no political
experience.
He was then nominated for
Attorney General by George W. Bush
in December 2000.
Ashcroft
pledged to renew the war on drugs,
reduce
the incidence of gun violence and
combat discrimination.
A 57-year-old
mother suffered a fatal heart attack when cops armed with a search warrant lobbed
a stun grenade into her apartment yesterday. Alberta Spruill was confronted
by a dozen flak-jacketed
cops from the Emergency Service Unit who had smashed down her door and exploded
a stun grenade,
designed to disorient and neutralize the target with a large bang and flash
of light.
Spruill was taken to the hospital, and less than 3 hours later she was pronounced
dead.
-New York Post, May 17, 2003
Although
alcohol use among teenagers is far more widespread than illegal-drug use at
any age, the
U.S. government spends 25 times as much on campaigns to fight drugs as it does
to keep kids from drinking.
-National Academy of Sciences, September 2003
A U.S. plane crashed while fumigating cocaine-producing crops
in volatile northern Colombia yesterday,
killing the American pilot, the army said.
The crash in Catatumbo, an area filled with coca crops, appeared to be an accident
and not a rebel attack,
since there were no bullet holes in the plane and the weather was bad.
-Philadelphia Daily News,
As a Senator,
John Ashcroft had opposed gun-control measures on 13 consecutive Senate votes,
including votes against
funding for the Brady Bill, mandatory background checks for guns sold at gun
shows, and requiring safety locks on handguns.
After the
September 11 terrorist attacks, Attorney General Ashcroft refused the FBI's
request to use
National Instant Background Check (NICS) records to determine whether any of
the individuals
detained on suspicion of terrorism had been approved to buy guns. This widely
criticized decision
compromised law enforcement efforts to enhance homeland security and was wholly
inconsistent
with the Attorney General's otherwise aggressive treatment of the detainees.
The only supporters
and apparent beneficiaries of this decision seem to be the gun lobby.
"John
Ashcroft's decision to prevent the FBI from checking gun records is proof of
what we have said since
he was first nominated to become Attorney General: he is beholden to the gun
lobby and he places his
allegiance to them above the best interests of the United States.
Since Sept. 11, the Attorney General has resolutely sought new and sometimes
controversial measures to track
possible terrorists in the United States - from detaining and questioning immigrants,
to monitoring lawyer-client
conversations of suspected terrorists and relaxing the F.B.I.'s 25-year-old
guidelines barring surveillance of
religious and domestic political groups.
It is absurd that he would use every possible tool to investigate these suspects,
except using existing records
to determine whether they bought guns."
-Sarah Brady, Chair of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence,
December 6, 2001
Three US
immigration agents were convicted yesterday of violating the
civil rights of a Mexican immigrant after his neck was broken during a raid
in Bryan, Texas.
Olivera, a 48-year old father of five, was handcuffed and lying
face down on the ground when one of the INS agents kneed him in the back and
left him paralyzed. The agents, thinking he was faking the injury, then kicked
him and
sprayed pepper spray in his face to try to get him to move.
-Philadelphia Daily News, June 10, 2003.
A pair of
large statues in the lobby of a Justice Department building were covered by
a blue curtain,
on orders from John Ashcroft. Apparently it was because the female figure "Spirit
of Justice" was
bare-breasted, and the body of the male, "Majesty of Law", was not
wearing a big enough toga.
The "Spirit of Justice"
and the "Majesty of Law" are obscured while John Ashcroft is in charge.
John
Ashcroft's USA PATRIOT
Act
Uniting and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate
Tools Required to Intercept
and Obstruct Terrorism
"Washington
is intensifying a rush to control the conduct of research and development in
ways that will overreach, and quite possibly damage, the very security we are
attempting to protect. For example, under the USA Patriot Act, passed shortly
after 9/11, the U.S. Department of Justice and others are trying to restrict
public access to information that isn't even sensitive enough to be officially
classified. And several government agencies are trying to force the researchers
with whom they have contracts to submit their papers for review before publishing
them and to bar non-U.S. citizens from working on some projects. In other words,
information that is freely available everywhere may still be "controlled"
in the State Departments alternative, Kafkaesque universe... "
-IEEE Spectrum, April 2003.
As of May 15, 2003, the State of Hawaii and 104
cities and counties across the country had passed resolutions
protesting federal law enforcement measures of the USA Patriot Act. The opposition
cuts across idealogical
and party lines, according to Phil Kent, President of the Conservative Southeastern
Legal Foundation,
who said "We must balance at all times the fact that national security
is important, but freedom is essential."
- Electric City, June 19, 2003.
"To
those who scare peace-loving people with
phantoms of lost liberty my message is this: Your
tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our
national unity and diminish our resolve."
-John Ashcroft
"Voice
or no voice, the people can always be brought
to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have
to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce
the peacemakers for lack of patriotism, and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
-Hermann Goering, Hitler's designated successor, before
being sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials
"The
means of defense against foreign danger
historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
- U.S. President James Madison
John Ashcroft's USA PATRIOT Act II
"...to
those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty,
my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists - for they erode our
national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to
America's enemies, and pause to America's friends."
-Attorney General John Ashcroft
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
-Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
Attorney General
John Ashcroft, Scoundrel