Very Long, Very Involved, and Very Important

Posted by: Aussiegirl and BonnieBlueFlag

September 16, 2005

Being Brunette Barbie: Hurricane Makes Congress See Light on Unqualified Immigration Nominee

By Debbie Schlussel

I and friends of mine, who are Homeland Security agents both inside and outside ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), have voiced concern and dismay over the President's nomination of Julie L. Myers, a 36-year-old lawyer (and confidant of another inept Homeland Security lawyer, Michael Chertoff), to become the new DHS Assistant Secretary over ICE.

Today, Associated Press reports that Congress is finally seeing the light concerning Ms. Myers. Too bad it took a catastrophic hurricane to do it.

I'm not a fan of Ohio's Republican pro-Islamist U.S. Senator, George Voinovich, but yesterday, he got it right: "I think that we ought to have a meeting with [Homeland Security Secretary] Mike Chertoff ... to ask him ... why he thinks you're qualified for the job," Voinovich was quoted as saying in The Washington Times. "Because based on your resume, I don't think you are."

Julie L. Myers has zero qualifications for the job. Being Brunette Barbie is not enough to run the most important agency in Homeland Security, which handles immigration (and does a horrible job at it). If Myers is confirmed, expect Abu Moskowitz (Brian Moskowitz) style malfeasance to continue and national security to be increasingly jeopardized.

Wait 'til you hear her other "qualifications." More on Julie L. Myers coming up. Stay tuned.

***UPDATE: Michelle Malkin also has a great post on this. And FYI, the wimpy Voinovich reversed course on Julie Myers and is now supporting her. I knew I couldn't trust him.

You should take the time to go to Debbie Schlussel's original article, for numerous additional links that are pertinent to this subject: Being Brunette Barbie
Posted by Debbie at September 16, 2005 10:44 AM


September 21, 2005

We Don't Need Another Homeland Security Hack
by Michelle Malkin

My fellow conservatives in Washington refuse to learn two vital homeland security lessons, one from 9/11 and the other from Hurricane Katrina.

Lesson Number One: If you neglect immigration enforcement, you will regret it.

Lesson Number Two: If you appoint political cronies in times of crisis, you will regret it.

The Bush administration has barely rebounded from the resignation of horse show organizer Michael "Heck of a job" Brown at FEMA, and yet is pushing forward with the nomination of another inexperienced bureaucrat to a key post at the Department of Homeland Security.

If this is supposed to be a shining example of Karl Rove's political genius, get him some stupid pills quick.

The new crony waiting in the wings is attorney Julie Myers, the White House pick to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). At the risk of stating the painfully obvious, the agency Myers would spearhead deals with "enforcement" of "immigration" and "customs" laws and policies. Myers has practical and managerial experience in none of the above.

Zip. Nada. Nil.

As I've reported many times over the past several years, one of this country's greatest vulnerabilities is its disgraceful lack of clear and consistent interior enforcement of our immigration laws. The detention and deportation system remains in shambles. Rank-and-file ICE agents are undermined routinely by open-borders superiors.

So, what exactly are the 36-year-old lawyer's main credentials to solve these dire national security problems? Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Her husband is DHS chief Michael Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood. Chertoff was also Myers' former boss for a short spell at the Justice Department's criminal division. Myers also worked at the Department of Commerce on export control policy under Michael Garcia, the departing head of ICE.

Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman, told the Washington Post: "She's well-known and respected throughout the law enforcement community…She has a proven track record as an effective manager." That is most certainly not what I'm hearing from rank-and-file employees at ICE and other parts of DHS, who have been brutal and vocal in criticizing Myers' nomination. By contrast, the silence of the usual open-borders suspects on the Left to this Bush appointment is rather telling.

Myers and her supporters think some cute sound bites will paper over her lack of qualifications for the job. "I realize that I'm not 80 years old," Myers testified at her nomination hearing last week. "I have a few gray hairs, more coming, but I will seek to work with those who are knowledgeable in this area, who know more than I do."

Please, spare us the not-so-clever rejoinders about age and wisdom. Reagan could pull them off. Myers can't. Why hire someone who needs to "seek to work" with those "who know more than I do" in order to her job? Myers may be perfectly capable of writing legal briefs and organizing policy conferences. I'm sure her knowledge of export controls is second to none. But as long as the borders are broken and al Qaeda continues to exploit lax immigration enforcement, she has no business heading ICE or any other DHS agency.

Old habits die hard, unfortunately. The Bush administration, like the Clinton presidency before it, has continued entrenched Beltway practices of installing no-nothing political seat-warmers in high places within the immigration bureaucracy. Bush appointed Eduardo Aguirre, a banker with zero experience in immigration law, to head DHS's Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. Bush has also named several Republican Party operatives with zero experience in immigration law to immigration court posts. It's hack heaven at DHS.

This must end. Cronyism and national security are a deadly mix. Do we really want to wait until another mass terrorist attack happens to finally learn that lesson?

Not another Homeland Security hack By Michelle Malkin


September 21, 2005

Desperate ICE-Wives: Who is Julie Myers?
By Debbie Schlussel

Remember President Bush's Saturday speech at the White House, after Katrina struck?

Behind him to his left was failed Homeland Security chief and lawyer Michael Chertoff. But to his right was Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I remember thinking: If only Bush had appointed a military or law enforcement type like Gen. Myers, to head up Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)--the most important law enforcement agency in the War on Terror--instead of his niece, Julie L. Myers. Julie Myers is another lawyer like Chertoff, inept and inexperienced when it comes to law enforcement.

The White House claims that Ms. Myers is "well-known and respected throughout the law enforcement community."

Wrong. As one ICE agent wrote me, "What a joke of a nomination!"

Chuck Showalter, President of the National Homeland Security Council, the union for 22,000 DHS (and 7,800 ICE) employees, told me, "I haven't seen anything to show that she is qualified. . . . My members are worried about whether they will have someone on top that can support them." He said DHS employees are tired of "program managers with no experience" and want someone with a law enforcement or military background. Myers has none.

I've been hearing from ICE agents, since April, when it was apparent ICE chief Michael Garcia would leave, and Julie Myers would get the job.

They wondered what this 36-year-old's credentials were--besides being General Myers' niece and the bed partner of Chertoff's Chief of Staff (to whom she was then engaged and is now married). The clueless Myers needed days and days of tutoring from ICE executive management for her nomination hearings.

It's not that ICE agents were that impressed with their first boss, Assistant Homeland Secretary Garcia.

Under Garcia's "leadership," immigration went unchecked, and our borders hemorrhaged. ICE was a merger of the agent portions of the INS and Customs Service. But Garcia moved the focus away from immigration enforcement and terrorism money laundering to the less threatening--but more PR-sexy--realms of sex tourism and kiddie-porn trafficking.

Instead of investigating radical Islamic groups' money-laundering to Muslim terrorists, ICE Special Agents in Charge, like Brian Moskowitz (who oversees the heart of Islamic America--Michigan and Ohio), are hanging out at Hezbollah mosques (future column), pandering to "former" Islamic terrorists, and enlisting them in Arabic-speaking agent recruitment efforts. With Garcia's tacit approval, Moskowitz shut down many investigations into Islamic terrorist money-laundering and illegal Islamic immigration, hanging out with individuals tied to these operations instead.

Garcia spent his tenure doing questionable things like nominating guys like Terry Nelson for an ICE award. Nelson, a legacy INS employee, once oversaw prison contracts for holding illegal alien and immigration detainees awaiting deportation. He allegedly accepted luxurious vacations for himself and his family from a prison contractor. Yet, under Garcia's "leadership," instead of being prosecuted, Nelson remained a high-ranking ICE official, and was NOMINATED for an ICE leadership award! Instead of facing justice, Nelson still works in a cushy ICE job in Buffalo and runs girls' softball programs in his free time.

But, as bad as Garcia was, Julie L. Myers is worse. She has virtually no experience working with law enforcement. She claims her short stint as an Assistant Treasury Secretary overseeing money laundering and boycott issues is enough. But sources say that, in that role, she worked with current ICE Director of Investigations, Marcy Forman-Friedman, and the two engaged in a prolonged catfight--unable to get along and wrestling over who got credit for successful operations.

How will she get along with Forman, who is in charge of all ICE investigations, now? Will she push Forman toward the immigration problems she has ignored? Don't count on it.

Will Myers change the policy of promotions and rewards for malfeasance by renegade ICE "leadership." For example, what will she do about:

* Giovanni Guadioso, a/k/a "GG," who headed ICE's office in El Paso? As the press has much reported, he allegedly participated in a cover-up to conceal the involvement of an ICE informant in a series of violent murders, including the attempted murder of an undercover DEA agent. It's the subject of a high-profile lawsuit, too. But, instead of being suspended, he was PROMOTED to Deputy Director of ICE over its budget, staffing, and training.

* Jennifer Sedgebeer, a Texas ICE agent, who allegedly participated in handcuffing a woman to a hot tub because the woman refused to perform a sex act on Sedgebeer and her cop boyfriend? Sedgebeer was put on PAID leave.

* Two unnamed ICE agents still working for Moskowitz, with Forman's full knowledge? One was caught driving drunk in his federally-funded "G" car, soliciting a prostitute. Another is an alleged child molester, and habitually used his "G" car to stop and harass drivers on Western Michigan area highways for fun.

Then, there's New Orleans. Here's a little quiz:

What was the lead Homeland Security agency down in New Orleans from before the Hurricane hit to date? If you answered FEMA, you are wrong.
In fact, ICE was the lead Homeland Security agency designated by Chertoff to deal with Katrina aftermath, with Forman "running the show" from New Orleans' chic "W" Hotel.

It was a miserable failure. Many agents who volunteered to go to New Orleans were waiting for days and were never sent. Others were sent days late, too avoid paying overtime (the ICE "leadership" didn't realize that FEMA paid overtime and wanted to cut costs). Forman and ICE's New Orleans Special Agent in Charge, Michael Holt, were reportedly in Baltimore just prior to the hurricane, partying at a Forman reception--instead of making preparations.

As a brilliant ICE agent friend said, ICE honchos and people like Julie Myers "are transforming the good men and women of ICE and of DHS into a pathetic bunch of milquetoasts who are incapable of providing the most basic protections to the people of this nation."

Clearly, ICE is an agency with a lot of problems, problems that need the attention and know-how of a law enforcement or military veteran.

Not an inexperienced 36-year-old relative of important people.

***UPDATE: Check out Michelle Malkin's (POSTED ABOVE) excellent column on Julie L. Myers and latest blogpost about it.

You should take the time to go to Debbie Schlussel's original article, for numerous additional links that are pertinent to this subject: Who is Julie Myers?
Posted by Debbie at September 21, 2005 06:45 AM