Controversial Halloween party photos released

[Judi Lynn]

Source: CNN

Controversial Halloween party photos released
From Jeanne Meserve and Mike M. Ahlers
CNN



ICE chief Julie Myers poses with a costume
contest winner at the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement party.



Julie Myers sits at the judges' table during
a Halloween party for Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The federal government has released to CNN more than 100 photographs of a Halloween party that temporarily threatened to derail the nomination of a top Department of Homeland Security official.

The images included several digital photos that the official had ordered erased because they were deemed to be inappropriate and offensive.

At the party, Julie Myers, then-acting chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), part of the Department of Homeland Security, gave an award for "most original costume" to an employee wearing prison stripes, a wig with dreadlocks and face-darkening makeup.

Immediately after posing for a photo with the winner, Myers later told Congress she recognized that she made an error in judgment and ordered the photos deleted from the camera.

Myers said she did not know the employee was wearing skin makeup, but ordered the photos destroyed because she did not think that "recognizing an escaped prisoner in any way was beneficial to the agency's goal of treating everyone in our custody with dignity and respect."



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/07/ice.photos/index.html

[peacetalksforall]

1. Republican women do not fare so well in taste, judgement, deeds.

Harris, Bachman, Jeanne ? OH, and all the ones we heard who were called to hearings just this past year. My favorite is the former top businesswoman who took over a key department and conducted RNC planning meetings with taxpayer paid employees, on taxpayer paid time, and on taxpayer paid property. On second thought, maybe the babes involved in firing the U.S. Attorneys tops that. Then there is Mary Carville. She was in the bunker with Cheney on 9-11 or not? Most people would vote for Malkin or Coulter, I suppose.

[peacetalksforall]

2. How could I forget Mz. Liar?

[saigon68]

10. treating everyone in our custody with dignity and respect."

Maybe they could have had someone dressed as Cheney simulating a Heart Attack

[tabasco]

3. Incompetent but loyal Bush appointees have been installed in every corner of our govt.

Heckuva job, Julie!

[Teaser]

4. what the fuck is (b)(6)?

.

[Gormy Cuss]

13. I believe it's deletion for privacy under FOIA.

FOIA requires that certain data be deleted in an otherwise public document. In response to FOIA requests we used to get text with sections blacked out for various reasons, and sometimes whole pages and sections were removed.

[frylock]

14. you sank my battleship!!

[JBoy]

5. Interesting timing on her revelation of poor judgment

"Immediately after posing for a photo with the winner, Myers later told Congress she recognized that she made an error in judgment and ordered the photos deleted from the camera."

So it was only after posing for the photo that she realized she made an error in judgment. Not at the time she was actively selecting this racist guy as the winner of the contest.

[fob]

8. No, you have it all wrong. The ERROR she's referring to is RECORDING

the event on a camera, not her selection of the racist guy as the winner.

Even with a (b)(6) edit you can tell the guys got friggin' makeup on his face!

[BrklynLiberal]

9. I believe you have it right there!!!

ooops. She should NEVER have had those photos taken after having so much fun making fun of immigrants, after whose welfare she is supposed to be looking!!!!!!! DUH!

Repuke women are just so damn stoopid!!!! Without exception.

[tanyev]

12. Yep. That was the main problem at Abu Ghraib, too.

[Judi Lynn]

6. (Earlier story) Costume leads to 'hold' on Myers' Senate confirmation

updated 9:19 p.m. EST, Wed November 7, 2007
Costume leads to 'hold' on Myers' Senate confirmation


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Halloween party where a Department of Homeland Security worker won praise for a costume of darkened skin and prison garb may stall Senate confirmation of the party's host for a second time.

Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said Wednesday that she has placed a temporary "hold" on Julie Myers' nomination for the job of assistant homeland security secretary for immigration and customs enforcement until Myers answers questions about the party, including why photographs of her with the costumed employee were destroyed after questions were raised.

"As the leader of that organization, she should have immediately recognized the problem and asked that person to leave," said McCaskill, who has raised previous concerns about Myers' nomination. "And what really happened was, she judged the costume as one that should get a prize and be recognized and she had her photograph taken with the person in the costume -- and only later came back and apologized and said it was a problem."

President Bush used a 2006 recess appointment to put Myers in office after Senate concerns about her inexperience stalled her confirmation. He nominated her again for the job in January.

Myers, 38, was part of a three-judge panel that originally praised the costume -- which featured dreadlocks, black-and-white prison garb and a skin "bronzer" -- for its originality.

More:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/07/halloween.flap/index.html

[Judi Lynn]

7. Embattled immigration chief went to fake questioner at first press conference

Embattled immigration chief went to fake questioner at first press conference
Nick Juliano
Published: Tuesday November 27, 2007

ICE head already facing criticism for praising offensive Halloween costume
A top immigration official, who has been criticized for her youth, inexperience and poor judgment, took a question from a government employee posing as a reporter during her very first press conference last year, RAW STORY has learned.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Julie Myers called on an agency spokeswoman who was standing with about a dozen other reporters during a February 2006 press conference in San Antonio. Critics had criticized Myers as an unfit nominee because of her lack of immigration experience and close ties to the Bush administration. Her performance at that first press conference was panned when she "struggle to pronounce Nuevo Laredo," a Mexican border town that is a hot spot of criminal activity and drug trafficking into the US.

The ICE employee was told not to ask any questions, and she was verbally reprimanded after doing so, according to a letter delivered last week to the House Committee on Homeland Security.

Committee chairman Bennie Thompson requested the Department of Homeland Security review its press-relations protocols after the Federal Emergency Management Agency was found to have staged a fake press conference in October to respond to raging California wildfires, causing the press conference's organizer to lose a promotion.

More:
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Embattled_immigration_chief_went_to_fake_1127.html

[Divine Discontent]

11. ah... yes...

the good ol conservative woman - something that has long been treasured in America's history - full of bigotry, fascist and racist views.

what a grand ol gal this one is!


teehee - his costume is of a face-painted jamaican prisoner with dreadlocks - that's so FUNNY!


:mad: