Tuesday, May 29, 2007

CINDY SHEEHAN TURNS IN HER CARD

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Cindy Sheehan bids adieu on The Daily Kos:

I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used…

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing…

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home.

And "home" would be...Caracas?


I hear Cindy's squeeze Hugo has just acquired a few TV stations in need of far Left propagandist news directors...

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More on the turmoil in Venezuela from Fox News producer and eyewitness Nora Zimmett. FNC's Adam Housley blogged the protests.

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Matt at Blackfive remembers Casey Sheehan the right way.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."
- Thomas Jefferson

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE


1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
3. Colt: The original point and click interface.
4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
7. "Free" men do not ask permission to bear arms.
8. If you don't know your rights you don't have any.
9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
10. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights reserved.
11. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?
12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.
15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.
16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
17. 911 - government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.
19. Criminals love gun control -- it makes their jobs safer.
20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
22. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.
23. Enforce the "gun control laws" we ALREADY have, don't make more.
24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.
25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
26. "A government of the people, by the people, for the people..."

PLEASE PASS THIS 'REFRESHER' ON TO FREE CITIZENS

Saturday, May 26, 2007

BORDER SECURITY: LET'S GET SERIOUS

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If we can’t control the flow of people across our borders, no “reform”of our immigration laws will really fix anything. Illegal aliens will still come across, terrorists will get in and bring with them all manner of weapons. While congress whiles away its hours talking about complicated amnesty laws and visa regulations that no one will ever understand -- much less follow -- it’s time for Americans to measure and understand the threat that porous borders pose. I have some experience with that issue, having worked for a CIA paramilitary organization for more than 20 years, trying to prevent drug smugglers from bringing their deadly wares across those same borders.

Our borders are more secure than they were before 9-11, but not enough to prevent smart, talented people from coming across pretty much any time they like, with anything they’d like to smuggle. People -- hundreds of them -- are out there who have the sort of training and experience I do, only from the other side. They are former KGB, Cuban intelligence and intelligence officers from many nations who now hire themselves out to drug smugglers. They can out maneuver our understaffed, underequipped and underfunded border patrolmen with relative ease. And, for a price, they will smuggle anything into the US: people, drugs, or nuclear weapons. What does it say about our border security that the Fort Dix Six weren’t caught at the border or by good intelligence work, but only by sheer luck and a sharp-minded Circuit City employee who saw the jihad rehearsal video and called in the FBI?

To defeat these smart, well-trained and funded adversaries we have to get serious about border security. The legislation that’s now being considered by Congress isn’t. At the start of each new Congress the U.S. House of Representatives and members of the Senate are required under the U.S. Constitution to take the oath swearing allegiance to America. In modern times there has never been an issue which more clearly defined the Constitutional obligation by members of Congress to protect American citizens against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And, in modern times, there has never been a Congress so willfully ignorant of what needs to be done.

On Tuesday, May 22, the Senate agreed to debate the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007, S-1348, which allows for a significant number, between 12 and 25 million, illegal immigrants to be granted legal status in the United States. With support from President Bush, the man I have taken many political bullets for over the last seven years, a cadre of Senate Republicans have essentially sold out the American people by crafting a bill that allows for the continuing unfettered onslaught of U.S. borders with virtually no meaningful enforcement of security. It is now up to the House of Representatives to kill this measure and pass a real border security bill later this year.

Proponents of the Senate “compromise” legislation claim that this act was crafted by a bipartisan coalition, and it’s the only thing that can pass this year. Though the measure’s title talks about “secure borders,” it doesn’t provide for them. It calls for 370 miles of triple-layer fencing along the Mexican border, combined with a three-tiered system for filtering out those who can stay and who must leave the country as well as more jail cells for those awaiting deportation. Nowhere in the bill is there any specific requirement for real security counter-measures. Measures that will help to deter drug trafficking, international cartels running contraband and human trafficking.

We will never hermetically seal our borders. And a security fence alone -- though it is a key element of real security -- cannot protect the United States. If our legislators are serious about protecting this country and its citizens the following must be part of any security proposal:

1. The tasking of satellites dedicated to scanning our southern and northern borders.

2. Serious fence and wall barriers along the borders with listening posts throughout the less densely traveled regions of our borders.

3. The development of the United States Border Intelligence Agency. This agency would be a fully budgeted, independent intelligence gathering agency tasked to develop intelligence for the protection of our borders as well as run independent or joint task force operations against our enemies trying to penetrate our borders. They would conduct covert espionage activities worldwide, seeking out, penetrating and thwarting the plans of the black-market intelligence operators who hire themselves out to terrorists, drug smugglers and all others seeking to enter the US illegally.

4. The creation and deployment of Rapid Deployment Response Teams (RDRTs) a new, highly skilled, highly trained paramilitary unit culled from our current Special Forces Units, capable of responding to any part of our borders within 15 minutes, fully armed and whose commander reports only to the chain of command of the newly formed United States Border Intelligence Agency.

Roman Emperor Hadrian, in A.D. 122, recognized that in order to prevent military raids by the enemies of Rome and to improve economic stability and provide peaceful conditions in the Roman Empire, he had to build Hadrian’s Wall to separate British land from Scottish. The first of three walls would be 75 miles long and would be built from quarried stone, standing and protecting the empire for 300 years. The wall would physically declare and mark the territories of the Empire. Over 1600 years later the United States is under siege by her enemies. Terrorists have already attacked and murdered over 3000 people.

Terrorist cells are moving without hesitation, conditions or consequences across our borders. We are facing economic devastation by illegal immigrants who are burdening our healthcare systems by hundreds of billions of dollars per year. They pay no taxes and are about to be given amnesty for tax avoidance and who knows what other criminal acts the may have committed.

President Bush and leaders of Congress have not learned from history. Without the implementation of the types of aggressive actions outlined above, which physically declare the territories of the United States, the enforcement of our borders and the security of our nation will be virtually impossible. It will only be a matter of time when the United States will be nothing more than a footnote, a very brief footnote, in history.

Friday, May 25, 2007

MORE ON THE AMNESTY BILL

No matter which way you slice it, dice it or re-work this immigration bill, it is still going to allow millions of criminals to become legal U.S. residents .. and many will become citizens with full voting rights. Right now I suppose all that we can hope for is the lesser of all the evils.

Yesterday the Senate tightened up some parts of the bill. It capped the number allowed through the guest worker program at 200,000. The Bush administration originally planned for 400,000, with the option to increase that number to 600,000 if necessary. It also cut down on the number of temporary work visas, and said that security at the borders must be tightened before any of these new laws go into place.

This one is my favorite: cracking down with mandatory prison sentences on illegal immigrants who are deported and then re-enter the U.S. Well, isn't that special. How about prison for the ones who enter illegally to begin with? All we have to do is make sure that the living accommodations we provide in our prison camps for illegal aliens are at least as good as the conditions from whence they came. Start rounding them up and throwing them in prison for a year before they're sent back and you'll see a screaming halt to the Mexican invasion.

As for the 12 to 20 million already here? Read what Dick Morris has to say about the amnesty bill and the Republicans. Sadly, he makes a lot of sense. The disgusting political reality is that this whole immigration debate is now about our law. It is about political power. Its about votes.

The media is up in arms because House GOP leader John Boehner used a profane four-letter word to describe the bill. What's the big deal? I think there are a few more choice words I could add to his list.

Monday, May 21, 2007

DISSECTING THE BUSH/KENNEDY SHAMNESTY BILL

I've been hacking away at it all weekend and will post analysis tomorrow.

Hugh Hewitt has a seven-part dissection here and writes: "The jam down of such a far reaching measure, drafted in secret and very difficult for laymen much less lawyers to read, is fundamentally inconsistent with how we govern ourselves."

The invaluable N.Z. Bear has taken the bill text and converted it into an annotation/link-friendly format that allows readers to browse page-by-page, allows bloggers to link directly to individual pages, and allows anybody to add commentary and links to individual pages.

Go here. Read it, use it, link and add your comments!

Scott Johnson at Power Line has the inside story on the death of Sen. John Cornyn's deportation and enforcement provisions, which prompted John McCain's obscenity.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

AMNESTY.... PURE AND SIMPLE


Well the day is finally here. It is a day where our Congress and our President have come together to grant legal residency and then citizenship to millions of illegal aliens who broke the law. Criminals in this country will be on a fast track to becoming citizens, with the same rights and benefits as you and me.

A couple of points about the proposal:

First, there are only vague references to closing our borders. It won't happen. The borders will remain porous and the Mexican invasion of the United States will continue. The count now is between 12 and 20 million. That doesn't include the six million that have been granted amnesty in previous "deals." Over the next few years we'll see millions more come .... they'll either try to get in on this amnesty deal or they'll wait around for the next one. And there will be a next one. Neither political party has the will to do something to stem the tide of this invasion.

The bill calls for criminal aliens to step forward to obtain something called a "Z" visa. (Would that be for Zorro?) They have to pay some fees and a $5000 fine. Ain't gonna happen. Liberals and illegal immigration proponents are going to scream asesinato sangriento about this fee. "These poor people can't afford to pay the fee. You're taking food out of the mouths of their children ... etc, etc." We won't collect enough in those fees to fuel one Humvee.

The bill also says that heads of household will have to return to their own countries before they can get the Zorro Visa. What's the point? They leave their wives and children here and go home .. then come back to get the visa? The only way this will work is if that visa is only issued in the country where that person has citizenship. No Zorro Visas issued in the US. We'll see what's in the bill.

We're also told that every new crop of "guest workers" will have to return home after stints of two years. Yeah? How are we going to make this happen? Are we going to place harsh punishment on anyone who pays them after they're supposed to have gone home? How about landlords who provide them a place to hide?

Come on ... let's get serious here.

President Bush says this bill would "treat people with respect." Respect? How about the respect they showed for our laws? They're criminals! They told our country to take it's law and empujelos donde el sol no brilla! (Look, my Spanish isn't perfect here .. I'm trying.) Now we're talking about treating criminals with respect? There are millions of people around the world who are trying to get into this country legally. They apply for visas. The fill out the paperwork. The answer the questions. The study our language. And they wait --- they wait until the legal process has run its course, then they come into this country and try to assimilate. These are the ones who are owed our respect, not the criminals who cross the border illegally, work here illegally, stay here illegally ... and often avoid paying taxes.

Amnesty? Hell yes it's amnesty! The dictionary defines amnesty as "forgetting or overlooking of any past offense" or "an act of forgiveness for past offenses." Any way you look at it this bill does just that.

The reaction to this bill? Well, many Democrats like John Edwards are not too pleased with the temporary guest worker program. Others like McCain were standing right by Ted Kennedy as he announced the plan. So far as I know, Mitt Romney is the only candidate to come out against the bill.

And the final kicker is that the legislation won't even be ready to be viewed by the great unwashed until after the Senate votes on it. That sounds like a great idea; let's vote on one of the largest changes in immigration reform without seeing it in writing. You do understand why it's happening this way, don't you? They want to ram it through before you really get a chance to see what they're doing.