Brownsville Tea Party Association

Archive for the ‘Border News’ Category

From Judicial Watch

In a perplexing development ignored by the mainstream media, the Obama Administration suspended tens of thousands of deportations last year and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano lied to a Senate committee to cover up the astounding figure.

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From NumbersUSA, relating to votes last night (June 2, 2011) in the U.S. House dealing with immigration:

CRUSADES TO ATTACK ARIZONA ‘SPOTTER NESTS’AND SUPPORT THE ‘SHADOW WOLVES’

This was really quite a savory moment for Rosemary Jenks, your NumbersUSA Director of Government Relations.

By voice vote and after colorful descriptions by the sponsor, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), the House approved by voice vote two amendments that would:

- set aside $1 million for the Border Patrol to use to eliminate the Mexican drug cartels’ look-out posts along the borders,
- set aside $1 million for hiring additional Shadow Wolves, the extraordinarily and uniquely talented Native Americans who track illegal aliens and foreign para-military along the Mexican border.

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By Christopher Smith Gonzalez

The system is meant kill legislation: That’s the old line often heard around the Capitol. And now, as the session’s end slams the coffin door on a slew of bills, more than a few lawmakers are taking solace in the fact that their dead legislation has plenty of company.

Top on the list of bills that didn’t make it across the finish line is, of course, Senate Bill 1811, a broad fiscal matters proposal that had public school financing tacked on to it. Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, killed it with a filibuster, but school financing has to be addressed and will be taken up in a special session.

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The title of the video is “Patriots Chew Out Illegal Alien Squatters.”  I don’t think that’s accurate.  At least some of the men are day laborers who live in Mexico and work in the U.S. during the day.  But that’s neither here nor there.

I neither condone nor condemn the behavior of either party in this video.  Both sides have their reasons for being there. 

The reason I posted the video is to start a discussion about methods.  Is this a good way to protest failed immigration policy?  Is this a good way to advocate for a more secure border?  Is this kind of direct, confrontational method effective?  If so, how is it effective?

What do you think?

By Capt Jim Kinney USN (ret)

Just a few thoughts from the past couple of weeks…trying to make sense of what passes for wisdom on the political front in Washington DC.

WHAT CONSTITUTES “TORTURE”?

Should we use torture to extract information from terrorists?

This past weekend on the news talk shows…a liberal guest in supporting the idea espoused by the President that torture in not part of our national character said, “We don’t support pulling out teeth or plucking out eyes…”

The comment went unchallenged…here’s the problem…none of us support that type of physical torture…and, that type of abuse has never been alleged in the liberal’s battle against “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Sleep deprivation, humiliation, threats of physical abuse…oh, and water boarding are all enhanced techniques that have been used by our interrogators, but actual physical abuse…never even alleged…we have consistently drawn the line at inflicting physical pain that could cause any long term damage.

So, why do the liberals include eye gouging and teeth pulling to strengthen their argument against enhanced interrogation?

Perhaps because their case against the type of interrogation used by the CIA and Military cannot stand scrutiny if the discussion is limited to the actual facts.

WHAT IS IT THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND?

What was the November election about? Government spending…voters clearly wanted smaller government. But the conservatives in Congress are on the verge of folding.

It now looks doubtful that we’ll get any meaningful entitlement reform, so everything else they offer up is only playing in the margins and not solving our real problems.

Their excuse…political reality…meaning they can’t get reform passed in the Senate or signed by the President…and they are plain afraid of standing for the truth for fear of losing an election. Their thought process seems to be, “The voters sent us here to get things done”.

Yes…and No…we didn’t mean, “Do something…even if its wrong.”

We prefer gridlock to more debt. We prefer not raising the debt ceiling if it means more taxes. I’m not sure I know what the short term pain would be if we fail to raise the debt ceiling…but it is certain that the long term pain of unbridled borrowing and spending will destroy America.

WHY IS HE TALKING ABOUT IMMIGRATION?

Have you asked yourself why the president chose last week to address border security and amnesty for illegal immigrants?

It would seem to most Americans that we ought to be hearing his plan on reducing the deficit…or on entitlement reform…or creating jobs…or his plan to reduce gas prices…or a coherent energy policy…or plans to deal with the looming inflation. You think there might be some other things that need more immediate attention?

But think about it…he’s worn out the Osama Bin Laden story…or at least doesn’t like the questions surfacing about the morality of assassinations versus water-boarding. He is bankrupt of any ideas on how to fix what’s broken. His idea of leadership is to call for another commission…so what’s he got to say?

He’s using a tactic we’ve all employed…when you don’t like the current conversation…change the subject. Have you noticed how often this President changes the subject? And, by the way it wouldn’t hurt to buy a few Hispanics votes given his unpopularity with other large voting blocks.

UNDERSTANDING POLLS

What do you make of recent polls showing strong support for a third party?

A majority of Americans support the idea of a viable third party while only 32% believe the current two party system is adequate.

Conventional wisdom completely misreads these poll numbers by focusing on a third party presidential candidate.

The great discontent…and support for a third party rises from the fact that most Americans feel betrayed by Congress. Bickering, posturing, compromise and deceit are the hallmarks of both parties and Congress today.

A third party electing 35 Congressmen would be able to name the Speaker and committee chairs and with that, greatly influence the budget…and the size of the federal government. A parliamentary House would change DC.

A friend, Tim Cox has a plan take over the House in one election cycle…though he is unwilling to call his plan a third party…it truly is an unconventional third party focused solely on the House of Representatives. For more on this potential 2012 third party go to Tim’s website: www.goooh.com.

If you have not yet checked out Tim’s site, put it on your “to-do” list. Mr. Cox, an ordinary man with an extraordinary passion for America may just have the solution. In the past we’ve said, we can’t vote for a third party conservative because that will simply drain votes from the Republican and let the Democrat win the election…

ASK YOURSELF THIS…given that neither party is willing to take our deficits and national debt seriously…does either party really offer a solution to our crisis?

IF YOUR ANSWER IS NO…then ultimately our only hope may be a viable third party representation in the House of Representatives…

COULD IT BE ANY WORSE???
Check out our site as well. www.inspireandignite.com. We post a fresh political blog on the site daily.

By Amy Eldred

Today Texas was graced by the presence of “dear leader” who told us we were basically full of bullcrap when it comes to the issue of the border.

According to Obama, problem’s fixed and we should shut up.  I thought you all might appreciate this video clip of Congressman Lamar Smith debunking the lies that were spewed in El Paso.  

Funny . . . Obama turns up to pander for the. Hispanic vote and raise campaign $$ but won’t acknowledge the devastation caused by weeks of fire and a long drought.  You think he saw any scorched earth from Air Force One?

It’s baaaaaaaack – the call for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, otherwise known as Amnesty for those courageous enough to admit the truth.  Chris Cillizza has written an article for The Texas Insider that warns GOP presidential hopefuls to be mindful of the growing Hispanic population or suffer the consequences.  The underlying message seems to be that the GOP has no choice but to embrace “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” (amnesty); otherwise, Hispanics will vote for the Democrat candidate en masse.  Once again, the Hispanic voter is characterized as monolithic and driven by this single issue. If only the GOP could phrase the issue the right way, Hispanics would flock to the GOP in droves thus sparing the nation from the evil and wicked LibProgs that constitute today’s Democrat Party.

What a crock.

First of all, the conservative base of the GOP overwhelmingly support securing the border before anything else. Any GOP candidate who advocates amnesty or amnesty lite or kinda-amnesty-but-not-quite will be sidelined immediately. No conservative voter will support another McCain.  Period.  Been there, done that.

The idea that inside the typical Hispanic voter is a Republican just waiting for the right “messaging” on illegal immigration insults my intelligence. Are there many Hispanics who reflexively vote for Democrats? Of course there are. But does their vote hinge on this single issue?  I seriously doubt it.  But for this one issue – illegal immigration – Hispanics would vote Republican? Really?

I think there is more – much more – to the Hispanic voter than that.  It’s high time we looked past convenient labels and got to the heart of the matter.  What do the Democrats represent, and why do their constituencies support them? It’s not an Hispanic thing.  It is much larger than that, and calls into question what motivates people to vote for Democrats in the first place.

Look at all the chaos and uncertainty that the Democrats have wrought in just 5 short years.  Trillions and trillions of dollars of debt, perpetual high unemployment, soaring fuel prices, the specter of a double dip recession or even full blown depression looming over the horizon, stagflation, inflation, a foreign policy in complete disarray, military misadventures based on mere whims, racialism as public policy, and on and on and on.

And on top of all that, we are BROKE.

If Hispanics vote for any Democrat after all the damage they have caused, is it even conceivable that their vote could have been affected by smart messaging on illegal immigration?

Not likely. Besides, where is the money going to come from? Let’s assume for the moment that the right “messaging” has been achieved, and conservatives are now on board with “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” which we all know amounts to amnesty, or at the very least a blanket grant of benefits to millions of illegals living “in the shadows.” WE’RE BROKE. There is no money to give to these people. This is no secret. Everyone knows we’re broke. So what good does it do to even entertain the notion that we would grant amnesty to millions of people, thus extending benefits to them that we cannot bestow?  It would be a lie, a bald-faced lie.

But maybe that’s what the Neocons are advocating.  Just lie.  Tell the Hispanics what (we think) they want to hear.  We don’t have the money to follow through on amnesty, anyway.  Just lie, get them to vote the “right” way, and we’ll worry about the aftermath later.

I think we should just be honest and forthright about the whole thing. We must first secure the border and develop some assessment method that objectively demonstrates that fact to the point where any reasonable person would say “Yup. The border is secure.” Maybe by that time, we will have averted a fiscal stroke and we will be able to calmly and rationally discuss the prospect of Comprehensive Immigration Reform (aka Amnesty). Until then, there’s really no point, mainly because WE’RE BROKE.

Note: News like this scares the beegeezus out of me. It just keeps getting worse, and no one seems to be doing anything about it. I still favor completing the border fence and installing plenty of gates all up and down its length. Institute a workable guest worker program for the vast majority of Mexican and OTMs who just want a little liberty along with a little cash to make it more fun. But our new Representative doesn’t think a border fence will work. He compared it to the Great Wall of China, perpetuating the myth that the Great Wall failed to keep out the barbarians. Well, ultimately, maybe. But it kept them out for about 600 years. Fences and walls WORK. Do I really need to explain that? Really?

-Chris

Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Border Patrol, which falls under the Homeland Security Department, is charged with apprehending aliens attempting to illegally cross U.S. borders. As CNSNews.com previously reported, in fiscal year 2010, around 84 percent of the approximately 448,000 illegal aliens arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol were not prosecuted.  

“These included individuals from special-interest countries like Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen and countries designated by the U.S. Department of State as state-sponsors of terror – Iran, Syria, and Sudan,” said Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas).

It’s not just that we’re seeing immigration across our southern border from countries like Mexico — people seeking to work and provide for their families,” said Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on homeland security and terrorism.

“Indeed in the last year alone — where 445,000 individuals were detained at the southwest border — 59,000 came from countries other than Mexico,” Cornyn said.

Special interest countries are those whose citizens are subject to enhanced screening by the Transportation Security Administration on U.S.-bound flights as a result of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253.

After delivering his remarks at the 15th annual U.S.-Mexico Congressional Border Issues Conference, Sen. Cornyn told reporters he asked the Director of National Intelligence whether the apprehension of the 663 individuals was national security vulnerability. “He said yes it was, so we need to do more,” Cornyn said.

What the Obama administration is doing to secure the border more is “obviously not enough,” he added.

During his speech, Cornyn criticized the Obama administration’s border security efforts, saying that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano talks about the resources that have been devoted to border areas — the so called ‘inputs’ – “where I’m really more interested in what the results, or the outputs, are.”

Napolitano, who also spoke at the event, said “taken as whole, the manpower, the technology, the resources, represent the most serious and sustained action to secure the border in our nation’s history, and it’s clear from every statistical measure that the approach is working.”

Napolitano called Border Patrol apprehensions a “key indicator of illegal traffic” along the U.S. borders, and she noted the apprehensions have decreased 36 percent in the past two years and are less than one half of what they were at their peak.

Sen. Cornyn suggested that a border security strategy should have a coordinated “interagency approach,” where the various federal entities charged with security along the border are working together and complementing one another.

He also said that a “good” border security strategy “should be resourced appropriately.”

NOTE:  This post was originally published on David Horowitz’s NewsRealBlog on October 30, 2010, by Chris Rowan.

Jonah Goldberg defines Fascism as:

. . . a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the ‘problem’ and therefore defined as the enemy.
- Liberal Fascism, p. 23

Eco-fascism is a variant of Fascism that is also totalitarian in the sense that any action by the state to achieve some ecologically-worthy goal is justified. No aspect of human life is off limits. Examples range from bans on smoking in public and the use of cell phones in cars to recent attempts by Congress and the EPA to impose a tax and/or regulatory regimen on our exhalations and emissions made by the burning of fossil fuels. Now it seems we are going to be taxed for the little plastic grocery bags we use to transport our groceries from the supermarket to our cars.

The rationale for the ban is dubious, at best. The cynic in me views the ban as yet one more statist bureaucratic scheme to separate me from my money.

This past January, the City Council of Brownsville, Texas, unanimously passed a ban on retailer-provided, single-use, sanitary, disposable, plastic grocery bags. The ban is voluntary for now, but becomes mandatory with exceptions for bagging fish, meat, and poultry in 2011. Paper bags were not offered as an alternative. The main reason for the ban was to address a litter problem associated with the little plastic “tumbleweeds” that seem to be everywhere – vacant lots, fences, roads, parking lots. Very unsightly.

We had facts and figures to show that, yeah, Brownsville was sick of litter, and the biggest thing we litter are plastic bags.
- Rose Timmer, Healthy Communities of Brownsville

The Brownsville City Commission also pointed out that sewers and drainage systems are being clogged with the plastic bags, and the community’s waterways are similarly polluted. They further claimed that the plastic bags are difficult to recycle and contaminate materials processed through the city’s composting program. A local newspaper reported:

The ordinance the commission approved notes the city has a duty to protect the natural environment, the economy and the health of the city’s residents.

Let’s take a closer look at these assertions, shall we?

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Associated Press, posted on Oct. 6, 2010 at 2:50 PM:

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Officials say a south Texas college student has been shot and killed in Mexico.

University of Texas at Brownsville spokeswoman Amy Lynch said 19-year-old freshman Jonathan William Torres was killed Wednesday in Matamoros.

Lynch tells The Brownsville Herald that the university was trying to get more information from the U.S. Consulate in Matamoros, across the U.S.-Mexico border from Brownsville.

Officials say it is unknown whether the death was connected to ongoing drug war violence in Mexico.

———-

The article above dovetails nicely with this one:

Police Chief Says Border Violence Has Officially Crossed Over (KRGV, October 4, 2010)

BROWNSVILLE – Brownsville Police Chief Carlos Garcia says the border violence has officially crossed over into the Valley. Two Tamaulipas men were assassinated inside a truck Friday. The chief of police says the investigation has led them to believe this wasn’t a crime committed by someone in the US. “This was a hit ordered by the cartel,” he says.

Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos isn’t surprised to see spillover violence in Brownsville. He says, “It was a matter of time before it trickled down to our community.”

“Residents say they didn’t think it would become a reality. One woman who wanted to conceal her identity says witnessing a crime could be very dangerous. “If an innocent family would have been passing by and seen that they would have been the next target,” said one woman. She worries about future violence and is considering moving out of the Valley.”

———-

This news is especially alarming since we’re still absorbing the shock of the murder of David Hartley at Falcon Lake.

So what do we do about it?

Any ideas?

I’d like to hear what Blake Farenthold and Ed Mishou would do in response to the issue of spillover violence. What can a U.S. Congressman do?

What should a U.S. Congressman do?

-Chris

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

(Source: Brownsville Herald)

Reports concerning official foreign travel by U.S. Rep. Salomon P. Ortiz as authorized by the Speaker of the House from 1993 through 2009. The reports also contain the per diem funds utilized for meals and lodging.

Note: Transportation costs not included

2009

1/29 to 1/30 – Brazil $438
1/30 to 2/1 – Argentina $698
2/1 to 2/3 – Panama $592
6/27 to 6/30 – Jordan $502
6/30 to 7/1 – Algeria $98
7/1 to 7/3 – Tunisia $288
11/23 to 11/25 – Romania $611.89
11/25 to 11/26 – Italy $250
11/26 to 11/27 – Germany $128
11/27 to 11/27 – Luxenbourg $0
11/27 to 11/29 – UK $306

2008

2/8 to 2/10 – Colombia $178
8/2 to 8/3 – Greece $375
8/4 to 8/7 – Singapore $1,640
8/7 to 8/9 – Vietnam $712
8/9 to 8/11 – Taiwan $718
11/23 to 11/25 – France $1,103.38
11/25 to 11/26 – United Arab Emirates $863.97
11/26 to 11/27 – Afghanistan $25
11/27 to 11/28 – Germany $271.18

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I’m shocked.  SHOCKED, I tell you.

How could the government censors at the Brownsville Herald let this tawdry bit of salacious gossip make it to the printers?  Someone is going to get sacked, that’s for sure.

Some excerpts:

U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz of South Texas is one of six congressmen who are subjects of a federal investigation into use of travel money.

U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz, D-Texas, on Friday remained silent regarding at least 62 trips, both official and special-interest, to 71 countries, even as he finds himself the target of a federal probe into the possible misuse of travel funds.

Last year his official trips included travel to Brazil, Argentina, Panama, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Romania, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom.

 Oh, puh-LEEZE.  It’s not as though no one at the Herald didn’t already know about all this stuff.  Ortiz has been at it for nearly 30 years.  What is their angle?  What is the purpose of this “revelation” to the public?

Well, the election is about 50 days away.  In the political world, fifty days is an eternity.  Entire wars have been waged and won in less time.   Maybe the hope is that by bringing it up now, the public will have forgotten about it come election time and The “Ortiz Travel Scandal” will have blown itself out like one of our regularly scheduled and predictably overhyped tropical storms.

Come on, Brownsville.  Anyone But Ortiz, ok?  PLEASE?  Would you for once PLEASE elect someone with a modicum of integrity?

-Chris