You Got To TCB
Jul 14, 2009 Political
Here we go again- talking about illegal immigration, but this time it is in the context of law and order, not jobs that could very well be the tipping point here. I am not real concerned yet for my state, as Texas probably has as many guns as any of these punky little “cartels”, but there has been a disturbing trend of people who haven’t the moxie to live near a border where bullets fly move to Texas, thinking that Texas is as settled as New Jersey, or Vermont. I am sure we are not. I am glad we still retain a wild streak in our habits and habitat.
But living near a border with Mexico is not as it once was, where you could take a weekend and go shopping for knick-knacks and quaint antiques among the throng at the Mercado- a block- long building where you could haggle prices to your heart’s content. Nowadays, you would have to dodge bullets from the narco- terrorists, if you were not just kidnapped for ransom, or just for the heck of it.
“It’s very hard to stop this trend,” a senior military official in Ciudad Juarez said, speaking of the unyielding bloodshed. “We are fighting an enemy we don’t know and don’t see and only feel their results.”
The drug gangs appear as strong and as vicious as ever as they fight not just for smuggling routes but for shares of the growing domestic market. Mexican cartels are now the dominant force in an industry once led by Colombians.
latimes.com
And it’s heading this way, despite the best efforts of the military in Mexico- but then they have had the tradition of the “mordidia” or the bribe, as a way of life down there for as long as memory serves, so the crookedness begins in infancy for many, accepted as a way of life.
Now, narcos take refuge in Phoenix, Arizona, and Houston, Texas, where they feel somewhat safer, but it is an illusion, as Phoenix has now the dubious honor of being the second most likely city in the world to be kidnapped. The sad truth is that in the absence of a tightened border, this is all coming to a neighborhood near you.
Troops were dispatched in February this year to the northern border state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico’s wealthiest and long a symbol of relative stability. Traffickers quickly mobilized low-level dealers and their families to protest the military presence and to create the impression that the traffickers had a broad social base. Monterrey, the capital, and other cities were paralyzed for days.
Then the army started arresting police in Monterrey and other Nuevo Leon municipalities. In early June, troops backed by federal agents rounded up dozens of police officers and several commanders. When the police got wind of what was happening, they challenged the troops and tried to block roads.
As punishment, the federal authorities ordered the police to turn in their rifles. A day later, they confiscated their cellphones, suspecting the cops were using them to pass intelligence to traffickers.
A politician from the Monterrey area’s richest district was caught on tape describing the power of the drug lords. Mauricio Fernandez is heard saying that the area was relatively peaceful because the Beltran Leyva cartel wanted it that way.
“Their families live here,” he said. “You don’t think it’s the police [that maintain order], do you?”
latimes.com
Despite the presence of the army, the cartels are attempting to maintain a base near the border from which they can smuggle both drugs and people into the United States. From there, they begin to establish bases of operations in various cities, and that is where ICE comes into the picture. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement organization is supposed to return the illegal immigrants to the countries of their origin, but lately, Hussein’s administration has tried to relax the enforcement aspect of this, in order to go after the employers of illegal aliens. Some of these “aliens” have no job other than smuggling, and these are who absolutely must be taken off of the streets.
A little after 3 a.m. Dec. 12, Carlos Garcia-Hernandez was booked into Harris County Jail on an aggravated assault charge, accused of slicing a man’s nose down to the bone after a disagreement at a birthday party.
At the jail, the first in the country with full access to a Department of Homeland Security database that contains millions of immigration records, a Harris County detention officer ran Garcia-Hernandez’s fingerprints.
Within minutes the system found a hit. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had deported Garcia-Hernandez in November 2007 after a string of convictions including marijuana possession and escaping from law enforcement custody, the system showed.
The DHS system also showed Garcia-Hernandez had two outstanding murder warrants in Mexico. “A year ago, we wouldn’t have gotten that,” said Lt. M. Lindsay, the point man for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office’s efforts to identify suspected illegal immigrants in the jails.
chron.com
Still, ICE doesn’t get nearly all of these violent offenders, indeed, their rate is about 25% right now, and that is not good enough for our people. The “Immigration Czar” or whoever in this twisted administration is responsible for enforcement needs to actually do their job and to hell with La Raza, or LULAC, or the ACLU or anyone else who cries foul, because our people, our citizens deserve the best protection possible, and if that includes a wall, barbed wire, and/ or guards with guns, Do It.
The rolling army patrol was summoned to a bleak neighborhood called Rancho Anapra. In the waning desert light, a man lay lifeless in the dusty street. He had been shot four times, in full view of a dozen houses.
Residents regarded the arriving troops with bored expressions, amid a cacophony of barking dogs.
There were many bystanders, but few witnesses. “Puro mirón,” grumbled a military police officer. “All just onlookers. We could ask them, but nobody will know anything. Nobody saw anything.”
The scene encapsulates one of the government’s biggest challenges in the drug war: overcoming the deep mistrust of ordinary Mexicans. “Only when something happens — that’s when they come,” said one of the bystanders, Laura Valdivia, 36, who works in a factory that makes fake Christmas trees.
Other than his name, Daniel Chavez, and age, 35, no one seemed to have much to say about the victim, whose torso was a spider’s web of tattoos.
The crowd slowly evaporated. In darkness, the body was hauled away and the soldiers clambered back onto the pickups, knowing as little as when they arrived.
latimes.com
Scenes like this will be coming to a neighborhood near you, if we aren’t careful- in some places, like Houston, Phoenix and Los Angeles, the scene is already there in dying, bleeding color.
It’s up to Mexico to take care of it’s side of the equation, after all, they are a country with their own laws, but we must aggressively enforce ours- now is not the time to quibble about half- measures needed to stem the flow of drugs and people across the border. If we dawdle, we die- it really can be that simple.
And the downside is that if the Federal Government does not do this., it will be up to the border states to do this, and then the Feds will just have to shut their mouths and sit on the sidelines and accept what and how the states do take care of this problem we all have, and believe me, it won’t be pretty.
It’ll be pretty bloody.
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Tags: drugs, enforcement, ice, narco-terrorism
Mr. Obama- Build Up That Wall!
Jun 26, 2009 Political
Well, Rahm Emmanuel, the president’s Chief of Staff, has conceded that at this time, there are just not the votes to allow the 12 million illegal immigrants to stay and become citizens. Good. No one should get a free pass, and there are people who have been waiting to legally become citizens for years. This process is, I admit, unwieldy and takes an inordinate amount of time, but then, nothing worth having should come too easy. We, as people, tend to value that which is hard won, rather than that which came too easy.
There is also the little problem with the unemployment here, and the fact that no congressman wants to be seen as giving these few jobs to those many illegal aliens- after all, until ACORN registers them, these illegals can’t vote, but our citizens can.
It astounds me that a nation that can put a man on the moon within ten years of the time President Kennedy announced it, cannot seem to complete a wall between Mexico and the United States- a simple wall- a wall that is needed for several reasons.
First, to stop drug smugglers and their cargo. This is a serious problem on the border. Anyone who thinks otherwise should take a walk on the streets of Juarez, or Tijuana- if you dare. The struggle for control of this trade will spill over the border in a big way, and will force people to take the law in their own hands if our government continues to be impotent on this issue.
Second, and equally important, is the smuggling of human cargo- some of the same smugglers do the same thing with people, and then, often hold them hostage until their “ransom” has been paid. In some cases the smugglers, or “coyotes”, as they are known, simply abandon the illegal aliens in the desert to die.
First we need the wall, if for no other reason than to funnel the potential immigrants into a port of entry where they can be identified, and fingerprints taken, and photos- whatever is needed to ensure that these people are who they say they are. The last four police officers that have been killed on the job in Houston, Texas, were killed by illegal aliens. Three of these criminal aliens had been deported several times from both California, and Arizona, and had returned. These are not people you want in society. These people are not a plus for the United States.
That is, quite frankly, astounding, considering the odds- you would think, if the illegal aliens are that peaceful and law- abiding, that the proportion that committed Capital offenses would not be so high. So, control is needed, and needed badly.
“I’m sure the civil libertarians will object to some kind of biometric card — although . . . there’ll be all kinds of protections — but we’re going to have to do it. It’s the only way,” Schumer said. “The American people will never accept immigration reform unless they truly believe their government is committed to ending future illegal immigration.”
By announcing his plans, Schumer, who chairs the Senate’s main immigration subcommittee, ushered in what Obama has signaled will be his next major legislative campaign, after the economic stimulus plan, health care and energy.
Schumer said legislation should secure control of the nation’s borders within a year and require that an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants register with the government and “submit to a rigorous process to convert to legal status” or face immediate deportation. Rejecting the euphemism “undocumented workers,” he said: “Illegal immigration is wrong — plain and simple.”
washingtonpost.com
We not only need a “biometric card”, but we need more cooperation from Mexico regarding the criminals they know about- they need to keep their trash at home. I can pick up any Texas paper, and the Hispanic crime that is reported is three times that of any other race. Do keep in mind that a lot of the crime goes unreported because of fear of being deported, so it would be fairly safe to assume that the rate of crime is at least double that that is reported, perhaps more.
Understand this- I have absolutely no problem with legal immigrants- they are a plus for our society, but they must become legal, and they must go through the process, no matter how tiresome it seems to be. If and when they are legal, they do not need to fear the authorities, and can assimilate into this society the way other generations and other races have done in the past.
To say that this is impossible is in effect saying that the Hispanics of today’s generation are not as smart as their Irish, Polish, Indian, or Asian predecessors were, and thus need the “special” dispensation of amnesty.
I reject this premise- I feel that Hispanics are every bit as intelligent as anyone else, they just need the chance to prove it. Going through the process is a type of trial by fire, so to speak. The process tests your true desire to see this through.
And with the completion of the wall, and addition of foolproof biometric cards, both employers and employees can rest easy knowing that they are legally here and can proceed with their life without looking over their shoulders.
Then they can pursue the American Dream.
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Tags: biometric cards, border wall, drugs, illegal aliens, violence
Murtha does business with Druggies
Jun 6, 2009 Political
Rep. John Murtha, you know the guy with the “Airport to Nowhere”, the same Representative who calls his own constituents “Rednecks and Racists”, just keeps on digging himself deeper, although this situation is not a new one, just recently revealed. But the roots of his newest troubles go back at least fourteen years, as he has steered over 50 million dollars to a firm that allegedly does some sort of work for the Defense Department. That is not necessarily the problem, but the owners of this “business” are convicted felons with a past replete with drug convictions.
Before Bill Kuchera produced electronics and robotic equipment for the Pentagon, he helped run thousands of pounds of marijuana and some cocaine from Miami to sell in Racine, Wis., according to criminal records and accounts of others involved in the drug operation. Bill Kuchera pleaded guilty to a single and lesser felony distribution charge in 1982 after cooperating witnesses implicated other Kuchera family members in helping store drugs at the family home. Ron Kuchera and the boys’ parents were never prosecuted.
Childhood friend Peter Whorley suggested to Bill that he could make more if they teamed up to run marijuana from Miami, according to court and criminal records.
Business was lucrative until Whorley and Bill Kuchera were arrested in 1981, Wisconsin criminal records show. They were sentenced to several years in federal prison. Kuchera served 11 months.
washingtonpost.com
After the drug convictions, Bill Kuchera worked as a clerk until he asked his uncle if he could enter the family business, Kuchera Industries. This act of kindness by Bill’s uncle would later prove that no good deed goes unpunished.
“He said, ‘I want to make a fresh start,’ ” Michael Kuchera said. “He was family, and I wanted to help. I made him my full partner: 50-50.” The uncle put Bill in charge of running the plant. Ron joined them.
Also fresh out of prison, Whorley provided names of government contracting officials he learned about from fellow prisoners. Whorley said he invested $50,000 in KII for a share of the profits and steered the Kucheras to his contacts at the Census Bureau, where they won federal work.
But Whorley continued selling drugs, earning a 10-year prison sentence with his next federal conviction. He later filed a lawsuit claiming that Bill Kuchera cheated him out of his share of the firm’s profits, but it was unsuccessful.
For a long time, business hummed along. But new tensions arose within KII. Michael Kuchera said he grew upset when customers warned him that Bill had paid them cash “gifts” to retain their business. In 1993, Michael Kuchera said, Bill persuaded his uncle to sell the company to a local buyer Bill had found. Months later, Michael Kuchera said he discovered that he actually had signed over his company to an entity controlled by his nephews. He said he consulted a lawyer, who told him there was little he could do.
washingtonpost.com
Don’t you just admire the family that has such little love or loyalty, that they stab the uncle in the back, after he had given these brothers not just a job, but partnerships. What a family. It becomes apparent just why John Murtha would be attracted to these people.
Now, along comes Murtha, a Pennsylvania Representative who just loves calling our troops murderers without cause, a man with a troubled past of his own, and an airport that is his pet toy, courtesy of us, the taxpayers.
By 1994, the Kuchera brothers had moved their operations to Windber, Pa., 11 miles east of Johnstown, with hope of winning defense contracts that Murtha said he wanted to bring to the district. They partnered with Hughes Aircraft as part of a Defense Department mentor-protege program. Kuchera Defense Systems qualified as a small, disadvantaged business, because it reported that at least 20 percent of its employees were disabled, meeting the government’s standard. Raytheon became Kuchera Defense Systems’ mentor after it acquired Hughes, a partnership that Murtha’s office said the lawmaker encouraged.
“Without Raytheon and without Congressman Murtha, there would be no Kuchera Defense,” Bill Kuchera said in a 2000 interview.
Kuchera also hired a high-powered lobbying firm, Ervin Technical Associates, whose chairman is longtime Murtha friend and former congressman Joseph M. McDade (R-Pa.). Kuchera employees and their spouses have donated more than $106,000 to Murtha’s political action and campaign committees.
washingtonpost.com
So, the firm, with taxpayer money, grew larger under the patronage of John Murtha. Trouble was, however, on the horizon, as the Kucera brothers couldn’t begin to justify their billing practices- where did the money go? To Murtha? who knew?
Last year, acting on tips from people with information about company operations, investigators began scrutinizing Kuchera’s billing and whether federal funds had been used improperly, including for renovations and laptops. The investigators also are looking into invoices submitted by corporations run by Kuchera family members and friends, one source said.
In the raid of the ranch, federal investigators confiscated nine guns, Bill Kuchera’s rifles and shotguns. While the Defense Department had signed off on the executive controlling tens of millions of dollars in defense work, his felony conviction made it illegal for him to possess a firearm.
washingtonpost.com
This just begins to underline the problem here, and why people don’t trust the government- because we have s***bags like John Murtha giving millions of tax dollars to drug runners for God knows what. When you add to this the airport with the 80 million dollar radar no one knows how to operate, or the $150,000 repaving job done on the runway- a runway that handles around twenty people a week, all from Washington, you have to wonder at the character, or lack thereof of this alleged “Representative” of the people, John Murtha.
And you damn sure have to wonder at the company he keeps.
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Tags: drugs, felons, graft, Murtha, slush fund
What Are Our Leaders Smoking?
Feb 24, 2009 Political
The United States is basically bankrupt. We have trillions in debt (real debt, not the phony debt they push) and we have just vowed to spend a trillion dollars we do not have. Hillary Clinton is in China begging the Chinese to buy more of our worthless bonds so we will have money to pay our bills and every time one turns around the government is coming up with some new multi million or billion dollar plan to bailout someone or fix some perceived crisis. One would think that the last thing we would do is spend our money in other countries, especially countries where the people do not like us.
The United States has pledged to spend 900 million dollars to help rebuild Gaza after it was destroyed when Israel defended itself from terrorists shooting rockets. Why are we spending more money we do not have to rebuild a place that has no desire to live in the modern world? Why are we spending money on people who hate us and who routinely demonstrate while shouting “Death to America?” Have we lost our minds?
All I want to know is what kind of drugs the people running this country are smoking.
If Gaza needs to be repaired (and the destruction might actually be a step up) then let Saudia Arabia, Iran, Syria, and all the other Jew hating countries pony up the cash for it. We should not be spending money on them for any reason whatsoever and we definitely should not be giving the money to the UN to distribute. This money will end up in the hands of Hamas and be used to buy weapons.
Even if unbiased observers watched them use the money to do really nice things it still would not be justified. The people there hate us and spending our money on them is absolutely moronic.
If our politicians are not required to take drug tests now would be a great time to start such a program. Only people stoned out of their minds could come up with such a plan.
*This plan requires Congressional approval.
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Will Obama Legalize Marijuana?
Dec 24, 2008 Political
Esquire has an article indicating that Barack Obama might legalize marijuana. This is big news for the bong toting left and a major concern among the youth in this country. On his transparent and open ask Obama site (the one where all questions about the Illinois scandal were deleted) the youth asked about legalizing the potent vegetation. The answer was that Obama is opposed to legalizing the drug which surprises me considering how much he enjoyed using it as a young man. He has indicated that he wants to decriminalize it but that is a matter of how to treat people from a legal standpoint.
I am not actually opposed to legalizing marijuana as a matter of principle. I have never used it and would not if it were legal but I find no difference between the effects of marijuana and the effects of alcohol. As a matter of health marijuana is far more harmful in a shorter period especially to the brain and lungs but alcohol is destructive to the liver and brain over the long term. Long term marijuana use has also been shown to cause mental health problems. Any drug that is abused will present a problem.
Legalizing marijuana and allowing the government to heavily tax it will bring a great deal of revenue to the treasury. If we could get politicians to use it wisely then it would be beneficial to the economy. I am sure there would be many jobs opened if farmers could grow marijuana and I bet we would have enough Americans willing to work the jobs that illegals would not have to pick weed.
There are quite a few problems that would need to be addressed. What kind of quality control would be involved in the process of growing and preparing the stuff for use? Where would it be sold and how could we control it so that it is not sold or redistributed to minors? What security measures would be required at farms to keep stoners from stealing the crop? Would Americans be able to grow their own and how much?
If we end up legalizing the drug it should be expensive and heavily taxed (revenues that will be lost if people can grow their own) so that it will not be easily available. There should be draconian penalties for those who do anything illegal with it like driving under the influence or distributing it to minors. People who are caught growing their own (or more than is allowed) should have to pay an amount equal to the taxes on whatever quantity they produce plus a substantial fine. Those who engage in illegal trafficking should receive jail time. Employers should be able to dictate whether their employees may use the substance regardless of when. In other words, airlines, the military, police departments and such can say their employees are not allowed to use marijuana.
There are many problems that are associated with legalizing marijuana but careful and thoughtful legislation (something Congress knows nothing about) could remedy those problems. Many problems will be difficult to address. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the psychoactive component of marijuana and it is fat soluble so it stays in the body for quite some time. THC is present long after the effect of marijuana has passed so people who are tested will come back positive even if they have not used it for a while. If a bus driver (or some guy in a car) has an accident and is tested he will be positive and the level might be high depending upon when he last used. How could anyone tell if he was high at the time of the accident? This is a major issue that will fill the courts with lawsuits. If that bus drive was not high but tested positive after the accident and people are injured or killed then it is a safe bet there will be plenty of lawsuits. Many employers test employees after a work related accident. If the person is positive (for any drug) they are usually terminated. How will this be resolved if marijuana is legal?
There are also issues of health. What are the long term health effects of marijuana use? Decreased brain function, lack of energy and lack of motivation are common in long term use as are severe lung ailments and brain dysfunction. If only those who use it illegally now continued then the demand on the health care system would not change but assuming that more people would use it if it were legal, how will the increase effect the health care system?
These and any number of other issues need to be addressed before we can legalize the drug. I am personally not opposed to it because I think we can tax it and make money and because it is, in my mind, not very different from the use of alcohol. I would not use it but as long as the issues are addressed I see no reason why others should not be able to if they so desire. However, I would not lose sleep if they never made it legal.
I am a bit concerned because there will be even more bong toting, Kos reading, Kool Aid drinking liberals getting stoned and I don’t know how many more of them the welfare system will support. Besides, we are now dealing with the burnt out liberals of the 60s and I don’t know if we need even more of them around in 20 or 30 years.
There is one other condition that needs to be met before we ever legalize the drug. Every state in the union must become a shall issue state for people who want to carry a firearm (those legally allowed) and that includes every jurisdiction in each state. If we make it legal to use a drug that is not addressed in the Constitution then we need to ensure the citizens in this country are allowed to freely exercise a right that is clearly enumerated in it.
Come to think of it, we need to do that whether marijuana is legalized of not.
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Tags: alcohol, drug abuse, drugs, marijuana, Obama, pot, Second Amendment, stoner, weed