Shooting in Nuevo Laredo

Shooting in Nuevo Laredo leaves one officer dead (Mexico Shootout)

SAn Antonio Express-News

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — The bloodshed continued in this border city Saturday when gunfire erupted between federal and city police, leaving one federal agent dead, officials said.

Above: Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, police officers dressed in blue are detained by the Mexican military. Forty-one of the officers were detained after a shootout with federal agents.

Below: Family members of detained municipal police officers protested at the Palacio Federal to have them released. The protest intensified when the officers were trucked out by the Mexican military.

There were conflicting reports as to what sparked the shootout between the two law enforcement groups. A press release issued by Mayor Dañiel Peña confirmed that one agent from the Agencia Federal de Investigación, which is Mexico's equivalent to the FBI, was killed in the melee around 10 a.m. on a road near this city's country club.

The shooting is just the latest to rock this border town, which was already reeling from the shooting death of its newly-appointed police chief on Wednesday. At least 60 people have been slain here this year, most believed to be gang-related, sparking fear among locals and driving away tourists. The U.S. State Department has singled Nuevo Laredo out in a recent advisory, warning travelers to use common sense when visiting Mexican border cities.

"Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool."

THE INDO-CHINA CON

"The Chicoms’ courtship of India has been much in the news lately, with India usually portrayed as swooning over Beijing’s attention and flattery. Dire predictions are being made of India being suckered into a strategic Sino-Indo alliance with China the dominant partner. Analyses are being issued celebrating India jilting the US in favor of China, causing the “souring of the India-US honeymoon.” Don’t believe it.

For all those worried or elated about China’s bonding with India to America’s detriment, here’s the reality without the filters and blinders: It is India that is playing China like a fiddle, not the other way around."

Here I am - Where are the Cameras?

"There are a fair number of bright people in the House, and a fair number of really stupid people in the Senate (we’re talking ratios here – there are some amazingly dumb Congressmen and some very bright Senators). The disparity is because it costs so much more to run for a state-wide Senate seat; thus the majority of Senators are millionaires who inherited their money (like Teddy Kennedy), or made it through a particular idiot-savant expertise (like Jon Corzine) which they think makes them an expert on everything.

With few exceptions, every Senator’s ego vastly exceeds their brain-power. Arrogance, power, and stupidity is not a good combination, which is why the Senate is so dysfunctional. They love to prate and pose and pontificate and act so insufferably important in front of television cameras ............. "

So what do you really think, Dr. Jack?

"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy."
-- Winston Churchill, 1948

ACLU Fulfilling Communist Agenda

The Marxist Influence

Is America Headed Towards Fascism?

Insanity: Socialists, Communists Serving in Congress

What is the goal of the ACLU?

Don't Worry. We're On Top Of It

The Zetas, the U.S. trained Mexican commandos, now a violent paramilitary group which had been trained by U.S. soldiers to fight the drug cartels before switching sides in the drug war, and are now fighting for control of smuggling routes along the border, may have procured Russian SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles capable of shooting down airliners, so say intelligent sources.

Oh and speaking of intelligent sources, when asked to confirm or deny the reports, Mexican officials said "no speaka English" and U. S. officials when asked said, "Huh? What the hell are Zetas?"

O.K. I made the last the last part up, but the first part is not fabricated. (H.H.)

A Shrinking U.S. Navy

"Long gone are the days of the 800-ship U.S. Navy.

Even the 700-ship Navy of the 1980s is but a distant memory.

What are the current capabilities and goals of today's U.S. military?

Not 600. Not 500. Not 400.

In fact, while the Navy says it now needs no more than 325 ships to maintain U.S. security interests around the world, the fact of the matter is that it is more likely to be attempting to do the job with as few as 260, according to Admiral Vernon Clark, the chief of naval operations.

While the U.S. naval fleet is shrinking and attention is focused on the Middle East and other parts of the world, China is building its military at an increased pace. The Chinese military is the only Navy being developed anywhere in the world today that is being configured specifically to match that of the U.S. China’s shipbuilding is growing. Just one of their shipyards matches the capacity of all American shipyards combined, and the Chinese fleet will surpass the size of the U.S. fleet by 2015, assuming the U.S. builds six ships a year (a level not met in recent years. This year, the U.S. is building just four.

The Chinese are capable of producing the components, systems and weapons they need. Additionally, China is seeking greater military technology as the restrictions on military trade set to expire with Europe."

Kuwait, Qatar pay off al-Qaida

U.S. sources say protection money against terror.

"Officials from Kuwait and Qatar are paying off al-Qaida so their countries will not experience terrorist attacks, say U.S. sources.

While al-Qaida has reportedly planned terror attacks against Kuwait and Qatar, the two Arab states friendly to the U.S. have been free of any actual incidents recently.

Currently, in Yemen, al-Qaida terrorists are on trial for plotting to carry out attacks on the two countries along with four others.

The eight, including five Yemenis, two Syrians and prime defendant Anwar Bayan Sadiq al-Gaylani, an Iraqi, are in custody charged with plotting to attack the British and Italian embassies and the French cultural centre.

Al-Gaylani is also accused of writing a letter to al Qaida’s Saudi leadership seeking weapons and ammunition, including TNT, Sam 7 missiles, rocket propelled grenade launchers, mortars, mines, remote-controlled detonators and night-vision goggles.

Documents presented to the court in the capital Sanaa alleged the group planned to target foreign banks, American fast food chains, Red Cross offices, DHL offices and western teachers, managers and doctors.

The cell, however, was controlled by "higher leadership" allegedly based in Saudi Arabia, the court heard.

Yemen was the scene of 2000 suicide bombing of the destroyer, the USS Cole, that killed 17 American sailors. Following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, Yemen’s government joined the American-led war on terror and cracked down on militants.

The interior ministers of the six-state Gulf Cooperation Council will meet in Riyadh Monday for discussions on combating terrorism and organized crime. GCC Secretary-General Abdel Rahman Attiya said in a statement the consultative meeting would be devoted to exchanging views on security matters and cooperation.

"The meeting will focus on reviewing steps for implementing past decisions regarding security cooperation between GCC countries, especially in combating terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering," Attiya said.

Saudi Arabia has been the site of terrorist attacks claimed by al-Qaida in which as many as 241 people have been killed since May 2003.

The other GCC members are Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and United Arab Emirates."

Egypt-North Korean nuclear ties

"In an apparent defiance of U.S. global policies, especially U.S. efforts to curtail North Korea’s nuclear program, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit received in Cairo North Korea’s Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Wong.

In a joint statement titled Bilateral North Korean-Egyptian Relations included only hints of the true nature on the scientific and military technology connections between the two nations.

The North Korean official and his entourage described the technical-scientific relations as highly important. Information leaked to western diplomats in Cairo said the main topics were cooperation in the development of medium and long-range rockets, and cooperation in the development of nuclear and other WMD weapons.

Even the leading al-Ahram daily, usually regarded as the government's bullhorn, stated Minister Abul-Gheit saying, "North Korea was keen on briefing Egypt on the developments of (the) North Korean nuclear program."

Israeli and Turkish nuclear sources warned the U.S. on more than one occasion that there is a vast difference between the Mubarak administration’s pro-west rhetoric and his pro-North Korea reality."

---JFG2B

Political instability threatening Bangladesh

"The arrest of Bidisha Ershad the wife of ex-president and leader of the Jatiya party chairman HM Ershad is explained as a sign of a rift, not only in the former president's personal life, but also in the opposition.

Bidisha Ershad was arrested on charges that she is planning to sneak out of the country and settle abroad where she is planning to form her own opposition group.

The official charges against her include stealing her husband's mobile phone, computers and vandalizing his office in his own house. According to sources in the capital Dhaka Bidisha was tipped off she might be allowed a safe passage abroad if she takes an oath to stop political activity.

Her father, veteran politician Abu Bakar Siddiq, said that if his daughter will be allowed to leave she would not return until after the next general elections and that her son, Eric, will stay with his father. Officials close to the Jatiya party said the whole affair is a strong sign Bangladeshi politics are spiraling out of control and warned more arrests were underway to prevent more dissent from being formed against the government."

--- JFG2B

Muslim clergy say U.S. poisons mushrooms

"Kyrgyz Muslim leaders joined forces with Uzbek clergy inciting villagers against U.S. military presence by claiming mushrooms known as Blue Stems have been contaminated by the U.S. Air Force.

Hundreds of villagers demonstrated in a number of locations following massive cases of poisoning including deaths. The explanation given by the agitators is that U.S. cargo planes dump jet fuel while landing with sensitive cargos, including ammunition.

The clergy claim the jet fuel turned the usually benign delicacy into a deadly food, demanding the withdrawal of U.S. bases from Central Asia."

--- JFG2B

Russian intelligence monitors Lithuania-NATO exercise

"Russian intelligence monitoring units were busy following a NATO led exercise in Rukla base in Lithuania.

The exercise, the first since Lithuania’s acceptance to the North Atlantic Treaty, included units from Georgia and Azerbaijan. Among others the training dealt with bringing together tactics of former Soviet units with those of NATO.

Russia warned her former Baltic republics of turning their countries into NATO bases. A source in Lithuania said Russian spy planes were seen flying close to the Lithuania-Russian border. A Lithuanian official said police noticed an unusual number of Russian tourists visiting the country during the exercise."

--- JFG2B

Is There a Growing Threat of Terror From South of Border ?

Intelligence analysts monitoring Islamic Khalifat and jihad proliferation ambitions, were not the least bit astonished when the news broke about the discovery of an "al-Qaida community" in Lodi, California, and the subsequent arrests of five (to date) suspects.

Are there other Al-Qaida communities in the U.S. that have organized affiliations to others in Mexico and Central America?

Yes, according to some who say, the Lodi arrests are just the tip of the iceberg. There are strong suspicions that there could be an extremely large jihadi network in North America.

In western Canada where an academic meeting took place, one of the intelligence researchers who took part in this intelligence conference stated, "South of the Rio Grande Valley there exists a dire situation.” He echoed what other experts attending this conference said, and warn us that jihadi ideas are taking root in Mexico virtually without any obstruction, and nearing epidemic proportions in some areas.

There is all but zero cooperation between Mexico's Vicente Fox and the U.S. Homeland Security relative to the war on terror, and any such claims should be disregarded as political rhetoric only.

Not only that, but there is no data, no accurate data anyway, on the flourishing Islamic groups in Mexico; and the follow ups of this militant version of Islam that is growing and developing is even less successful than their achievements in fighting drugs, illegal immigrants and violent gang members. And we all know how effective/serious they are on these matters.

This is a serious threat that could (1) endanger our security and the very basic sense of safety of the American way of life, and (2) determine fundamental socio-economic structures in the U.S.

"Small, sometimes clandestine Islamic clubs in Mexico, usually disguised as cultural groupings, are on the increase. Information on ways to cross the U.S. and Mexican border and where to go, including recommended U.S. states and so-called asylum cities has actually already reached all corners of the jihadi Khalifat world. Some documents found in Pakistan, and more information from Iraq and Lebanon, proves jihadists are aware they are in danger of being detected when they use legitimate ports of entry to the U.S. Therefore they prefer to reach their sympathizers in Mexico and then penetrate the U.S. together with hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, drug lords and gang members."

"Entering the U.S. is so easy it's an embarrassment to immigration authorities. As one Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer said: 'What’s the point of having old ladies remove their shoes at air port security checks when all it takes to carry a small package of the potent Ricin poison into the U.S. is a friendly Mexican jihadist escorting you on a dark moonless night across the porous U.S.-Mexican border.' "

Related article: The threat from Mexico; Political, economic unrest to force border security as No. 1 Priority?

Other reading material:

• Mexico Discovers Islam

• How to Make America an Islamic Nation

Committee wants illegals to get vending licenses
Tells council city shouldn't be able to question residency status

CEDAR REVOLUTION
Syria has 'hit list' of Lebanese leaders
White House cites evidence of Damascus plot to regain control

Is It True? The news media discovers news?

This from The Washington Times:

The news media discover news

What’s this? Stop the presses, pre-empt that program. Some news organizations claim they have rediscovered their primary directive: to report the news.

In the last week, both The New York Times and CNN said they will now emphasize real content rather than overwrought punditry.

The Times is adopting the policy that has long been in place at this Times — The Washington Times, that is. The policy? Shorter is better. Less is more.

New York Times executive editor William Keller sent a memo to his staff in recent days that says simply, enough already.

“Over the years various editors have waged a fitful campaign against the inexorable creep of swollen prose. The latest effort to stem the tide of excess begins with a spirit of optimism. I’m confident we can develop greater discipline in our writing,” Mr. Keller wrote.

“The simple fact is, for all the great journalism we deliver every day, our stories sometimes feel slack or padded. I’m talking, for the most part, about 1200-word stories that could be told in 900 words, and 1,500-word or 1,800-word or 2,000-word stories that suffer from dawdling anecdotes and redundancy.”

The new policy: Stories over 1,800 words need approval from higher-ups. The New York Observer wryly noted that Mr. Keller took 1,000 words to get his point across, but hey — at least it wasn’t 1,800.

Meanwhile, CNN announced Monday that it would concentrate on “hard news and analysis” rather than chit chat. News director Jonathan Klein promised to “roll up our sleeves and report the news” rather than “talk about it.”

Mr. Klein told USA Today this week that CNN was not trying to beat FOX News and its audience of 842,000 viewers — twice the audience of CNN at any given time. CNN’s competition, he said, now includes Web logs, DVDs, music and the whole media cacophony.

But CNN must also be taking on the pervasive political culture, perhaps.

“Everyone talks in talking points these days,” news analyst Andrew Tyndall noted. “It’s not just on cable news. It’s radio. It’s everywhere. The entire political world is no longer talking ideas, but talking points.”
--- Jennifer Harper, national media reporter

Is it possible that the good old MSM is retreating back in time to use the standards and ideals of reporting of the good old media of days gone by? I seriously doubt it. But just for the fun of it, let's look at Benjamin Franklin's views on news reporting.

"Even as he became more political, Franklin resisted making his newspaper fiercely partisan. He expressed his credo as a publisher in a famous Gazette editorial "Apology for Printers," which remains one of the best and most forceful defenses of a free press.

The opinions people have, Franklin wrote, are 'almost as various as their faces.' The job of printers is to allow people to express these differing opinions. 'There would be very little printed,' he noted, if publishers produced only things that offended nobody. At stake was the virtue of free expression, and Franklin summed up the Enlightenment position in a sentence that is now framed on newsroom walls: 'Printers are educated in the belief that when men differ in opinion, both sides ought equally to have the advantage of being heard by the public; and that when Truth and Error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter.'

[HeavyHanded wants to know, is it the above principle, the Enlightenment position, which drives the liberals to employ the tactics of filibustering and shouting down their opponents?]

'It is unreasonable to imagine that printers approve of everything they print,' he went on to argue. 'It is likewise unreasonable what some assert, that printers ought not to print anything but what they approve; since ..... an end would thereby be put to free writing, and the world would afterwards have nothing to read but what happened to be the opinions of printers.'

It was not Franklin's nature to be dogmatic or extreme about any principle; he generally gravitated toward a sensible balance. The rights of printers, he realized, were balanced by their duty to be responsible. Thus, even though printers should be free to publish offensive opinions, they should generally exercise discretion. 'I myself have constantly refused to print anything that might countenance vice or promote immorality, though .....I might have got much money. I have always refused to print such things as might do real injury to any person.' "

(From Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, by Walter Isaacson.)

Nah, I think this would be too much to ask of our current MSM.

Establishing a Theocracy

"...... to implement a successful theocracy today, you must be Muslim. Women in parts of Canada recently succeeded in their efforts to be treated as property by implementing Sharia law, and Britain is next. Mosques in Michigan now have the blessings of city hall to call the faithful – and everyone else – to prayer just like clockwork. But don't you dare ring that Christian church bell on Sunday morning, you vile secularist backsliding theocratist! How dare you shove your religion down my throat by ringing that bell a bare three miles from my home!

Odd, isn't it?

Only the Christian religion seems to alarm the secular theocratists. The heads of truck drivers, engineers, missionaries and aid workers can be rolling by the news desks of the media's secular theists, and they issue not a word of warning or condemnation. Headless, fatwa-wrapped bodies float down the Tigris or Euphrates, and the media writes about the evils of water pollution under the Bush administration. But let a Christian stand up at a football game or graduation ceremony and thank God for the day, the event and the audience ... and all hell breaks loose.

It seems never to occur to leftists that under the Muslim theocracy they are helping to create – with lax immigration policies and political correctness – their own heads will be the first to roll. A free press, democratic government, taxpayer-supported abortions, prison reform, feminist academic revisionism and gay rights aren't high on the agenda of most Muslim state governments.

But that's the nature of the left in America. It's members are so busy inventing imaginary evils and shouting them from the rooftops that they fail to recognize the wolf when he knocks at the door. I guess that means more penance for conservative columnists writing about why the left is so loony."

By Craige McMillan

Senator Obama Says Dean Using 'Religion to Divide'
By Marc Morano
CNSNews

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) criticized Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean Wednesday night for using "religion to divide."

Obama told reporters gathered at the Rock the Vote awards dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., that Dean needs to tone down his rhetoric. Dean said on Monday that the Republican Party was "pretty much a white, Christian party."

"As somebody who is a Christian myself, I don't like it when people use religion to divide, whether that is Republican or Democrat," Obama said. See Video"I think in terms of his role as party spokesman, [Dean] probably needs to be a little more careful and I suspect that is a message he is going to be getting from a number of us," Obama explained.

"We are at a time in our country's history that inclusive language is better than exclusive language," he added.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, also attending the Rock the Vote event, empathized with Dean.

"I was [DNC] chairman for four years -- it's a tough job -- he's doing a great job," McAuliffe told Cybercast News Service.

"I gave one piece of advice [to Dean]. I said 'Howard, you are about to become a human fire hydrant,'" McAuliffe said, referring to a conversation he had with Dean before he became DNC chairman.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona seemed pleased that Dean had made the latest in a series of controversial statements.

"Howard Dean is the gift that keeps on giving," McCain told Cybercast News Service outside the Rock the Vote event.

Analysts missed Chinese buildup

A highly classified intelligence report produced for the new director of national intelligence concludes that U.S. spy agencies failed to recognize several key military developments in China in the past decade, The Washington Times has learned.

The report was created by several current and former intelligence officials and concludes that U.S. agencies missed more than a dozen Chinese military developments, according to officials familiar with the report.

The report blames excessive secrecy on China's part for the failures, but critics say intelligence specialists are to blame for playing down or dismissing evidence of growing Chinese military capabilities.

GLOBAL JIHAD

U.S. Muslims desecrate American flag
Video shows group on street corner declaring Islamic dominance

A group of American Muslims produced a video that shows its members on a New York City street corner declaring Islam's dominance over America as they tread on a U.S. flag and then rip it apart.

Image from video of Muslim group desecrating U.S. flag in street demonstration

In the video, released by the New York-based Islamic Thinkers Society, one of the Muslims is shown placing a sign on the flag that says, "Oh Muslims! Do you know your enemy? Isn't it obvious?"

The group, tied to the British jihadist organization Al-Muhajiroun, said the demonstration was "in response to the desecration of the holy Quran by the Crusaders & Zionists at Guantanamo Bay," an allegation based on a retracted Newsweek story.

Full story at World Net Daily

If 10 percent is good enough for God, it should be enough for the IRS.

If the answer isn't beer, you've asked the wrong question.

Non-Mex illegal crossings surge
10% of aliens from other countries

1/2 of population growth due to Hispanics
41.3 million now in U.S., both legally, illegally

A Follow Up

INVASION USA
Expert: Illegals pose major health threat
Medical attorney sees rise in TB, other diseases, tied to open border.

"A prominent medical attorney who has studied illegal immigration concludes the porous border with Mexico poses a major public health threat to the U.S.

Madeleine Pelner Cosman, author of a report in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, is particularly concerned with increases in multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis, chagas disease, dengue fever, polio, hepatitis A, B, and C, she told Lou Dobbs on CNN last night."

Another article as a follow up to this article I posted earlier.

Remember the old saying, "Give them an inch, they'll take a mile"? It may be more of an axiom than just a saying, as this story proves:

Palestinian official: Gaza just the beginning, Minister says Israel must vacate other territories to achieve peace.

FUTURE SHOCK

For much of the 20th century, Americans sought security in the form of guarantees from large organizations. The federal government would provide Social Security benefits for workers and their dependents. Large corporations would provide defined-benefit pension plans promising specific payments to retired employees. The assumption was that experts at the top of these big organizations could use scientifically obtained knowledge to take better care of us than we could take care of ourselves.

Now there's reason to challenge that assumption. The experts, it turns out, are fallible. The Social Security system faces rising gaps between revenues and promised benefits starting in 2017 and an exhaustion of trust fund assets in 2041. Meanwhile, large corporations -- the latest is United Airlines -- have defaulted on their defined-benefit pension plans and passed them off to the government-sponsored Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which does not pay all of the promised amounts.

The Social Security system's problems are, in large part...........Read full article here.

NO TIME FOR SECOND-GUESSING

Americans love to second-guess themselves.

It has become a national sport since Vietnam.

But it is dangerous business when we have so many Monday-morning quarterbacks in wartime.

Two years after our dramatically successful invasion of Iraq, leading to the liberation of 26 million Arabs and Kurds, the second-guessing is at all time highs.

They ask:

Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Where are the connections between the regime of Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001? Where was the threat Iraq posed to America?

May I remind the second-guessers that no one knew for certain whether Iraq could produce nuclear weapons when we invaded two years ago. However, there was widespread agreement that Iraq would be in a position to do so shortly -- certainly by now.

Had we not invaded Iraq two years ago, we might be faced with doing so today against an Iraq armed with nuclear weapons -- or almost certainly against an Iraq that would be in a position to obtain nuclear weapons and place them in the hands of the terrorists groups they had supported for so long, including Al Qaeda.

That was the threat we faced in Iraq two years ago. And that's why invasion was the right call to make. Have we done everything right as a nation since? No. Have we made mistakes along the way? Yes. Do we continue to make errors in the execution of our war policies and the making of the peace? Yes.

But where would we be as a nation had we backed down and permitted Saddam Hussein to remain in power?

There is no question the world would be a more dangerous place.

And that brings us to the crisis we face with Iran today.

Now the second-guessers are suggesting that history is repeating itself -- that warmongers in the United States are making a case against Iran based on the same arguments they used with respect to Iraq.

This second-guessing appeasement mentality is having an effect on the national psyche.

Here is the truth about Iran:

It is committed to producing nuclear weapons. It is already reprocessing nuclear material it can use for that purpose. It is a terrorist-sponsoring state that may already possess some small nuclear arsenal. It has advanced missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons and of hitting Israel and other Middle East neighbors. It is fully cooperating with rogue nuclear state North Korea. It has already attacked the United States through its proxy army, the terrorist militia Hezbollah. It is capable of attacking the United States with nuclear missiles from offshore in ships disguised as commercial vessels. It is actively conducting discussions with the anti-American Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela about nuclear cooperation with that Latin American nation.

The second-guessers tell us there is no threat to the United States posed by Iran.

I don't know how anyone could reasonably come to such a conclusion.

There is an imminent threat.

Second-guessing appeasers of this tyrannical regime will only place our country in graver danger in the future. They always do.

Don't listen to those who are still debating as to whether we were right to fight Adolph Hitler and imperial Japan.

Don't listen to those who are still wringing their hands about Vietnam -- those who brought shame on our country and a predictable holocaust to Southeast Asia.

Don't listen to those who look at victory in Iraq and see defeat.

Remember Sept. 11.

Defend America.

Defeat the terrorists.

Destroy Islamo-fascism.

Free Iran.

VICTIMHOOD: RHETORIC OR REALITY

If you listened to the rhetoric of black politicians and civil rights leaders, dating back to the Reagan years, you would have been convinced that surely by now black Americans would be back on the plantation. According to them, President Reagan, and later Presidents Bush I and II, would turn back the clock on civil rights. They'd appoint "new racists" dressed in three-piece suits to act through the courts and administrative agencies to reverse black civil rights and economic gains. We can now recognize this rhetoric as the political equivalent of the "rope-a-dope."

As my colleague Tom Sowell pointed out in a recent column, "Liberals, Race and History," if the Democratic party's share of the black vote ever fell to even 70 percent, it's not likely that the Democrats would ever win the White House or Congress again. The strategy liberal Democrats have chosen, to prevent loss of the black vote, is to keep blacks paranoid and in a constant state of fear. But is it fear of racists, or being driven back to the plantation, that should be a top priority for blacks? Let's look at it.

Western Liberalism Is the Only Idea Left Standing

The French and Dutch rebuffs of the European Union constitution will soon be followed by other rejections. Millions of proud, educated Europeans are tired of being told by unelected grandees that the mess they see is really abstract art.

The EU constitution—and its promise of a new Europe— supposedly offered a corrective to the Anglo-American strain of Western civilization. More government, higher taxes, richer entitlements, pacifism, statism and atheism would make a more humane and powerful new continent of more than 400 million to outpace a retrograde U.S. Instead, Europe faces a declining population, unassimilated minorities, low growth, high unemployment and an inability to defend itself, either militarily or morally.

Somehow the directorate of the EU has figured out how to have too few citizens while having too many of them out of work.

Liberals and class

The new trinity among liberal intellectuals is race, class and gender. Defining any of these terms is not easy, but it is also not difficult for liberals, because they seldom bother to define them at all.

The oldest, and perhaps still the most compelling, of these concerns is class. In the vision of the left, we are born, live, and die in a particular class -- unless, of course, we give power to the left to change all that.

This is of no Consequence, Right?

TB seen in many aliens, study says
"A multidrug-resistant tuberculosis known as MDR-TB is persistent in California, primarily among its 'foreign-born' population, and has serious financial implications for the state's public-health system, federal and state health officials said yesterday."

Supreme Court Rules Certain Convicted Felons May Have Guns:

So Where’s the Liberal Outrage?

"According to several recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have outraged conservatives, foreign court decisions should have a bearing on U.S. jurisprudence. Most of us contrarily believe that the job of U.S. judges, hard enough as it is, is to apply and interpret U.S. statutes and the U.S. Constitution, which do not in them say refer to the Most Excellent High Court of Tergoolistan to interpret this.

Now, in a U.S. Supreme Court statutory ruling, five justices on that esteemed court have held the law of the land permits gun possession by convicted felons … provided the convictions were in foreign courts. Liberals — who have on occasion ventured that "any" support for gun ownership limited to law-abiding citizens is itself akin to criminality — should be, shall we say, up in arms. But that would require accepting that a dissenting opinion written by Justice Thomas (and joined by Justices Scalia and Kennedy) has validity, so don’t hold your breath for too very long.

The case is Small v. United States, but we suspect that it will soon be writ large as an example of muddle-headed justice, making "judicial gobbledygook" as much a concern as judicial activism.

The case, you see, hinges on the meaning of the word "any," frequently used in our language and even in our statutes. In fact, the statute in question forbids "any person … convicted in any court … of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year … to … possess … any firearm." That was the law, our law. As laws go, it was a good one, as plainly stated as "any" handed down to us.

Come we then to one Mr. Gary Small. In 1992, Mr. Gary Small "shipped a 19-gallon electric water heater from the United States to Okinawa, Japan." It was a "present," that followed two other 19-gallon electric water heater "presents" sent by Mr. Small that very same year. "Thinking it unusual for a person to ship a water tank from overseas as a present, Japanese customs officials searched the heater and discovered 2 rifles, 8 semiautomatic pistols, and 410 rounds of ammunition."

Mr. Gary Small was subsequently tried and convicted of violating Japanese weapons-control and customs laws and sentenced to five years in prison. Back in the U.S., one week after doing time and completing parole, Mr. Gary Small bought a 9-millimeter pistol. "Some time later, a search of his residence, business premises, and automobile revealed a .380 caliber Browning pistol and more than 300 rounds of ammunition."

Diligent federal prosecutors, believing that a convicted gun smuggler caught with even a fledgling arsenal just might pose a threat to society, prosecuted Mr. Gary Small under the aforementioned U.S. statute. Mr. Gary Small copped a guilty plea but reserved the right to appeal on the basis that his foreign conviction fell outside the scope of the U.S. law.

In an opinion written by Justice Breyer and joined by Justices Stevens, O’Connor, Souter and Ginsburg, the U.S. Supreme Court has now concurred with Mr. Gary Small.

Justice Breyer instructs us thusly: "The question before us is whether the statutory reference ‘convicted in any court’ includes a conviction entered in a foreign court. The word ‘any’ considered alone cannot answer this question."

Justice Thomas, in his plain language dissent, believes that "any" does indeed mean "any" and suggests that the majority opinion is "guesswork-as-interpretation."

There is, in fact, some interpretation that goes well beyond guesswork. Noting that there have "been no more than ‘ten to a dozen’ instances in which such a foreign conviction served as a predicate for a felon-in-possession prosecution," Justice Breyer next decides, "this empirical fact reinforces the likelihood that Congress, at best, paid no attention to the matter." By that unsupported logic, Congress has paid no attention to acts of sedition, attempts to assassinate a president and a host of other crimes the incidence of which does not approach the attention with which Congress wrote laws against them.

Most intriguing in Justice Breyer’s opinion is his discussion of foreign law, including the following: "They [past foreign convictions] would include a conviction from a legal system that is inconsistent with an American understanding of fairness."

But isn’t that, in those words and others, one of the reasons many of us believe that decisions of foreign courts should have no bearing on court decisions in the United States? Keep in mind that Justice Breyer has been one of the leading proponents of considering foreign court opinions (as distinct from convictions) here. Until now.

It is impossible, in a brief article, to deconstruct a decision and a dissent that together run 23 pages. We can only hope that every member of the U.S. Senate, particularly those on the Judiciary Committee, will read both, because read together, they are sufficient to indicate why it is so important to confirm judges who, if nothing else, are more consistent than some now sitting."

Four men detained in terror probe

SACRAMENTO (AP) — A father and son in California were charged with lying to federal agents about the son's training at an al-Qaeda camp in Pakistan for potential attacks on U.S. hospitals and supermarkets.

Planned Parenthood Perversity
A cautionary tale of abortion-rights extremists

Can you say “perverse”? Planned Parenthood in Indiana and Kansas is effectively fighting to protect child rapists from potential prosecution in two high-profile legal fights. That an organization devoted to the interests of women finds itself in this position is a cautionary tale of abortion-rights extremism.

Abandoning Central America
Where’s the Left’s Central American altruism?

Back during the Reagan years, few things so exercised self-styled idealists of the left as the fate of Central America. They bewailed its civil wars, and the way its governments allied with the U.S. were supposedly autocratic and abusive. When “Sandalistas” — the archetypical Birkenstock-wearing friends of Nicaragua’s left-wing government — urged people to “think globally, act locally,” they were mostly thinking of Central America.

Gitmo Grovel: Enough Already

The self-flagellation over reports of abuse at Guantanamo Bay has turned into a full-scale panic. There are calls for the United States, with all this worldwide publicity, to simply shut the place down.

SEVEN 'EXTRAORDINARY' IDIOTS

Let's not put the seven Republican senators who engineered the "compromise" deal with the Democrats in charge of negotiations with North Korea. I would sooner trust the North Koreans to keep their word than the Democrats.

China's Unyielding Banking Crisis

Corruption and Cronyism Often Thwart Efforts to Eradicate Bad Debts

By Peter S. Goodman

Washington Post Foreign Service

CHENGDU, China -- As he rose through the ranks at China's largest lender, Zhang Guilin helped build the bad debt crisis plaguing his country's banks, the gravest threat to this fast-growing economy. Zhang directed funds to cronies and political allies, authorities here say, adding to a national toll of bad loans estimated at $500 billion."

Read the full story here.

As a side note, HeavyHanded says: They have alot of bad loans in their economy, as stated above, and it's estimated that the bad debts total about 40 percent of their GNP.

Amnesty Encore

Amnesty Encore
by William Norman Grigg
The New American, June 13, 2005

The bipartisan fix is in for an amnesty for illegal immigrants as part of a larger scheme to build a North American “security perimeter."

The American public endures countless lectures regarding the perils of political “gridlock," which supposedly inhibits government's ability to make our lives better. However, sober political observers quickly realize that while gridlock can be frustrating, cooperation across the congressional aisle can be downright deadly. Though partisan acrimony is usually distasteful, the purring rhetoric of bipartisan agreement generally serves as an overture for an assault on the electorate.

Such is the case with the so-called Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, introduced on May 12 by its chief Senate sponsors, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), and by its chief House sponsor, Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.). The McCain/Kennedy bill adapts key elements of President Bush's January 2004 “immigration reform" proposal, which offered (in Mr. Bush's words) “legal status, as temporary workers, to the millions of undocumented men and women now employed in the United States, and to those in foreign countries who seek to participate in the program and have been offered employment here."

Although the president and his allies fiercely object to the description of Mr. Bush's proposal as an “amnesty," the term is an inescapable fit. The same must be said of the McCain/Kennedy proposal as well, which would permit illegal aliens to enroll in a phased program to achieve citizenship. Those wishing to take advantage of the amnesty would — after paying a $2,000 fee and meeting other minimal qualifications — receive a six-year temporary work permit, after which they could apply for permanent residency. Five years later they would qualify for full-fledged citizenship.

Thus the measure would legalize millions of people who chose to violate our nation's immigration laws — at the expense of millions of others who have quietly complied with those laws. McCain/Kennedy would also immediately expand the number of family-sponsored green cards to a formal annual limit of 480,000. However, Title VI of the measure effectively eradicates that limit by exempting “immediate relatives of U.S. citizens" from that tally.

That provision is almost certain to result in radically expanded use of the “anchor baby" gambit. Children of illegal immigrants born in the United States are, in the words of a recent Supreme Court decision, “presumed American citizens." Under Title VI of McCain/Kennedy, the parents would therefore automatically qualify for green cards in the name of “family unity."

It should also be understood that the proposed amnesty itself will draw huge numbers of unemployed aliens to our country. President Bush's January 7, 2004 speech outlining his amnesty proposal created a huge “amnesty rush" at the southern border. Border Patrol agents reported that many of the illegal immigrants apprehended made specific mention of the amnesty proposal.

Amnesty Begets Amnesty

While McCain/Kennedy is unmistakably the progeny of the Bush amnesty proposal, its lineage goes back nearly 20 years. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies observes that the current “reform" proposal is, in essence, “the same as the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act: amnesty up front for millions of illegal aliens in exchange for paltry promises of future enforcement — promises that will quickly be abandoned."

“There was a sense then that the law was a grand bargain — closing the back door by prohibiting the employment of illegal immigrants … but tying up the loose ends of prior policy missteps with an amnesty," recalls Krikorian. Based on the 1986 amnesty, we now understand that amnesty creates more “loose ends" than it ties up.

McCain/Kennedy would also create a new temporary visa category — H5-A — “to allow foreign workers to enter and fill available jobs that require few or no skills," according to the official summary. The initial annual limit on H5-A visas will be 400,000, but it will “be gradually adjusted up or down based on demand in subsequent years." Only a fool would wager on a downward adjustment in the H5-A limit, since low-wage labor from Mexico and Central America would be underbid by laborers from Asian countries willing to work for even less.

The Bush amnesty framework envisioned putting the federal government in charge of a human resources management program not only for the U.S. but also, in effect, for the entire world, in the name of pairing “willing employers" with “willing employees." This would require a huge and expanding database of jobs and potential employees. “America's Job Bank," created with assistance from the Department of Labor, is an embryonic form of that federal database.

Under the Bush framework, American businesses would be required to act as appendages of the federal government. Mr. Bush explained that employers “must report to the government the temporary workers they hire, and who leave their employ, so that we can keep track of people in the program.... There must be strong workplace enforcement with tough penalties for anyone, for any employer violating these laws." The McCain/Kennedy proposal duplicates that element of the Bush plan as well.

Beyond opening the floodgates to cheap foreign labor (thereby depressing wage rates) and insinuating the federal government even more deeply into the workplace, the McCain/Kennedy plan calls for huge new wealth transfers from U.S. taxpayers to Mexico “to promote economic opportunity back home and reduce the pressure to immigrate to the U.S.," according to the official summary. It also provides for a “partnership" between Washington and Mexico to improve “health care access so that the U.S. is not unfairly impacted with the costs of administering health care to Mexican nationals." Never mind that the taxpayer shouldn't be forced to pay for Mexicans' health care benefits on either side of the border.

The Next Phase

“Under our plan, America will do its part, but we expect Mexico and other nations to do their part, too, to replace an illegal immigration flow with regulated, legal immigration," insisted Senator Kennedy at the May 12 news conference unveiling the legislation. Judging from the delighted reception given the bill by Vicente Fox, the Mexican government will be eager to do “its part" — namely, continuing to send its unskilled laborers north while receiving extravagant welfare subsidies from U.S. taxpayers.

The repackaged Bush amnesty proposal also received accolades from left-wing labor and activist groups in the United States. Among its supporters are the Service Employees International Union (supporters of left-wing Democratic contender Howard Dean in the 2004 election), the hard-left Association of Community Organizations for Reform, and the Laborers' International Union (LIU). Founded more than a century ago by radical immigrant labor activists, the LIU played a prominent role in the 2003 “Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride," a Marxist-organized caravan of pro-amnesty groups. LIU General President Terence M. O'Sullivan insists that McCain/Kennedy “will strengthen working families across the continent" — an interesting description, given that “mainstream" supporters of the proposal treat it as a means of strengthening U.S. border security.

Another glowing endorsement of the McCain/Kennedy bill (which, recall, builds on a proposal offered by “conservative" Republican George W. Bush) was offered by the Center for Community Change (CCC), a leftist group created in 1968 by disciples of Marxist organizer Saul Alinsky and funded by the Ford Foundation. Through a front group called the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, CCC extolled McCain/Kennedy for “open[ing] the door for further bi-partisan discussion on real comprehensive immigration reform that embraces our principles — to create a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented workers, ensure workers' rights, reunify families, restore civil liberties, protect refugees and asylees [sic], and offer opportunities for safe future migration for families of hardworking immigrants and their families." (Emphasis added.)

Use of the term “migration" tacitly conveys the concept that our national borders should be dispensed with altogether. Significantly, both the Mexican government and the Bush administration have increasingly used the word “migration" in discussions of border policy, a clear illustration of the fact that immigration “reform" is intended to advance the movement toward eradication of our borders. This would certainly solve the problem of illegal immigration — by making all immigrants legal.

Title I of the McCain/Kennedy bill illustrates beyond dispute that the effective abolition of our southern border is the entire purpose of this exercise. Bearing the Orwellian title “Border Security," that section of the bill calls for “development of multilateral partnerships to establish a North American security perimeter and improve border security south of Mexico."

The Mexican government, it should be remembered, zealously guards its southern border, deploying its military to detain and expel illegal immigrants, who are — quite understandably — considered a potential threat to national security. That is, of course, the same Mexican government that routinely denounces any effort by the U.S. to police our own border as a “human rights" offense.

“Major Surgery"

But then again, the concept of a “North American security perimeter" implicitly assumes that the U.S. and Mexico, as well as Canada, our other “NAFTA partner," constitute a single political and economic unit.

Just prior to the recent summit of “NAFTA leaders" in Texas, a tri-national proposal for a “North American Security Perimeter" was published by the Council on Foreign Relations, in collaboration with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. Jointly written by former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, former Canadian deputy prime minister John Manley, and former Mexican finance minister Pedro Aspe, the proposal called for, among other things, “harmonization" of visa and refugee policies, an “integrated terror watch list," joint energy and natural resources strategies, a strategy “to stimulate Mexican economic development" (more foreign aid underwritten by U.S. taxpayers), and joint use of “biometric" identification technology.

The concept of a continental “security perimeter" was first proposed by left-wing academic Robert A. Pastor in the January/February 2004 issue of the CFR journal Foreign Affairs. Referring to post-9/11 efforts to bolster U.S. “homeland security," Pastor urged a radically different approach — namely, exploiting “security fears … as a catalyst for deeper integration" among the NAFTA nations. Deeper integration, wrote Pastor, “would require new structures to assure mutual security, [and] to promote trade … [combined with] a redefinition of security that puts the United States, Mexico, and Canada inside a continental perimeter." The McCain/Kennedy plan fits Pastor's prescription perfectly.

According to chief House sponsor Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), the McCain/Kennedy measure — which should be called the Bush/McCain/Kennedy proposal — “doesn't try to solve the hemorrhaging immigration problem with a band-aid. This bill is major surgery." As a proposed “cure" for illegal immigration, the proposal is a grotesque act of political malpractice. Viewed in light of the oath taken by its congressional sponsors, the proposal is tantamount to treason.

Readers are encouraged to write to Congress in opposition to the McCain/Kennedy/Kolbe immigration measure (S. 1033 in the Senate and H.R. 2330 in the House) and all other amnesty bills. For congressional contact information, go to: www.thenewamerican .com/congress/contact.htm