Pat Buchanan proves why he’s irrelevant
Why is everyones solution to every policy disagreement impeachment? I dunno, here’s a crazy idea, campaign on the idea. The voters buy it, you win. The voters don’t buy it, you go home and cry to momma. Illegal immigration is a problem, but I have this crazy opinion that we should reserve impeachment for…. oh, I don’t know… “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
Related Posts:An 11 year old turns an art project into a political statement by showing Bush referring to seeing the first plane crash into the World Trade Center. The contest was organized by the San Francisco Chapter of the 911 Truth Alliance, which the main organization distributed literature that suggests Israel and/or the Mossad were responsible for 9/11. There seems to be no end of those who espouse bizarre conspiracy theories linked Bush, the Mossad, Saudis, short sellers, and insurance companies with the 19 people who actually did hijack the planes on 9/11.
With the breaking news on Able Danger one wonders if the conspiracy theories will have to be rewritten. The Clinton Administration “wall of separation” prevented the military from sharing critical information that would have prevented 9/11 years before it happened. Even when some tried to share the information anyway, the information went ignored. It looks like more and more that terrorists did hijack planes and that the CIA dropped the ball long before Bush even hit office.
The conspiracy theorists will have you believe bizarre theories about the international neocon conspiracy (closely related to the international Zionist conspiracy) but a review of the facts once again shows that radical Islamic terrorists are targeting this country, the Clinton Administration did nothing about it, and they’ll keep attacking until they are stopped. Iraq is the latest front and only victory there will provide protection against future attacks.
Blogs talking about this: PowerBlog!, Strate Sphere, Captain’s Quarters, et al.
Related Posts:With rising oil prices and Hurricane Katrina, there are the usual calls for tapping the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Sen. Schumer asked Bush to release oil to “ease higher prices” which shows that he doesn’t understand the point of having the reserve to begin with.
The reserve was established in 1975 after the Arab oil embargo as a means of protection when countries decide to hit us in our oil supply. Taking that protection away now would make any such efforts much greater in effect and much more appealing. The SPR was never intended nor should be used as a means of price manipulation of the gas markets in the United States.
First, let’s say you get a 20 cent reduction in gas prices by tapping the reserve. Would it even be politically feasible to back off until the reserve was gone and bring that 20 cent reduction back? Doubtful. Gas prices have been inflated for a long time now and it is not likely that the price is going to come down that much in the near future, not until regulators allow the construction of more refineries.
Second, it takes 15 days from the order until the oil starts to hit the markets. The SPR can only sustain its highest rate of drawdown for 90 days and will be completed depleted in 180 days. The price affect is negligible during periods of drawdown and there are no instant real effects (save psychological). What the SPR is good for is dealing with supply cutoffs, not dealing with price manipulation. Maximum drawdown would only supply the United States with a maximum of 20% of its oil consumption per day. That would be good for dealing with a disruption of oil supplies by a hurricane not to counteract long-term market pressures.
With Venezuela threatening an oil embargo and the situation as it is in Iraq, tapping the only source of protection to our oil supplies by foreign manipulators is only encouraging them to go ahead and attack our oil supplies.
Related Posts:The first issue of the Save Our Borders Blogburst has come out. I agree that we need to secure the borders but think we need to be more generous about letting in people who are coming here for work. If you lived in Mexico and had a family, you know you’d be swimming the Rio too. We need an immigration policy that generously lets in hard workers who will be a benefit to our society while sealing the border to keep drug-runners, slave-trade runners, and terrorists out.
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Lou Dobbs had it right on the money when he said, “We are a nation of immigrants, and there is no more diverse and welcoming society than ours. But we are first a nation of laws, and upholding those laws and our national values makes this great country of ours possible.”
What happens if we do not uphold those laws? Dobbs goes on.
Failure to secure our borders means that we will continue to lose the war on drugs and lose a generation of Americans to those drugs. It also means the crushing burden of our failed immigration and homeland security policies will continue to fall exclusively on the shoulders of working men and women. Not only do illegal aliens and those who employ them cost the nation tens of billions of dollars in social services, principally in health care and education, they also depress wages for American citizens by an estimated $200 billion a year.
[Note: The following was written by Mustang, a retired Marine officer who blogs at Social Sense. This is reprinted in full with his gracious permission, and we'll be featuring more of his work next week.]
The number of Americans who believe that our borders should be secure from illegal entry is overwhelming. Not everyone agrees, obviously, but those who argue for open borders mostly represent organizations that have a peculiar agenda. Of those who demand (although not too loudly) a secure border, there are essentially two camps: One group worries about our security in light of terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, and the other group voices concern over the economic implications of illegal immigration.
I have had a number of conversations with close friends on the subject of immigration generally, and on the issue of securing our nation from those who would do our people harm. Even those who support President Bush seem to disagree with his view that people coming here illegally, no matter the point of their origin, are simply looking for work. As evidenced by the amount of attention this issue is getting nationally, however, the problem is not restricted to border-states. People throughout the entire country seem genuinely angry that our government lacks the will, or the resources, to halt the influx of people who come here illegally.
The issue of illegal immigration generates emotional rather than thoughtful debates among the so-called talking heads of our national media. Screeching at one another on national television does not bring to the table thoughtful discussion or reasonable solutions to the problem. In the first place, most people do not understand the implications of illegal immigration, including the politicians whose job it is to frame laws, and provide funding for the enforcement of those laws.
The task of problem-resolution appears to fall into three stages: (1) Determine the true affect of illegal immigration, (2) Discover reasonable solutions, and (3) Implement programs that do not demean people of other ethnic groups or nationalities.
In spite of the fact tht current statutes prohibit the employment of military forces in the pursuit of civil law enforcement duties, it may be time to reconsider such prohibitions. America’s open border presents a real and present danger to the people of the United States in any number of ways, not the least of which might involve the illegal entry of Middle Eastern terrorists. In fact, at least one terrorist has been arrested, a female; it is not unreasonable to wonder how many others evaded arrest or detention. Discounting terrorists, however, Americans are harmed by “illegals” who perpetrate crimes against persons and property in the United States, and do so with some impunity.
Criminal activity along the border, according to this article, is getting out of hand. The federal government’s unwillingness to address this problem is causing harm to American citizens, and of course it is the local taxpayer who has to defray the costs of increased local policing. It is little wonder that citizens have formed local groups to augment police departments, but that may not be enough. Contrary to Mr. Bush’s position, these people are not vigilantes, but they could be if something isn’t done — and soon.
There are also good arguments that illegal immigrants pose a significant economic danger to the United States. A source of information and discussion on this topic can be found at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Among a wide range of issues, FAIR provides specific economic information relative to illegal immigration, breaking those costs down state-by-state. One might conclude, based on the data provided by FAIR, that the costs of doing a poor job in protecting America’s borders far outweigh the costs of hiring more law enforcement or border patrol officers.
For more on this topic, check out Kleptocracy to the South — a good read. The bottom line, folks, is that until citizens are fully informed about the ramifications of doing nothing, Americans cannot approach the three-step mentioned above to resolve this problem. It’s your country, dear reader, and the choice is yours — but Social Sense demands your involvement.
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Welcome to the first issue of the Save Our Borders Blogburst. We have started this blogburst in an effort to keep the border issues and illegal immigration at the forefront now and up through the next election. We will be featuring pieces every Monday from other bloggers, news articles, and things we’ve written ourselves as we blog about this each week. Members of the blogburst can either crosspost what we have, or write something of their own.
If you’d like to join, please send an email to kit dot jarrell at gmail dot com and put “BlogBurst” in the subject line. The more, the merrier!
Blogs already on board:
Related Posts:Apparently AWARE was highly offended by my half-fragment semi-literate jab at them. C. G. Estabrook wrote in today to discuss the “errors” in my column. The reason I find their activities disruptive is that they were disruptive during Sen. Obama’s talk. Canvassing the aisle with their garbage was not the appropriate thing to do while the Senator was talking, and I’m no supporter of the Senator. The anti-war movement seems to think that the more disruptive and offensive they become (see the protests outside Walter Reed) the better they serve their cause. The reverse is true. Note that Cindy Sheehan’s approval ratings are the only ones falling below President Bush’s at the moment.
Second, my column didn’t talk about the war because the Senator didn’t. If I want to write a war column, I will. Just because I don’t include AWARE’s pet issues, doesn’t make it an error. There’s only so much I can fit in 650 words and its certainly not going to cater to the demands of the radical left.
The fact is, the war has been debated non-stop for over 3 years. You’ve lost the debate. It’s time to MoveOn.
Related Posts:
