Bush to order National Guard to border

[Texsox]

From what I have read, many of them feel like they are under seige already.

 

And in some areas they are. But here is the difference, the citzens who feel, actually are, under seige are ranch owners who have illegals crossing their lands on their way up north. Some landowners are sympathetic and have water available and don't complain too much about the situation. Others are fed up and it's understandable. For most people living in towns and cities, we never see illegals, or are never really bothered by them. Our towns and cities look like everywhere USA.

 

Now the concern is what will our communities look like? Will we be stopped by patrols and asked to produce papers? Imagine being a fourth generation American and being asked for proof of citizenship. Imagine looking out your window and seeing a a military patrol. Imagine camping along the river and suddenly having a military patrol marching through your camp. It's the old slippery slope, we open the door a crack and who knows what happens. Like all Americans we don't want to view the world from inside a prison, and whether the prison guards are keeping people in, or out, it still has then look and feel of a prison. So, we have some grave concerns and hope this is done to preserve our way of life, not take it away.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

I see where the thought comes from, and if I'm wrong and Congress is playing with the pursestrings too much then it would make sense to have the SecDef able to negotiate with Congress for border patrol funds...but aside from that, I don't know where the benefit would be. As far as I know, the border patrol is already able to use military style resources, moving them to DOD wouldn't suddenly change their training, and it wouldn't suddenly make more manpower available. Plus, there's the downside of again having the Mexicans complain about militarizing the border if suddenly the border patrol is loosely considered part of the army, and for some reason we seem to care about that complaint.

 

 

Who gives a flying f*** what the Mexicans think?!?!?!

 

Im sick and tired of Vicente Fox and his cronies complaining about measures that are being taken to secure the border. Fact of the matter is that they are all for illegal immigration and want to export as many poor people and narcotics as it can to the U.S. because thats how they are getting a great deal of their national income.

 

The whole length of the border needs to be fenced off, patrolled by the military until the Border Patrol can effectively do the job and if Vicente Fox and his corrupt, s***bag cronies dont like it then thats just too f***ing bad.

[Rex Kickass]

If we want to enhance border security we could start by actually funding border security staffing programs.

[southsider2k5]

So, there were a couple of other newsworthy notes on the immigration front today. First off, some more details on the fence they approved...the 3 layered fence is something like 350 miles long, and the bill also called for 500 miles of vehicle barriers. That covers almost half of the border.

 

Secondly, there was another clause approved by the Senate yesterday I'm less sure of, and I'd love to hear more comments.

So, this seems to me like a needless beurocratic step, and I find it hard to believe that it won't make the program a lot more expensive. I also wonder what criteria they're going to use for that...it could change depending on who's doing the enforcing of the law, and so it could really work to sabotage any guest worker program.

 

Next, a lot of states are pretty darn unhappy with Bush's guard proposal, and rightly so, since it seems that, well, unsurprisingly, Michael Chertoff, head of the DHS, has absolutely no idea what's going on.

It's probably worth noting that Arnold is right here, this looks like another management debacle in the making...sticking troops there with no idea what they're supposed to do, having to learn everything in 2 weeks and then suddenly be replaced, and having a constant state of people moving in and out, which will mean that a lot more than 6000 troops will be needed. The first year would involve an estimated 156,000 national guard troops, out of the 400,000 in the country. They're also supposedly going to try to make participation by states voluntary, which seems like it will cut heavily into the amount of men available.

 

The mess is probably going to be made worse by the fact that the President is not going to take executive control over the guard, to avoid the "Militarizing the border" complaints. So the Guard units who are on duty will actually still be under the control of the governors of their states. And I don't think anyone really has a clue how that's going to work.

 

So anywho, this looks like another management mess in the making for these folks.

 

Finally, The LA Times sent some people down to the border to talk to the folks bringing people across, and discovered that as summer is coming around and talk is heating up in the U.S., business for border crossings have declined by as much as 50%. So first of all, this shows that the "They'll rush up here for the amnesty" argument doesn't work that well, but secondly, it reinforces my opinion that there is no "Crisis" to spur the use of the guard, the situation right now is getting better, not worse, so we have time to fix the problem. Of course, we only have so much time to fix the real crisis that is making the President use the Guard:

 

 

That seems to directly contradict the Chicago Trib... Sorry you'll have to excuse the scan job as the chart accompanying the article wasn't on-line.

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...1,2703035.story

 

 

[Balta1701]

Apprehensions do not necessarily = crossings. Despite budget cuts, they have increased the number of agents, and likely the effectiveness of agents, along the border. There were reports a few weeks ago that due to increase enforcement, coyotes were having to come up with new ways to smuggle people across, like in the dashboards of vans or something like that.

[Texsox]

Who gives a flying f*** what the Mexicans think?!?!?!

 

Who gives a f*** what an ally thinks? Too bad they don't have more oil, then we'd be kissing his ass.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Who gives a f*** what an ally thinks? Too bad they don't have more oil, then we'd be kissing his ass.

 

 

You know what I think is ironic is that you're always up in arms about Americans giving up their rights to prosecute the war on terror but you are pretty darn quick to give away our sovreignty.

[southsider2k5]

Apprehensions do not necessarily = crossings. Despite budget cuts, they have increased the number of agents, and likely the effectiveness of agents, along the border. There were reports a few weeks ago that due to increase enforcement, coyotes were having to come up with new ways to smuggle people across, like in the dashboards of vans or something like that.

 

Another factor is that it is getting to be summer down there... winter is definatley the season to trapse accross the desert if you have the time.

[Texsox]

You know what I think is ironic is that you're always up in arms about Americans giving up their rights to prosecute the war on terror but you are pretty darn quick to give away our sovreignty.

 

I have always supported having allies on our side. This is no different.

 

Soveignty? Are we that worried about a bunch of Mexican illiterates sneaking across to become busboys? This is political grandstanding. The issue has been there for 50 years. Now the parties have an election year battle. They can spend our tax dollars on a nice civil service project that will create jobs, they can act tough against a 3rd world country that won't fight back like Iraq. This is more about an election that could take away a lot of power from GOPers and less about soveignty.

 

So now we move some troops to the border, then Mexico has to move some troops to the border and we have those nice images of two country's military staring at each other across a no man's zone. Of course we would never invade Mexico to fight the war on illegals and protect America under seige, unlike Grenada, Somalia, Iraq, Pananama . . .

 

 

Another factor is that it is getting to be summer down there... winter is definatley the season to trapse accross the desert if you have the time.

 

I'm not certain how they are computing those crossing, if they also include legal crossing, it drops because of the retireees that head back up north during the hot summer. There is also spikes at Spring Break and Holy Week.

 

There are also more manual labor jobs in the spring, so the push is to get across during Feb/Mar and make your way further north.

[Cknolls]

I think to be fair we all should start posting in Spanish, so as not offend any illiterates Tex.

[Texsox]

I think to be fair we all should start posting in Spanish, so as not offend any illiterates Tex.

 

Illiterate means that can't read, so posting in Spanish would not help them.

 

Actually that was a board option, and we do wish to welcome all Sox fans.

 

That does bring up an interesting sidebar. A local town down here started conducting all it's government meetings in Spanish. Everyone in the town speaks Spanish and it was easier for them. If there was a need for a non spanish speaking person to attend, they would switch to English. Local government making an obvious decision to help all their citizens, or something that should be illlegal?

[Rex Kickass]

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez' parents may have been illegal aliens.

 

This came out during an interview on CNN so nobody actually saw it.

 

BLITZER: Give us your ... tell our viewers who aren't familiar your personal story, how you got to where you are, your grandparents, your parents. They struggled, they came here. I don't know if they came here legally or illegally. But give us the story.

 

GONZALES: Well, three of my grandparents were born in Mexico. They came to Texas. My parents -- both my parents were born in Texas extremely poor. My mother...

 

BLITZER: When they came to Texas, were they legally documented, were they un-legally documented?

 

GONZALES: You know what? It's unclear. It's unclear. And I've looked at this issue, I've talked to my parents about it and it's just not clear.

[SleepyWhiteSox]

Illiterate means that can't read, so posting in Spanish would not help them.

 

 

 

 

 

Huge turnout...

 

Opponents of immigrant amnesty march on Loop

 

By Oscar Avila

Tribune staff reporter

Published May 18, 2006, 1:33 PM CDT

 

 

Offering a counterpoint to the massive demonstrations in support of illegal immigrants, about 25 "ordinary Americans" retraced the march route today to downtown Chicago to make the case the U.S. should strengthen immigration enforcement and lawmakers should reject calls for amnesty

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/...1,7126549.story

[Texsox]

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez' parents may have been illegal aliens.

 

This came out during an interview on CNN so nobody actually saw it.

 

Such is a very common story. Second generation kids do very well. There parents, in many cases, push them to get educated and make soemething of themselves.

[Rex Kickass]

So does this mean we criminalize his parents and remove his citizenship now?

[YASNY]

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez' parents may have been illegal aliens.

 

This came out during an interview on CNN so nobody actually saw it.

 

How can his parents be illegals?

 

both my parents were born in Texas extremely poor. My mother...

[jackie hayes]

He was talking about his grandparents, not his parents.

[Rex Kickass]

Sorry, I misspoke. Regardless.

[southsider2k5]

So does this mean we criminalize his parents and remove his citizenship now?

 

I think there would be plenty who wouldn't mind in this specific case...

[samclemens]

i havent heard that tracing lineage of illegals and removing citizenship of their children is a proposed policy for immigration, and i would hope to god that it is not. i was under the impression that the goal was to start enforcing the laws we have in place, which would essentially result in a cutoff of sorts. tracing lineage would be a dispicable and infinitely complicated policy if it were implemented.

Edited May 21, 2006 by samclemens

[Mplssoxfan]

A Job Americans Won't Do, Even at $34 an Hour

 

An interesting read from the L. A. Times.

 

Cyndi Smallwood is looking for a few strong men for her landscaping company. Guys with no fear of a hot sun, who can shovel dirt all day long. She'll pay as much as $34 an hour.

 

She can't find them.

 

Maybe potential employees don't know about her tiny Riverside firm. Maybe the problem is Southern California's solid economy and low unemployment rate. Or maybe manual labor is something that many Americans couldn't dream of doing.

[southsider2k5]

A Job Americans Won't Do, Even at $34 an Hour

 

An interesting read from the L. A. Times.

 

Or maybe it costs so much to live there that $34 an hour isn't too much after all?

 

http://www.nextag.com/home-mortgage/2/CA/Riverside.html

 

Look at the median home prices...

[Mplssoxfan]

Of course, by my rough calculations, a year at $34 an hour is about 19% more than the median household income in an owner-occupied house, so that shouldn't really be an issue.

[Cknolls]

A Job Americans Won't Do, Even at $34 an Hour

 

An interesting read from the L. A. Times.

But it turns out there's a tiny bit more to the story that the LA Times isn't telling you. Reader Christopher L. wrote this morning to point out that a simple Google search shows that Cyndi Smallwood is president of the Orange County chapter of the California Landscape Contractors Association, and is a member of the association's "Immigration Task Force." The activist group opposes the "Punitive Immigration Reform Bill Proposed by Rep. Sensenbrenner."

 

 

An all too common form of hack journalism consists of going to an interest group, finding a useful character for an anecdotal lead and conveniently passing the source off as though they’re just a regular citizen on the sidelines of the debate. It’s a dirty little secret of journalism, but most hack journalists who do it at least have the decency to slip in a mention of the person’s affiliation.

In this article the Times goes a step further, inserting obviously false language suggesting — no, actually stating outright — that Smallwood is ambivalent about immigration reform. The suggestion is that this is a regular person, so you shouldn’t discount what she’s saying as you might if she was someone pushing an agenda.

 

Smallwood was on Laura Ingraham's show this am. What the LA Times didn't report was the $34 per hour job was the prevailing wage on state contract projects, and she had two (yes two) openings for that high paying position, which requires (per Smallwood) 2-5 years experience in landscape construction, the ability to read plans/blueprints and the ability to operate a bobcat, ditch witch or similar ditch digging equipment.

From my listener's perspective, she was reasonably forthcoming when questioned by Ms. Ingraham, so I can only assume she would have been forthcoming to the Times writer if the same questions were asked. That, of course leads to two conclusions: (1) the Times staffer was too lazy to ask simple questions; or (2) the piece was an agenda-driven article...never mind-knowing the Times, it was likely both.

[Mplssoxfan]

I guess that discussions about Media bias are inevitable, and I realize that the cost of living is high and unemployment is low in SoCal, but I was intrigued by the assertion that someone is advertising a $70K-a-year job and she can't fill it.

 

BTW, do you have a link to the Ingraham interview, or to a transcript? I'm interested in reading/hearing it.