Bipartisan House Members Demand Armed National Guard at the Border

A bipartisan group of House members announced today they want the president to send armed National Guard troops to the border with rules of engagement that would allow them to defend themselves.

Led by Reps. Ted Poe (R-Texas) and Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), the group supports border state governors who have been repeatedly asking for troops to assist Border Patrol and local law enforcement agencies overwhelmed by escalating border violence.

In a letter citing instances of murders of U.S. citizens and the occurrence of attacks and further threats to law enforcement personnel, the group urges the president to deploy National Guard troops at levels already requested by the state governors and members of Congress.

They also say the troops should be “provided with very clear guidance of proper rules of engagement and should be armed and allowed to defend themselves if fired upon or attacked.”

What a concept.

When the National Guard was last deployed to the border by the Bush administration, troops were unarmed and served in limited, temporary support roles far removed from actual border patrols.

The United States military is well-trained to guard the borders of other countries around the globe and periodically conducts training exercises along our own border regions.

Full text of the letter:

April 28, 2010

The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

As you know, violence in the vicinity of the U.S.-Mexico border continues to increase at an alarming rate. We believe that this violence represents a serious threat to the national security of the United States as well as a serious threat to U.S. citizens that live along the 1,969 mile long border. We strongly believe that it is imperative for your Administration to promptly take the necessary steps to prevent this violence.

We urge the Administration to take action to address this growing national security threat on our southern border. Without swift and decisive action, it is our fear that this violence will only increase in severity and scope. We urge you to deploy the National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border, as has been requested by a number of border state Governors and Members of Congress. We ask that any National Guard troops that are deployed should be provided with very clear guidance of proper rules of engagement and should be armed and allowed to defend themselves if fired upon or attacked.

As you know, the level of violence along the border continues to increase. Since January 2008, nearly 5,000 homicides have been committed in Juarez, Mexico, making it one of the most violent cities in the world. In 2009 alone, 79 U.S. citizens were killed in Juarez, Mexico. On March 13th of this year, Lesley Enriquez, a U.S. Consulate employee, and her husband Arthur Redelf, a ten year veteran of the El Paso Police Department, were killed when Mexican drug gang members fired a number of rounds at their vehicle. That same day, Jorge Alberto Salcido, the husband of a U.S. Consulate employee, was killed when cartel members shot at his car at a separate location.

On March 27, 2010, Robert Krentz, a longtime Arizona rancher, was found shot dead and slumped over in his all-terrain vehicle with the engine still running. Following the murder of Mr. Krentz, his assailant was tracked to the U.S.- Mexico border and there is evidence that he crossed the border into Mexico. The day before the killing, Mr. Krentz’s brother had called the Border Patrol to report a caravan of illegal immigrants who were ultimately caught carrying 280 pounds of marijuana.

Additionally, our Border Patrol and law enforcement agents along the border are facing a growing threat to their safety. Assaults against Border Patrol agents increased 46 percent from 752 incidents in 2007 to 1,097 incidents in 2008. Recent analysis from the El Paso Sector Border Intelligence Center warns that retaliatory actions against law enforcement officers could occur in the border region.

At the same time, we urge the Administration to provide the Border Patrol with the support it needs, both in terms of tangible resources such as state-of-the-art technology and equipment, as well as ensuring that agents are not disciplined or prosecuted for performing their duties or defending themselves against attacks.

We stand ready to work together with you and your Administration on these important issues to ensure the safety and security of all Americans in the border region and throughout our country.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36737

These bums need to be THROWN out NOW! I don’t care anymore if they’re repubs or dems. Kick all their asses out and get some new, less corrupt people in there!

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON — The deepening economic recession hasn’t stopped members of Congress from throwing lavish events to raise campaign money for the 2010 election.
This weekend, donors to a political action committee run by Rep. Jeb Hensarling are invited to the Snake River Lodge & Spa near Jackson Hole, Wyo., for a ski outing hosted by the Texas Republican. The minimum donation: $2,500, according to the invitation, which touts opportunities to take sleigh rides to an elk refuge and snowmobile excursions to the Continental Divide.

Skiing also is on the agenda at a fundraiser this weekend in Vail, Colo., for Democrat Ed Perlmutter. Donations range from $2,400 for an individual to $5,000 for a political action committee.

Donors seeking warmer climes could have joined veteran Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii for a “Weekend of Aloha” fundraiser at a resort on Honolulu’s Waikiki Beach. Inouye’s event, held last weekend, started two days after lawmakers passed President Obama’s $787 billion plan aimed at jump-starting the economy. Lawmakers are on a week-long break and return Monday.

“Everyone is tightening their belts, but lawmakers are doing what they have always done: holding fundraisers in exotic locales,” said Nancy Watzman, who tracks political fundraising events for the watchdog group Sunlight Foundation. “This is the kind of thing that’s out of reach to most people, and it’s pretty much hidden from the public.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-02-19-fundraising_N.htm

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scrambles to assemble 60 Democratic votes for health care legislation that, according to the Realclearpolitics.com average of recent polls, is opposed by a 53 percent to 38 percent margin, several Democratic members of the House are scrambling for the exits on what is starting to look like a sinking ship.You may have noticed that I avoided using the cliche “rats leaving the sinking ship,” because the four Democratic House members who over the last three weeks announced their decisions to retire rather than run for re-election cannot fairly be characterized as rats.To the contrary, Dennis Moore (Kansas 3), John Tanner (Tennessee 8), Brian Baird (Washington 3) and Bart Gordon (Tennessee 6) are competent House members who between them have won election to Congress 36 times. Gordon is chairman of the House Science Committee; Tanner was offered an appointment to succeed Al Gore in the Senate in 1992; Baird was lead sponsor of measures to ensure the continuity of Congress in time of national disaster. All have claims to significant legislative accomplishments.And to political success in marginal Democratic territory. Gordon and Tanner represent districts that voted heavily for John McCain in 2008; Moore’s usually Republican district gave Barack Obama a small majority; Baird’s suburban district has voted at just about the national average in the last three presidential elections.All four cited plausible personal reasons for calling it quits, and none can be unaware that there is a robust job market in Washington for former Democratic congressmen with good political skills. Members of Congress make $174,000 a year; heads of trade associations make upward of $741,000 and don’t have to return to home districts on weekends.All four of these retiring members faced the prospect of tougher opposition in 2010 than they have encountered in years. Tanner and Gordon are from what I call the Jacksonian belt, the area settled by Scots-Irish southwest from West Virginia to Texas, where Barack Obama ran poorly in both primaries and the general election last year. Polls in nearby Jacksonian Arkansas have shown Democratic incumbents running even with or behind unknown Republican challengers.Moore and Baird are from suburban districts where their views on cultural issues have been a political asset. But in the gubernatorial elections last month in Virginia and New Jersey, suburban voters brushed aside cultural issues and voted for Republicans who ran against higher taxes and big government. That suggests that Democrats in suburban House districts can’t expect to match Obama’s 2008 showings next year.These four Democrats are not the only House members who aren’t running for re-election, but all of the 12 Republican retirees and all but one of the seven other Democratic retirees are leaving the House to run for statewide office.he question now is whether more Democrats of this ilk will choose to retire — something House Democratic leaders have been working to prevent. They’re very much aware that Republicans in 1994 won some 21 open seats in which Democratic incumbents did not seek re-election, nearly half the 52 seats the Republicans gained when they won control of the House that year.Public opinion expresses itself in the legislative process in various ways. Democrats’ current large majority in the House, which has enabled them to pass unpopular cap-and-trade and health care legislation, is largely the product of public discontent with George W. Bush’s perceived nonfeasance on Katrina in 2005 and perceived malfeasance in Iraq in 2005 and later.These four decisions to retire, and similar decisions by other Democrats that may come, seem (for all disclaimers of personal reasons) to be the product of public discontent with the policies of the Obama administration and congressional Democratic leaders in 2009. Such discontent, perceptible only in the Jacksonian belt last year, has now clearly spread to the suburbs of major metropolitan areas.The odds are still against Republicans picking up the 41 seats they need for a House majority. But it’s interesting that when Massachusetts Democrat Michael Capuano, fresh from a second-place finish in the primary for Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat, was asked to tell the Democratic caucus what he had learned on the campaign trail, he replied in two words: “You’re screwed.” How many of those listening decided that it would be a good idea to spend more time with the family after 2010?
inso54.. I tried to condense, spaces count as letters

1. There are two published lists of Chrysler dealerships. One includes the 789 dealers which will be closed by June 9. Those dealers who will be able to retain their franchises and acquire the assets of closing dealers in their areas are on the other. Both are in .PDF format.

2. An attorney for closed dealers deposed Chrysler president Jim Press and said that his impression is that the decisions on which Dealers will stay and which will go really wasn’t Chrysler’s, as the company is under considerable pressure from President Obama’s automotive task force.

3. Many of the Chrysler dealers on the closing list were heavy Republican donors. Some are sitting congressmen.

4. Among the dealers which were selected to remain in business are a number of outlets owned and operated by a partnership which includes among the partners former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty and Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET). Both have strong Democrat ties. McLarty campaigned for Obama, and Johnson has contributed heavily to Democrats, including Obama.

5. The latest finding from the closure list is that there appears to be “an extremely high correlation between dealers closing and congressional districts BHO lost.”

Texas is getting killed and Blue States are sliding by. Florida is also taking major hits and nearly all are in Republican Congressional Districts.

Little West Virginia is getting hammered.

http://www.allpar.com/news/index.php/2009/05/chrysler-dealers-to-be-cut-and-kept/

Now in all fairness, it might be possible that more business owners are Republican than Democrat and as a result, more Republican dealerships would be closed. However, even if we accept the proposition that most car dealers are more likely to be Republican than Democratic donors, there would still be a “disparate impact” from closings on one class of dealers, compared to the other. When the federal courts see a disparate impact on racial groups, the policy or action in question is typically held to be inappropriate.

Race and car dealer closings, of course, aren’t analogous. But the lesson remains that when government makes economic decisions that ought to be left to the private market, it is impossible to avoid disparate impacts. And there is always the question of would the Obama White House be so quick to close hundreds of dealerships if the owners of those dealerships were predominantly Democratic donors?

Second, since neither Chrysler, nor the White House have made public the criteria used to select dealers for elimination – and because a significant number of those being closed were profitable – the only way to resolve the inevitable controversy about political considerations in political decisions is to make the criteria public and allow independent outside observers to assess how those criteria were applied.

fyi I am 17 & live in Texas.

Now the child pornography laws were originally created to protect little kids from being exploited to basement dwelling pedophiles. But these laws were created as strong blanket laws as not only the no good pedophiles were getting arrested but teen couples messing around on their phones were also getting arrested & charged with the same thing.

These teen sexing laws make me sick. I view the creators/supporters of these laws no differently than how you view the Nazis.
I’ve engaged in sexting before & if I was caught my life would be completely over. I wouldn’t see the light of day again. I didn’t even know child porn was illegal until I was 15. When I was 14 I had a long distance British girlfriend that I would have sexted with if we had cellphones at the time & if we were caught the law would have done inhuman things to us.

Who made these laws? when were they made? does anybody know the names of the sadistic draconian congressmen who thought it would be a good idea to put teens behind bars for life for seeing their boyfriend/girlfriend naked on the phone?

People have said before it’s because a naked picture of me might end up in the hands of a pedophile.
Well I would much rather a pedophile get a hold of a naked picture of me than a police officer. The law will do ALOT worse to me than any pedophile or ugly person could ever do.
Getting charged with child pornography is worse than any other consequence of sexting.
You people are thinking that you are protecting kids with these laws. Well good job! good job protecting kids from pedophiles by putting them in prison where they will be raped every day by pedophiles. You think that nude pictures they’ve sent will haunt them? well I think that being on the sex offender registry will haunt you pretty badly too. These laws are inhuman.

Plus if the kid is a nudist then what’s the difference if someone see’s them naked in a picture?

fyi I am 17 & live in Texas.

Now the child pornography laws were originally created to protect little kids from being explioted to basement dwelling pedophiles. But these laws were created as strong blanket laws as not only the no good pedophiles were getting arrested but teen couples messing around on their phones were also getting arrested & charged with the same thing.

These teen sexing laws make me sick. I view the creators/supporters of these laws no differently than how you view the nazis.
I’ve engaged in sexting before & if I was caught my life would be completely over. I wouldn’t see the light of day again.

Who made these laws? when were they made? does anybody know the names of the sadistic draconian congressmen who thought it would be a good idea to put teens behind bars for life for seeing their boyfriend/girlfriend naked on the phone?

More skeletons pour out of the closet of the most secretive, deceitful, administration in decades.

Now we have a little insight into why Obama said to not jump to conclusions about Nidal Hasan and why Congressmen were not briefed before the press leak.

This murdering Muslim Terrorist who killed and wounded the soldiers and civilians at Ft Hood, Texas was an advisor to Obama’s Homeland Security team. Look on page 29 of theHomeland Security Institute link below.

I wonder how many more skeletons there are to come to of the cupboard. Who else is there in the government or its numerous advisors or Czars that will harm our country and citizens?

http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/old/PTTF_ProceedingsReport_05.19.09.pdf Go to page number 29, scroll down toward the botton on the Left Column

Consider forwarding this link to everybody on your email list.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tCAffMSWSzY#t

A group of congressmen is demanding an investigation into the treatment of two former Border Patrol agents in prison for shooting an admitted drug dealer near the Mexican border, saying the conditions are far worse than those of suspected terrorists being held at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, and Rep. John Culberson, Texas Republican — who have championed the fight for Ignacio “Nacho” Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean — will deliver a letter detailing their concerns today to Attorney General-designate Michael B. Mukasey. More than three dozen House members have signed it.

Ramos is serving his sentence in a medium-security prison in the Southwest. He was transferred from the Yazoo correctional facility in Mississippi earlier this year after suspected gang members — recognizing the high-profile inmate — beat him.

He is unable to serve his sentence in a minimum-security prison camp owing to the 10-year mandatory minimum for unlawful discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. The charge is one issue in their cases under appeal in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Compean is serving out his sentence in an Ohio prison in solitary confinement.

Both men are being held in so-called special housing units (SHU) for their safety, but they are denied privileges that other inmates in the general population are afforded, said Tara Setmayer, communications director for Mr. Rohrabacher.

“The harsh conditions Agent Ramos is forced to endure in solitary is despicable,” said Ms. Setmayer, who visited Mr. Ramos last month.

Ramos has been confined to a single cell for 23 hours a day for the past 10 months — conditions far worse than those experienced by suspected terrorists in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, say the congressional representatives demanding the investigation.Page 1 of 2 next

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071016/NATION/110160069/1001

1. A school in Maryland begins the school day with the principal leading a short prayer to the assembled student body.
2. A severely mentally handicapped man commits murder and is given the death penalty
3. Texas passes a law that allows concealed weapons to be carried anywhere at any time.
4. The U.S. government lowers the drinking age to 19.
5. The police suspect an individual of selling drugs because they have observed many cars making brief stops at his house during the night. They ask the garbage collector to separate his garbage bags left on the curb and turn them over to the police.
6. A student wears a pro-Nazi shirt to school and they tell her to remove it.
7. Student athletes are required to submit random drug tests.
8. An individual who commits robbery can’t afford bail. He spends two years in prison awaiting trial.
9. An African American is accused of assult and stands trial. His jury is made up of only Caucasians.
10. A high school teacher finds two students holding lit cigerettes and takes the students to the principal’s office. The principal searches one girls purse and finds $40 in $1 bills, rolling paper, and a written list of her weed sales. She is suspended and is turned over to the police.
11. A student organized a prayer group that meets after school at the school. The school tells them they can’t have their mettings.
12. A 15 year old is arrested for murdering his step father, who had abbused him throughout his childhood. At his hearing, evidence was presented about his previous convictions for serious assualts and a psycholgist testified that he had no reasonable prospects for rehabilitation within the juvenille justice system. He is tried as an adult, is convicted, and given the death penalty.
13. The state of Massachusetts makes the sale and possesion of all assault rifles illeagal.
14. A group of white supremacists secure a permit and have a parade through a predominantly Hispanic and African American neighborhood. During the parade, they carry signs with racist slogans and chant anti-minority pronouncements.
15. A newspaper runs a story about a local man and accuses him of embezzling thousands of dollars from a local church.
16. A group of women who are extremley upset that a toxic waste incinerator is being built in their community protest in front of city hall. They are arrested for trespassing.
17. A family receives a notice from the town that they have plans to expand the local libary, which is next to their house. The town plans to give them a cash settlement for their property and require them to move out in 30 days.
18. There is a fire at Westover Air Force Base that destroyed all of the barracks. A representative from the Air Force arrives at John’s house and informs him that he’ll need to help house two enlisted men for three weeks.
19. Julie was arrested and tried for the theft of her neighbor’s car. She was found innocent because of lack of evidence and is released. Later, the police discovered a witness who saw Julie steal the car. They re-arrest her and charge her with theft a second time.
20. A police officer hears a woman screaming for help inside a house. He enters the house and discovers two adults fighting. The officer breaks up the fight then notices two large bags of coke on the table. Both individuals are arrested and charged with possession of controlled substances.
21. A student run newsparer criticizes the new dress code put in place by the principal.
22. Ten people arrive at their Congressmen’s office and angrily tell him their dislike of his vote on a tax increase. He calls the police and has them removed from his office because he feels threatened.
23. A man is arrested by the police after having a conversation with someone at his gym about his dislike of the handling of the Iraq war. He is accused of terrorism and imprisoned for 15 days before being allowed to speak to an attorney.
24. The U.S. government listened in to thousands of individuals phone conversations without first obtaining search warrents. They claimed that all the individuals involved were somehow connected to terrorists, although the evidence was very weak.
25. The U.S. government raises the legal driving age to 18.
26. A young man in a wheel chair discovers that he can’t enter any government buildings he needs to enter because the buildings arn’t wheel chair accesable. He is forced to have his friend carry him up the stairs, which he finds humiliating. He files a lawsuit against the buildings, saying anyone should be able to access the buildings, no matter if they have a disability or not. The state argues that there are no such rights granted in the Constitution.

1) A charismatic preacher

2) A Great Book of unknown and untraceable origin

3) Some drug-crazed followers who seek “recovery”

4) A political attack-dog who writes inflammatory books against other religions and political parties

5) A secluded compound in rural Texas.

6) A celebrity endorser with half a brain.

7) Stockpiles of napalm and semi-automatics.
A magazine about the way things “really are” to leave in bus-stops and mailboxes (also available in French)

9) Your own television satellite to broadcast your views to 60 Million people world-wide

10) A connection with Big Oil and a few congressmen in your pocket.

11) Grape Kool-Aid in huge steel vats

12) A trendy mark or slogan for your members to tattoo on themselves.

13) Ritualistic weirdness like speaking in tongues, banishing demons or handling poisonous snakes

14) An reptilian-alien conspiracy story which involves prominent people in Government and Hollywood.

15) A publishing company that allows your members to print their own books from their computers and send their books to Border’s and Barnes and Noble at the click of a button