Mexican Soldiers Smuggling Drugs

My local paper, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, reported this morning that yesterday, U.S. Border Patrol agents squared off against the Mexican military at a border crossing near El Paso, Texas. The Mexican soldiers were well-armed with machine guns and were attempting to smuggle "what appeared to be thousands of pounds of marijuana" into our country. The agents immediately called for backup, which arrived quickly in the form of sheriff's deputies and highway patrol officers. The officers apparently intimidated the soldiers back across the border. According to the report, "deputies captured one vehicle in the incident, a Cadillac Escalade reportedly stolen from El Paso, and found 1,477 pounds of marijuana inside. The Mexican soldiers set fire to one of the Humvees stuck in the river."

The Bulletin has been reporting stuff like this for some time, now, and especially in the past week they've had several articles (here and here) related to some documents that someone brought to them which detail incursions by the Mexican military over the past decade. One document "outlines 216 incidents since 1996 where Mexican military personnel crossed the U.S.-Mexican border and were spotted or confronted by the Border Patrol." The other, a map with the official seal of the Mexican government's Drug Control agency, showed 34 of those incursions.

That the Mexican military is smuggling drugs across the U.S. border, you would think, is a major problem. Imagine if the U.S. Army were doing this to the south. However, our government absolutely refuses to address the problems at the border, regardless of how bad they get. Doug McIntyre on KABC radio here in L.A. routinely refers to President Bush as "Vicente W. Bush," a melding of his own name and that of the Mexican president, as his positions on these sorts of matters are well-known. Confronted about these recent incursions, the head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, had this to say: "I think the stories are overblown," and he explains it by suggesting these soldiers aren't really soldiers: "We do have instances where we have Mexican police or military who have deserted and become involved with criminal activity. But we've also had bad cops in the United States, too. It happens." This is the head of our national law enforcement agency talking, folks.

The Bulletin reports that ICE, our own Immigration and Customs Enforcement department, part of the DHS, wouldn't comment at all about the matter, which I suppose shouldn't be surprising. They are the department that the U.S. government always directs people to, instead of the Border Patrol, when discussing these kinds of matters, yet they have no teeth whatsoever; no interest in actually enforcing the border laws.

Why? It figures that Democrats won't do it because they focus on the humanitarian aspects of the illegal immigration issue and believe we shouldn't even HAVE an enforced border to begin with. The Republicans apparently are more interested in their own corporate contributors, who love the cheap labor, and won't do anything, either. In the middle, the Border Patrol officers get support from citizens but not their own government. The whole thing is simply amazing.

In the latest Bulletin article, the head of the Border Patrol, TJ Bonner, had this to say about Chertoff's uninformed comments: "Were he to go out there on actual patrol with Border Patrol agents ... and experience what we experience -- where you encounter a group of highly trained, very well-armed Mexican soldiers coming across our border, and your closest backup is an hour or more away -- I think he would be a lot more concerned about it."

Despite the Mexican government's total denial that any such incursions have ever happened, TJ Bonner told the Bulletin this in an earlier article:

In one 2000 incident, more than 16 Mexican soldiers were arrested by border agents in a small town west of El Paso, in Santa Teresa, N.M., after Mexican soldiers fired on the agents. None of the agents was injured in the gun battle, and U.S. State Department officials forced the border agents to release the soldiers and return them to Mexico with their weapons, Bonner added.

It makes one wonder what it will take before our government actually takes real steps to secure our southern border. I predict it will take the death of a few Border Patrol agents. It pains me to say that, but what other conclusion can you possibly reach?

Hillary's Plantation

Star Parker has written a nice response to Hillary Clinton's pandering "plantation" comments in Harlem last week, at Townhall.com

Hillary and the Democrats don't want to free the slaves. They love Uncle Sam's Plantation. They just want to run it.

Read it here

More Iraq News You Won't See on TV

Michael Yon continues to post dispatches from Iraq. His pieces are honest, "everyman" type of articles that cover battles that the troops he is embedded with are fighting, as well as the more mundane but positive stuff that our brave soldiers are doing over there.

In his 1/20 post, he talks a lot about Gary Sinise's "Operation Iraqi Children," a charity that takes donations for school and other supplies specifically for children. Yon saw both ends of this charity's work, and reports on them here. Truly great work; this charity certainly seems worthy of serious attention.


Yon also writes about the exploits of Major Mary Prophit, who is a Civil Affairs officer in the U.S. Army, stationed over in Iraq. He describes some of the multitude of firefights the Major has been in -- so many that her fellow troops began to refer to her as a "bullet magnet" -- as well as much of the humanitarian work she's done; much of it with children there. Along the way, she told a story about a suicide bomber hitting their base, the funerals that followed, and what also happened just days later. A story I have yet to hear in the mainstream media:

"...two days after the memorials for the soldiers lost in that bombing, we lost another soldier. He was at a combat outpost in the city and a suicide bomber in a dump truck full of explosives came charging toward his post to try to overcome the barriers and kill the platoon of soldiers that were stationed there. [Oscar Sanchez] held his ground and caused [by firing his machine gun] the driver to detonate his load prematurely, before the truck was able to strike the building. This soldier lost his life and saved the lives of the rest of his platoon. His memorial was yesterday. He was 19 years old, and leaves behind a young widow. Today the battalion is out in force and determined to keep taking the fight to the enemy."

Yon goes on to mention that Major Mary is a reservist. Her "real job" is back in the states as a Library Assistant in Randle, Washington. Amazing, uplifting stuff. Why, oh why, can't the mainstream media cover stuff like this, instead of constantly ranting about all the negative aspects of this war?

Malkin on Clinton Race-Baiting

Michelle Malkin, besides having what is the best blog I read day after day, has published a column in the Jewish World Review this week about Hillary Clinton's race-baiting comments at a church in New York. Here's a choice quote:

These calculated moments of Democrat demagoguery illuminate liberalism's three-decade-old moral bankruptcy on issues of race. From the party's smearing of Clarence Thomas to the bigoted attacks on Condoleezza Rice and Maryland GOP Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, to its opposition to school choice for inner-city students and denigration of California businessman Ward Connerly's campaign against government racial preferences, to its latest desperate attempts to blame racism for Hurricane Katrina and to portray Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito as a red-necked bigot, the Left has offered nothing but slime and obstructionism.

Excellent column; read it.

Dems Break Promise to Confirm Alito

The Democratic senators convinced Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, in December, to wait to hold confirmation hearings on Samuel Alito until January instead of December; reportedly because they promised to hold the vote to move Judge Alito on for a vote by the full Senate on Tuesday, January 17th. Senator Specter then disappointed conservatives by agreeing to the delayed hearings (which gave liberals around the country plenty of time to dig up dirt on the judge and scream about various aspects of his record or personality they didn't like).

Well today those same senators broke their promise to hold the committee vote, as their minority leader Harry Reid had recommended, saying they would delay the business meeting until next week, on the 24th. ConfirmThem.com has the rundown on this delay, as well as Majority Leader Bill Frist's follow-up, as promised, that he would push all other business off to the side until the vote was brought to the Senate floor. He's finally standing up to the liberals. Whether it will do any good is anyone's guess.

Judge Alito seems to be a good man with a stellar background who should be confirmed without delay, especially after having had to sit through these ridiculous confirmation hearings where the likes of Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden were lecturing him on ethics. To continue breaking promises and delaying the vote is unfair and dishonest.

Ray Nagin: Racist

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin is not only incompetent, and a finger-pointer, it turns out he's also a racist. Here are some comments he made during a MLK rally yesterday on the streets of New Orleans:

"It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. And I don't care what people are saying in Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have it no other way."

Now I ask you: What would happen if a white mayor made comments like these, that the mayor wanted to rebuild a "white New Orleans"? Answer: All hell would break loose, with every black organization in the country screaming about the racism and calling for the mayor's head on a stick.

Yet guys like Nagin get away with this kind of thing without any problem.

Michelle Malkin is reporting that Anderson Cooper has scheduled interview after interview with Mayor Nagin, only to have him cancel at the last minute time and time again. In a video she is playing on her site, Cooper explains that the mayor again cancelled an interview at the last minute today, claiming "emergencies" had arisen that prevented his appearance. Cooper's correspondent in New Orleans reports that the mayor is, in fact, having dinner at a posh restaurant on Bourbon Street at that very moment. Nice to see he stands up for his beliefs.

What We Can't Not Know

I have started attending this year's "Masters Series in Christian Thought" lectures at Stand To Reason, an apologetics organization in Hermosa Beach. Last week's was by Dr. J. Budziszewski, from the University of Texas. It was called, "What We Can't Not Know," which is the title of his new book, and it was generally about natural law and its applications. Here are some of my notes:

Why do we do apologetics? For evangelical reasons (we're called to); for protective reasons (what "they" do affects us); and for love and charitable reasons (we want them to know the truth).

So many moral imperatives these days are treated, in our society, as unimportant, or as simple matters of disagreement. The problem is that when you remove a moral baseline, anything can happen, and it would be justified.

Many moral imperatives are known already. Murder, for example, is not something that anyone can reasonably say they know is not wrong, even without being told such. It is this central fact that apologists/evangelists need to keep in mind when having this type of argument with someone who insists that what they're doing is not wrong. Abortion is a perfect example. Don't worry about convincing them that taking life is wrong - they already know that. They just deny it. Worry, instead, about getting them past their denial.

There are two types of revelation in this context: "General" revelation, the natural law which we all "know"; and "special" revelation, which is God's word as written in the bible. Each of these 2 types of revelation illuminates aspects of the other type that might otherwise not be understood.

There are 4 types of "witness":

1. Deep Conscience - The truths ARE down there. In everyone.


2. Design in general - The design of the universe has God's authorship all over it


3. Specific design - "Things" are obviously designed if you look at them. The complementarity of the sexes is an obvious example.


4. Effects of our good deeds - The ill effects of sin are often met in this life, not the next. People who lie, for example, find themselves without friends.

People who deny any of these witnesses are that - in denial. As St Paul said, "These things are plain". Dr. Budziszewski also raises Psalm 14 and the fool who denies God. Finally, he points out that "any way of life that denies the complementarity of the sexes is headed for trouble." Obviously this is done in two major movements in our society that I can think of today: Feminism and the Gay movement.

Dr. Budziszewski defined "unnatural" as that which contradicts our design. He is leading to the Christian condemnation of homosexual relations, which under these descriptions are obviously wrong on so many levels. Finally, he points out that "Man and woman together make up the image of God." That statement alone is thought-provoking.

The rest of the lecture had to do with methods of conducting a conversation with someone who denies any of these truths or is anchored in some sinful behavior that they have no desire to get out of (active homosexuality; support for abortion; etc.). He also took Q&A for about 25 minutes, including role-playing various conversational situations.

It was a very interesting lecture and I learned quite a few things. I'm looking forward to the next lecture tonight. I will blog those notes, as well.

Mark Steyn on the End of the World

Mark Steyn at the Wall Street Journal has written one of the most thought-provoking piece I've read in years. I printed this thing out (12 pages), highlighted it, wrote notes to myself, etc. I rarely do that.

The piece is about Western Europe being overrun by muslims, which is happening right now and doesn't appear to be headed in the right direction. Furthermore, it's probably irreversible at this point, given Europeans' loss of faith in God.

Very. Scary. Stuff.

The Book of Daniel

Brent Bozell at Townhall.com has written a devastating article about the new NBC show, "The Book of Daniel". I could quote every line, it's that good and on-point. This is a must-read and should be a clear example of how Hollywood is completely out-of-touch with the rest of the country (which is 95% Christian).

The Book of Daniel" is a disgusting bit of anti-Christian garbage, though its author denies this. Here is Bozell:

Episcopal minister Daniel Webster is hooked on Vicodin and sees Jesus Christ regularly. His wife is an alcoholic. His son is gay. His daughter sells marijuana. His adopted Chinese son is a teenage sex machine. His female bishop, who asks him for one of his "Canadian headache pills" for the codeine, and later raids his office for more, is having an adulterous relationship with his father, who's also an Episcopal bishop, whose wife has Alzheimer's and keeps talking about penises.

Are there enough ridiculous, plastic characters in this spectacle yet? No, apparently not. Daniel's brother-in-law escapes town with the church treasury, but his wife and the church secretary have gone from a menage a trois to a saucy lesbian relationship. To find said brother-in-law, Daniel seeks out "Father Frank," an Italian Catholic priest who (no stereotypes here?) uses his Mafia contacts to hunt down the missing money, so the mob can compromise Daniel.

And when the writer for this despicable show claims he's being totally respectful of Christians, Bozell points this out:

Daniel's sermon before credits roll in the premiere begins, "Temptation. Is it really a bad thing? I don't think so." He concludes, "if temptation corners us, maybe we shouldn't beat ourselves up for giving into it. And maybe we shouldn't ask for forgiveness from a church, or God, or from Jesus, or from anyone, until we can first learn to forgive ourselves."

That's not Christianity. That's the gospel of Hollywood.

The left just gets worse and worse. I rarely watch TV any more because this is the kind of garbage that gets on. This is an incredibly blatant example, but this kind of thinking is everywhere in the mainstream media. Once you acknowledge what we're called to do as Christians (i.e. emulate Jesus), you can see this stuff everywhere.

Hollywood and Liberalism

Ben Shapiro over at Townhall.com has an interesting, short piece today focusing on Hollywood's push of the Liberal Agenda. Curiously, liberals I talk to deny that this kind of bias exists, but I suspect that's because they deny that any themes in the Liberal Agenda are actually morally problematic in any way.

Here are a couple choice quotes from Ben's article:

With great films scarce and politically mainstream Academy voters even scarcer, 2000 featured the victory of repulsive anti-suburbia and pro-homosexuality hit piece "American Beauty." Of course, it beat out a film lionizing an abortionist ("The Cider House Rules") and another attacking the tobacco industry ("The Insider"). Most disturbingly, the Academy handed Hilary Swank a Best Actress Oscar for playing a transgendered biological girl murdered by a bunch of hicks. And 2002 was the year of the African-American honorary Oscars, when Denzel Washington took home Best Actor for his decent if overrated performance in "Training Day" and Halle Berry took home Best Actress for her highly touted simulated orgasms in "Monster's Ball." In 2003, homosexual agenda films like "The Hours," "Frida" and "Far From Heaven" grabbed the largest share of nominations. In 2004, Hollywood couldn't hold off "Lord of the Rings" any longer, but Charlize Theron, playing an ugly lesbian serial killer in "Monster," won Best Actress. And last year, the Best Picture was forgettable pro-euthanasia film "Million Dollar Baby."

And then there's this year. "Brokeback Mountain," the stomach-churning story of two 1963 cowboys who get cozy while bunking down in Wyoming and then carry on their affair over the course of decades, is likely to grab Best Picture honors. The critics love it, mostly because critics love anything that pushes homosexuality as normal behavior.

Ben sums up his disgust thusly:

Aside from pimping for GLAAD, the Oscars will provide a platform for other leftist talking points. "Good Night, and Good Luck," George Clooney's blatant attempt to bash the Bush administration through the mouth of Edward R. Murrow, and "Munich," Steven Spielberg's attempt to equate Arab terrorism with Israeli self-defense, will likely garner nominations. And to top it off, Comedy Central partisan hack Jon Stewart (who is less and less funny each day) hosts this self-congratulatory leftist feting.

I won't be watching. Neither will most Americans.

Joe Biden and Time Travel

Radio Blogger has this interesting piece on Joe Biden's time travel last week. He was on the Today Show with Katie Couric, expressing his frustration over a non-answer to a valid question Judge Alito supposedly had given him the day before. Only problem was: he was lying. He had not asked that question, and he had not gotten that non-answer.

3 hours later, he actually DID ask that question of Judge Alito, and the judge gave him lengthy answers. Check out the article for proof. Amazingly dishonest.

Attacks On Alito Finally Over

Democratic senators Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin, and Joe Biden had their fun last week, attempting character assassination on a fine man (and Catholic) in Samuel Alito. As I've said before, this kind of thing is just disgusting. That so many seem to support these smears is even more troubling.

When Judge Alito's testimony was finished on Thursday, attention turned to "witnesses" who appeared before the judicial committee to testify on behalf, and against, the judge. Amazingly, and not reported on any news that I've seen (find a picture of the panel without these senators sitting there -- it doesn't exist), the Democrats I mentioned above didn't stick around to the witnesses. Their 15 seconds of fame apparently over, they either didn't show up for the hearing at all, or left after just a few minutes. John Hinderaker at Power Line had this to say:

This is truly extraordinary. Extraordinary that Judge Alito's colleagues have turned out to defend him against the Democrats' smears; extraordinary that the Democrats themselves couldn't be bothered to stick around to hear what this distinguished group of judges had to say. After all, if the Democrats were actually interested in what kind of judge Sam Alito is, these are precisely the witnesses who could tell them. If the Democrats really thought that Alito's judicial opinions reflect poorly on him, these are exactly the people who could answer their questions, and, if they are correct, confirm their fears. But the Democrats apparently knew that wasn't going to happen. The only conclusion one can draw is that the Democrats knew they were smearing a fine man and a fine judge. But the fact that they didn't even have the decency or respect to stay and listen to Alito's colleagues is disgusting.

I agree. He points out that at least Senator Diane Feinstein stuck around and was respectful to the witnesses. As a constituent, I owe her an email of praise for that. But for the rest of these clowns, it seems like just more of the same, unfortunately. Again, you don't see conservatives behaving this way.

One of the big issues the Democrats were hammering the judge on had to do with his dissent in a case in which a 10-year-old girl was "strip-searched" in the course of a narcotics investigation. They put this out there as a slam against the judge, that he would never rule for "the little guy" and would always side with government. On its face, listening to what I just wrote, for example, it may seem like a slam-dunk argument that Judge Alito was acting immorally. And in fact notorious liberal lawyer Erwin Chemerinsky even argued for this, knowing full well the details of the case. But take a close look at the case and it quickly becomes obvious that Alito was in the right and the majority judges were twisting technicalities in order to side against the government. Which side was the activist here? Check out this rundown of that case, it's an easy and interesting read.

Can Democrats Get Any More Despicable?

I've been following the Senate's grilling of SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito the last few days and have to say, I'm just beside myself with disgust for the Democrats on the committee. They have the job of determining whether he is, in fact, fit to sit on the Supreme Court for the rest of his career, as the President has said. Fine. But all we've seen thus far have been attempts at character assassination, with no provocation at all. They've implied he could be a bigot; that he doesn't like black people or women; and that he's dishonest, failing to recuse himself in a case that involved a mutual fund he owned; that he's a mouthpiece for the Bush administration, and will always rule with them once appointed.

I believe they know better in all cases, yet they persist for some vile reason. They keep hammering Alito on this organization at Princeton University that he said he was a member of in a job application eons ago. The organization, a conservative political one, apparently had some racist and sexist statements in its documents long ago. Alito has said he doesn't remember being in this organization at all, but beyond that has had no comment. Add to that the fact that he has a stellar track record of hiring minorities and women, and that none of the clerks he has hired, in his entire career (something like 60) have a bad thing to say about him. This is a decent man, by all accounts. Yet the Democrats have to dig, dig, dig. They treat him like a criminal, on national television.

Yesterday his wife couldn't take any more and left the room in tears. Not only has no Democrat apologized for causing this with their incessant whining about how "perplexed," "puzzled," or "confused" they were about the judge, one even tried to shunt blame to the Republicans for her outburst. One liberal blog is now even saying the tears were staged:

Alito's wife at this point glances to her left, nods, and then proceeds to stare at Lindsey Graham. She seems relatively pleased, and she listens intently to Graham expatiate on why he believes Alito's affiliation with CAPS is irrelevant. But 23 seconds into the clip, when Graham says the word "reems," she begins to cry.
This cry, in my opinion, is staged. Yes, I believe it is planned.

And one commentor there said that even if they weren't, the media shouldn't cover it anyway:

So she cried. Lots of people cry. Women who are forced into pregnancy cry. People who are spied on cry. Black students who attended Princeton knowing people like Alito didn't want them there probably cried too.

These people have no shame whatsoever. Ted Kennedy got into a shouting match with Chairman Arlen Specter yesterday, demanding that some documents in the Library of Congress be subpoena'd. Specter saw it as a power-grab and a stall tactic and said, in effect, "take a hike." Those documents have been publicly available for a long time, and an investigation was done on them already, which determined that Alito was not, in fact, even mentioned in them at all.

Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, and Patrick Leahy combined make a truly scaring and despicable bunch of politicians. One prays that these hearings will be over soon enough and let Judge Alito be confirmed already.