'Grave' Drug Wars On The Border, Impotent U.N. Still Going And Joe Kennedy Still Hawking For A Brutal Dictator

They say that Nero fiddled while rome burned. Actually, he was plucking a harp and spouting some very bad poetry. So what is President Bush and the Democrat controlled Congress doing while our border remains unsecure with our citizens getting attacked by illegal aliens and our border patrol agents getting murdered by drug-smugglers?

I can tell you for certain that our government is not doing anything worthwhile. At least Nero was out and visible during the fire.

Case in point. The current situation along the U.S.-Mexico border has become intolerable and soon, the citizens (that is, the legitimate citizens) of the United States will boil over their anger as a result. What do we hear from the President or Congressional leaders about it? Nothing. It is without a doubt the worst case of mass dereliction of duty in the history of the U.S. Government.

Twenty years ago, we heard about the Columbian Medellin Drug Cartel and how badly their drug-smuggling efforts were affecting the United States. And Columbia doesn't even border the U.S. Today, the threat has landed closer to home. In fact, for some, it has come home.

A story in yesterday's Washington Times illustrates exactly how bad our government has allowed the situation to get:

"What we face is more of a challenge than law enforcement can be expected to cope with," said Kent Lundgren, chairman of the 800-member National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO). "The best solution is for the U.S. military to assume armed positions along the border ... and use whatever force is necessary to control the border zone." On Jan. 12, Mexican Brig. Gen. Rigoberto Garcia Cortez said the Mexican military and other personnel had surrounded five border cities in the lower Rio Grande Valley — Matamoros, Reynosa, Rio Bravo, Miguel Aleman and Nuevo Laredo — in response to gunfights between Mexican police, military forces and heavily armed drug smugglers.

That's right, the Mexicans brought their military in to bear on the situation. Now, here in the U.S., that may not be an option since such use of the military may not pass the test of posse comitatus but we may be beyond that threshold entirely.

More:

"Unfortunately, border violence south of our nation's border is not new," Border Patrol spokesman Michael Friel said, adding that it not only has increased in Mexico but also has directly affected U.S. authorities. The number of assaults against Border Patrol agents on the border rose from 384 in 2005 to 987 in 2007, he said. ... Violence has been the key to long-standing efforts by the Gulf Cartel to control drug smuggling on the U.S.-Mexico border. Mr. Lundgren said NAFBPO, whose membership includes eight former chiefs of the Border Patrol and 14 former INS district directors, thinks the next step for the Mexican military will be to begin closing the "noose on the gangs," but the targeted cities "abut the Rio Grande River, the international boundary and Mexican forces must stop there." "The predictable consequence is that those bandits will retreat across the Rio Grande into the United States — they will not surrender to Mexican authorities," he said. "We need not expect Mexican authorities to inhibit their departures.

Posse comitatus anyone?

You can access the complete article on-line here:

U.S. Faces 'Grave Threat' In Drug Fight
Jerry Seper
The Washington Times
January 22, 2008

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We all know that Kofi Annan has been one of the worst disasters in history as U.N. Secretary-General and we also hoped that Ban Ki-moon would be an improvement. Well, Ban is certainly an improvement over Kofi, but the rest of the U.N. is just as it was. Incompetent, impotent and scandal-ridden.

From Front Page Magazine:

Especially disappointing is the situation in Darfur, where there was a glimmer of hope last year that a combined UN-African Union peacekeeping force could be put in place which would be large enough to stop the mass killings there. Ban admitted at his first press conference for 2008 that he has only 9000 out of the estimated 26,000 soldiers needed. “That is why we are very much concerned about this ongoing deteriorating situation in Darfur”, he said. Things have not worked out as Ban had hoped because the Sudanese government has thrown up all manner of obstacles and China is still running interference for its ally and major oil supplier. Seventy percent of Sudan's Chinese oil revenues, which now top $1 billion per year, have been reportedly used by the Sudanese government to attack the non-Arab population in the Darfur region. Another Rwanda is unfolding before our eyes. The UN remains impotent to stop the genocide. All it seems that Ban Ki-moon can do right now is to continue begging the Sudanese leader to cooperate, and to make symbolic gestures such as he did last week in designating actor George Clooney as a UN "messenger of peace".

And this:

The UN’s human rights apparatus is still in the clutches of the worst human rights abusers on the planet, who pat each other on the back for their faux commitment to human rights. Meanwhile, millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayers’ money are being squandered by these hypocrites on non-stop investigations and condemnations of Israel. To his credit, Ban Ki-moon has spoken out against this gross one-sidedness. ... Then there are all those alarmist reports that keep streaming from the UN bureaucracy on everything from AIDS to climate change. The UN regularly puts out reports that are full of exaggerated statistics and worst-case assumptions designed to gather political and financial support for more UN personnel, studies and conferences. In November 2007, for example, UNAIDS, the United Nations coordinating organization to combat AIDS, conceded that it had overestimated the size of the world-wide HIV-AIDS epidemic and said that it would have to drastically slash the reported number of people suffering from the disease. Serious flaws have also been discovered in papers used and cited by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) in its own reports. Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC, criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC. Unfortunately, playing on the fears that these exaggerated claims engendered, Ban Ki-moon has added his voice to the hysteria surrounding global warming, which he has called the defining issue of our time. He even went so far as to blame the slaughter in Darfur on climate change!

Can anyone give one single, good reason as to why we still send money to such a fouled-up, incompentent, anti-Democratic and anti-American organization?

I can't come up with one either.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Rearranging The Deck Chairs At The UN
Joseph Klein
FrontPageMag.com
January 23, 2008

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And finally, we have Joe Kennnedy back in the news hawking his schpiel for Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez. You can view my last blog entry on the topic here:

Joe Kennedy: Bad Politics And Even Worse Judgement
84rules
January 5, 2008

Well, Newsbusters takes a look at him now:

Kennedy is now using the most recent Citgo commercial as a launchpad to blast the U.S. government and "Big Oil" as you can see in this video. After an introduction similar to the previous commercial showing poor people suffering from the cold, Kennedy goes on the attack: ...Yet our own government cut fuel assistance. And the Big Oil companies with oil and money to burn all said "no" when we asked for help. All but one. Citgo. Owned by the Venezuelan people, is donating millions of gallons to non-profit Citizens Action... Actually Citgo is owned by the Chavez run Venezuelan government, not the "people." As for the Venezuelan people themselves, it turns out their plight is getting even worse under the corruption ridden Chavez government.

Joe's politics are certainly bad. How bad? Bad enough that the left-leaning New Republic has taken him to task for his pro-Chavez stance:

This widespread corruption has even been recognized in the the latest issue of the liberal New Republic. Alvaro Vargas Llosa has this to say about life under Chavez in Slum Lord: After an extensive visit to the slums of this capital, I am convinced that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lost the recent referendum that would have extended the time he could remain in office not because his countrymen value democracy so much, but because his social programs are crumbling. In the barrios of Petare, Catia, Baruta and other places, the nationalist/populist model is collapsing. Through a network of "missions," the government has been using oil revenue to provide food, housing, cars, education and health care for millions of Venezuelans. In theory, Venezuelans are enjoying the "social justice" denied to them during decades of rule by the country's elites. In real life, the missions are plagued with corruption and inefficiency, and are severely hampered by the insecurity and the shortages that have become the hallmark of Venezuelan society. ...Corruption has eroded the prestige of the Habitat mission through which the government supposedly dishes out checks to poor Venezuelans so they can buy a house. It is not unusual for an aspiring homeowner to find out that a mystery person has cashed the check using his or her name. "The same people who hand out the checks cash them for the benefit of their relatives," explains Eladio, who told me a nephew recently suffered such an experience. ..."The government led Venezuelans to believe that they could become a consumer society without producing anything," says Luis Ugalde, the president of Andres Bello University, "and the results are now speaking for themselves." When I asked Beatriz, a social worker who spends her time in Catia, to talk to me about Chavez's missions, she responded, "One cannot speak about that which doesn't exist." That strikes me as an appropriate way to sum up Venezuela's nationalist/populist. model

Newsbusters goes on to suggest that Kennedy should actually visit Venezuela and see the people that Chavez is crushing right now.

Personally, I don't see that happening. Despite the courage shown by John F. Kennedy both as a Naval Officer and President of the United States, the Kennedy's are not noted for having that much integrity.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Joe Kennedy Uses Latest Citgo Commercial To Slam U.S. Government And 'Big Oil'
P.J. Gladnick
Newsbusters.org
January 23, 2008

Disturbing Idea For The United Nations

Writing for the New Media Journal, Frank Salvato puts forth a very disturbing idea: a standing army for the United Nations. Now, in a world where power grabs by despots and leftist elitists are common, the last thing we should ever approve of is a corrupt, immoral organization like the U.N. having its owned armed force.

Mr. Salvato writes:

That the United Nations is a corrupt and ineffective institution is an understatement. The list of illegal activities and instances of institutionalized bigotry are so numerable that they weave a tapestry of embarrassment that would incite any governmental body with integrity to disband. Truth be told, they can’t even agree on a definition for “terrorism.” As they say, absolute power corrupts, absolutely. An example of the UN’s corrupt leadership can be seen in the Oil-for-Food scandal, one of the larger blemishes on the face of the organization. Alas, it is a blemish that the secular-progressive press failed to expose in detail. You see, a few corrupt world leaders – we’ll cite Jacque Chirac as a prime example – were utilizing their seats on the UN Security Council to hold the United States and aligned coalition countries at bay while they violated the resolutions put in place by that very organization. Their actions defrauded the Oil-for-Food program of millions if not billions of dollars and enriched Saddam Hussein in the process.

If the U.N. were that bad before, what other human rights violations would they be getting into if we gave them an armed force?

More:

And while many of those who support the charitable efforts of the UN tout their humanitarian missions, i.e., their efforts to feed the starving and treat the diseased, the fact is that most often the food and medicine provided by the UN literally serves to empower the oppressive elements of those affected regions. Food and medicine routinely sit idle at the drop-off locations only to be used by warlords and militias as leverage against the very people the supplies were meant to benefit. Today, with all these many failures to show for its tenure, the United Nations is now attempting to expand its potency in an effort to create authority beyond its chartered mission statement: “The stated aims of the United Nations are to maintain international peace and security, to safeguard human rights, to provide a mechanism for international law, and to promote social and economic progress, improve living standards, and fight diseases.” Nowhere in the UN charter does it give the international body the authority to impose any kind of tax on its member nations or the citizens thereof. Additionally, its charter does not give the body the authority to redefine – especially in a time of peace – the sovereign borders of any nation, regardless of the economic benefit. Yet two initiatives championed by the United Nations establish these authorities.

Those initiatives are the Law Of The Sea Treaty (LOST) and the other is Global Warming which is turning out to be a huge hoax.

Mr. Salvato goes on:

To declare that the scientific debate on mans role in the global warming and cooling cycle is over, a consensus reached, is to promote a blatant lie. The only consensus that exists is entered into by those politicians and scientists who believe man is a major element in the current global warming cycle. Those who agree that man is a significant cause of global warming have formed a consensus. Responsible scientists, devoid of political pressure and eco-agenda, have been feverishly attempting to bring forth information that debunks mans influence on the naturally reoccurring global warming and cooling cycles. They have been thwarted every step of the way by not only the Green movement, environmentalists and that entrepreneurial opportunist, Al Gore, they have been rendered voiceless by the counter-culture eco-generation of the 1960s, now in control of mainstream media and the United Nations hierarchy itself. A shadow of doubt is cast over the legitimacy of the science presented by the UN and its manmade global warming proponents by basic scientific dogma. A scientist is taught to systematically “rule out” detractor arguments and possibilities in their quest for a theory’s validation. In essence, a consensus should never be reached unless it is a consensus that a group of scientists cannot disprove a theory. In the case of manmade global warming there is a sizable contingent of scientists who can disprove manmade global warming but they are being silenced by the eco-community, even to the extent of being banned from the most recent climate conference in Bali.

With all of this on their resume, the U.N. should never, under any circumstances, be given its own armed forces. They should, and rightly so, rely on the forces loaned to them by member nations and use those forces only in peacekeepng operations.

Due to the corruption and graft that is rampant at the U.N., only a fool would give them any kind of enforcement capability.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

A Standing Army For The United Nations
Frank Salvato
New Media Journal
December 14, 2007

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Democrat leaders in Congress will have no one to blame but themselves for the fact that millions of people will have their tax returns delayed next year. Why? Because the Dems took too long in passing the Alternative Minimum Tax Relief. But instead of admitting their own responsibility, they have a plan in the works to try and blame the Bush Administration for it. Their plan is going to fail.

Writing for Cybercast News Service, Susan Jones has this:

Millions of Americans are expected to face delays in getting their tax refunds because the Internal Revenue Service must scramble to revise and print tax forms -- and change its computer programs -- to reflect the changes. The New York Times reported on Dec. 5 that the delay in passing the AMT fix was already endangering a "smooth start" to the tax filing season. According to that Dec. 5 report, the main problem is reprogramming I.R.S. computers: "The agency's protocol calls for seven weeks to analyze changes in tax law, write the software code and test it, as well as notify all the tax professionals and others affected," the New York Times reported. But Pelosi and Reid said the IRS should have anticipated what Congress would end up doing. "On October 30, 2007, the bipartisan leadership of the Congressional tax-writing committees wrote to Acting Internal Revenue Service [Director] Linda E. Stiff to notify her that Congress would soon act on our AMT legislation," Pelosi and Reid wrote to Bush on Thursday. "This letter also provided specific details about this legislation so the IRS could prepare to process 2007 returns." The tax-writing committees urged the IRs "to take all steps necessary to plan for changes that would be made by this legislation," Pelosi and Reid said. At a White House press conference on Thursday, President Bush noted that Congress had passed an AMT patch. : But, he added, "unfortunately Congress passed this legislation after a lengthy delay, and the delay is going to add time it takes to process tens of millions of dollars in refunds." Bush said his administration would "work hard to minimize the impact of the congressional delay so that Americans can get their refund checks as soon as possible."

Reid and Pelosi are trying to make the case that the IRS should have anticipated passage of the AMT relief bill. But experience shows that one cannot trust a Democrat controlled Congress to get anything meaningful done. In fact, it is just as likely that the Dems would have changed the rules a second time if the IRS had begun preparations before the bill was passed, just to hand an embarrassment to the Administration.

You can access the article on-line here:

Democrats: IRS Should Have Acted Before We Did
Susan Jones
CNSNews.com
December 21, 2007