This a two-fer ‘Breaking News’ alert. 
First and foremost, our good friend and west coast editor Eowyn has just returned from her vacation. She needs a little time to get caught up, but we should hear from her by Saturday. I wish there was a way to have a ‘Welcome Home’ party on the internet.
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The second report leaves me wanting to thank everyone that drives over 25 miles per day in their Hummer sized SUV.
Global Warming has finally come to the Blue Ridge mountains of NC. Thank you!
Sad but true.
TGIF… Fridays are such great days, especially for those that still have a job. For those others that are just professional slackers, not so much.
Here’s my topic starter for Fridays Open Thread… The next big protest being considered by Tea Party activists is July 4th, with what I think is a big push to have the big-one in Washington DC. So here’s my Q… Do you think July 4th is such a good idea considering the president and all of the scum-bag politicians will be out of DC celebrating the 4th?
| h/t to GiovanniWorld member and all around good guy, The Doktor.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL APRIL 23, 2009 Presidential PoisonHis invitation to indict Bush officials will haunt Obama’s Presidency.Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret.
![[Review & Outlook]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-DN565_oj_1st_E_20090422194158.jpg) AFP/Getty Images
Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama’s victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.
If this analogy seems excessive, consider how Mr. Obama has framed the issue. He has absolved CIA operatives of any legal jeopardy, no doubt because his intelligence advisers told him how damaging that would be to CIA morale when Mr. Obama needs the agency to protect the country. But he has pointedly invited investigations against Republican legal advisers who offered their best advice at the request of CIA officials.
“Your intelligence indicates that there is currently a level of ‘chatter’ equal to that which preceded the September 11 attacks,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, in his August 1, 2002 memo. “In light of the information you believe [detainee Abu] Zubaydah has and the high level of threat you believe now exists, you wish to move the interrogations into what you have described as an ‘increased pressure phase.’”
So the CIA requests a legal review at a moment of heightened danger, the Justice Department obliges with an exceedingly detailed analysis of the law and interrogation practices — and, seven years later, Mr. Obama says only the legal advisers who are no longer in government should be investigated. The political convenience of this distinction for Mr. Obama betrays its basic injustice. And by the way, everyone agrees that senior officials, including President Bush, approved these interrogations. Is this President going to put his predecessor in the dock too?
Mr. Obama seemed to understand the peril of such an exercise when he said, before his inauguration, that he wanted to “look forward” and beyond the antiterror debates of the Bush years. As recently as Sunday, Rahm Emanuel said no prosecutions were contemplated and now is not a time for “anger and retribution.” Two days later the President disavowed his own chief of staff. Yet nothing had changed except that Mr. Obama’s decision last week to release the interrogation memos unleashed a revenge lust on the political left that he refuses to resist.
Just as with the AIG bonuses, he is trying to co-opt his left-wing base by playing to it — only to encourage it more. Within hours of Mr. Obama’s Tuesday comments, Senator Carl Levin piled on with his own accusatory Intelligence Committee report. The demands for a “special counsel” at Justice and a Congressional show trial are louder than ever, and both Europe’s left and the U.N. are signaling their desire to file their own charges against former U.S. officials.
Those officials won’t be the only ones who suffer if all of this goes forward. Congress will face questions about what the Members knew and when, especially Nancy Pelosi when she was on the House Intelligence Committee in 2002. The Speaker now says she remembers hearing about waterboarding, though not that it would actually be used. Does anyone believe that? Porter Goss, her GOP counterpart at the time, says he knew exactly what he was hearing and that, if anything, Ms. Pelosi worried the CIA wasn’t doing enough to stop another attack. By all means, put her under oath.
Mr. Obama may think he can soar above all of this, but he’ll soon learn otherwise. The Beltway’s political energy will focus more on the spectacle of revenge, and less on his agenda. The CIA will have its reputation smeared, and its agents second-guessing themselves. And if there is another terror attack against Americans, Mr. Obama will have set himself up for the argument that his campaign against the Bush policies is partly to blame.
Above all, the exercise will only embitter Republicans, including the moderates and national-security hawks Mr. Obama may need in the next four years. As patriotic officials who acted in good faith are indicted, smeared, impeached from judgeships or stripped of their academic tenure, the partisan anger and backlash will grow. And speaking of which, when will the GOP Members of Congress begin to denounce this partisan scapegoating? Senior Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Richard Lugar, John McCain, Orrin Hatch, Pat Roberts and Arlen Specter have hardly been profiles in courage.
Mr. Obama is more popular than his policies, due in part to his personal charm and his seeming goodwill. By indulging his party’s desire to criminalize policy advice, he has unleashed furies that will haunt his Presidency. |
Exclusive to the Northeast Intelligence Network & Canada Free Press
Douglas J. Hagmann, Director & Judi McLeod, Founding Editor, Canada Free Press
Even as average Americans were planning to get out in towns and cities to demonstrate against Big Government and Big Taxes, Federal Bureau of Intelligence Investigation (FBI) surveillance was being unleashed upon them. In fact, unsuspecting Tax Day TEA Party participants were being closely watched during the demonstration planning stages in a covert operation that began on or about March 23, 2009.
If you one of the estimated 750,000 Americans who attended one of about 600 TEA parties last week, you might have seen media cameras covering the event. Media cameras, however, were not the only cameras taking video at these events, something that has at least one current FBI agent concerned over the future of America. According to this agent – the same agent who provided the Northeast Intelligence Network (NEIN) exclusively the unreleased photographs of the 11 missing Egyptian students who were the subject of a FBI BOLO in August 2006–placed his concerns for true patriots of the U.S. over his own career when he confided that covert surveillance was “planned and performed” at each of the TEA parties that took place last Tuesday.
“Listen to what I am saying,” stated the source during an interview with Doug Hagmann, founder (NEIN). “The Department of Homeland Security Intelligence Assessment that is receiving so much attention is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and the true patriotic citizens of this country are on the Titanic. This is what bothers me. But is goes far beyond that assessment. There have been very significant changes made over the last few years that redirect the focus and assets of the intelligence community internally. These changes have greatly accelerated under this administration, and the threats have been redefined to include those who used to be patriots. It’s not only chilling but absolutely insulting to God-fearing Americans.”
According to this unimpeachable source, a single-page confidential directive issued by the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC (FBIHQ) was sent to each of the 56 field offices located across the United States on or about March 23, 2009, instructing the Special Agents in Charge (SACs) of those offices to verify the date, time and location of each TEA Party within their region and supply that information to FBI headquarters in Washington. The source stated this correspondence termed the TEA parties “political demonstrations,” and added that the dissemination of the directive was very tightly controlled. “Not all agents were privy to this correspondence,” stated the source, who compared the dissemination to an older “Do Not File” classification.
In addition to obtaining or confirming the location and time of each “demonstration,” each field office was instructed to obtain or confirm the identity of the individual(s) involved in the actual planning and coordination of the event in each specific region, and include the local or regional Internet web site address, if any. The information collected by region was then reportedly sent to FBI Headquarters.
The source alleges that a second directive was issued on or about April 6, 2009 that reportedly instructed each SAC to coordinate and conduct, either at the field office level and/or with the appropriate resident agency, covert video surveillance and data collection of the participants of the TEA parties. Surveillance was to be performed from “discreet fixed or mobile positions” and was to be performed “independently and outside of the purview of local law enforcement.”
Although the level of detail collected from each operation is unclear, the information was reportedly submitted to Washington, where, “at the level of the National Security Branch (NSB), this information was to “include the office of the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), and integrated with a restricted access database, one that reportedly is accessible to only two agencies” [of the 14 agencies that comprise the U.S. intelligence community, according to the source.
“The implications to the citizens of the U.S. are ominous. It seems that there is a hostile political agenda coming from Washington that characterizes the supporters of our constitutional freedoms as threats to our domestic security, which is totally absurd. The redirection, the refocusing of domestic threats from al Qaeda cells to ‘flag waving right-wingers’ is something that has gone from a murmur a few years ago to a roar today.”
Training government-issued cameras on ordinary citizens, many of whom brought their children to an estimated 600 Tax Day TEA Parties is a page torn out of George Orwell’s 1984 and makes the term “God Bless America” more meaningful than ever.
The Northeast Intelligence Network and Canada Free Press expect the government’s denial of the surveillance of the TEA Parties to go viral as soon as this story is posted.
What a bunch of crap!
Personally, I have never put much stock in polling and for an obvious, but very simple reason. People in the know, will say that polls can be skewed and manipulated easily by a variety of methods and you can even get Mathematicians to explain away reasons why they cannot be trusted, but as I said, the reasons are very, very simple. Let’s just say it has something to do with stupidity. Let me explain… The majority of people in the USA still get their news from Main Stream Media (the old media), which in turn means they are getting biased news everytime they read the Paper, turn on the TV, and even on the Radio. Here is where the stupid part comes in. People are human, and if the MSM continues to give them bad info, they are going to believe bad info. Then when they get polled, they give bad answers based entirely on what they were told by the biased MSM. What really pains my heart is… the majority of these people have no idea that they are stupid, and it’s really not their fault.
Anyway, check out this poll and you will understand why I smell a rat!
Gio-
AP Poll: Americans high on Obama, direction of US
By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press Writers Ron Fournier And Trevor Tompson, Associated Press Writers – Thu Apr 23, 9:07 am ET
WASHINGTON – For the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is headed in the right direction, a sign that Barack Obama has used the first 100 days of his presidency to lift the public’s mood and inspire hopes for a brighter future.
Intensely worried about their personal finances and medical expenses, Americans nonetheless appear realistic about the time Obama might need to turn things around, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. It shows most Americans consider their new president to be a strong, ethical and empathetic leader who is working to change Washington.
Nobody knows how long the honeymoon will last, but Obama has clearly transformed the yes-we-can spirit of his candidacy into a tool of governance. His ability to inspire confidence — Obama’s second book is titled “The Audacity of Hope” — has thus far buffered the president against the harsh political realities of two wars, a global economic meltdown and countless domestic challenges.
“He presents a very positive outlook,” said Cheryl Wetherington, 35, an independent voter who runs a chocolate shop in Gardner, Kan. “He’s very well-spoken and very vocal about what direction should be taken.”
But other AP-GfK findings could signal trouble for Obama as he approaches his 100th day in office, April 29:
_While there is evidence that people feel more optimistic about the economy, 65 percent said it’s difficult for them and their families to get ahead. More than one-third know of a family member who recently lost a job.
_More than 90 percent of Americans consider the economy an important issue, the highest ever in AP polling.
_Nearly 80 percent believe that the rising federal debt will hurt future generations, and Obama is getting mixed reviews at best for his handling of the issue.
And yet, the percentage of Americans saying the country is headed in the right direction rose to 48 percent, up from 40 percent in February. Forty-four percent say the nation is on the wrong track.
Not since January 2004, shortly after the capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, has an AP survey found more “right direction” than “wrong direction” respondents.
So far, Obama has defied the odds by producing a sustained trend toward optimism. It began with his election.
But he is aware that his political prospects are directly linked to such numbers. If at the end of his term the public is no more assured that Washington is competent and accountable and that the nation is at least on the right track, his re-election prospects will be doubtful.
“I will be held accountable,” Obama said a few weeks into his presidency. “You know, I’ve got four years. … If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”
The AP-GfK poll suggests that 64 percent of the public approves of Obama’s job performance, down just slightly from 67 percent in February. President George W. Bush’s approval ratings hovered in the high 50s after his first 100 days in office.
But Obama also has become a somewhat polarizing figure, with just 24 percent of Republicans approving of his performance — down from 33 percent in February. Obama campaigned on a promise — just as Bush had — to end the party-first mind-set that breeds gridlock in Washington.
Obama is not the first president who sought to tap the deep well of American optimism — the never-say-die spirit that Americans like to see in themselves.
Even as he briefly closed the nation’s banks, Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke in the first days of his presidency of the “confidence and courage” needed to fix the U.S. economy. “Together we cannot fail,” he declared.
“When Obama came in,” said D.T. Brown, 39, a Mount Vernon, Ill., radio show host who voted against Obama, “it was just a breath of fresh air.”
Others said their newfound optimism had nothing to do with Obama, but rather with an era of personal responsibility they believe has come with the economic meltdown.
“I think people are beginning to turn in that direction and realize that there’s not always going to be somebody to catch them when things fall down,” said Dwight Hageman, 66, a retired welder from Newberg, Ore., who voted against Obama.
The AP-GfK Poll was conducted April 16-20 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. It involved telephone interviews on landline and cell phones with 1,000 adults nationwide. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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Associated Press News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius and AP writer Christine Simmons contributed to this report.
I picked this little nugget from a post on another blog. How many times are we going to have to tell people that… “we told you so”?
Gio-
HR45 Gun Licensing Bill
Very Important for you to be aware of a new bill HR 45 introduced into the House.
This is the Blair Holt Firearm Licensing & Record of Sale Act of 2009.
We just learned yesterday about this on the Peter Boyles radio program. Even gun shop owners didn’t know about this because it is flying under the radar.
To find out about this go to any government website and type in HR 45 or Google HR 45 Blair Holt Firearm Licensing & Record of Sales Act of 2009. You will get all the information. Basically this would make it illegal to own a firearm – Any rifle with a clip or ANY pistol unless:
It is registered.
You are fingerprinted.
You supply a current Driver’s License.
You supply your Social Security #.
You will submit to a physical & mental evaluation at any time of their choosing.
Each update – change or ownership through private or public sale must be reported and costs $25. Failure to do so you automatically lose the right to own a firearm and are subject up to a year in jail. There is a child provision clause on page 16 section 305 stating a child-access provision. Gun must be locked and inaccessible to any child under 18. The Government would have the right to come and inspect that you are storing your gun safely away from accessibility to children and fine is punishable for up to 5 years in prison.
If you think this is a joke – go to the website and take your pick of many options to read this …
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h45/text
It is long and lengthy. But, more and more people are becoming aware of this. Pass the word along.
FAILURE TO DO SO AT YOUR PERIL!
Any hunters in your family – pass this along. Peter Boyles is on this and having guests. Listen to him on KHOW 630 a.m. in the morning. He suggests the best way to fight this is to tell all your friends about it and “spring into action”. Also he suggests we all join a pro-gun group like the Colorado Rifle Association, hunting associations, gun clubs and especially the NRA.
This is just a “termite” approach to complete confiscation of guns and disarming of our society to the point we have no defense – chip away a little here and there until the goal is accomplished before anyone realizes it.
This is one to act on whether you own a gun or not.
The Second Amendment America’s original homeland security.
For todays Open Thread I want to start out by asking a question…. Do you think if Obama makes a move to push some sort of Amnesty program for illegals that ‘we the people’ will be able to stop him?
And if you don’t want to take a crack at that question, that’s ok too. Rant until your finger-tips hurt!
Gio-
Amazing what people are willing to do when they are trying to protect their wanna-be Marxist dictator.
ACORN will become just another arm of the Obama Security Detail. If you live in the inner-city, and you say or do anything that is negative in any way, I predict ACORN will pay you a visit.
Gio-
■An Oklahoma City police officer stopped Chip Harrison and confiscated a sign on Harrison’s vehicle that read, “Abort Obama, not the unborn.” A police captain later apologized and returned the sign to Harrison, but before Harrison got home he received a call from Secret Service agents who were at his home requesting to search it. Harrison complied, and after a search and an interview that lasted about 30 minutes, the agents left.
■Numerous congressmen are calling for re-institution of the “Fairness Doctrine”, a long-abolished policy that would require broadcasters to provide opposing viewpoints on controversial issues, in an effort to stifle talk radio pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz and Sean Hannity.
■During the presidential campaign President Barack Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer warned TV stations against airing a TV ad that was embarrassing to Barack Obama. The commercial focused on the longtime relationship between Obama and Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Bauer sent letters to the Justice Department imploring the agency to pursue criminal action against those behind the ads.
■The Obama campaign also sent out an email encouraging his supporters to protest and harass Chicago radio station WGN by flooding the station with angry phone calls and emails. Activists screamed insults to call-in screeners. Why? The station had the temerity to interview Ethics and Public Policy Center watchdog Stanley Kurtz, who had uncovered university records that documented a much closer relationship between Obama and Ayers than the presidential candidate had previously disclosed.
■After Joe “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher achieved fame for his innocuous question that prompted Obama to admit he wanted “to spread the wealth around”, his tax records, voter registration, marital history and professional licensing records were searched and media members tried to slime him.
■Obama supporters in Missouri, who happened to be law enforcement officers, responded to an Obama campaign request that they form a truth squad. They threatened to prosecute anyone, including media outlets, that printed or broadcasted material they deemed to be inaccurate about Obama.
■Obama contributors in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights section (headed by $2,000 Obama donor and former ACLU attorney Mark Kappelhof) urged preemptive prosecution of individuals the Obama campaign believed might disrupt the November election. A cited example of anticipated disruption was to send mailings of a non-violent nature addressing voting issues unfavorable to Obama.
■In the final days of the campaign, three newspapers that had endorsed McCain were booted from the Obama campaign bus. The New York Post, Dallas Morning News and Washington Times were removed, according to Obama campaign officials, to make room for more important media outlets: Jet and Ebony entertainment magazines.
■An Iowa state trooper was suspended after forwarding an email showing mug shots of people wearing Obama t-shirts. Sgt. Rodney Hicok was at home and off-duty when he forwarded the emails which made disparaging remarks about 15 people in the photos and referred to Obama as having “quite a fan base.”
First Steps Taken Toward Socialism
http://www.personalliberty.com/bob-livingston/first-steps-taken-toward-socialism/
I get daily updates from William/NC State Director to all members of North Carolinians for the Preservation of the Constitution on The Patriotic Resistance! This particular one is troubling, very troubling.
Here’s what it said…
I recently got this in an email and just finished watching it. It is so strong that I felt compelled to share it with the group. If you have almost an hour to spare please take the time to watch this video. Just copy and paste the url into your browser. I will warn you that there are some graphic pictures and footage.
(Innocents Betrayed: History of Gun Control) POWERFUL!!!!
A complete history of government gun control. The most important documentary ever.Every time a government attempts any form of gun control, the people without the guns suffer. Without exception!
As he mentions, it takes almost an hour of your time to get through the video, but it’s worth the time so watch it. And as I mentioned, the video is very troubling. I find it troubling because I know the history of the millions of people that had their right to defend themselves taken away either by appeasement, politics, or force. And it’s troubling because I can see the same thing happening here in the USA if we rely on the government to do the right thing. We, as a free people, will have to be hyper-vigilant because we cannot trust our president, and the government he is running, to do the right thing.
Just think about these words that open the video… “Self defense is against the law” it should scare the hell out of you, it does me. Here’s my nightmare… The wife and I get to bed about Midnight and all is quiet in the house. Our granddaughter is tucked-in for the night along with all of our dogs. Everything is quiet and peaceful. We wake around 3:00 am because of screaming. I immediately recognize the scream being my granddaughter so I grab my 357 mag, run down the hall, bust open her bedroom door and see a strange man stradling her on the bed, with a large knife to her throat. I take aim and shoot. He slumps over and my granddaughter screams. She’s safe, but upset.
Now use the term “Self defense is against the law” and work through some of the possibilities. Here’s just one… Let’s say that the law had already been put into place, and I owned the gun illegally. I kill a strange man that broke into my home at three in the morning and was in the process of trying to rape and possibly kill my granddaughter. I broke the law, by defending my granddaughter so I get charged with Murder. Then his family of crack-heads take me to civil court and sues me. He wins a big-time settlement and wipes out whatever we had left after paying my Defense Attorneys over the murder charges. So in the end, I get 26 years, and my wife and granddaughter get thrown out into the street without a penny.
That scenario was on a personal level as far as self defense is concerned. What about protecting my fellow countrymen/woman, citizens, and neighbors from tyranny? “Self defense is against the law” is the perfect way for government to make sure they always keep a boot on our necks so we comply with all their demands.
I hope you now realize that I’m not being over dramatic when I titled this piece… “Defend The 2nd Amendment With Your Life”. If giving our life to protect the 2nd amendment is what it takes, then so be it. If we don’t protect it, we as a free people, and as a free nation, lose everything!
But of course, that’s just my opinion.
Gio-
Perusing another blog while doing some research, I found a guy that explains in very good detail, how Texas could survive, and survive nicely, if they decide to secede from the rest of the USA. The only drawback for me is… dang it get’s hot in Texas! Other than that, it sounds like heaven…
Gio-
Yes we’re headed towards socialism and I’m not sure what the rest of the country might do but the folks here in Texas are developing a plan …………..
THE UNITED STATE of TEXAS
In case things get a little tough during the next few months/years we Texans have a plan…Maybe you don’t know it, but Texas is the only state with a legal right to secede from the Union. (Reference the Texas-American Annexation Treaty of 1848.)
We Texans love y’all other Americans, but we’ll probably have to take action since Barack Obama won the election and is now the President of the U.S.A., and has already started doing the stupid s#!+ that we predicted. …..We’ll miss ya’ll though ! ! !
Here is what is gonn’a happen:
Barack Hussein Obama, after becoming the 1st Black President of the United States, begins to try and create a socialist country, (along with a bunch of other stupid s#!+) then Texas announces that it is going to secede from the Union.
George W. Bush becomes the President of the Republic of Texas… You might not think that he talks too pretty, but we haven’t had another terrorist attack and the economy was just fine until the effects of the Democrats lowering the qualifications for home loans came to roost ! ! ! ….And Governor Rick Perry becomes V. P. (Ya might not think that Rick is too great either but just look at what he’s done in the past couple of weeks. ….The man has grown a BIG set of BRASS ONES ! ! !) and Chuck Norris becomes head of the Texas Rangers. (The elite police force, not the baseball team) And finally, Ted Nugent becomes the head of the Parks and Wildlife Department and also heads up the Texas Home-Land Security Department & Border Patrol. ….So what does Texas have to do to survive as a Republic ? ? ?
NASA is just south of Houston, Texas. We will control the space industry.
We refine over 85% of the gasoline for the United States, right here in Texas.
Defense Industry–we have over 65% of it. The term “Don’t mess with Texas,” will take on a whole new meaning.
Oil – we can supply all the oil that the Republic of Texas will need for the next 400 years. …What will the other states do ? ? ? Hell, we don’t know. ….Why not ask Obama ? ? ?
Natural Gas – Again, we have all we need and it’s too bad about those Northern States. John Kerry and Al Gore will just have to figure out a way to keep from freezing their asses off if/when they need natural gas …
Computer Industry – We lead the nation in producing computer chips and communications equipment – small companies like Texas Instruments, Dell Computer, EDS, Raytheon, National Semiconductor, Motorola, Intel, AMD, Atmel, Applied Materials, Ball Misconduct, Dallas Semiconductor, Nortel, Alcatel, etc. The list goes on and on….
Medical Care – We have the research centers for cancer research, the best burn centers and the top trauma units in the world, as well as other large health centers. The Houston Medical Center alone employees over 65,000 people.
We have enough colleges to keep educating and making smarter citizens: University of Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Texas Christian, Rice, SMU, University of Dallas, University of Houston , Baylor, UNT (University of NorthTexas ), Texas Women’s University, Lamar U., etc. …Ivy grows better in the South anyway..
We have an intelligent and energetic work force and it isn’t restricted by a bunch of unions. Here in Texas, we are a Right to Work State and, therefore, it’s every man and woman for themselves. We just go out and get the job done. And if we don’t like the way one company operates, we simply get a frigg’n job somewhere else.
We have essential control of the paper, plastics, and insurance industries, etc.
In case of a foreign invasion, we have the Texas National Guard, the Texas Air National Guard, and several military bases. We don’t have an Army, but since everybody down here has at least six rifles, three handguns, a shotgun or two and a boat load of ammo, we can raise an Army in 24 hours if we need one. If the situation really gets bad, we can always call the Department of Public Safety and ask them to send over Chuck Norris and the Texas Rangers. ….As for all the illegal Mexicans coming into Texas, Ted Nugent, who will be in charge of Parks and Wildlife, and the Texas Border Patrol will propably open a hunting season on all illegals. I would think Ol’ Ted would open season on say, Cinco de Mayo and have it end April 1st every year with no daily limit and no bag limit ! ! ! During the 34 days that the general season was closed, we would probably be allowed to bow hunt or hunt with other premative weapons.
We are totally self-sufficient in beef, poultry, hogs, and several types of grain, fruit and vegetables, and let’s not forget seafood from the Gulf. Also, everybody down here knows how to cook them so that they taste really good. …We don’t need any frigg’n food from anywhere else.
Three of the ten largest cities in the United States, and twenty-three of the 100 largest cities in the United States are located in Texas. And Texas also has more land than California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Vermont combined.
Trade – Three of the ten largest ports in the United States are located in Texas and we also have international airports.
We also manufacture cars down here, but we don’t need to. You see, nothing rusts in Texas (unless ya live on the coast) so our vehicles stay beautiful and run well for decades.This just names a FEW of the items that will keep the Republic of Texas in good shape. There isn’t a thing out there that we need and don’t already have ! ! !
Now to the rest of you folks in the United States under President Obama:
Since you won’t have the refineries to get gas for your cars, only President Obama will be able to drive around in his big 9 mpg CADDY – 1. The rest of the United States will have to walk or ride bikes.
You won’t have any TV as the Space Center in Houston will cut off satellite communications. ….We’ll still have Ted Nugent, Willie Nelson and Chuck Norris, just to name just a few, to entertain us.
You won’t have any natural gas to heat your homes, but since Mr.. Obama has predicted global warming, you will not need the gas as long as you survive the 2000 years it will take to get enough heat from all the frigg’n Global Warming.
In other words, the rest of ya’ll in the USA are screwed ! ! !
Signed,
Dave ….
Another Small Town,
Religious Cling’n,
Gun Toke’n,
CONSERVATIVE ,
GOD BLESSED Texan ! ! !
P.S. This is not a threatening letter – just a note to give you something to think about ! ! ! …Sleep well tonight ’cause the eyes of Texas are upon YOU!!“Life’s tough. It’s even tougher when you’re stupid.” ~ John Wayne
Good news everyone… today is hump day!
All topics are on the table.
Anyone find that recipe for Speedies yet?
Gio-
I love what I do!
Giovanni’s World is looking for some help.
Judging from the reaction I got from my first try at this, I think the only thing I was clear about was my very first sentence. (See above)
UPDATE 4-28-2009 After reading the words below (in blue), I am withdrawing my request for help on this project. My thanks to all that contacted me wanting to help.
“Nationalizing” the movement or trying to assign a single group the task of representing those involved, while a noble goal, will ultimately fail. The movement is too big.
If you try to “define” the movement it will only disenfranchise a large portion of it who disagree with your definition… it is because of the nature of the movement it must be allowed to remain organic.
New groups must be allowed to form and existing groups need to be supported for continued growth, groups must be able to work together to achieve more faster, it is time for a coalition…
Second edit in the color red.
Shortly after the protests on April 15th 2009, I posted a piece here on the blog tititled “Time To Organize”. I posted it because I realized that people are going to have to gather together under one tent if we are to make a difference and take our country back. The real problem is…. there are already quite a few organizations that have popped-up that want to be the tent (organization) to gather under.
In order for us to be effective, we need to build on the protests of April 15th. We must apply constant, consistent, unrelenting pressure to the slugs in Congress and our dangerous president. Applying this pressure is the only way that we can affect change in the direction that our country is headed. So with this in mind…
Here’s what I want to do, and why I need some help. I want to take a piece of Giovanni’s World Blog and dedicate it solely for the purpose of consolidating info concerning future protests, Tea Parties, and actions taken on behalf of the real United States of America, not the USA that the left has in mind. And this is where I need the help. Actually, Eowyn (who’s on vacation) and myself have already discussed this and both agree to asking for more help. People that run a fairly active blog will know that it’s not as simple as some might think. Even running this blog takes quite a bit of my time, but I do it for two reasons… One, I talk too much. Two, I want to be able to communicate with others around the country that think like I do, and love traditional America and the Constitution that we live by. Three, (yeah I know I said two, sue me) I am willing to fight for my country to keep it out of the hands of Commie loving elitists.
So with that said, we need people to volunteer* to help gather links and info. We will then try our best to build catagories for the links/info so people around the country can come to this one spot to find the info they need to either join or become a part of an organization. The idea is to gather all the sites in one spot so people can make their best judgement as to which they want to belong to. The idea is to help guide people to just one, possibly two orgs whereby we can gather as one or twoVERY LARGE force/s. This will be the only way we could ever dream of a million of us marching on DC to let those in power know that ‘we ain’t buyin’ what they are selling’.
If all that is confusing to you, I apologize, but for those of you that ‘get it’ you know what I’m trying to accomplish.
All you need to do is contact me here giovanni.faga@yahoo.com if you would like to help out. Together we can help in our own way Take Back Our Country!
* If this was a commercial site I would not insult anyone by asking them to volunteer, but considering this site is completely time volunteered and donated, there is no way we could pay people to help. Besides, I don’t want to be like ACORN where they have to pay people to undermine the government.
Gio-
h/t to Giovanni’sWorld member Steve.
If this does happen as stated below, I can see the future as far as who get’s to publish on the net and who doesn’t… Radical Islamic sites that recruit people to attack the Great Satan (USA) will be left alone, but I guaran-damn-tee that a blog like mine will be shut down!
Gio-
On April 1st of this year, Senators Rockefeller, Snowe, Bayh and Nelson introduced bills S. 773 and S.778, collectively called the Cybersecurity Act, which would give President Obama dictatorial power over the Internet during a time of national crisis or emergency.
All of the bills’ sponsors voted for the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that prohibited organizations and individuals from running advocacy ads against candidates 60 days in advance of a general election. Now it seems these same people have conjured up a gag order for the Internet.
According to the current drafts, under the Cyber Security Act of 2009 the President may “declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shut down of Internet traffic to and from any comprised federal government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network”. He may also “order the disconnection of any Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks in the interest of national security.”
What constitutes “cybersecurity emergency” or “critical infrastructure information system or network” is left completely up to the President to define. We know that the Administration, according to Rahm Emanuel, never wants “a serious crisis to go to waste”. We also know the Administration supports the regulation of free speech on the Internet.
President Obama’s choice to lead the powerful Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is none other than Cass Sunstein, a radical Harvard law professor and supporter of the Fairness Doctrine for the Internet. According to Sunstein, “A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government.”
Obama campaign fundraiser and FCC Chair nominee, Julius Genachowski, is a supporter of “Net neutrality“, the first step in applying the Fairness Doctrine to the Internet.
“Net neutrality” proponents like Genachowski would have government decide what content Internet operators and network owners must provide. Incredibly, they claim this is to keep the Internet free and open to all, when in reality, their goal is to usher the heavy hands of federal regulators into the tent.
Stifling any venue where ideology competes with left-wing mainstream media has always been a goal of the left and Obama. Obama has just been more evasive in his means by supporting policies such as “net neutrality” and wobbling on the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine to talk radio. Liberal members of Congress are now set on sending America on an unconstitutional b-line away from Uncle Sam and directly to Big Brother.
The Cybersecurity Act is also includes a provision where “The Department of Commerce shall serve as the clearinghouse of cybersecuirty threat and vulnerability information to the Federal Government and private sector owned (emphasis mine) critical infrastructure information systems and networks.” Shelving all privacy laws including the requirement for warrants, the Secretary of Commerce “shall have access to all relevant data concerning such networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access.” Senator Rockefeller made it clear in his statement what “relevant data” this act could include when he stated “We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs – from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records – the list goes on.”
While we have worried about cyber attacks from Russia and China, who would have thought the greatest threat would come from members of our own Congress.
By Brad O’Leary
Open Threads can be both wonderful and dangerous, because you never know what people have on their minds.
While I have people’s attention… does anyone know the recipe to make the Marinade for Speedies? Those of you in NY State will know what I’m talking about!
An awful lot of negative stuff has been written about our former Vice-President, but you will never hear a bad word from me directed towards the most underrated VP’s in our Nations history.
For a prime example of what I’m talking about, here’s his interview with Hannity on Monday night…
You da man!
By | Monday, April 20, 2009
The “liar, liar pants on fire” argument usually isn’t the most effective. But when it comes to guns, President Obama is lying through his teeth.
On Thursday, while on a visit to Mexico, the president continued his Blame America First tour. “This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States,” he said, referring to the drug wars that are tearing apart our neighbor to the south. “More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that lay in our shared border.”
It is completely untrue that 90 percent of guns recovered in Mexico are from America. The Mexican government separates guns it confiscates that were made in the United States and sends them here to be traced. U.S. weapons are easy to identify because of clear markings.
Of the ones sent here to be traced, 90 percent turn out to be from America, but most guns recovered in Mexico are not sent here so are not included in the count. Fox News reported that 17 percent is a more accurate number.
Democrats aren’t alone in repeating phony gun statistics. The New York Times, CNN and numerous networks continue to repeat the 90 percent figure with no reporting to back it up. The hysteria is used to create the notion that a major problem exists with American guns – and Mr. Obama is anxious to step in to solve that problem with a $400 million program to stop U.S. guns from going to Mexico. That initiative would include clampdowns on U.S. gun shops.
It is ridiculous for Mr. Obama to blame Mexico’s lawlessness on Americans as if the longstanding corruption of Mexican elected officials, judges and law-enforcement officers has nothing to do with it.
One of the root causes of corruption is low pay. Mexican police earn $460 a month, sometimes less, which makes bribes hard to resist. There are about 350,000 policemen in Mexico. The $400 million Mr. Obama has promised for his anti-gun program could raise the annual salary of every Mexican cop by $1,143, a 21 percent increase. But the president wouldn’t be interested in that because his real agenda is to pursue gun control here at home.
“This is about hating a black man. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks,”the liberal comedian and actress Janeane Garofalo said to Keith Olberman…
An Open Letter To Janeane Garofalo
Miss Garofalo,
You will notice that the Header I used for this piece is titled incorrectly, as any full blooded American Redneck would surely point out to you. Why? Because calling you a Redneck is an absolute insult to all Rednecks in America.
I’m going to try and make it up to you by giving you an education, you ignorant slut. First of all, everyone with half a working brain cell knows that our president is NOT a black man. Because he is half white/half black, technically he should be refered to as a mulatto, and all self-loathing ignorant sluts should remember this the next time you want to go on a racist rant.
On with your education, you ignorant slut. When you throw out such a disparaging word as “racism” to define a group of people, without any facts or knowledge to back up the claim, it is then youthat has become the “Racist”. Because of your stupidity, you have shown yourself to belong to a group known as ‘White trash”, you ignorant slut.
If you had gone to any of the Tea Party protests you would have witnessed for yourself the kind of people that were protesting. I did go, and I have conversed with people all over the country that went also. The one thing we all have in common is our love for our country, and our deep disgust with our present Government. We also share other traits such as… hard working, tax paying, law abiding, peaceful, God loving, patriotic citizens with the same right to protest as do those of you on the left.
To round out your education, you ignorant slut, you need to know the real reason why people do NOT like our president. It’s his policies, stupid! NOT his color!
This ends your education for today. For continuing your education on a daily basis, I suggest you listen to Rush Limbaugh with your Communist dirt-bag friends….. you ignorant slut.
Peace!
Gio-
Here’s your chance people, fire away…
UPDATE: When I wrote the piece below, I honestly had no idea that today is a day of Pot worship… “April 20 is “National Pot Smoking Day.” It’s a day where people across the world celebrate in the conspicuous consumption of the magical herb, marijuana. It’s an unofficial counterculture holiday that is based on the simple concept of smoking some cannabis and being happy.
The history of its origin is somewhat cloudy. I found some interesting theories into the beginning of this toker’s holiday. The most convincing account was recorded in the San Francisco Chronicle.
San Fransisco… figures!
Gio-
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I’m going to breach a subject that will get some people very mad, and make other people want to stand up and cheer.
Children caught in the cross-fire of the Drug Wars on our own border.
Below you can read a story that came out Saturday, about how the Drug wars on our Southern border has finally spilled over into the USA. It’s a very long and sad story. Just the title should get your attention… “Grisly slayings brings Mexican drug war to US”, but I want you to keep in mind that this story is not exactly what I’m posting about. I’m pissed off at the reasons for the Drug Wars more than I am pissed off at the wars themselves. Let me explain…
Here’s the part that won’t be all that popular. When people blame the United States for the drug problem in our country, I tend to agree. That’s not to say that I condone it, I just happen to agree, to a point.
So to all my friends that want to legalize certain drugs, I say… No and hell no! In fact, I want to go one step further.
I’m here to blame liberal ideology, politics, and culture, in the USA for spreading this disease upon our once great nation. We are in the fix that we are in because of LIBERALS! Then there are the Libertarians that end up encouraging liberal ideals by agreeing with them that certain drugs should be legalized. Libertarians will NEVER win me over with any arguments concerning legalization. We have a huge Drug problem in this country because we have a huge culture problem in this country, and the only way to apply the brakes on the drug trade in this country is to change the culture.
I saw this liberal/drug culture get it’s roots firmly planted in the late 60′s when it was considered recreational fun to sit around and do mind blowing drugs. And it seems that every decade since the 60′s, the problem has just gotten worse. Sure drugs have been around for a long time, and there were always people doing them, but they were always small in numbers. Kind of like an underground drug club. Now the problem is so bad that we have many in this country that want to throw their hands up in the air and say <i>”screw-it, let’s just legalize it and collect taxes on the stuff”</i>. I know that’s a straw man argument, but you know, and I know, it’s true.
So now the obvious questions are ‘how did we get here’ and ‘what do we do about it’?
The ‘how did we get here’ question, is the question that grates on me the most. It grates on me because very few people are willing to admit how we got here, yet they know damn well how it happened. Whether it was un-intended consequences, or a planned conspiracy by some of our enemies I cannot say for sure, but I do know this… the consequences have been terrifying and brutal. Ok, back to the 60′s… Even back in the early 60′s we know that our enemies were promoting a number of initiatives that has helped the Drug problem become what it is today. The idea was to manipulate and de-moralize Americans by using what was called “The 45 Communist Goals for America”. Here’s just a few goals that go hand-in-hand with the taking of illegal drugs…
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion.
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.”
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
The 60′s were easily the start of the downward slope, in our moral, and social decline. Then we had what some dim-wits have termed as ‘enlightenment’ when society announced at the tail end of the 1960′s that “anything goes”, or “if it feels good do it”, or “make love not war”, or “I get high with a little help from my friends” and on it went. Drugs were spreading like crazy because the new liberal culture said it was Ok and ‘cool’ to get high.
One other item of note that happened in that period has also caused a great deal of harm to our Drug induced society is…
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
[Because this one post could become a Novel sized piece, I'm going to wrap it up soon.]
Since the drug culture got rooted in the Liberal ideology of ‘anything goes’, things have gone down-hill in a very sad way for America. As the Liberal/Progressive/Marxist movement looked for a leader (Obama), the drug problem in the USA only got worse. And it’s not a knock on Law-Enforcement to point this out, in fact, Law Enforcement has been the ONLY thing that has kept the problem from being even worse than it is (if that’s even imaginable).
We basically know the why and the when it got started, and we could write for days about how Liberal ideology has destroyed the moral compass of our nation, but now we have to figure out ‘how to stop it’. I say… we must reverse the Liberal culture in America. In the meantime, we must support the efforts of Law Enforcement agencies until the culture is once again on a path of morality and character. I’m going to pray that we as a nation can hold on long enough to see the ‘anything goes’ culture gutted and purged from our society!
Gio-
Grisly slayings brings Mexican drug war to US
By PAULINE ARRILLAGA, AP National Writer Pauline Arrillaga, Ap National Writer – 29 mins ago
COLUMBIANA, Ala. – Five men dead in an apartment. In a county that might see five homicides in an entire year, the call over the sheriff’s radio revealed little about what awaited law enforcement at a sprawling apartment complex.
A type of crime, and criminal, once foreign to this landscape of blooming dogwoods had arrived in Shelby County. Sheriff Chris Curry felt it even before he laid eyes on the grisly scene. He called the state. The FBI. The DEA. Anyone he could think of.
“I don’t know what I’ve got,” he warned them. “But I’m gonna need help.”
The five dead men lay scattered about the living room of one apartment in a complex of hundreds.
Some of the men showed signs of torture: Burns seared into their earlobes revealed where modified jumper cables had been clamped as an improvised electrocution device. Adhesive from duct tape used to bind the victims still clung to wrists and faces, from mouths to noses.
As a final touch, throats were slashed open, post-mortem.
It didn’t take long for Curry and federal agents to piece together clues: A murder scene, clean save for the crimson-turned-brown stains now spotting the carpet. Just a couple of mattresses tossed on the floor. It was a typical stash house.
But the cut throats? Some sort of ghastly warning.
Curry would soon find this was a retaliation hit over drug money with ties to Mexico’s notorious Gulf Cartel.
Curry also found out firsthand what federal drug enforcement agents have long understood. The drug war, with the savagery it brings, knows no bounds. It had landed in his back yard, in the foothills of the Appalachians, in Alabama’s wealthiest county, around the corner from The Home Depot.
One thousand, twenty-four miles from the Mexico border.
___
Forget for a moment the phrase itself — “War on Drugs” — much-derided since President Richard Nixon coined it. Wars eventually end, after all. And many Americans wonder today, nearly four decades later, will this one ever be won?
In Mexico, the fight has become a real war. Some 45,000 Mexican army troops now patrol territories long ruled by narcotraffickers. Places like Tijuana, in the border state of Baja California. Reynosa, across the Rio Grande from Texas. Ciudad Juarez, next door to El Paso. But also the central state of Michoacan and resort cities like Acapulco, an hour south of the place where, months ago, the decapitated bodies of 12 soldiers were discovered with a sign that read:
“For every one of mine that you kill, I will kill 10.”
Some 10,560 people have been killed since 2006, the year Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office and launched his campaign against the organized crime gangs that move cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana and heroin to a vast U.S. market. Consider that fewer than 4,300 American service members have died in the six-year war in Iraq.
The cartels are fighting each other for power, and the Calderon administration for their very survival. Never before has a Mexican president gone after these narco-networks with such force.
“He has deployed troops. He has deployed national police. He’s trying to vet and create units … that can effectively adjudicate and turn back the years of corruption,” says John Walters, who directed the Office of National Drug Control Policy for seven years under President George W. Bush. “These groups got more powerful, and when there was less visible destruction, it was because they were in control; they were stable. Now, he has destabilized them.”
Walters sees this as an “opportunity to change — for better, or worse — the history of our two countries fundamentally.”
And now the cartels have brought the fight to us: In 230 U.S. cities, the Mexican organizations maintain distribution hubs or supply drugs to local distributors, according to the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center.
Places like Miami and other longtime transportation points along the California, Arizona and Texas borders. But also Twin Falls, Idaho. Billings, Mont. Wichita, Kan. Phoenix. St. Louis. Milwaukee.
Even Shelby County.
The quintuple homicide occurred just outside the Birmingham city limits and a half-hour’s drive north of Columbiana, the county seat.
“We became a hub without knowing it,” Sheriff Curry says. “We’ve got to wake people up because we’re seeing it all over the place. It is now firmly located throughout this country.”
The talk of the day is “spillover” violence — at once the stuff of sensationalism but also a very real concept.
In Phoenix, the nation’s fifth-largest city, police report close to 1,000 kidnappings over the past three years tied to border smuggling, be it human or drugs or both. The rise parallels a shift in illegal immigrant crossings from California and Texas to the Arizona border, where many of the same gangs transporting people transport drugs. The perpetrators are often after ransom money, for a drug load lost or from a family that paid to have a relative brought over.
The problem has earned the city the unfortunate distinction of “America’s kidnapping capital” in some media accounts, even though the incidents are mostly out of sight and out of mind for law-abiding residents and overall crime, including homicides, was down last year.
In Atlanta, which has grown into a major distribution hub for the Gulf Cartel, trafficker-on-trafficker violence has become more common as the cartels, in the face of Calderon’s crackdown, impose tighter payment schedules and grow less tolerant of extending credit, says Rodney Benson, chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration there.
Benson blames that, in part, for the much-publicized kidnapping last summer in the middle-class Atlanta suburb of Lilburn, not far from Stone Mountain Park. Acting on a tip, agents found a Dominican man chained to a wall in the basement of a house, severely dehydrated and badly beaten. He had been lured from Rhode Island because he apparently owed $300,000 in drug debts.
“Money wasn’t paid,” Benson says. “They were going to kill him.”
Greg Borland heads the DEA office in Birmingham. Since the murders last August, he’s seen the fear in his neighbors’ eyes, and faced their questions: How did this happen? Why here? Why now?
“They’re absolutely shocked. To me it’s like: Why? It’s everywhere. Unless you have a 50-foot wall around your town, no one should feel immune from this. The citizen in me says, `I can’t believe this is happening in my town.’ But the cop in me says, `Well, it’s only a matter of time’ … because there are high-level drug traffickers in the area.
“Maybe,” he says, “it was only by the grace of God that it hadn’t happened already.”
Those in the know understand that this kind of violence is nothing new. In border communities that have long been trafficking hubs it’s uncommon not to hear of a drug-related crime on the evening news.
What’s new is where that violence is erupting, where distribution cells and hubs and sub-hubs have surfaced. How an apartment in Alabama became the site of a drug hit in many ways tells the story of the narco-trade in America in 2009, and of the challenges we face in combatting a blight that has spread to big cities and small all across the land.
___
Before Aug. 20, 2008, when the five men were found, the assumption had been that the big drug hauls were passing through Shelby County and on to cities with larger markets.
Alabama had long had its share of street dealers. Homegrown pot passed hands. Then powder cocaine and crack. Soon meth labs cropped up here and there. “Just a local issue,” says Curry.
“There weren’t really any traffickers in our county. But over time it’s escalated into a sophisticated transportation structure that moves marijuana, moves powder cocaine and now moves crystal meth.”
First came the rise of the Mexican cartel, brought about in the late ’80s and early ’90s after authorities cracked down on Colombian traffickers and choked off routes along the Caribbean and in South Florida. The Colombians aligned with the Mexicans for transportation, then began paying their Mexican subcontractors in cocaine.
As more Colombian traffickers were brought down, the Mexicans took over both transportation and distribution. A decade ago, 60 percent of the cocaine entering the United States came through Mexico. Today that figure is 90 percent.
Texas and other border states become primary distribution hubs. Greg Bowden, who heads the FBI’s violent crime task force in Birmingham, worked four years in the Texas border city of Brownsville. He remembers cases involving Alabama dealers who would fly into Houston, rent a car, pick up loads at a warehouse or mall parking lot and drive back home.
“(Distributors) felt comfortable in Texas. That was their home base, and has been for a long time. Now,” says Bowden, “they’re comfortable here, in Memphis, in Atlanta. They moved their home bases to these little pockets.”
One reason for that shift is the ability these days to “blend in in plain sight,” as the Atlanta DEA chief puts it. The flood of Hispanic immigrants into American communities to work construction and plant jobs helped provide cover for traffickers looking to expand into new markets or build hubs in quiet suburbs with fewer law officers than the big cities.
Shelby has long been Alabama’s fastest-growing county, with its proximity to Birmingham, good schools and a growing corporate corridor along Highway 280. The number of Hispanics grew 126 percent from 2000 to 2007. It was once rare to see a Latino face at the local Wal-Mart or gas station. Now, dozens upon dozens of Hispanic day laborers line Lorna Road in the northern part of the county.
As Bowden says, “You don’t stand out.”
But there is another reason this area, and others, have become what some agents call “sub-hubs.”
With some 4.9 million trucks crossing into the United States from Mexico every year, tractor-trailers have become a transportation mode of choice among traffickers. Drugs head north, but weapons and cash also head back south — like the $400,000 Border Patrol agents found on April 2 near Las Cruces, N.M., stashed in the refrigeration unit of a semi.
Shelby County is a trucking mecca, with highways 65, 20, 59 and 459 running east to Atlanta, north to Nashville, south to New Orleans, west to Dallas. Once reluctant to haul drug shipments too far beyond a border state, drivers are willing to take more chances now, because there are so many trucks on the road, Bowden says.
Since January, 27 people were sentenced in Alabama federal court in just one case for using tractor-trailers to transport cocaine and marijuana from Mexico across the border to Brownsville, then up through Birmingham on I-65 to northern Alabama for distribution. Investigators seized 77 pounds of cocaine during the investigation — more than the DEA seized in the entire state of Alabama in all of 1999. The scheme, according to an indictment, had operated since 2004.
Amid all of this, an operation moved into Shelby County, leading to the call on Aug. 20.
A simple welfare check brought deputies to the Cahaba Lakes Apartments off Highway 280, down the road from upscale Vestavia Hills, whose motto is “A Better Place to Live.”
The victims were Hispanic, all illegal immigrants. Interviews with family members and associates helped investigators piece together a sketchy portrait of what happened.
Agents described it as friendly competition turned deadly among a group of distributors from Atlanta and Birmingham that often sold and shared drug loads when one or the other group was running low. At some point, about a half-million in drug money went missing. One group suspected the other of taking it, and went after the five men at Cahaba Lakes.
The money was never found.
Whether an order came directly from Mexico, or the decision was made down the food chain, investigators don’t know.
The DEA’s Borland notes that making a direct connection between the street level distributors charged in the killing and a specific cartel boss back in Mexico isn’t easy in a business with so many players at various levels.
“We don’t have canceled checks of their dues payments to the cartels. But we know that they were moving large quantities of drugs, which are probably brought in here under the supervision of the Gulf Cartel, because the Gulf Cartel is the dominant one here,” he says.
“That money was supposed to be moving … and it disappeared. So the attempt was to locate where was the money and who took it?” Curry says. “It was a contract hit, ordered to be carried out and paid for.”
Since then, Curry has pushed aside concerns about resources and assigned one deputy to a DEA task force, another to work with the FBI. At the behest of the Department of Homeland Security, he joined in a conference call with police chiefs and sheriffs in border states to discuss what he now calls “a common problem.”
And he answers, as candidly as possible, his citizens’ questions when they ask him about this “new” threat.
“People want to have a comfort zone, and if they have to confront the realities of how rough life really is, that doesn’t sit well,” he says. “It scares them. And they don’t want to be scared. South of our border: gunfights, violence — it is a normal, accepted, expected behavior. That has now moved into our borders.”
___
Ask just about any DEA agent or expert who keeps a close watch on drug trafficking, and they’ll cringe at the use of the word “war.” They’ll tell you, flat out, that no, it’s not likely ever to be won. Just as there will always be robberies and rapes and homicides, there will always be narcotrafficking.
So they take their victories where they can. And there have been victories.
Heads of cartels have been toppled. Juan Garcia Abrego, former chief of the Gulf Cartel and once on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, is serving 11 life terms in a Colorado federal prison after his 1996 arrest in Mexico and extradition to the United States. His successor, Osiel Cardenas, awaits trial in Houston after his 2007 extradition from Mexico.
These handovers have become almost routine under Calderon, who reversed long-standing practice and allowed more Mexicans to be tried in the United States. Last year, he extradited a record 95 wanted criminals, including several high-ranking members of the Tijuana-based Arrellano-Felix cartel.
In February, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the arrest of more than 750 people as part of “Operation Xcellerator,” which targeted Mexico’s most powerful drug organization, the Sinaloa Cartel. Another 175 were arrested last fall as part of “Project Reckoning,” an investigation into the Gulf Cartel.
President Barack Obama has promised to dispatch hundreds of additional agents to the border, along with more gear and drug-sniffing dogs. “If the steps that we’ve taken do not get the job done,” he said, “then we will do more.”
“More” may well come in the form of more direct aid to Mexico. In her first visit to Mexico as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton said the White House would seek $80 million to help Mexico buy Blackhawk helicopters. That’s on top of a $1.3 billion Bush-era initiative providing drug-fighting aircraft and equipment to Mexico over the next three years.
But the answer to this problem is as complex as the problem itself. Enforcement, money and equipment alone aren’t enough. In Mexico, the challenges run deep as corruption has infected almost every level of government. Here, the true remedy is just as daunting: Curbing the appetite that fuels all of this.
“We are still throwing the cops at a problem that is well beyond that,” says George Friedman, who heads the global intelligence firm Stratfor. “It is a major geopolitical problem. We’ve been moving into a situation where the Mexican government is no longer the most powerful force in Mexico.
“It’s a mess, not a war,” says Friedman.
Many months after the Shelby County case, the Alabama sheriff still grapples with the ugly reality of what the mess means for him and his community.
He had his own victory, of sorts. Arrests were swift, and six suspects now are held without bond in the Shelby County Jail charged with capital murder. One owned a tire shop, another was a barber — more evidence to authorities of how bad guys can blend in.
Still, it is a victory without call for celebration, because Curry wonders when and where it will happen again.
“This is not an isolated incident. It is a standard business practice with this group of people, and it is simply going to be repeated,” he says. “I can’t predict whether it’s going to be repeated here or not, but it’s going to be repeated in communities throughout the United States whenever these disagreements occur.”
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