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Pardon My Bailout

Thursday, January 1st, 2009

I’ve been pondering President Bush’s work toward bailing out lenders, auto makers and other low-rent purveyors of Made-in-USA crap.

For the record, these leading lights of free-market enterprise make Chinese producers of melamine-soaked and lead-covered products look like Swarovski crystal figurines for sale in a Paris salon.

And after much time spent on my recently-returned plastic-and-wood bench that sits out in front of my high-class Upper Valley hacienda, I have come to conclude that Bush is the greatest Presidential pardoner this country has ever seen.

He has, in fact, forgiven more — in terms of time served and monetary value, than all other Presidents combined, including Warren Hardinge, who pardoned “priests and prostitutes alike,” and the notorious Ulysseses Grant, who pardoned two turkeys right before Thanksgiving because he was sloshed and seeing double after cavorting with, well, prostitutes and priests.

Here in West Texas, a lot of cavorting goes on — some of it is fun and some of it is legal. But folks around here lack the high morals of Capitol Heights, the financial capital of fiscal Fred Flintstones, and the political wherewithal of party-centric wingnuts (both left and right) to really do it big. First off, you’ve got to put on a dull suit with a bright tie and head to DC to even get near the door of an Official Administration Pardoning. And the Men’s Wearhouse off Sunland Park Drive just doesn’t cut it with the elites.

Did you get that, Anthony Cobos? or any other of you get-the-vote-out by having your relatives shill for you on street corners near voting stations rednecks?

I mean, who wants to do all that expensive haircut, multiple suit-fittings, acne-reducing-medications-from-a-TV-ad stuff, when every house in the neighborhood is putting on tamales and posole for New Year’s, and the fridge on the back porch is full of Bud Light plus a 6-pack of that weird microbrew the egg-head son brought back from Austin?

Not me, not even if being in the political mix is valuable to a New York Times blogger who laments Obama’s break with tradition during his Hawai’i holiday. Heh — didja read that, Roy Ortega? An MSM icon has a regular blog — kinda like yours but, well, without the anti-blog attitude, though that MSM icon bitches about as much as you did recently, only with a better thesaurus.

Am I off-track already? Must be the wood splint in my backside from that bench. Need upgrade to varnish, I guess.

Now. I’m sitting here on one buttock and wondering where the bailout for unfairly-convicted and really unfairly-sentenced US Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Campeon is. I hope it’s not locked up in Committee, in some back-alley klaven Komittee led by our famous Border Patrol alum, US Congressman Sylvestre Reyes. If Reyes is weighing in on anything more than where Pitt players should go for good food in El Paso, then Ramos and Campeon are screwed. Hell, who knows what Reyes is up to these days. His “blog” (cue interest from Roy Ortega) is even worse than Ortega’s, but yet better, since he doesn’t slag off bloggers on a blog.

Reyes must be in a really bad place about Ramos’ and Compean’s convictions. On the one hand, he understands — better than anyone else on Capitol Hill — the pressures of the Border Patrol agent’s job, as well as the scum that USBP agents deal with every day. The lies, the drugs, the violence…

On the other hand, he has to have learned, by now, some rudimentary sense of politicking.

The man must be just torn apart by all this.

Or not. Silver knows who butters his bread (that’s anyone with a higher IQ than he has, which is about 434 other Congressmen), and he must know who won’t allow him sit on a plastic-and-wood bench in front of a high-class hacienda in the Upper Valley.

So we all make our choices, and so does he. Border Patrol Agents make choices every hour of every day they’re on duty. Reyes makes choices. His political handlers, the California idiot Pelosi and the California idiot Feinstein, call his shots more than he calls for shots at Acetunas.

Now. Is there a pardon out there for a New York Times MSM blogger who thinks he has the right to follow Obama all over the white sandy beaches of Hawai’i? Is there a pardon floating down for a guy in a bad suit hoofing it to Congress to ask for a few billion for his dumb American car company that makes cars Americans don’t want and who indirectly supports a golf club-owning union that car customers aren’t allowed to visit?

Hell, is there a pardon for a plastic-and-wood bench that sits outside a high-class hacienda in the Upper Valley, for sticking it (so to speak) to not only its owner but any politician who happens by? Is there a pardon for a politically-obsessed, under-performing, Border Patrol agent-prosecuting, wannabe up-and-comer attorney named Johnny Sutton, whose traditional resignation (as is traditional for all US Attorneys when a new Administration comes into office) should not only be accepted, but accompanied by a deportation order?

And mostly, is there a pardon for US Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two of the most wrongfully-convicted and over-sentenced citizens, who got ten years for what should have been, at best, misdemeanors, or, more likely, administrative findings?

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News You’re Not Likely to Hear About From the Open-Borders Set

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

Bender’s Immigration Bulletin is a good clearinghouse for immigration related news, though with a decidely pro-migration bias.* Here’s a news article that isn’t likely to appear at Bender’s.

*It’s worth subscribing to the RSS feed however you feel about migration.

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Drug Smuggler Aldrete-Davila Takes it in the Hiney Again

Friday, November 23rd, 2007

Remember Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, the drug smuggler who was paid by the U.S. to help convict USBP agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean for shooting him in the ass when he was smuggling marijuana into the US in 2005?

He’s about as dumb as we thought he was back then.

El Paso Times notes his tearful family letting that Aldrete crossed into the US because he thought he was getting more money from the feds — for Christmas gifts.

You can’t make this stuff up. One hundred and twenty-nine other dummies just got rounded up in El Paso in the same way. High IQ is not highly-regarded among the criminal set along the border.

Aldrete, who lives in Juarez, from where he gazed lovingly at the William Beaumont Army Hospital in El Paso where he received ace medical attention, had said he’d never cross back into the US — with or without a load of dope, presumably.

I expect Aldrete will have a lot more worries about his backside in prison than the bullet lodged there a couple of years ago. While Ramos and Compean have suffered from inmates’ abuse, this celebrity trafficker will be (in)famous enough to learn about new ways to make his butt-ocks hurt. They really ought to get TVs out of prisons.

Patterico links to the news, and Johnny Sutton’s name turns up in the comments, like a chow chip under your boot.

Diggers Realm has more.

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21 July 2007: Your Weekend RSS Update

Sunday, July 22nd, 2007

Delayed a day due to reading an important book recently released…

FBI EL PASO CORRUPTION CASE:
The El Paso Times subtly describes El Paso judge Cobos’ new Chief of Staff in the headline. Way to gobos, Cobos.

Honestly, is there any other city in America where a social and political gadfly — who loses more than he wins — succeeds in landing a six-figure job in a burg after calling the FBI the “Gestapo” and where the median income is $22,600? What was Cobos thinking? That the oh-so-politically-savvy Perez is astute enough to delink Cobos from the ongoing investigation? Led by, you know, “the Gestapo” that Perez so clearly despises?

Five’ll get you ten that both take a fall. Odds are even on who is the bigger masochist.

Newspaper Tree has a few thoughts on Perez here and here. Stay tuned to Newspaper Tree for an interesting examination of WikiPedia entries on Cobos and others. And alterations. And more entries. Local talk board The Strelz started the conversation.

El Paso Times has writers’ blogs. Bet you didn’t know that. You may not have even wanted to know that. There’s a fella called Charlie who publishes Charlie’s Angles. Geddit? He weights in on Perez’ hiring here.

Now, onto good El Paso news. I’m sorry, did I write “good news?” My bad: Ysleta Independent School District Trustee Milton “Mickey” Duntley apparently got his son hired by NCED as a political favor. Political favor? Well, yeah, but only because one of the intercepted emails said that. And then not fired. And then, this was allegeldy in exchange for a vote on a multi-million dollar contract. If true, they go cheap in El Paso.

The link chart for all this is: here.

STINKING UP THE BORDER:
With all the silly politicking going on around here, you’d think enough sewage had been spilled in the desert. Apparently not.

The case of USBP agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos continues to generate news and look-sees by people who ought to be look-seeing. This case has stunk from the beginning, though it’s not a stink like Duke University or sludge in Sierra Blanca. It’s a federal, US Attorney kind of stink. At the end of the day, I think we’ll all be wondering whether Bush fired the right US Attorneys, didn’t fire enough US Attorneys, or whether Jaime Perez could have prevented anything if he was other than a social and political gadfly.

If the political stink in the Chihuahuan Desert is too much, I think this might be the cure. Desert rats may do well to buy vinegar futures in the next 180.

Hey, if it dissolves corns, it might dissolve the corny antics of these local border pols. Because when local politicians go so cheap, politicians will go to the hoosegow easy, thanks to the efforts of our federal law enforcement agencies who aren’t so easily corrupted.

THE POLITICAL DANCE:
Mexico’s Ambassador to the US Arturo Sarukhan slags off some old Fox administration gems: the border maps and migration handbooks passed out to border crossers. First I’ve seen of a Mexican official admitting to the country’s contradiction in how it treats its citizens desiring to go north, and how it treats Central Americans desiring to go north.

I get the feeling that Congressman Reyes likes earmarks and perks from military support, but is just plain scared of foreign policy. Here, he toes the Pelosi line on al Qaeda. Best laugh-out-loud line: “There is no room for partisan politics in the realm of national security.”

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Congressman Reyes: Stupid Is as Stupid Does

Thursday, July 19th, 2007

What? Silvestre Reyes takes a stand? Well, the year is over half over. Reyes, a consummate slimy politician well-practiced in the art of graft and handouts, wants President Bush to commute the sentences of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. They were convicted of unlawfully chasing a Mary Jane smuggler and shooting his punk-ass in the ass and then hiding evidence. The U.S. got 750 pounds of dope out of the deal and they got the shaft.

Sounds good, eh? A former Border Patrol agent and sympatico to the genuine hardships they endure — rockings, gunfire, assaults — standing up for one of his own.

Not so fast, amigo.

First of all, it’s a far cry from his August 22, 2006 position, saying, “A jury found them guilty. I will refer to (U.S. Attorney) Johnny Sutton.”

Reyes must have been dismayed when Senators Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and John Cornyn, R-Texas asked President Bush to commute the agents’ sentences. Nothing sucks like being late out of the starting gate, especially when you get owned in a bilateral way by outsiders mucking up your home turf.

Or perhaps Reyes was motivated by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s lame attempt to play both sides of the aisle, that of USBP friend and US Attorney “escort.”

Or perhaps Reyes has had an attack of conscience since his daughter got implicated in that scandal back in 2005.

Some politicians will chew up anything and everything to rise as high as they can. You can’t blame anyone for trying to rise above their humble roots along the Rio Grande, but you can blame them for trying to forget them.

In between his pining over/forgetting his past and his longing for his so-called future, Reyes was junketing his way through the Western Hemisphere like a conquistador high on wine. Humorously, his web site notes how quickly he departed spaces, as if to reassure the public that its money was well-spent.

Too little, too late, for this small-time hood to resurrect anything resembling a reputation that bodes well for his political future. He’s become as stupid as his Democratic peers.

UPDATE: Nervous US Attorney Johnny Sutton sucks spit and defends himself.

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Your Saturday RSS Feed – 07 July 2007

Friday, July 6th, 2007

EL PASO FBI CORRUPTION CASE UPDATE:
County Commissioner Dan Haggerty ponders the meaning of his existence and how said existence may have triggered the ongoing investigation. Haggerty recalls his contacts with the FBI back in the day, which seemingly started out as chit-chat sessions initiated by the FBI. Yeah, the FBI routinely calls up politicos to chit-chat because, you know, that’s how they like to spend taxpayers’ money. I wonder if any politician is so naive anymore and, after wondering, I doubt it.

Frank Apodaca, president and CEO of Access HealthSource Inc., got put on paid leave, likely due to the ongoing investigation. The parent company of Access HealthSource, Inc., Access Plans USA is reportedly conducting its own independent investigation.

Newspaper Tree notes that business goes on as usual inside the El Paso County Courthouse. NT seems like a decent enough online rag but, honestly, “spending the morning walking the halls and riding the elevators of the courthouse” isn’t exactly working towards establishing one’s superior journalistic bona fides.

Newspaper Tree also reports on the government’s attempt to disqualify El Paso attorney Mary Stillinger from representing three clients related to the ongoing corruption case.

Keeping the story hot, I guess, El Paso Times reports that County Commissioner Miguel Terán will not resign. Because, you know, he’s not been charged or convicted of anything. OK.

CONTENTION IN EL PASO NOT ALL RELATED TO THE FBI CORRUPTION CASE: On 03 July, a Border Patrol agent was investigating a report of illegal migrants in the vicinity of Hill and Ninth Streets. Something happened down a manhole and the BP agent fired in self-defense, wounding one. The contention is the result of the involvement of the Border Network for Human Rights, a leftist group with an office down at 1101 E. Yandell in El Paso. A few first- and second-hand accounts by Barrio Segundo residents make an El Paso Times article, with Louie Gilot’s byline. To his credit, Gilot notes the number of attacks on BP agents in the area this year: 59. Generally, according to their website, Border Network for Human Rights agitates for “basic human rights” — which sounds good to college kids — like legalization, healthy communities and human mobility. But BNHR doesn’t talk about who funds the bill. Right now the bill is paid by Americans. BNHR does not agitate for reduced attacks on Border Patrol agents, for the fiscal responsibility of educating Mexican kids in El Paso public schools by the citizens of Juarez, for equal access to Juarez schools and health care by El Pasoans, or for that matter, the right to drive around Juarez shopping without fear of murder, kidnap or robbery, as happens right across the border. I guess that’s a POE Bridge Too Far for BNHR, and it telegraphs its Leftist agenda. I’d watch my wallet if a BNHR Guevarista walked up to me.

MORE CONTENTION: Illegals are getting uppity with more than hapless Border Patrol “rocking” victims these days. Michelle Malkin links to Elvira Arellano’s announcement of a “campaign of resistance” against the US government. Who is Elvira Arellano? She’s a Mexican activist, an illegal, and a sanctuary seeker since she’s been hiding out in a church in Chicago for who knows how long. I’d think that a threat to “bring the government to a halt” warrants a raid of that church by any law enforcement entity whose members swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Happy Fourth of July, Elvira “FOB” Arellano.

CHURCH LADY REPORTS: On a happier, errr, more sacreligious note, seems the Roman Cathloic Mass has gotten a bit more enlightened recently. What’s next, a smoking lamp, a Tiki statue and retro-cool Members Only jackets worn by parishoners?

SHE’S NOT GOING TO BE ELECTED ANYWAY: Hillary a felon? Say it ain’t so.

IN MEXICO: Was it a flying witch? Or merely a promo for the new Harry Potter movie?

ISLAMADMINISTRIVIA: A macho, woman-hating Muslim cleric tries to flee in a burka. He didn’t want to meet 72 virgins in Paradise, apparently: he wanted to be one. How fine it is to lay the smackdown on women in Islam, and then use their identity to escape justice. I’d ask BNHR about Muslim treatment of women, because I think Pakistan has borders, I’m sure I’d only hear crickets in response.

“OFFICER’S KID”: That was a slur among military kids back in the day, and maybe today, too. Military officers had the worst-behaved kids on any base or post, or so it seemed. It was a stereotype: the successful, well-paid, college-educated servicemember and his/her crap, sluggish, juvenile delinquent spawn. These days, I guess that stereotype transmogrifies nicely to politicians.

ABOUT THAT DINING OUT EXPERIENCE: Gotta love it. Not. Not when waiters and waitresses are morons. The most hit-or-miss part of a dining experience, besides whether you’re paying $50 for a burned filleted scallop with a stale chive on top because the chef is drunk, is the wait staff. They set the tone of the meal. Or don’t. They get tipped, or don’t, depending on your perception of how they perform. So there is Bitter Waitress, a site that argues for good tips for good service, and tells great tales along the way.

And then there’s this attitude. Rule #1: Never leave less than a 20% tip. It’s “tipping poorly” if you have a problem with anything, according to 86 Bad Tips. Including sluggish, forgetful, annoying, stumbling, snot-dripping, angry, failed, besotted wait staff. Well, I guess the red, black and yellow colors of the web page tip you to the militant attitude of its host.

Here’s another waiter blog.

And another.

Here’s an article that will make you end your dining-out experience and just cook at home.

LOL THIS: You’ve heard of LOL Cats. Now get ready for LOL terrorists. My entries are here.

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Your Weekend RSS Roundup!

Saturday, May 12th, 2007

Outside the Beltway wants to know why members of the press aren’t knowledgeable about their subjects. In this case, it’s about commissioned officers “re-enlisting.” I don’t know, OTB, but lack of basic understanding about the military certainly is a problem. For mainstream media, it seems every servicemember is a “soldier,” and every officer above O-3 is described as “senior.” I wonder how many times Wesley Clark re-enlisted.

GOG IS BACK: One of the original members of our Gang of Generals has lost his job at CBS. MG (Retired) John Batiste was removed from his “military analyst” job for political activism. Nonetheless, Batiste remains on radar for his buffoonery. GoG member Paul Eaton has a cameo in the offending activism: a TV ad.

MAN BITES DOG O’ THE DAY: Michelle Malkin notes an SFGate article on a legal immigrant suing San Francisco’s police commissioner for failing to deal with illegal migrants. That ought to end well. The City, of course, is a “sanctuary” for illegals, as well as the homeless, the mentally ill, wasteful and clueless politicians, and bay windows.

REYNOLDS ALUMINIUM UPDATE: If it’s kooky, it’s Kucinich! Impish Dem climbs aboard Bush impeachment train, surprised to find only three other passengers.

ABC BLOG APPARENTLY RUN BY SNARKY TEENAGER: An ABC blog is deleting comments. That’s nothing new. Most of my readers’ comments are deleted out of hand. I must say, I sure do have a large fanbase in the pharmaceutical industry.

A MINUTE FOR PELOSI: If it’s a day of the week ending in “day,” then Pelosi must have done something wrong. This time she’s working a deal that would purportedly help hubby’s rental property a scant mile away. A mile’s a long way for Pelosi, who denies any link — but then again, it would be a long way away for a Speaker who’s still crawling.

FORGOTTEN RECENT NEWS: Read somewhere that one in two Mexicans have family members in the US. Where did I read that, and why don’t I care?

The ace reporters at the El Paso Times have sussed out something important. Undocumented immigrants in the border town are poor because they lack, you know citizenship, naturalization papers, or visas that would get them a better education. But what EPT doesn’t realize is that plenty of Americans are still stuck on stupid even with a sheepskin between their paws. All that said, “thousands of Mexican children” are attending US public schools, the paper screamed back on April 29th. Well, OK, it didn’t scream. No one would care if the “brown ones” (that’s Bush the First talking, not me) were taking up desk space learning (or more likely, not learning, the three Rs, but the rub comes when the city is trying to float a $230 million education bond to, believe it or not, build new schools to handle growth. We’re such a magnanimous country. “Give me your tired, your poor, your coyotes and drug runners, and your illiterate kids who are evidence of a failed/nonexistent Mexican education system.”

OUT OF TIME: I’m not even beginning to get ready to deal with Al Sharpton right now. I have to unstop a toilet, which is preferable to thinking about that ugly little bigot.

ANOTHER USA VS. BORDER PATROL AGENT STORY: How far back in time do you need to go to start seeing a pattern? One gets weary of reading of yet another agent crucified to satisfy the political and financial agendas of NGOs, bureaucrats and lawyers. If you believe the agent and not the federal lawyer, that is. Either one could be the crumb bum.

WEEKEND AT CASTRO’s: Like a resurrected corpse, Michael Moore made it back into the light of day. He jetted off to Cuba to check out their world-class medical system, which is free for everyone, as everyone who is free knows. Sadly, the unfilmed truth is more painful. It ain’t free and it’s not available to everyone. I hear there’s a new show coming out: “Who Wants to Correct a Millionaire?”

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RSS Miscellaney

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

Found on NetNewsWire, and commented on:

As we know, border security is a federal job. Pima County Sheriff Dupnik says the Feds are falling down on that job.

The National Border Patrol Council (that’s a union) is releasing a no-confidence motion against USBP honcho-in-chief David Aguillar. Their beef is over the conviction of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso, but you already know all about that.

There’s another USBP case about to hit MSM. Agent Nicholas Corbett is up on murder charges for killing an illegal immigrant near Douglas, AZ, on January 12th. Hold your nose and visit News with Views to learn that some of the witnesses are relatives of the deceased, and read about an argument that the Government of Mexico has tainted the case by its access to them.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, they’re strip-searching New Mexico National Guardsmen. That won’t end well.

Over in Muslim World, doctors are discovering a whole new market. The Koran can proscribe a lot of things (and radical Muslims can invent a lot more proscriptions, err) but one basic tenet of humankind will never cease, no matter how many female mannequins get confiscated or get their breasts hacked off.

Looks like Nancy Pelosi is honcho’ing a poll on whether President Bush should be impeached. I’d have thought she’d already know the answer, since she sent already what passes for Democrat attack dogs out to argue for same.

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Operation WRANGLER: All You Need to Know About a State Response to Border Security

Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Howdy ho! Let the money flow! West Texans will soon have showered upon their heads the amount of 400,000 US dollahs in support of Operation WRANGLER.

WRANGLER, you say, wassat? Why, it’s an initiative by the Texas Guv to combat crime along the border with you-know-who. NO, not New Mexico. That other Mexico.

Perry better hope the armed thugs who did this don’t move east.

On account of our Southwest border will be shown to be the terrorist-inviting empty expanse that it is.

I’m gonna have an Operation WRANGLER this weekend, too. Need some new boot-cut jeans, since the board shorts are wearing out and it’s darn cold here.

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G Men on the Case: Don’t Shoot Them Thar’ Fightin’ Illegals

Thursday, January 18th, 2007

On 12 January, a US Border Patrol agent shot and killed an illegal immigrant west of Douglas, AZ. The agent was apprehending seven undocumented immigrants (UDA) when one started a fight. Naturally, the FBI is investigating.

This is for two reasons:
1) High publicity cases always attract FBI attention, G-Men being the attention whores that they are.
2) High publicity cases always attract FBI attention, G-Men being the publicity whores that they are.

I’m surprised USBP agents haven’t walked off the line after this turn of events, the upheld convictions of two agents, and the more than 746 acts of violence against agents in FY2006.

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