Month: May 2006

…for not taking crap from moonbat congressmen.

That’s what you’d think by the results of this poll.

A new Zogby poll of likely voters, using neutral language, finds that Americans prefer the House of Representatives’ enforcement-only bill by 2-1 over Senate proposals to legalize illegal immigrants and greatly increase legal immigration. The poll was conducted for the Center for Immigration Studies.

There is strong support for the House bill: 69 percent said it was a good or very good idea when told it tries to make illegals go home by fortifying the border, forcing employer verification, and encouraging greater cooperation with local law enforcement while not increasing legal immigration; 27 percent said it was a bad or very bad idea.

Now, can someone tell me why the Republican led Senate and our President want to ignore this clear referendum and pass a bill which amounts to no less than amnesty for illegal aliens? What explains the tin ear? Beltway bubble-itus? Election year paranoia?

It’s maddening.

The U.S., Britain and France introduced a UN Security Council resolution today demanding that Iran suspend it’s uranium enrichment efforts.

The text, which is opposed by Russia and China, does not contain any sanctions but threatens to consider “further measures as may be necessary” to ensure Iran’s compliance — a veiled way of saying the Western allies would attempt to enact sanctions if Tehran remained defiant.

It also calls on all nations to exercise vigilance in preventing the transfer of materials and technology “that could contribute to Iran’s enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and missile programs.”

Oooooh…scary! Those Iranians are shaking in their boots for sure!

This resolution means nothing. Now, I understand that diplomatic efforts require this sort of thing, but when it comes down to it, the threat is empty, worthless, and a waste of time.

Next?

Via AP: A federal jury reached a verdict Wednesday on whether al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui deserves execution or life in prison for his role in the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, on Sept. 11, 2001. On the seventh day of deliberation, the jury of nine men and three women informed Judge Leonie Brinkema that it had reached a decision. The verdict was to be announced at 4:30 p.m. EDT.

UPDATE: MOUSSAOUI WILL SPEND LIFE IN PRISON.

Via AP: Tsunami warnings have been issued for Fiji and New Zealand after an earthquake measuring a magnitude of about 8.0 shakes southern Pacific Ocean.

The U.S. National Weather Service warns that a tsunami could strike Fiji within 30 minutes and New Zealand within 90 minutes…

— USGS

UPDATE: Tsunami warnings canceled in the South Pacific.

This is truly outrageous.

Mexican President Vicente Fox will sign into law a measure that decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs for personal use, his spokesman said Tuesday.

Spokesman Ruben Aguilar defended the law, which was approved Friday by Mexico’s Senate, despite criticism in the United States that it could increase casual drug use.

“The president is going to sign this law,” said Aguilar, who called the legislation “a better tool … that allows better action and better coordination in the fight against drug dealing.”

“The government believes that this law represents progress, because it established the minimum quantities that a citizen can carry for personal use,” Aguilar said.

Under current Mexican law, judges can drop charges against people caught with drugs if they can prove they are addicts and if an expert certifies they were caught with “the quantity necessary for personal use.”

The new bill makes the decriminalization automatic and drops the addict requirement — automatically letting any “consumers” have drugs.

Meanwhile, the Mayor of San Diego, California, is freaking out. And rightly so.

On Friday, Mayor Jerry Sanders of San Diego, said he was “appalled” by the bill. The city of 1.3 million people is a short drive from the Mexican border town of Tijuana.

“I certainly think we are going to see more drugs available in the United States,” Sanders said. “We need to register every protest the American government can muster.”

But, at least so far, the silence is deafening.

Way back when I was much, much younger and not nearly as responsible as I am today as an adult, I used to visit friends in Southern California. During each visit, we would make our annual trip down to Chula Vista, park the car on the U.S. side, and walk over the border to Tijuana. Oh, and we would be walking with thousands of other college age kids who all had the same thing on their mind – partying in the bars of TJ. We’d get down there around 8:30 PM and we’d stumble walk back into the U.S. around 3 or 4 AM. While our interests were primarily centered around dancing and drinking, there were plenty of locals available who were more than willing to sell you a drug or two on the cheap. I can only imagine what that place is like today. And, now that it will be legal for “consumers” to have drugs in TJ, or any place in Mexico, we’ll have thousands of American youngsters coming back into the country DRUNK AND DOPED UP. And don’t think they walk home…no way. They’re getting into their cars and driving back to San Diego, or even Los Angeles. Get the picture?

The U.S. should immediately beef up the borders with more agents, and the penalties for public drunkenness and drug intoxication should be much tougher now that Mexico has decided that they’ll willingly allow our kids to toke out and snort up whenever and wherever. If U.S. citizens get loaded in Mexico and face a higher risk of gettin’ busted when they try to come back into the country, we might be able to minimize further injury or better yet, prevent an untimely death.

In the meantime, we need to publicly denounce this decision by Vicente Fox. The safety of our citizens and our national security is at risk. President Bush should immediately make a statement informing the Mexican government that the United States does not support the legalization of drugs and that future relations with Mexico will be adversely affected because of their decision.

MORE: Sam Enriquez

UPDATE: Fox now refuses to sign the drug bill, sending the legislation back to Congress.

Too bad this is coming in May of ‘06. It should have been the plan in May of ‘05 so this could have been avoided.

 

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin today outlined a newly revised evacuation plan as the city gears up for the hurricane season which runs from June 1 through to November.

This time, Nagin says there will no shelter of last resort, meaning, the Superdome and Convention center will not be used as shelters, but as staging areas.

“Amtrak trains will also be used for evacuation purposes, which we’re really excited about,” Nagin said. He said federal Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had cleared the way for the use of passenger trains.

Nagin added that the city’s communications infrastructure is being beefed up and that contingency for communication failures had been developed.

The new plan also touches on a heart-wrenching decision evacuees faced ahead of Katrina: To board the buses, they had to leave their pets, and some refused to go without them. In the future, evacuees will be allowed to bring pets with them as long as they have some type of cage to safely put them in.

New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert said the plan also includes arrangements for swiftly getting tourists out of town.

While this announcement should be welcome news for the people of New Orleans, I can’t help but note the timing. Nagin faces an election runoff against Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu. It’s likely that this revised plan was formulated at least a month ago, if not more. Did Nagin sit on the information so he could stage a P.R. event just when he hopes to be reelected mayor? I wonder.

Shelby Steele.

There is something rather odd in the way America has come to fight its wars since World War II.

For one thing, it is now unimaginable that we would use anything approaching the full measure of our military power (the nuclear option aside) in the wars we fight. And this seems only reasonable given the relative weakness of our Third World enemies in Vietnam and in the Middle East. But the fact is that we lost in Vietnam, and today, despite our vast power, we are only slogging along–if admirably–in Iraq against a hit-and-run insurgency that cannot stop us even as we seem unable to stop it. Yet no one–including, very likely, the insurgents themselves–believes that America lacks the raw power to defeat this insurgency if it wants to. So clearly it is America that determines the scale of this war. It is America, in fact, that fights so as to make a little room for an insurgency.

Certainly since Vietnam, America has increasingly practiced a policy of minimalism and restraint in war. And now this unacknowledged policy, which always makes a space for the enemy, has us in another long and rather passionless war against a weak enemy.

Go.Read.Now.

Michelle Malkin has pictures (more here) from yesterday’s ‘amnesty now’ demonstrations that you won’t find on ABCNBCCBSFOXCNNMSNBC.

Via AP: Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the longest-serving leader in postwar Italy, resigned Tuesday to make way for a center-left government led by Romano Prodi that must re-energize a moribund economy.