LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Cook Rosa Maria Salazar’s eyes dart anxiously to the door as customers file into the Salvadoran cafe in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles.
“We’re terrified. The police could come for us at any time and deport us,” she said in Spanish earlier this week as diners fingered maize tortillas stuffed with beans and pork scratchings and chatted softly.
The 55-year-old undocumented worker from Guatemala is among many Hispanics deeply shaken by recent immigration raids at the heart of Latino communities in southern California.
So you mean to tell me that illegal immigrants are actually afraid of being deported? That people breaking the law are scared of the consequences? I say that it is about damn time! I don’t care if you are making corn tortillas stuffed with beans and pork grease. I don’t care whose lawn you are mowing. I don’t care what meat packing plant employed you. If you are here without a visa you are here illegally and as such you ought to be afraid of what will happen if you are caught. The feds are finally cracking down but it’s too little too late. Unless they keep up the pace it won’t change anything. The criminals will go back to being complacent and won’t worry about the fact they are breaking our laws daily. They have no respect for our laws, culture, or our people. They only want what they think is best for them. They are selfish and they are criminals. They are humans and deserving of love but they also must face the consequences of their actions. It is not loving in the lest to allow someone to have no consequences at all for their actions.
The-seven day Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweep, dubbed “Operation Return to Sender,” targeted jails across five counties in the Los Angeles area, where police took 423 of what they called “criminal aliens” into federal custody for deportation, after being held on charges unrelated to their immigration status.
Federal agents from seven teams also fanned out in local communities, where they nabbed 338 undocumented immigrants, more than 150 of whom were classed as “immigration fugitives” — foreign nationals who ignored final deportation orders.
The raid was the latest in a series of get-tough enforcement measures by ICE in the United States, but the largest action of its kind in California, where more than a third of the population is Hispanic.
You will note the name of the operation “Return to Sender”. This name is because the people that the raid targeted are in fact repeat offenders. Sure the net caught first time offenders as well but that is as it should be. I say we implement the three strikes law and upon catching a third or more time offender we give them their wish. They get to spend the rest of their life right here in the US courtesy of the federal prison system. We do it for much smaller offenses why not this one? With the current political climate I don’t see that happening. I see us, as a country, about to embrace these criminals and welcome them with open arms ignoring the fact that they have already broken multiple laws by the time we catch them.
“We hadn’t seen anything like this here before, and it came as a shock,” said Antonio Bernabe, a community worker who runs a day labor program at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
“The police didn’t just take people with deportation orders, they took anybody … guys who were just hanging out in the street and even from a Jack in the Box restaurant … and now people are afraid to go out,” he added.
And this article doesn’t mention how many of these people were actually innocent and released. I wonder why the media doesn’t bother with those figures at all? I don’t see anyone complaining about being innocent and caught up in the raids. This is strange as we usually see cries of racism and the rights of innocents being trampled. We aren’t seeing that this time. I find that very interesting. I know what conclusion I draw from this but I will leave you to your own conclusions.
The high-profile sweep netted mostly Mexican nationals, but included people from 14 countries including Ukraine, Japan, Poland and Trinidad.
It culminated on Tuesday, when President George W. Bush gave a State of the Union address that ranked immigration legislation among his top domestic priorities.
Bush called for “comprehensive immigration reform,” combining a guest-worker program with tougher workplace and border enforcement.
I wonder if this new border enforcement will actually include our agents on the border actually being allowed to fire their weapons when confronted?
He remained vague, however, on the thorny issue of how to deal with the 10 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the shadows, more than 2.5 million of whom live in California.
It looks like they already know how to deal with it. Just keep up the raids and the deportation. It’s really that simple.
Freedom and democracy? Or torture and murder? What does the United States of America stand for today? After Abu Ghraib, shocking revelations reach us of Taleban bodies being burnt and placed facing Mecca and Saddam Hussein being subjected to torture.
I am guessing that the journalist who penned this piece has forgotten what the USSR was like towards people that spoke their minds. History means little to the MSM even if they are Russian. It is not amusing that the Russian MSM is still bringing up charges that have been proven to be in the minority of cases and for which we have prosecuted the offending parties. It appears that they would like to ignore the rape chambers, humans being fed into plastic shredders, fathers shot in front of their children, and genocide that was commonplace under Saddam Hussien and try and accuse the U.S. of being evil. They ignore the human rights violations still taking place in their own country to take pot shots at the U.S. Again, no matter, we can address this point by point. Keep in mind that this is not even an American journalist but I willing to bet the NY Slime would love to have this reporter as a mouthpiece!
The United States of America of George W. Bush makes a mockery of his country’s culture, history and Constitution. Far from being the land of the free, the land where dreams come true, George Bush’s Washington is the Great American Nightmare. With its foreign policy dictated by a clique of conservative corporate elitists, the procedure followed by Washington today is one of bullying, belligerence, deception, deceit, lies, mass murder, criminal negligence, criminal and wanton destruction of civilian structures with military hardware, war crimes and increasingly, torture.
I guess this is self evident but casualties of war are not considered murder under international law. There is no such thing as a war without civilian casualties. It is a horrible and mournable thing to be sure but the simple fact of the matter is that more people, civilians, would have died under Saddam in the same amount of time as we have been in Iraq. Due to the war population growth has actually increased because less people are dying. Nevermind that the death toll is greatly overblown and anyone dying of an IED is counted a death towards the U.S. civilian casualty count. Ignore the fact that people of Iraq actually want us there, that they have parades for our soldiers, offer them gifts, thank them, and more. Let’s all concentrate on a few bad apples instead of the overall picture. Let’s level charges against the U.S. government that would have had us in chains in Siberia if the U.S. government hadn’t won the cold war. We ask that you cease using your brains and look at only what we day. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Let’s call the current state the Great American Nightmare when polls show that the U.S. people agreed about the war and only after the MSM started ignoring stories of WMDs found by soldiers and concentrating on the vile acts of a very few did the public opinion waver. Maybe the axis of evil is founded in the U.S. but I have my doubts that it is the current administration and I think it will outlive this administration or the next…
(Read the article)
By getting the message out. I have no money to send Pat but I want to throw up the trailers from youtube and link him so maybe some of my readers can send a little his way. Pat believes in this so much that he done got blowed up filming this.
I am going to warn you. These are not nice videos. They show the reality of war and the ways our boys deal with that reality. If you are offended by body parts, coarse language, or patriotism then don’t click them…
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
These are the words that doctors utter upon becoming doctors. These are the very words uttered by the doctors that sit on the board of St. Lukes Episcopal (Bible optional) Hospital. These are the words uttered by the men and women who have given Andrea Clarke a death sentence. This is not another Terri Schiavo. This case does not even resemble that one. Andrea Clark was awake and able to make her own decisions prior to the hospital deciding to up her pain medication.
There is a woman who will be put to death at the hands of men and women who are sworn to do no harm. She will die on Sunday if nothing is done. The laws of the great state of Texas are against her (I am ashamed of my state for this) and the other hospitals in Houston are not willing to help (I am doubly ashamed of my hometown). I have no words to express the sheer dread brings unto me. The horror I feel for this woman and her family. Prayer is called for. I ask all of my readers, by they few, to hit their knees right now and lift up this situation, this family, and this woman to the Lord.
Here is some of the story and links:
The hospital ethics committee met the day before yesterday and concluded that Andrea’s treatment (respirator and dialysis) should be discontinued. We have ten days to move her from that hospital or they will “pull the plug” and let Andrea die. Andrea, until a few days ago, when the physicians decided to increase her pain medication and anesthetize her into unconsciousness, was fully able to make her own medical decisions and had decided that she wanted life saving treatment until she dies naturally. We have learned that this is part of the process, when hospitals decided to declare the “medical futility” of continueing treatment for a patient. But, this is not a Terry Schiavo case; not anything like it. Andrea, when she is not medicated into unconsciousness (and even when she is, and the medication has worn off to some degree) is aware and cognizant. She has suffered no brain damage to the parts of her brain responsible for thought and reason, or speech. She has only suffered loss of some motor control. The reason that the physician gave to medicate her so much is that she is suffering from intractable pain in the sacral region (in other words, she has a bedsore that causes her pain). This is not reason enough, in our books, and we are trying, as we speak, to get Andrea’s medication lowered so that she can speak to us.
Go read the whole article.
Hat tip to the Rott for the link.
My wife has also commented.
Ben and Jerry’s, as a company, is a real work of liberal moonbattedness. I will never give a dime to them. Heck I am not even giving them a link here even though I am talking about them. They are bleeding-heart-hardcore-idiotarians. You know the sort of folks who usually get it good and hard around here. But for once I find myself thinking they are being put upon. Let’s look at the evidence:
Ice cream makers Ben & Jerry’s have apologized for causing offence by calling a new flavor “Black & Tan” — the nickname of a notoriously violent British militia that operated during Ireland’s war of independence.
The ice cream, available only in the United States, is based on an ale and stout drink of the same name.
“Any reference on our part to the British Army unit was absolutely unintentional and no ill-will was ever intended,” said a Ben & Jerry’s spokesman.
So let me get this straight. An ice cream flavor that is only available in the United States has offended someone in Ireland? That’s completely and utterly ludicrous. Last year, and I could dig for the link but it’s Saturday and I am lazy, there was an uproar about a British newpaper using the term “fag” to refer to a cigarette. I say uproar but the actual noise was mostly shouting down the American faggot who took offense to a commonly used term from British vernacular. This is much the same. Ben and Jerry’s, in usually bend-over-and-spream-’em liberal fashion is apologizing. I say I am defending them but that’s sort of misleading. I am asserting they didn’t do anything wrong until the shoved their heads up their butts and apologized.
You can walk into any “Irish” bar in just about any city, even those owned by grizzled old men with broad black brimmers in a closet somewhere, and order a black and tan and not have any problems. The flavor is only available in the US. So it’s really not an issue is it? Well according to the capitulators at Ben and Jerry’s it is:
“Ben & Jerry’s was built on the philosophies of peace and love,” he added.
So I guess we can scream about Ben and Jerry’s donations to causes we dislike and get them to stop donating? I doubt it! A few complaints from some whiners that are not even in the market has Ben and Jerry’s rushing to apologize. Of course if this was a US conservative group they wouldn’t be doing anything. They have offended the EUnuchs and they have to keep them happy since we should be emulating them. This whole apology is a farce! Ben and Jerry’s did nothing wrong and yet here we are watching them apologize.
Oh look I didn’t end up defending them after all! I thought I might be able to defend them by saying they hadn’t done anything wrong but they had already run off to find some Eunuch crack to lick. Oh well. Ben and Jerry’s is still a bunch of wimps and likely always will be. I bet they got their lunch money stolen a whole lot…
Minor Threat - Guilty Of Being White
Let me open with some quotes:
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. - H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
These two quotes are extremely important. They place into words, much better than I can, very important precepts and noble ideas. Now lets take a look at the First Amendment (emphasis mine)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Let us now proceed to the moonbat drivel, mind you keep those three quotes in mind as we will touch on them later in the commentary.
Intolerant Speech Threatens Minority Free Expression
By Ian S. Port
Senior Staff WriterPretend that you are among the 1 percent of black students at UCSD. As you walk to class one Thursday, a white girl casually hands you a newspaper displaying, on its front page, a sloppy caricature of two thick-lipped black girls eating watermelon in slave garb while masturbating each other. Next to them, a black man in gangsta gear holds two pistols to the head of a man who appears to be standing behind a cash register. Above the picture runs a headline reading: “Cocked: A lifestyle rag for nappy Niggas and Hos to spend welfare money on.” Ridiculing your race as being overly fond of fried chicken and handgun violence, this imaginary publication argues that blacks should “be sent back to Africa where they can kill each other and save our tax dollars.”
Or we could look at the lyrics of rap music where they call for the death of police officers, whites, and anyone who opposes their chosen lifestyle. But lets humor the author for a moment and consider the hyperbole. Of course we would be offended. But wait I do not have to be black to be offended. Many things about the described magazine offend me.
The whole premise is flawed. In fact it presupposes that one would have to be black to understand the depths of the offense that this supposed ‘zine would invoke. The writer is using hyperbole and admits it later in the article. But by opening with playing the race card there is little worth to whole of the situation. It matters not what color my skin happens to be the publication in question offends me to the core. And I do not have to pretend to know what it feels like to be a minority on a school campus. I was a white boy in a mostly black high school as are many kids today. The writer automatically supposes that we must be a minority in order to understand discrimination and racism. This colors the whole article and brings doubt to any wisdom contained therein. To be sure there isn’t much if any wisdom but let us proceed further.
Those who oppose banning intolerant statements within the university decry limiting free speech just because it hurts people’s feelings. The First Amendment, they argue, cannot be limited for making others feel bad.
While the backstory is obviously that some are trying to limit the free speech of others it is also apparent that this writer is in favor of doing so. Let’s think about Ben Franklin for a moment. Consider the strong words he used to describe those willing to sacrifice liberty for safety. Now think of what his reaction might be to those willing to limit the liberty of other, not just their own liberty for something as temporal as the feelings of others. I think Ben would be spinning in his grave and shrieking could he hear this liberal nonesense. This is an abomination. This writer is using the very same amendment to publish his thoughts as he wishes to limit. Now before you start trotting out that USCD isn’t congress it would serve you well to know that they accept federal money and therefore are bound in the same manner as the federal government. So don’t bother to trot out that tired old line.
Of course there’s more…
(Read the article)
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — If the government doesn’t build security fencing along the Mexico border, Minuteman border watch leader Chris Simcox says he and his supporters will.
You know if Bush and the current bunch of useless morons in Washington would listen to their people we wouldn’t have to be doing this at all. If I weren’t all but broke moving back to Texas the Minutemen would be getting a check from me to cover some of the cost. These guys have the sack to do what our elected leaders won’t do. They are not afraid to confront the situation head on and speak plainly about it and not play nice with words that have no meaning. There are no un-documented workers to the Minutemen there are simply lawbreakers who the federal government simply ignores.
Simcox, whose civilian watch group opposes illegal immigration, said Wednesday he was sending an ultimatum to President Bush to deploy military reserves to the Arizona border by May 25 or his supporters will break ground for their own building project.
I hope this our RINOs attention. May 25th is not that far away and Bush had better listen. He is apprently concerned more about replacing his people that actually doing things that will help public opinion. Are the idiots in Washington so far removed from the people that they can’t see that a single issue like this could turn public opinion? Even liberal numbers show that a majority of people want this fence while the conservative polls show that it’s a vast majority. This is simple politics. If you keep screwing around and not doing anything about the border you are signing the GOPs death warrant in the next election. But our RINO is so concerned that maybe it’s the people around him that he can’t see the real issues.
“We’re going to show the federal government how easy it is to build these security fences, how inexpensively they can be built when built by private people and free enterprise,” Simcox said.
…
Simcox said a half-dozen landowners along the Arizona-Mexico border have said they will allow fencing to be placed on their borderlands, and others in California, Texas and New Mexico have agreed to do so as well.
Surveyors and contractors have offered to help with the design and survey work, and Simcox said some have said they will provide heavy equipment for his Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. to build fencing.
Take a good look. Private citizens are donating land, equipment, the design work, and more. These are the people that the GOP seems intent on alienating. The odd thing these are the people that are obviously willing to do something about a problem. Consider that long and hard when you think about elections. This is a hot button issue. The problem is the people that are the most pissed off cannot even vote because they are not citizens. Even the Hispanic community is split over the issue as evidenced by past citations here on this site and others.
It gets better. While Bush is busy cozying up to President Fox Mexico won’t even do anything about human smugglers:
‘Coyotes’ Openly Trolling for Clients
Apr 20 1:57 PM US/EasternSidling up to migrants who arrive at the Tijuana airport and cruising the streets in border towns, “coyotes” in gold chains and dark sunglasses openly find customers for nightly scrambles across the U.S. border.
Mexico’s president offered to crack down on smuggling at a recent summit with President Bush. But close to 100 smuggling gangs are still operating, government officials say, in plain sight of Mexican law enforcement.
So the Mexican president is offering to actually enforce their laws, only offering mind you, and we here in the US have to debate who can enforce the laws and if they should be enforced at all. I wonder why it is so hard to convince Mexcio to do what their laws say they should do?
Smuggling people into the United States from around the world has become a $10 billion-a-year industry, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Global crime networks use Mexican smugglers to sneak in Cubans, Brazilians, Iraqis, Africans and Chinese, according to Interpol, the international police network.
With a good chunk of that 10 billion going into the Mexican economy it’s hard to imagine they would want to stop it. We know that Mexico’s police force is by and large corrput to begin with. The empty promise of actual law enforcement is ludicrous at best and an insult at the worst. The Mexican police forces don’t want to get off the criminal teet and they certainly are not loyal to the law as our officers here are supposed to be.
President Vicente Fox’s administration has been caught between promoting itself as the migrants’ protector and bowing to U.S. pressure to crack down on gangs sneaking migrants across the border.
What a load of horse shit! The Mexican government is not caught between being a protector of “migrants”. These people are not migrants they are lawbreakers who care nothing about the laws they are breaking. Leaving Mexico in the manner in which they are leaving is not legal nor does it become legal when they cross the border. They break the laws of two countries and Fox wants to protect them? These assholes (Bush included) need to get their heads out of the sand and realize we have laws for a reason. They need to enforce them!
Although smugglers have been blamed for abandoning some migrants to their deaths in the desert heat, the Mexican government has been hesitant to move against them, knowing the death toll would climb if people crossed on their own, Clark said.
“Migrant traffickers have become a necessary evil,” he said.
You have got to be kidding me! I hate to sound harsh here but these people are breaking the law! If they die while doing so it’s their own damn fault. You don’t break the law and expect protection from your very own personal idiocy. So what if they die while crossing. It’s tragic on one level to be sure but on another level it is a decision they made all on their own. We did not force them to cross the border. We did not ask them to come here. They risked their lives of their own free will and if they suffer the consequences the blame lies solely on their own dehydrated heads. What’s next? Government issued bullet proof vests for bank robbers? There is absolutely no logical difference in the two. To say that there is illogical and self-deceiving.
The article goes on to whinge about Mexico’s trouble with kidnappings, drugs, and so on. The writer blames these things on human smuggling being a low priority. Meanwhile it points out that Fox will not allow the Mexican government to stop people from heading to the border. It’s all a smokescreen in reality. The harsh truth is that Mexcio wants people to come here because it helps their economy.
Time to listen to the Minutemen. Listen close President Bush and listen well. If you do not build it we will. You will be in the position of using the National Guard to stop the citizens of your country from protecting themselves and the blood that flows from that will be on your hands. Get your head out of your ass and build the damn wall. Stop being a pussy.
For the back story click here, here, here, and here.
Moonbat sympathizer Bob Fitch posted more photos on Indymedia, including one of tolerant left-wing radicals blocking access to military recruitment tables and another of Capt. Griffin being escorted out of a campus building by university police.
The unhinged group behind the anti-troops movement at UC Santa Cruz is “Students Against War.” The leaders on campus, according to a SAW press release, are:
Sam Aranke - 714-458-2471 - saranke@ucsc.edu
David Zlutnick – 805-698-6228 - dzlutnic@ucsc.edu
Janine Carmona - 707-496-3530 - jgcarmon@ucsc.eduUPDATE: SAW has removed the contact information from its press release and is now lying about the fact that it made the info publicly available on the Internet. I am leaving it up. If you are contacting them, I do not condone death threats or foul language. As for SAW, my message is this: You are responsible for your individual actions. Other individuals are responsible for theirs. Grow up and take responsibility.
We here at I Hate It Here are behind you 100% Michelle. These sorry wastes of skin need to own up to their actions. If they can’t take the heat stay out of the kitchen. I have to give a hat tip to The Rott for the links to the whole story. And I have to second his closing sentiments. I know it’s unoriginal but why bother when someone has said it better?
Listen up whackos! You have essentially issued a call to war. If you come anywhere near me or my family there will be hell to pay. You published the information and now you have to own up to your actions. I urge my readers to be polite in any communication with these lunatics. Give them no reason to use legal means to silence you. I know most of you have too much class to call these idiots on the phone but I have to urge those that do to not threaten any violence. They are not above violence as you can see from the links but we are better than they are by far.
HOUSTON, April 15 — To the long list of adjectives used to describe Texans since last summer’s hurricanes — munificent, intrepid, scrappy — add one more: fed up.
Seven months after two powerful hurricanes blew through the Gulf Coast, elected officials, law enforcement agencies and many residents say Texas is nearing the end of its ability to play good neighbor without compensation.
This really isn’t news. In fact I would say that the New York Times is quite behind on this report. I know people in Texas have been fed up with the Nawlins folks for quite some time. Maybe it took this long to get up to the so called officials but I know that crime rates have risen in areas all over Houston. I know that the homeless lazy have increased dramitically. I know that my family and friends back home have been fed up for some time now. You can’t drop ~150,000 people into an area and expect everything to be peachy keen.
Houston is straining along its municipal seams from the 150,000 new residents from New Orleans, officials say. Crime was already on the rise there before the hurricane, but the Houston police say that evacuees were victims or suspects in two-thirds of the 30 percent increase in murders since September. The schools are also struggling to educate thousands of new children.
We stepped up when Katrina hit. We opened our hearts, our homes, and much more to those affected. We saw an immediate increase in crime. We saw people who needed help scamming the government to get more than their share. We saw our resources used without thanks. There were even television interviews in which evacuees claimed they were owed everything they were given and some even complained about the quality of the donations. Now don’t get me wrong some of them were truly greatful to Houston and Texas residents for helping out but a lot of them were not even the least bit thankful. Now this is where it gets sticky. I don’t blame the people who weren’t happy or at least thankful we were helping. That is the fault of the liberal victimizatio of minorities that is disguised as compassion. For decades these people have heard that they can’t do it on their own and they need, no deserve, help. So when something like Katrina happens they expect everyone to bend over backwards and help them no matter what they are doing to help themselves. That doesn’t erase the fact that they came to our fair city and began to commit crimes, drain our civil resources, and be a burden. This was a burden we were more than happy to bear at least at first.
To the east of here, Texans argue that Hurricane Rita, which took an unexpected turn away from Houston shortly after Hurricane Katrina last fall to wreak havoc from Jasper to the northeast to Sabine Pass near the Louisiana border, has been forgotten in the swirl of attention given to the devastation in New Orleans.
In fact, they say, the nation never really took notice of the 77,000 homes made uninhabitable by Hurricane Rita’s force, 40,000 of which were not insured, or the piles of debris and garbage that still fester along the roads. “Personally I am sick of hearing about Katrina,” said Ronda Authement, standing outside her trailer in Sabine Pass, where she will live until she can get the money and the workers to put her three-bedroom house back on its foundation. “I would like to throw up, frankly, hearing about Katrina.”
This is where we actually start seeing the picture. We had a hurricane hit right after Katrina. Our citizens, neighbors, friends, and family were left homeless. We evacuated, some in vain, and came back. We expected the nation to help us like they had heped the Katrina evacuees. We didn’t get on television and scream about it being the federal government’s fault. We didn’t get angry at the state for bad evacuation plans. We tried to live our lives and waited for the help. This was help that never came.
Though the state has requested $2 billion in federal aid to pay for law enforcement, education and housing, state officials say they have received only $22 million so far.
We have recieved about about 11% of the funds requested. We are still educating residents of Lousiana. We are still housing them. We are still having to jail them. We still have people without homes. All we are getting from the federal government is a laughable amount to help do all of this and nevermind we have our own people to look after. 77,000 homes destroyed and little or no federal assistance.
“We were told we would be taken care of by everybody on the federal level,” said Chris Paulitz, a spokesman for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, who recently helped get $380 million in aid added to President Bush’s latest supplemental request for Texas. “But clearly that isn’t the case. Texas opened its doors and hearts, and that is something we will continue to do today. However, we need to be reimbursed.”
I don’t agree with Ms Hutchison that often but this time I do and do so wholeheartedly. Well almost. Texas will continue to open it’s hearts and doors even if the federal goverment never comes through with the promised aid. The problem is that we are tired. We need to see that the rest of the country cares about us, our people, our situation maybe even a little bit. I don’t think it’s a matter of needing to be reibursed but rather a matter of it being a broken promise at this point. Texans are good people. But even good people have their limits. We will grow more tired of the situation and as Texans we just might start doing something about it.
Houston’s relationship with its added population is subtle and at times ambivalent. Residents, atomized over a broad swath of land with few interneighborhood connections, seem at one level to be dedicated to helping their neighbors, and are quick to cite numerous examples of continued volunteerism and the improved lives of children who they say are getting a better education than they received in New Orleans.
But they are also keenly aware of spikes in crime, especially in Southwest Houston, where the majority of the poorest New Orleanians settled.
“The city of Houston bent over backwards for these people, and I am glad we did it,” said Scott Wilson, 43, who lives in the Montrose section. “But now we are absorbing some of their problems.”
We knew what we were getting into when we took these people into our city and offered them help. We could see it coming. Gang shootings at the Superdome, shots fired at helicopters, and more. We knew what kind of people were coming and we offered help anyway. Not all of the evauees are like that but you really don’t know who is an evacuee if they assimilated into the economy and are working and paying their bills. Those sorts of people don’t make the news and they don’t get on the nerves of those trying to help. Those people embody what all the evacuees should be doing. A good majority of these people may never be able to go home. That is sad to be sure. But in light of that they need to find jobs and stop whining their federal money has run out. Everytime we see that on the news we get a little more pissed about the whole thing.
Not everyone is sympathetic to the needs of Texas, where oil refinery businesses continue to take in millions of dollars in profits monthly, even though state officials say they do not have enough workers because of a housing shortage. In testimony at a recent appropriations hearing, Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, said he did not believe Texans needed housing money.
“Texas, in the best role of traditional Judeo-Christian charity, provided benefits,” Mr. Bond said. “I think it’s time we get back to being a good neighbor and not a paid companion.”
That’s a ridiculous comment. I cannot tell you just how angry that makes me. Mr. Bond I highly suggest you think twice about your your thoughts. If this were Judeo-Christian charity the church would be stepping up. We did step up. We have gone beyond what is necessary, what is safe. We have people without homes in this state because a natural disaster. Our money is short because we spent it all helping the people of another state. You sir a hypocrite. You suggest we get to being a good neighbor when you are not even willing to help us. You sir have no clue what Christian charity is and you wouldn’t recognize it if it jumped up from the crapper and bit you on the dingus.
Mayor Guy N. Goodson of Beaumont, where thousands of homes were damaged, said he would like to see federal reimbursements for debris removal there rise to 90 percent of costs from 75 percent, equaling what it was in Louisiana. Mayor Goodson said his area suffered inattention because its residents had done the right thing: evacuating and rebuilding without complaint after Hurricane Rita cut its path.
“There is a great disjoinder in people’s minds about disaster,” he said. “You see wildfires, you see a tornado, and who can forget the pictures of the Ninth Ward. A vast majority of our area is wind damage. And unfortunately from a sensory standpoint, people just don’t coordinate these two very similar disasters.”
And therein lies the actual root of the problem. We didn’t play the race card. We didn’t scream like spoiled children. We did what we should have done and because of that we get less than others in the same situation. It’s wonderful how things work in the real world. Take a good look Mr. Bond. This is what Texans do. We fixed our homes, those that were fixable. We didn’t blame Bush for a hurricane. We are not accusing anyone of being racist because weather destroyed our homes. We quietly did what we could do to fix the damage and now we are quietly asking for help. I guess we should find some race card to play. I am sure that would work better than what we are doing. Thankfully we have too much pride to do that.
Iran’s president is a lunatic. He is a larger danger than Saddam Hussein ever was. He is on the fast track to have nuclear weapons used in warfare on a large scale for the first time in history. If you haven’t been living under a rock you know that Iran is refusing to stop enriching uranium and the useless UN is doing nothing about it. He has denied the holocaust, and while I dispute the numbers I have no doubt it happened, and on Friday he said Israel will eliminated. Before I start in on what he said I want to post a quote from someone I used to work with at Christian Forums.
If Islam would lay down it’s arms there would be peace in the middle east.
If Israel laid down her arms there would be no Israel.
That about sums up the whole of the middle eastern situation as far as I can tell. I won’t get into the Moslem religion in this entry. But Iran’s president’s comments need to be adressed.
The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was “heading toward annihilation,” just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.
This moron doesn’t seem to get it. Iran may have the ability to produce a nuclear warhead in as littel 16 days according to some reports but that’s just one warhead. We, as in the United States of America, already have enough to wipe every little piece of shit Islamist regiem off of the face of the planet and still have enough left to pacify anyone who had a problem with it. If he keeps pushing he will no doubt feel the wrath of the US. We are already there, in the desert, and more troops are ready to go if necessary. Saddam was a minor threat and we took him out. This moron is making his country an active threat against one of our greatest allies. Where does he think this will lead?
“Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation,” Ahmadinejad said at the opening of a conference in support of the Palestinians. “The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm.”
The reference to “one storm” seems like an obvious reference to the use of nuclear arms. They may be able to attack Israel but they do not have a delivery system capable of delivering anything to US. We will not let them get that far. Iran is the nation on its way to being a glass spot in an otherwise pristine Moslem desert. Agression against Israel has never been met kindly by the US and Iran seems to be determined to find out just how unkindly we will respond. I have news for them. It will not be pretty.
He did not say how this would be achieved, but insisted to the audience of at least 900 people: “Believe that Palestine will be freed soon.”
“The existence of this (Israeli) regime is a permanent threat” to the Middle East, he added. “Its existence has harmed the dignity of Islamic nations.”
It is obvious how he thinks this will be achieved from his previous comments. And again they cannot threaten the US with anything but minor terrorist attacks. If they manage to detonate a dirty bomb it would be all over for every country that even smelled like they had something to do with it. We would take vengence to a whole different level. If Iran wants to continue to exist they would be best served not trying to assert any of what they are currently asserting, hanging the lunatic that they have for a president, and begging Israel and the US for forgiveness. They won’t do that and we will occupy their land at the very least. At the worst, if they keep escalating, we will blow them up. I mean every last one of them.
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