I’ve been really busy lately and am now as sick as a dying dog (my friends would argue that it’s my refusal to take a break that’s to blame), but since the local pharmacist is going to take TWO HOURS to fill my prescription for codeine, I’m going to channel the body aches, the fever, the racking cough and the near-migraine into a blog. (I bet it’s nothing compared to Steve’s predicament–being a tax guy who just blitzed the end of tax season!)
So much has happened in the news this week that I’m not sure where to start, but it all ties in. I guess I’ll start where the madness began: the DHS report released on Monday, Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment. Unfortunately, I’m not kidding. They actually released this report. Our liberal readers will jump up and down and scream, “they released a report on left-wing radicals in January!!!” Here’s my beef: that report released earlier this year named specific groups, listed the aims of those groups and highlighted specific incidents (such as bombings, break-ins, flooding homes and threatening personal violence) and gave police reports as their sources. The report on “right-wing extremism” does no such thing. It’s very vague. And here’s how it starts off: “the economic downturn and the election of the first African American President present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.” It claims that white supremacist groups are on the rise, and points out “opposition to abortion or immigration” as key indicators of right-wing extremism. Its sources? Not police reports…more like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has named the American Legion a “hate group” for opposing illegal immigration.
Go read it for yourself. Put down your drink before you do, or you’ll be choking on it. Trust me.
It’s no coincidence that the report was released just days before the massive Tax Day Tea Party protests across the country. It was no secret that this was coming, organizers started over a month ago planning this shindig. The Tea Parties were a throwback to the historic Boston tea party, when American colonists dumped shiploads of tea into Boston Harbor to stop the tea tax levied by the Crown without any say in the colonies. Today, we’re angry about being told that it’s our “patriotic duty” to pay more taxes (don’t give me any of that “it’s only the rich” BS, either, because ALL taxes will rise eventually thanks to the Democrats’ outrageous spending). Yesterday’s massive nationwide protests are the backlash that was inevitable, and all of those registered Republicans who couldn’t stand to plug their noses and vote for McCain showed up with people from all walks of life to send the message that we’re not interested in being taxed to death. The aforementioned report is the Democrat government’s version of a preemptive strike.
Not that they really needed it. The MSM did a remarkable hatchet job all on their own, no doubt in an effort to protect Barkey’s messiah-like aura. Anderson Cooper stooped to the level of sexual innuendo by calling them “teabagging” parties, fat bastard James Wolcott from Vanity Fair put his fingers in his ears like a two-year-old and said, “they didn’t appear on the front page of my newspapers, so I WON’T believe they happened!”, and CNN’s Susan Roesgen whined that it was offensive to call Obama a socialist (this after gushing over a paper-mache effigy of Bush with devil horns and a Hitler ‘stache as an “excellent lookalike”). The message? If we don’t agree with you, we’re going to do our level best to make you all look like the radicals that our Democrat DHS says you are!
Then, today, in an amazing, brazen act of hypocrisy, Obama went to Mexico and held hands with Felipe Calderon (well, not really, but what happened is just as nauseating as watching Bush hold hands with the same Saudi king that Obama bowed to not long ago), declaring–and I do quote–“how we can improve our enforcement of existing laws because even under current law, trafficking illegal firearms, sending them across the border, is illegal. That’s something we can stop.”
This is where Philip goes, “oh, REALLY?”
I’d like to know exactly how Obama plans to do that. He not only refuses to secure the border, he also openly announces a brewing plan for amnesty–all the while accusing those of us who want the current laws enforced EXTREMISTS. How does he intend to pull off this heroic act? Send the National Guard to the border to seal it off with orders to let any “workers” coming North to pass by? How does he think the drugs are getting here? How ’bout we look at something that happened right here in Phoenix. In 1999, Phoenix police officer Marc Atkinson spotted a suspicious vehicle and pulled it over. The three men inside hid around a corner and ambushed Atkinson; an armed American citizen had the cojones to return fire in defense of the fallen officer and hold one suspect for officers responding to the scene. Today, that citizen would be labeled an extremist along with the rest of us.
But not only does Barkey swear to stop the flow of cash and guns South and the flow of drugs North, he yet again repeats the tired, debunked lie that 90% of all of the guns being used by the cartels come from the United States (I’m not gonna re-iterate my point, just read it here). The Arizona Repugnant repeats that lie and instead of “reporting” the story of Obama’s visit to Mexico, it gives a personal spin that makes it reek of a badly-placed editorial. So much for journalistic ethics.
What’s really funny is that in a related piece, the same freakin’ paper points out that a .50-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun was recovered in Mexico, mounted to a truck. Where’d it come from? Not the US, but you wouldn’t know that from the tacit omission by the writer who submitted the garbage for print.
If we can commit $350 million to stepped-up enforcement on guns and drugs on the border, then we can sure as hell start enforcing the immigration laws that our government has, so far, refused to enforce. Guess what? This human cost that you’re pointing out here, Barkey–THIS IS THE HUMAN COST OF IGNORING THE LAW AND GIVING A FREE PASS TO THOSE WHO FLAUNT IT. We don’t need reform. Our immigration laws are the way they are for a reason, and guest workers have the H2-A guest worker visa now to make themselves legal with. Stop bending over for the shamnesty crowd or you become the laughingstock you say your predecessor was.
But don’t listen to me. I’m just a right-wing extremist. I believe in the rule of law, liberty for all law-abiding citizens and LEGAL immigrants and small government that allows me to keep what I work hard to earn.
All the things that spell disaster, right?
Hmph…no pun intended.
steveflesher
Philip
Mel Maguire
Mark Ciavola
