Posted on 01/24/2007 5:51:23 AM PST by NapkinUser
Calls State of the Union speech 'total sellout of the United States of America to Mexico'
Monica Ramos, the wife of one of two U.S. Border Patrol agents imprisoned last week for wounding an escaping drug smuggler, attended the State of the Union speech in person last night – and was sharply critical of President Bush, calling him a hypocrite and worse.
Ramos, wife of Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos, attended the event as a guest of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.
Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean began prison sentences last week, of 11 and 12 years respectively, for their actions in the shooting and wounding of a Mexican drug smuggler who was granted full immunity to testify against them.
At the conclusion of the speech, Ramos, emotional and in tears, told WND in an exclusive interview, that she considered President Bush's speech compete hypocrisy.
"How could President Bush say that he wanted to secure our borders and that he would double the size of the Border Patrol when my husband is in prison," she asked WND. "Ignacio was trying to secure our border from drug smugglers. And what do we get? I have to show my children their father in prison in chains and I have to explain to them that the president of the United States is a liar."
WND waited nearly an hour after the speech was concluded to be able to speak with a clearly emotionally upset Monica Ramos.
"President Bush can say all he wants that the solution to border security is new infrastructure and technology," Ramos told WND, "but as long as my husband is in jail the American people should know that President Bush doesn't mean a word he says."
"What I sat in the gallery and heard tonight," she said, "was a total sell-out of the United States of America to Mexico. I heard President Bush's message loud and clear. All the president has to offer is electronic gadgets. Meanwhile, our borders are wide open to illegal immigrants, criminals and drug smugglers. God help the honest men and women of the Border Patrol who want to do their duty. It's a losing battle – just ask my husband, he'll tell you the truth."
"The American people only need to ask me," Ramos pleaded to WND. "Tell America that President Bush doesn't mean a word of what he says about border security. My husband is in jail for trying to capture a drug smuggler and President Bush wants electronics? My husband is a hero and President Bush is a traitor as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell my children that he wants new 'infrastructure' or 'comprehensive immigration reform' when their dad who wore the Border Patrol badge for years is shackled and in chains for doing his job."
Rohrabacher agreed with Ramos, emphasizing to WND that "the Bush administration has a hidden agenda with Mexico and that agenda is to keep our border with Mexico wide open, even to drug smugglers."
Asked what message he wanted to send by inviting Ramos' wife to attend the speech in person, Rohrabacher explained: "I wanted to give Mrs. Ramos the opportunity to be in the room and look President Bush right in the face, knowing that this was the man who was destroying her life by his decision to prosecute her husband to the hilt."
Rohrabacher described the injustice he perceived in emotional terms: "By prosecuting these two Border Patrol agents while the drug smuggler is given immunity, President Bush has brutalized the lives of agents Ramos and Compean with a decision that threatens to destroy their families. The wives and the young children of these two Border Patrol agents are now being driven into poverty. The families have no health insurance, they are now losing their homes, and they face a mountain of debt to lawyers. This is a travesty of justice and a personal tragedy that should make President Bush ashamed.
Asked if he had achieved his purpose in inviting Monica Ramos to attend the speech, Rohrabacher told WND:
My purpose after hearing the State of the Union tonight is doubly resolved. President Bush needs to know that we will not rest until Border Patrol [officers] Ramos and Compean are set free.
In history there are cases where heroic people were brutalized and sacrificed by political powers in order to achieve a certain agenda. In this case, I think that's what's happening.
We have an administration that has a hidden agenda with Mexico such that George Bush wants an open border, even though an open border is not in the interests of the American people.
These Border Patrol agents are caught in the middle. They're Americans and they know what their job is supposed to be. They are being persecuted and prosecuted for our sake because they are getting in the way of a power play that has yet been disclosed to the public.
It brutalizes the lives and destroys the families of men who have been willing to sacrifice their lives for us for the last five and 10 years. This is both a tragedy and a travesty.
The continued insistence of the administration to prosecute these Border Patrol agents and to put them in jail and to shackle them and see the families of these men being driven into destitution – this indicates that there has been a decision right at the top that's based on arrogance and cruelty that I think unfortunately reflects our president. It's a side of the president that is now coming out.
We get calls back from the underlings, the assistant congressional liaison officers. This president doesn't return phone calls and he is arrogant and nasty and doesn't treat people very well, not even members of Congress.
The statement we're trying to make is that the president's policy along the border is responsible for murders, drug dealers and terrorists entering the country, millions of illegals. His policy has resulted in the undermining of those law enforcement officers guarding the border, he has totally demoralized the Border Patrol, and in the process of him trying to send a message to the Border Patrol he's destroying the lives of two families. … This person looking right into the face of the president in the same room, this mother of three, her life is being destroyed by President Bush's decision to fully prosecute to the hilt her husband.
American citizens need to rally around these two Border Patrol agents and should call the White House directly to register their protest to this travesty of justice.
President Bush made no reference to the Border Patrol case in a 50-minute speech that focused on domestic issues in the first half and international issues in the second half.
Monica Ramos told WND she was in Washington, D.C., to attend a meeting yesterday afternoon with concerned congressmen.
At least 70 members of the House have signed on to a resolution ordering a congressional pardon that would toss out the convictions and immediately free the former agents.
Monica Ramos described her first meeting with her husband in prison as "heart breaking."
Ramos confirmed the account provided WND by her father, Joe Loya. She acknowledged her husband is being held in solitary confinement in a 6-by-12 foot cell, without windows. Ignacio Ramos is not being allowed any exercise time, and he is shackled every time he leaves his cell.
"This may be for his protection from other inmates," Monica Ramos acknowledged to WND, "but this is abusive. They are treating my husband like the worst hardened criminal imaginable."
She said one of her three young children is so disturbed by the imprisonment that the family has decided to seek counseling for the child.
"My children are planning to visit their father for the first time this Friday," she said, expressing concern. "This will be the first time they see their dad shackled in chains, when they are used to seeing me send him off in his badge and uniform."
The couple's youngest child is 7 years old, the others are aged 9 and 13.
"My youngest child wanted to know if we could order pizza for dad in prison," Monic Ramos said. "No, I told him. Let's wait and have pizza night when daddy gets home."
Because the agents fired 15 shots at somebody they didn't know was an illegal and didn't know at that time he possessed drugs.
The agents took the time to retrieve all of their brass and didn't report the incident, and tried to cover up the incident.
That's why the jury convicted them!
I don't agree that it was a bad question. Automatically assuming someone must be guilty of "something" is quite natural. However, shooting at someone (and then covering it up) because of a suspicion of "something" apparently is not legal.
In my analogy question I did not add that this hypothetical Mexican American, who didn't have a D.L., was smuggling drugs. The agents didn't know about the drugs until after they had already shot at this unknown person who was fleeing. If the BP agents had done their jobs as they were trained to do, they would not be in the mess.
NO!!!
They convicted the agents because the US Government HATED them because they fired on a noble Mexican. The enablers of a one world government are set to DESTROY our heritage, our culture, our way of life. They want a one world government and are let by that cfr lackey GW Bush.
JIHAD FOREVER!!!, er, uh, I mean USA FOREVER!!! .... yeah, sorry, I ,ah, got confused there for just a second and coudn't tell the difference.
This isn't rocket science...they automatically had to assume that anyone who resists arrest is hiding something, IMO.
Your arguing a point of law, and I am arguing for common sense and compassion to prevail.
You don't have a clue how I have to keep my emotions in check on this subject..I could just scream reading any defense of the Drug Dealers "rights"..
But You win..Bush probably won't pardon them anytime soon. Prison will ultimately be the destruction of these good men and their families. And they should have remained free till their appeal process ran out..
Now and then, the good guys lose one..Score one for the bad guys.
sw
Geraldo is an illegal coddler, for one thing.
On the other hand, it's quite easy to start with a personal attack. Grow up.
Why?
Isn't running from easily identifiable law enforcement prima facia evidence of an intent to cause harm? How can they guarantee that he's not armed? Did they check him for explosives?
I've never understood this bit of the law.
Now, if one is shot in the back because one did not recognize law enforcement, that's another matter.
"I thought he had a gun" works in some cases, but not others.
you mean "prima facie" not "prima facia." Prima facia doesn't mean anything, except maybe the first row of soffit under your roof eaves.
If you shot me, and a cop saw you standing over my body holding a smoking gun, he'd arrest you on the assumption that you shot me, but your guilt would be determined through our (adversarial) court system. The cop is not entitled to shoot you because he thinks you shot me (but he could if he felt threatened). Does that work? I'm not a law professor.
First of all, this isn't about me winning anything, spectre. If I'm wrong, I will be the first one to admit it and if everything I have read about this case turns out to be wrong too, I'll be glad to see them freed after their Appeal. I feel bad for these guys too. Where we differ the most seems to be that you don't think they did anything wrong, and I do. Or, you know they did something wrong, but because of our border problems you do not think BP agents should be held accountable for their actions.
I do not fault them at all for assuming that the person who was fleeing must have a reason to do so. It's a no-brainer that when someone runs from a law enforcement officer, there is always a reason. But not all people who flee have committed a crime that justifies shooting at them.
If I remember correctly, all but three pardons that President Bush has issued, were issued AFTER the persons involved had served their sentences. I do not believe it would be appropriate for the President to intercede on a case that is still in the courts. Let the Appeal process do it's work.
Does anyone know why these two men were not allowed to remain "free" until the appeal process ran out? I don't know any facts about how that decision is made.
While fleeing, posing no imminent threat, are both assumptions. Was it a jury trial? This does scare me.
Illegal immigration is one issue.
A totally insecure border is almost without precedent anywhere in the world. I know of no other border where tens of millions of people have crossed in the last several decades and been given the free medical care and equality of other rights, food stamps, protection from arrest and deportation that these illegal immigrants have been given. Do you?
PS The illegals and legals that I have personally interacted with are by and large a credit as hard working good people. I just take issue with the loose unregulated borders, drug smugglers, and give away programs.
Huh? Are you out of your mind or just grasping for any ad hominem argument within reach?
I could give a piddle if you, or the perps, or the drug dealer, or the jury, or the prosecuting/defending attorneys are black, brown, yellow, red, white, or whatever.
Let me give you a hint for the future, though. Guys real hung up about losing our racial culture and going hysterical over the "browning" of America tend to be the same gaggle of folks who are incensed that the border guards (who happened to be Latinos themselves) were sentenced.
I myself think 10 years was too severe a sentence, as I have said ad nauseum here in this thread. I would think it was too severe if they were black, white, brown, yellow etc. I would also think the border guards made their own problems BY LYING AND OBSTRUCTING THE INVESTIGATION......, as I have ALSO said about 18,000 times in this thread. That doesn't stop the "patriots" from declaring that since the guy was:
1) illegal
2) a drug dealer
3) one who fled when accosted by the law.
Then NOTHING the border patrol could have done was off limits. Hell, if they strung him up and hung him from a cottonwood tree as a "warning" that would be just peachy with some of these fine specimens of "conservatism." I guess, no - I KNOW - that the above combination is claimed as a justification not only for being shot ..., it justifies a death sentence imposed by our brave border patrol, and justifies anything they may have said or done to cover it up. Maybe one day I can be a "patriot" too. OONGA OONGA OOHMAHWAHWAH
A good leader would get the support of his party because he would get the support of the people. Bush does not have a sense of the importance of acting ruthlessly in politics. A good war president must be willing to be ruthless both to the enemies abroad and the enemies within.
Look at how he handled the Sandy Berger matter. A leader would have insisted that Berger go to jail for the rest of his life and made it clear that purloining classified documents at a time of war is an act of war. Instead Berger gets 100 hours of community service from the Bush administration's attorney general and two border patrol agents who shoot a fleeing drug dealer and potential terrorist in the a$$ get socked with a 12 year sentence.
What kind of leadership is that?
Further Bush should have been on the radio and television and on the stump all over the country asking people to support his efforts in the war on terror and asking people to make their own sacrifices in this cause so that the war is a nationally shared event and not merely Bush's war. This is now Bush's war. he did not ask for our help, he did not demand our sacrifice. Instead he kept the war in Washington and let the enemy within undermine our goals.
To be quite frank, I am sorely disappointed at what a mouse Bush turned out to be. He had the potential to be a great president, but he squandered the opportunity. Great leaders do not squander the opportunity to be great, they seize the moment.
Carpe Diem.
It may be too late. The day has ended. Nightfall is upon us.
BTW, yes, I do know it's a "war on the border", spectre. I hate to have to keep repeating my position on our INsecure borders and illegal immigration problems. There's also a war in Iraq. Military men and women also have to abide by rules of engagement, protocol, laws, commands, reports, etc., and if they fail in their duties, intentionally or otherwise, and/or obstruct justice, they face serious consequences. I don't believe that we should expect any less from BP's and LEO's.
You are either lying or you did not read the same articles I did. Link, please.
Can you end a sentence with a proposition?
No! A preposition is something you should never end a sentence with.
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