Hunter says Congress must debate Mexico aid

The ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee asked the White House Friday to withdraw its $500 million request for aid to Mexico as part of the new Merida Initiative to fight drug-trafficking into the U.S.

California Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who chaired Armed Services for years under Republican rule, said Congress should first debate and authorize the multiyear commitment which has been a top priority for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee is scheduled to mark up an authorization bill next Wednesday. But mindful that its own power is running out, the Bush administration has been anxious to move more quickly as a sign of good faith with the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Calderon has won praise for cracking down on violent drug-trafficking areas, and the new money is intended to provide training and equipment, running from computer software to aircraft able to transport troops and improve surveillance.

Rice has lobbied hard — in the White House and Congress — for the money to be included in an emergency spending bill to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And even this week, she telephoned top lawmakers hoping to stave off cuts in the request.

President Bush weighed in as well at a White House meeting Wednesday with Republicans. But Hunter’s stance reflects what has been a steady undercurrent of criticism on the right. In trying to pull together the wartime spending bill and still meet other budget priorities, Democrats argue that it is unrealistic for Rice to expect the full $500 million at this time.

In his letter to Bush, for example, Hunter argues that the $500 million has no place in the bill “much like other programs not intended to support military operations in the combat theaters of the global war on terrorism.”

“Strengthening security cooperation between the United States and Mexico remains important to our overall efforts of preventing illegal drugs and other contraband from crossing our Southern land border,” he writes. “However, Mexico’s questionable drug enforcement efforts and reputation for corruption within its government, police and military forces require that we proceed cautiously with the use of American taxpayer funds for this purpose.”

Hunter was joined in his letter by four other Republicans: Reps. Cliff Stearns of Florida and Trent Franks of Arizona, also a member of Armed Services, and Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and Ed Royce, both fellow Californians who sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I DON'T think Condi needed to spend much time (or ANY) working the White House. Bush is full bore pro-hispanic already and always has been.

As early as 12 years ago, when he was my representative, I was a regular at Newt’s Town Hall Meetings where I spoke in support of the FairTax. 70% or more of the others who took the mike were visibly ANGRY ABOUT THE FAILURE TO STOP THE GROWING FLOW OF ILLEGALS! (While he DID and probably still DOES support the illegal invasion, at several sessions – clearly pandering to the crowd -- Newt suggested the 100,000 IRS agents be given weapons and sent down to the border with Mexico.) That certainly works for me.

Under Bush, that flow became a TORRENT!

He CLEARLY doesn’t care WHAT we think!

DO TRY TO GET THAT MEMORY OVER THE TRADITIONAL 20 NANOSECOND LEVEL AND HOLD THE THOUGHT THROUGH NOVEMBER ’08!

In ABSTRACT terms, this is the conspiratorial view of what’s going on vis-à-vis the INVASION of the illegals here:

The current alien invasion from the south serves BOTH the elites who run Mexico – and many of the OTHER states of Central and South America -- and the political ruling class who increasingly run the United States:

· It takes pressure off the 60 or so families who control approximately 80% of the wealth in Mexico. Without the northern “safety valve” (the United States) for their poor, those poor MIGHT be inclined to do what America’s early colonists found it necessary to do: Revolt! Parenthetically, that would be MY suggestion for them: Instead of fleeing here – and converting “here” to a larger, more poverty infested version of “there,” they ought to stay there and make “there” into their version of “here,” whatever that would be. Revolutions ARE messy and there are no guarantees that they will produce the desired result. But – according to one T. Jefferson – they are often necessary. Never forget that THIS country was born in revolution!

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson ·

· For the NAFTA/CAFTA coveting US national ruling class – especially those who, in varying degrees, quest after some sort of One-World utopia run by guess who? – it provides yet another level of insecurity and tension among the indigenous populace which can be used to justify new and more draconian limits to freedom here. Instead of securing the borders, allow millions of illegals to come in and when the natives become alarmed, require a national ID card. “Your papers, please!” will soon become a phrase familiar to all. It’s Mr. Franklin’s trade of freedom for (false) security. It’s also the time-tested Hegelian Dialectic the One-Worlders have successfully worked like a rented mule.

While they occasionally squabble among themselves, the elites of history have ALL had one thing in common: They will do ANYTHING to remain in charge. And throughout that history, except for the 230 year-old experiment in freedom called “America,” most of the men who have walked the earth have lived as slaves to these elites whether they call themselves kings, emperors, potentates, sultans, czars – or presidents.

Get ready, folks. Unless some SERIOUS changes are made and the handful of Americans who CARE about liberty get involved, that history will almost certainly repeat here.

Now for the SPECIFICS of the matter:

My take on Bush's role in all of this is:

1. His long and apparently positive experience with the large hispanic population in Texas is largely responsible for his inaction on this alien invasion. And why wouldn't HIS experience with them be positive as he traveled in the highest, best-educated circles among them, not the Hispanic gangbangers and pine-straw spreaders...

2. Boy Jorge Bush was cared for by a Hispanic nanny for many years while his daddy was running Zapata Oil (into the ground).

3. His brother Jeb is married to a native of Mexico (the daughter of a migrant worker) and his nieces and nephews are mixed blood. And before you scream "ethnocentric bigot" at me, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But that fact -- and items 1 and 2 – DO predispose him to a warm and fuzzy feeling for folks from south of the Rio Grande.

And if -- in some strange and metastasizing American desire for a new royal family dynasty -- Jeb or his son should win the White House in some future presidential beauty contest designed to divert the American electorate every four years, I'd bet that HIS activities toward this alien invasion will make W's behavior look like a warm-up exercise.

Any vestige of Western European culture -- the culture MY great-grandparents and probably yours brought here after standing in line at places like Ellis Island, being interrogated, deloused and recorded -- will be a distant memory – IF it’s remembered at all.

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