Posted on 01/31/2006 11:05:56 AM PST by robowombat
Bush is kicking away his base By Phyllis Schlafly
Jan 30, 2006
The conservative movement that elected Ronald Reagan twice, George H.W. Bush once, and George W. Bush II twice, is essentially a movement of grass-rooters who don't like to take orders from the top and who revolt when they believe they are betrayed or bossed by those they elected. That's why the grass roots abandoned the first George Bush when he reneged on his "no new taxes, read my lips" promise.
The tough political tactics used by union bosses and Democratic machine bosses simply don't sit well with conservative Republicans.
Resentment against the current Bush administration is still festering about the combination of threats and bribes that pushed through close votes in Congress to pass the costly Medicare prescription drug bill in 2003 and Central American Trade Agreement in 2004.
Maybe the intra-party divisions between fiscal vs. Big Government conservatives that lay behind the former battle, and between pro vs. anti free-traders in the latter battle, were evenly balanced enough that the Bush administration alienated only a handful of Republicans. But in demanding a guest-worker plan that smacks of amnesty, the Bush administration is taking the unpopular side of a party division that is at least 80-20.
In December, the House passed a border-security bill authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.. The bill rejected support for Bush's guest worker/amnesty plan. Since 88 percent of Republican House members voted for this bill, that should have been a wake-up call to the president.
Shortly thereafter, Arizona Republican National Committee member Randy Pullen gathered enough signatures to present a resolution to the Republican National Committee at its Jan. 19-20 meeting in Washington, D.C., which endorsed border security measures and opposed any guest worker plan.
A competing resolution endorsing border security plus a guest worker plan was floated by the RNC's Bill Crocker of Texas. After he realized the strong tide against guest workers, he began negotiating a compromise with Pullen, and one version of the compromise eliminated guest workers.
When the RNC resolutions committee met Jan. 19, the chairman, Idaho's Blake Hall, brought up the original Crocker resolution that included guest worker language. An attempt by one committeeman to substitute the Crocker-Pullen compromise was ruled out of order, and then a motion to remove the guest worker language was voted down 5 to 3.
That evening, the Bush administration sent in its big guns, Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., to insist that RNC members support the guest worker plan or else they would be labeled disloyal and disrespectful of President Bush. Republican Party chairman Ken Mehlman made the rounds to regional caucuses to demand approval of Bush's guest worker plan and defeat of the Pullen resolution.
At the RNC meeting on Jan. 20, the Hall-approved resolution was incorporated and passed as part of a package of nine resolutions in order to preclude a specific vote on the border security-guest worker issue. The Pullen resolution did not come up.
This donnybrook happened on the same day that the New York Times reported that 18,207 illegal immigrants from nations other than Mexico have been the beneficiaries of the Bush administration's scandalous "catch and release" procedure in the three months since Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff promised to "return every single illegal entrant - no exceptions." Catch and release means that the illegal immigrants from nations other than Mexico are not deported. But after they are apprehended, they are released on their own recognizance with instructions to reappear a few weeks later, with everybody understanding that they will disappear into the U.S. population.
Also on the same day, Lou Dobbs reported on CNN-TV that Mexican troops are crossing our southern border twice a month in uniform, in military vehicles and carrying military weapons. The Bush administration's response to this invasion is don't ask, don't tell.
It's bad enough that President Bush is pursuing a vastly unpopular guest worker-amnesty plan, but the administration's bullying to prevent debate and a vote by the full Republican National Committee was intolerable. It forecasts the sort of intimidation we can anticipate in the upcoming Senate debate about Bush's guest worker plan.
Why are President Bush and Karl Rove so tone deaf on this issue? Some speculate that the Bush administration is in the pocket of big business lobbying interests that want the cheap labor made available by the government's failure to enforce our immigration laws.
Others speculate that Bush and Rove are hallucinating that Hispanics will vote Republican. That won't happen; Hispanics vote 55 to 75 percent Democratic because, since they are mostly in the low-income sector of our economy, they vote for the party that promises the social benefits of the welfare state, not for the party that pretends to support fiscal integrity and small government.
The administration-imposed RNC defeat of the majority view of Republicans is bad news for the 2006 congressional elections. Bush is alienating his political base and creating what one RNC member calls an "enthusiasm deficit." In the words of the old adage, elephants (i.e., conservative Republicans) never forget.
Phyllis Schlafly is the President and Founder of the Eagle Forum
The following addresses in some detail the homicide rate in Mexico. The saying is Mexico is where Mexicans are:
Monday, January 16, 2006
Homicide Rate in Mexico is Appalling
By Jerry Brewer
Impunity in Mexico’s homicide rate is not acceptable at any international humanitarian level. This, an issue that must concern all free nations of the world that value the dignity of human life. Too, it must be a major concern of each presidential candidate in the upcoming Mexican elections. The citizens of Mexico, as well as victims and victim families, must demand action and plans to bring the guilty to justice. A democratic nation must be dedicated and prepared to act on their behalf for humanitarian purposes
According to figures cited in the Mexican media, more than 1,500 people died in 2005 of violence linked to “organized crime.”
It is believed that approximately 500 women have been murdered in the state of Chihuahua since the late 1980s. Many have simply disappeared. The killing of women has continued virtually unabated since 1993. The causes of this aura of femicide vary – domestic violence, suspected narco-executions, gang shootings, and sexual assaults. Many of the murders of these women seem to follow the long-pattern of young women who suddenly disappear and are later found raped and murdered.
Violence against women is epidemic in Mexico. In Ciudad Juarez alone, six years of killing sprees have claimed the lives of 182 women. Many human rights organizations believe that figure to be even greater, with many still missing. At least 100 of the Ciudad Juarez victims fit a pattern in which a young, slender woman was sexually assaulted, strangled, and dumped in the surrounding desert. In the state of Chihuahua a significant number of cases of young women and adolescents were reported missing.
On the “organized crime,” or drug trafficking front, the victims have included many current or former police officers, government officials, politicians, and journalists. In 2005 more than 187 people were murdered in the Nuevo Laredo area alone. Many victims have simply vanished into the control of armed groups.
As equally disturbing as the staggering body count in Mexico, is the level of sophistication of the killers/assassins and their facilitation of movement to avoid capture. The weaponry used by these killers have included grenade launchers, bazookas, AK-47 automatic weapons, and others. In Nuevo Laredo, after a violent firefight with police, an apparent hit list of officials sentenced to death was found, as well as addresses, maps, and photographs of municipal police officers.
As for the “killing expertise,” Los Zetas, a group of elite former Mexican soldiers have led the way, hired by organized drug cartels. Later, former members of a Guatemalan special forces unit known as “Kaibiles” emerged. The Kaibiles are known for their grueling jungle-survival training, paratrooper skills, and counterinsurgency operations. Seven alleged members were arrested last year in the State of Chiapas.
Mexican drug cartels are also recruiting hired killers in the U.S. Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexico’s anti-drug prosecutor, said that the “great majority” of gunmen for the Sinaloa Cartel are U.S. citizens “who live in the United States.”
How can so much death and violence in Mexico take a backseat to massive world media detailing less pressing issues? Is the value of human life (in Mexico) not regarded as a top world concern? Are we more concerned about migration or should we also be concerned humanely for many of the reasons people flee for their lives?
The death toll is real and there should be no confusion on that issue. In case the murdered victims, women and children, and the countless missing do not move us to action, let us look beyond walls and fences to the fact that the U.S.-Mexico border area remains one of the most dangerous anywhere in the world. All of these dangers pose a serious and immediate threat to public safety on both sides of the border. Walls do not stop murder. Walls do not prevent sophisticated weaponry and elite-trained paramilitary assassins. In plain fact, a horrendous war is taking place that knows no boundaries.
This epidemic of violent murder and impunity must end. There is no reasonable expectation of any police force in Mexico to have, or acquire on its own, the resources necessary to effectively win this fight alone. For the insurgents are far too well armed, trained, and financed.
Mexico needs help with their profound deficiencies in justice and security, and an inability to cope with many of the needs and rights of their citizens. The world must lend a helping hand.
___________________
Jerry Brewer, the Vice President of Criminal Justice International Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, is also a columnist with MexiData.info. He can be reached via e-mail at Cjiaincusa@aol.com
Arrest warrants include many descriptive entries, race and nationality among them. Are you suggesting they don't?
And you may be right. "Even that nut" Jesse Jackson is aware of the sharp increase of foreign born in our prison systems.
"And if we get hit by terrorists who've snuck in through Mexico, it will torpedo his Presidency in it's entirety."
No it wouldn't. Although it's nearly 5 years since 9-11, the Bushbots will still blame Clinton.
Yup. But don't forget the greedy Border Patrol Union goons. They post here, too.
Hi girlfriend :)
It would help move the discussion along if you all would stick to the facts and not embellish them.
I think you have it confused with Tancredo's plan. I don't believe there is anything in Kyl/Cornyn that delays implementation.
Kyl/Corny also allows for an UNLIMITIED number of guests. And it makes no attempt to define jobs Americans won't do or to protect American workers or American jobs. Every American job will be open to all of the world's poor people.
Oh wise one why don't you give us some options the president has right now. Since we both like stating the obvious.
The Estados Unitos de Mexico has a one term limit for their Jefe-in-Chief. But it's the perfect next-job for that post-nationalist leader looking for a way to keep occupied.
"Meanwhile GH Bush was a comatose RINO who de-energized the "base" -- and THAT's why he lost to a Bubba who should have been slaughtered."
THAT and a guy named "Perot", who was spot-on in his warning about the 'giant sucking sound' of jobs lost.
Not going to waste my time.
Phyliss will never be president or hold elected office of any consequence.
I think the reason no President has ever blocked the border before was that Mexico would come unglued economically and could lose all control to the drug lords and we'd get next door terrorists.
IMO though, we have to have a border barrier with this war.
I think the President gets that, but it is difficult to pull off without destabilizing Mexico.
I never said they didn't. Are you suggesting that if the nationality is Hispanic that they are illegal?
No kidding. Despite the 9/11 wake up call the borders are still wide open with more crossing now than ever before. Why anyone thinks anything would change after another attack is beyond me.
One of his greatest accomplishments during his first four years was the largest expansion of a socialist entitlement spending since Lyndon Johnson. I refused to vote for him in 2004 because of that. Frankly I wish border enforcement had not taken a backseat to Medicare Prescription Drug socialism.
Satire has always presented a challenge to the literal-minded.
"Just the facts, ma'am." Sgt Friday, now there was a man for the ages.
"I am convinced that many of those who are so hysterical about the Mexicans are plants attempting to destroy the GOP"
Well maybe those that don't see a problem with illegal immigration and Bush's handling of it are profiting from illegal immigration.
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