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Did you think about how many more people would get Social Security and Medicaid eventually? With the promise of amnesty, and since they know that we have never defended our border since Eisenhower, it won’t take long to accumulate 30 million or more illegals. Let’s make them all citizens and then naturalize their extended families. We need 100 million extra, mostly with little education, right?

Don’t you think maybe that might cause some social problems?

Think about the last time the USA imported large numbers of uneducated workers. They came from from Africa, and Lincoln made them citizens. Slavery was absolutely wrong, but if they had sneaked in as illegal workers, I think we still would have had problems.

>>But why is it that it seems that the majority of border patrol agents I have read about in the news have mexican sounding names???<<

Well, being able to speak Spanish and being born into a Hispanic family might be a plus for BP agents, so they could have insights into what would be going on. Some Anglos, like me, do speak Spanish, but most do not, few of us Anglos really understand the culture that well.

>>If everything was kosher, why would they lie?<<

IMO Bush, directly and indirectly, has done a lot of damage to the conservative cause. I remember defending him to some university people in Edinburgh, Scotland, just after he was elected. I think now that some of my confidence in him was misplaced.

>>“And what bearing could someone have on a trial by saying things to congress after the trial has ended????” —This was said before the trial for the sole purpose of steering the 3 Congressmen away from interfering with the Nifonging of R & C. Not to mention it goes to the creditability of their agenda & investigation.<<

Check your dates. All the DHS lying to congress I know of occured after the trial. Did DHS stall congress because they needed to shred documents? It is a fact, though, that Mexican inmates almost killed Ramos after DHS told congress that they “wanted to shoot a Mexican.” In my opinion this was a despicable act by DHS.

>>Well then I suggest to you and everyone that the next time some politician is out pandering for votes by putting on his “gettin’ tough on crime” act and is trying to sell some new mandatory minimum sentence to make them liberal judges give people real time, you should tell them that you don’t support it.<<

Agree, and also think that part of the problem is that, in general, legislators are too lazy to write laws carefully (or in some cases they may intentionally write bad laws), and we end up with something that is too easy to abuse.

However, I am not opposed to all mandatory minimum sentences. I can’t think of any mitigating factors that should lessen the sentence of a legally sane adult who rapes a child under the age of 14, for example. And there are judges who are very lenient about that.

>>No, but he is being treated just like any other person in prison, no better, no worse.<<

And how would you know that? You are assuming that our correction officials have no axe to grind? If they were “just like any other person in prison” why did DHS lie about the case to congress? If you think it is just that Ramos is not allowed to read books, I wonder if you have the ability to look beyond laws and rules to see if something is right or wrong.

Did you notice that Alberto Gonzalez is involved in a scandal concerning improper political influence?

In the big picture, the government’s actions included some illegal lying (DHS), some lying that was probably just unethical (Sutton and prison officials), and a lot of excuses for doing the wrong thing. Even some of those who think the jury verdict was correct do not believe Ramos should be in prison.

Unfortunately, the whole truth probably will not be known. I agree that R&C are not blameless, but neither is the government.

>> Ramos got screwed by Compean’s inability to control his anger. But they both screwed themselves with their unbelievable “black shiny object” story, their inconsistent and unpersuasive testimony, their attempts to cover it up and their defense attorneys horrible strategy.

So no, they don’t belong in prison but they also don’t deserve adulation and uncritical support of their actions.

Ramos got screwed by Compean’s inability to control his anger. But they both screwed themselves with their unbelievable “black shiny object” story, their inconsistent and unpersuasive testimony, their attempts to cover it up and their defense attorneys horrible strategy.

So no, they don’t belong in prison but they also don’t deserve adulation and uncritical support of their actions.<<

Thanks Bob.

I think it is likely that Ramos, hearing those shots, thought what I would have thought: Compean was in a real firefight.

I also think it is unlikely that Compean was really trying to shoot OAD. Compean had a shotgun and would not have missed if he really wanted to hit him.

>>Should the warden have 3 or 4 guards follow him around all day and sleep with him at night so that he can be let out of protective housing???<<

Ramos should not be in that particular prison in the first place. He is not a danger to anyone, so a minimum security prison would have been appropriate. But since they did put him there, they should transfer him or make some changes. What in the hell is wrong with letting him read books? Would it make you happy if he were killed?

ping

>>And what bearing could someone have on a trial by saying things to congress after the trial has ended????<<

It would not affect the trial, but it could have affected Ramos’s treatment and safety in prison. As I understand it, Ramos is till in solitary confinement, is not allowed to read books, while the DHS liars have not been punished at all.

Lying to congress makes me think that there is something incredibly wrong at DHS, which you will recall, investigated R&C.

I used to be a defender of Bilingual Education. I still think that teaching classes in English and Spanish is OK for the purpose of kids learning either Spanish or English with the restriction that kids who don't speak English at all be immersed in English only for the rest of the day. If what is called "Bilingual Education" goes beyond that, students run a risk of not learning English effectively.

I agree with Newt that "All American children should learn English and that other languages should be secondary in schools." If a student can master both languages, that's even better, but English has to come first.

When some Americans go to Mexico to learn Spanish, they live in a place with a lot of other English speakers, and so the language they are trying to learn does not "get in their blood." These people almost certainly will not learn Spanish as well as those who live in a place where nobody speaks English. That's OK, they can bring back pictures and return to their life in America. The consequences for non-English speakers in America are much more serious: Poverty, alienation, a risk of becoming a criminal.

When I learned Spanish, I went to a ranch where only a few people spoke English, and lived in a house where nobody spoke English at all. After six months of immersion in Spanish, I returned to America, and even though I understood what people were saying, English sounded a little strange to me.

Those who deny the great advantage of immersion in English may have good intentions, but the I am convinced that this may do great harm to the students and our country.

>>Why is agent Ramos in solitary confinement? What did he do to deserve that? Do you know?<<

When he was in the “general population” of the prison some of the Hispanic inmates beat him severely, because he was “La Migra.” He is safer in solitary, but I don’t believe he “deserves” extra punisment. My opinion: either the federal corrections system doesn’t know what it is doing, or someone in that system is intentionally persecuting him.

Thanks, I will write a letter.

Note: The courts ruled that schools cannot deny an education to illegal immigrants. We pay for their books and teachers. Agent Ramos, who is in solitary confinement because his life is in danger, is not even allowed to read books to educate himself. Rapists and murderers can watch TV (the TV that we pay for) in prison.

What’s wrong with this picture?

>>We did the "no compromise" thing last year, and now we have a democrat congress to deal with so it's no likely we'll get what we want. And if we push republicans to throw out their plan, the democrats will PASS their plan.

This isn't like an election where two years later you get to go again with the right candidate. If the democrats pass their immigration bill, we will NEVER get to pass another one.<<

This way of thinking worked out really well for Czechoslovakia in 1938. "If we don't give up the Sudatenland, Hitler will take the whole country." It seems to me like very wishful thinking. We have 15,000,000 illegals now, but in 10 years, when we have 25,000,000, we will be in better shape to pass another bill to fix the problem?

I will study what the plan says, but Bush's recent actions have turned me from a loyal supporter to one who very strongly distrusts him.

"The plan also tries to make border security a priority...."

That's the problem exactly. We have been "trying" to seal the border for many years but don't have the will to really do it.

>>But if the Kennedy bill gets passed, the illegals are all getting amnesty, they will never have to leave....<<

Under the Bush plan they don't have to leave either, as long as they pay money.

OK, imagine I am an illegal from Aguascalientes. I work in the USA and I go back to see the family once a year. Since I would have to pay coyotes more, and I run the risk of getting robbed or shot if I go with the coyote, I don't mind paying $3500 for 3 years at all.

Also, all my cousins in Aguascalientes are coming to live in the USA, because we know that it's only a matter of time until we will all get some kind of legal status. I expect that all our children and grandchildren will come too when they are old enough.

>>Bush and Kennedy are NOT together on this....We can FIGHT this republican bill, which will guarantee that Kennedy's bill will pass, and Bush WILL sign it<<

Sounds like they are not that far apart.

>>and those of us who want to stop amnesty better wake up and understand what is happening here.<<

How will the Bush version stop amnesty?

>>My guess is we'll choose the first, because of irrational exuberance<<

Or on principle, because both bills are wrong.

>>but they do not want to hire older workers

You've spoken truth there. My new boss, who just turned 40, has said openly (5 times and counting) that he wants "young smart guys" to fill our 30 openings. I turned 54 this year and have been put so far out to pasture I can't see the barn. A couple of the more irritated guys in the department are talking to lawyers. I won't do that because the pay is good even if I'm not invited to work on prime projects these days.<<

I am retired now, but I, my wife, and kids had a rough time for a while. I had 18 years experience in kernel drivers, file systems, networks protocols, debugging, etc. I remember some very bizarre phone interviews. In one, the interviewer asked for an example of my work, and I told him how I had converted a network protocol driver, which was directly related to the position in question, from Intel assembler to C. I found out after the interview that he said something like he didn't believe I was a programmer.

Strangely, I finally got a job at Apple Computer in California. Needless to say, I was one of the few "right-wingers" there, but they treated me OK. Apple does hire some foreign workers, but the great majority are from here, and I did not see any age discrimination there.

I wish you good luck, and pray that Bill Gates and his kind will learn that older US citizens can do good work, and are not necessarily so expensive.

>>However, it is inevitable that disgruntled engineers and techies will complain about their plight, because someone will undercut their wages, and they want the government to "protect" their jobs here. (Of course, such protectionism would not work, since employers will respond by simply hiring foreigners over there rather than here.)<<

Even if US citizen engineers are willing to work at about the same wage as aliens, in many cases the employer will not even ask the US citizen about the salary, because:

1) Many employers won't admit it, but they do not want to hire older workers.

2) Some employers assume that US citizens are too expensive, so they don't bother to ask.

I do not advocate protectionism, and I know that some companies do hire older workers, and are willing to train them a little when necessary (for example, a programmer with 20 years experience in operating system internals would be able to learn Java pretty quickly, and would have an excellent overall feel for how everything works). I am not sure what the government should do, but I wish some companies would think about this, both for their own sakes and the stake of their country.

>>So the truth is he was endorsed by PRO LIFE groups when he ran for the senate, and the person he ran against, also labeled as "pro choice" has a pro life voting record.<<

He even opined that "Roe v. Wade" was wrong on the "Law and Order" TV show! It's amazing to me that NBC didn't censor that!

>>We should be a party that pushes "secure our borders", not "oppose guest workers". The policy would be the same; all that would change would be how we refer to it.<<

The trouble with the terms "guest workers" and "immigration reform" is, obviously, that to some, they mean giving some kind of amnesty without secure borders. Hell, even the pro-amnesty crowd uses the phrase "secure borders."