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WASHINGTON — The decline of U.S. influence in the world has been fodder for a lot of media analysis lately. “We’re just not that strong anymore,” columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote this week in The New York Times. “We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes.”
Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek’s international editor, identifies the problem as “the rise of the rest.” Emerging global powers are growing richer and more influential, challenging U.S. pre-eminence in industry, economy and culture. As Zakaria points out, the world’s “largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood.”
This “seismic shift” is redefining the world’s relationship with Washington. While many in this country are feeling unsettled about this development, Zakaria suggests that their worries are unfounded because the rise of new powers is no longer defined by their opposition to the United States. Rather, these new actors have moved on and, while they extensively challenge U.S. dominance, their attitude is not one of anti-Americanism but what Zakaria calls “post-Americanism.”
WASHINGTON — President Bush on Wednesday showcased his request for $500 million in U.S. military assistance to help Mexico combat murderous drug cartels in a bid to build congressional support for the more contentious part of his spending package — the latest multibillion dollar request for emergency war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bush crafted plans for the U.S. military assistance to Mexico at a meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon 14 months ago and sketched details last October, including money for military equipment such as helicopters, training and assistance in combating corruption in the criminal justice system.
Council of the Americas
Bush pitched his financing plan to the Council of the Americas, an organization of international businesses that backs free trade and democracy. The U.S. military assistance — $500 for Mexico and $50 million for Central American nations — will help them “deal with the scourge of these unbelievably wealthy and unbelievably violent drug kingpins,” Bush told the organization’s conference at the State Department.
Administration officials have said the remaining $900 million originally proposed in the Merida Initiative will be requested later.
April was one of the busiest months on record. The Campo Border Patrol set and broke their all time arrest record (along with our help) three times in the last three weeks. You are needed now more than never.
Our May Muster is scheduled for May 16- 18th at Camp Vigilance In Boulevard, CA. For Reservations please send an email to Reservations@campvigilance.com
Paintball Event
Outdoorworld is having a Paintball Outing in the Oaks on Saturday the 17th as well. The cost is $20 per person. This is loads of fun. Advance reservations are required. Please send an email to reservations@campvigilance.com and put “Paintball” in the subject line. This is not an official Minuteman sponsored event and is run totally by Outdoor World.
JULY 4TH EXTRAVAGANZA AT CAMP VIGILANCE
From July 3rd to July 6th, members of pro border security and anti-illegal immigration groups will be coming to Cam Vigilance for a National Weekend of Celebration AND a Border Watch. Groups like Save Our State, San Diego Minutemen, CCIR and dozens of others will converge upon Camp Vigilance for a family oriented July 4th celebration (in the Oaks), with music, food, speakers and all round good time. On July 5th and 6th we will be shutting down the border from El Centro to San Diego. Our Chapter will be providing logistics, lodging and food. BPAUX will be providing security. This promises to be a fantastic weekend and we expect hundreds if not thousands of participants. This is part of a national effort to secure the entire southern border for the weekend as other states will have similar events. IF YOU ARE GOING TO PARTICIPATE, BOOK YOUR RESERVATIONS NOW.
RESERVATIONS@CAMPVIGILANCE.COM . Bring the family. No one under 18 may stand on the line. MCDC SOP applies to all participants. No long guns, no guns in camp, no camouflage, etc. More info to come out shortly. Don’t miss the chance to participate in this historic event.
RSVP for this Event NOW! reservations@campvigilance.com
MEXICO CITY — Gunmen assassinated the acting chief of Mexico’s federal police early on Thursday morning in the most brazen attack so far in the year-and-a-half-old struggle between the government and organized crime gangs.
The Mexican police have been under constant attack since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2007 and started an offensive against drug cartels that had corrupted the municipal police forces and local officials in several towns along the border with the United States and on both coasts.
Since then, Mr. Calderón has sent thousands of federal agents and troops into those areas to establish law and order, provoking retaliation from drug cartels that have killed about 200 officers, among them at least 30 federal agents.
The acting chief, Edgar Millán Gómez, was ambushed by several men wearing rubber gloves and carrying weapons as he entered his apartment building in the Guerrero neighborhood of Mexico City with two bodyguards at 2:30 a.m. He was hit eight times in the chest and once in a hand. He died a few hours later at Metropolitan Hospital.
Commander Millán was the highest ranking official to be killed since Mr. Calderón’s campaign against drug dealers began. Intelligence officials said it was highly likely that he was killed in retribution for the arrest on Jan. 21 of Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, one of the leaders of a cartel based in Sinaloa State.
Jim Gilchrist and Steve Eichler sent out another email to all those who have contributed money to them in the past. They used to beg for money in their emails but now all they can do is try and save face. They claim to be victims of some grand conspiracy. In reality, their fraud trial is fast approaching and they are scared to death of the financial paper trail left in the wake of the alleged embezzlement.
They used to believe that they could crush the Minuteman Project Executive Board Members with expensive litigation. Jim Gilchrist and Steve Eichler were heavy in cash and they knew the Board Members had next to nothing. The Board Members couldn’t find a decent Attorney and for a while they had no representation at all. But now the Board Members have a top notch Attorney representing them and Gilchrist and Eichler know their time is up.
Jim Gilchrist can lie and claim that the Executive Board Members were simply “volunteer advisor’s” all he wants but there are official notarized documents that prove otherwise. There are even audio recordings of the Executive Board Meetings. There are financial records that don’t add up. All this evidence will be presented in court. These guys are in big trouble and they know it.
$200,000 In MINUTEMAN PROJECT DONATIONS DOWN THE DRAIN
Gilchrist told a source on Monday, May 5th that he’s spent over $200,000 dollars on Attorneys fees. He hasn’t even gone to trial yet! He’s hired five law firms! No wonder Jim Gilchrist is relentlessly begging for money. And the way these legal battles move, it is far from over. This thing may drag out another year.
I think Jim Gilchrist and Steve Eichler know it’s over for him. They’ve ripped off too many people and they’ve made too many enemies. I can count their supporters on one hand and I know they are all paid. Now they are on a suicide mission and they desperately hope to take out a few people like myself with them. Fat chance.
Blaming the nation’s illegal immigration crisis on racism against Mexicans, commissioners in a major Texas county passed a resolution to stop construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and halt local enforcement of immigration laws.
The El Paso County Commission voted 3-1 in favor of a measure blocking the federally mandated border wall and prohibiting local police from enforcing immigration law. The new measure also places a moratorium on immigration raids and halts all programs that criminalize illegal immigrants.
The Secure Fence Act was approved by Congress and signed into law by the president in 2006 to protect the nation’s vulnerable southern border from illegal immigration, drug smuggling and terrorism. The law authorizes the construction of hundreds of miles of fencing, more vehicle barriers, checkpoints and the use of advanced technology.
Mayors in at least three Texas cities (Brownsville, Del Rio and El Paso) along the Mexican border have refused to give the federal government access to their land to build the fence, but El Paso County is the first to pass legislation. The county with about 722,000 residents has a large illegal immigrant population that annually costs taxpayers millions of dollars to incarcerate, educate and hospitalize.
The El Paso County commissioner that introduced the legislation says the measure was necessary because the national immigration problem is due to racism against Mexicans. Commissioner Miguel Teran also pointed out that the September 11 terrorists came from the north yet the U.S. isn’t building walls over there.
Months-long county effort follows complaints about workers congregating outside stores in Wheaton, Aspen Hill areas
Problems with day laborers and unlicensed contractors gathering at Veirs Mill and Randolph roads and at a nearby home improvement store have been addressed by a combined effort from law enforcement and the county consumer protection office.
The police enforcement began at the end of February after complaints from shoppers and businesses at the area’s retailers, specifically Dunkin’ Donuts on Veirs Mill Road and Rodman’s, a store on Randolph Road, said Lt. Nancy Hudson, deputy commander of the First District police station in Rockville.
Hudson said police conducted a two-week period of educational fliers and warnings followed by one week of enforcement, which included arrests for trespassing, false identification and outstanding warrants.
An effect of Prince William County’s tougher stand on illegal immigration has been unprecedented civic involvement. Residents have shown up en masse to address the Board of County Supervisors, many for the first time.
Now, for those who want to continue their newfound interest in local government and for civic junkies, the county is about to undergo a public communications overhaul.
The upgrade starts with a redesign of the county’s Web site, which was last changed in late 2003, an eon ago in the world of technology.
Federal immigration agents raided the construction site of a new federal courthouse in Richmond on Monday, arresting 33 workers on charges of violating federal immigration laws and being in the United States illegally, officials said yesterday.
Ernestine Fobbs, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said the 29 men and four women who were arrested were from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. All were found to lack documents that would allow them to live or work in the United States, Fobbs said.
A friend recently told me that her daughter, who attends a majority-Latino, public middle school (6th, 7th and 8th grades) in Dallas, Texas, told her that there were 26 girls pregnant at her school. She routinely has 1-3 girls, at minimum, in her classes who are pregnant. But what is equally shocking is that her daughter said that the girls sit around and talk about how they “planned their pregnancies.”
Some teens who get pregnant are continuing a family cycle — they see it as a tradition. Mom got pregnant young, dropped out of school, had more kids, worked dead-end jobs, never thought about school again. Daughter follows mom’s footsteps.
We see from the statistics that this scenario plays out more than is healthy for any society. When we also see that among Mexican-Americans there is a 23 percent poverty rate, then the future is pretty much foretold — Latinos, who will be the majority national demographic in the future, will be the least educated with the most children. Both factors will tax our society and imperil the future economic security of the country if something isn’t done.
LAHAINA — Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 22 illegal immigrants who were working at restaurants in Lahaina and Wailea during sweeps at locations of two restaurant chains Friday.
Eight workers were arrested at Cheeseburger Island Style and Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurants in Wailea and Lahaina, while 14 employees of Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in Lahaina were arrested, according to the agency.
The arrests were part of separate ongoing investigations, the agency reported.
Rob Berger, Bubba Gump director of operations in Hawaii, said employees from the host, kitchen and merchandise sales departments of the Lahaina restaurant were detained.
“A lot of these employees worked here for years and have friends and family,” he said Monday. “It’s a very difficult time in this restaurant, obviously.
TWIN FALLS, Idaho — A high school student says he may file a lawsuit against a physical education teacher who took a Mexican flag he had brought for Cinco de Mayo and put it in the garbage.
Clint Straatman denies Froylan Camelo’s version of events but said he took the flag Monday because “white kids” might have hurt the 16-year-old. He said he put it in a garbage can because he had no place else to keep it.
Camelo said he was changing into gym clothes at Minico High School in Rupert when Straatman told him, “Give me the flag.”
“I said, ‘What’s the problem?”‘ Camelo, speaking in Spanish, told The Times-News of Twin Falls. “He said, ‘The problem is that we are in the United States and not in Mexico.’ He grabbed it from me. He threw the flag in the garbage can.”
Camelo said that Straatman told him the flag would be returned at the end of the school day, but that Straatman taunted him instead.
“I asked, ‘Where is my flag?”‘ Camelo said. “He said, ‘What, the U.S. flag?’ I said, ‘No, the one for Mexico.’ But he wouldn’t give it to me.”
Camelo said he then took the undamaged flag out of the garbage. He said he’s been contacted by the American Civil Liberties Union and is considering a lawsuit against Straatman.
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