Reply from Rep. Earl Pomeroy

Well I fired off an email to my Representative in Congress concerning Ramos and Compean. Here's his response:

May 25, 2007

Dear John:

Thank you for contacting me regarding immigration to the United States and the case of Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on these important issues.
I believe that many of the immigrants currently in this country serve as an economic and social asset to our country. Many of these individuals fill positions that American workers will not take or find undesirable. However, I do believe that the level of illegal immigration to our country indicates a broken immigration system, and I share your view that Congress should substantially reform this nation's immigration policy. Individuals from both sides of the debate agree that reform is necessary; however, many disagree on how to further this reform.
I believe the first step in immigration reform should be securing our nation's borders, which may include building walls in strategic, traditionally porous areas along the southern border with Mexico. This effort must take priority in the debate, especially given the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission emphasizing the importance of targeting terrorists' travel. The second step will be to find common ground to address the over 11 million people who are already here illegally in an enforceable way. In finding a solution to this problem, we must not impose an unfunded mandate on state and local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws. Also, we must ensure that immigrants here illegally do not move to the front of the line for citizenship, ahead of people who are legally progressing through the system. Finally, although a guest worker program would be an enforceable way to allow immigrants to provide much needed labor, we must be careful that these people are not taking jobs away from Americans who want these positions and are not lowering wages for American workers.
Currently, both the House and the Senate have passed bills addressing immigration. The House has passed the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (H.R. 4437), which makes illegal presence and entry into the United States a crime, ends the practice of catch-and-release, and increases border security. This bill did not include a guest worker program. I voted for this bill because I believe it represented the first step on the road to more comprehensive reform. The Senate has also passed a bill that greatly differed from the House version. This legislation created paths to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants living in the United States provided that they could meet certain requirements.
As for your concern regarding Border Patrol agents, on March 8, 2006, two Border Patrol agents - Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean - were convicted of assault with serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, a civil rights charge, and obstruction of justice. These agents were accused of shooting at an individual attempting to smuggle marijuana into the United States after the unarmed individual began fleeing from the agents. The agents were also accused of collecting and disposing of shell casings from their firearms. On October 19, 2006, Former Agent Ramos was sentenced to 132 months in prison and Jose Alonso Compean was sentenced to 144 months in prison for these convictions.
On January 18, 2007, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) introduced H.R. 563 that would give a congressional pardon to these agents and vacate any further proceedings against them. This bill was referred to the House Committees on Judiciary and Homeland Security. Should this legislation or other issues related to border security come before the full House, I will be sure to keep your thoughts on this matter in mind.
Again, thank you for contacting me. Please keep in touch.

Sincerely,

EARL POMEROY Member of Congress

EP:KF


These US Border Patrol agents shot an illegal alien drug smuggler who had entered the US illegally and resisted the agents. How is that a civil rights violation? They didn't shoot a US citizen nor did they shoot a legal resident of the US. They shot a criminal. They deserve that long a sentence for questionable handling of the situation i.e. picking up casings? This punishment is excessive! I hope Rep. Pomeroy, if the bill comes to vote, will vote to request our President to pardon them.

Random Thoughts

Let's continue with the rhetoric towards Iran to keep Israel happy, but forget any military action. Let it be clear to them that any nuclear aggression will be met in 10 fold to their peril. They want to push us to unilateral aggression and cause havoc in the straits of Hormuz by attacking oil tankers. Our US Navy will do well but Iran has prepared many methods of attacking oil tankers from well inland. Furthermore, once that battle begins when will it end? Did we have as much stress when Pakistan was building the bomb? Was it more acceptable for them since they have their own cold war with India? Pakistan is not that stable and we should have fears of their nukes getting into the hands of radicals. Iran is on the agenda and that's why we have to hear about them every damn day on the news.
Sorry McCain but the worst thing to having a nuclear Iran is attacking Iran.

If Bloomberg enters the Presidential race as an independent, he will effect the general election like Perot. Hillary would gain an advantage over the Republican candidate and Bloomberg. Is that the goal? Would Hillary uncover/investigate anything from the 90s or even of the current Admin? NO! George Bush Sr 88-92, Bill Clinton 92-00, George W. Bush 00-08, Hillary Clinton 08-?
Don't run Bloomberg!

The HOT (nuclear) Topic- Immigration
A lot of people are upset about this issue. I hear that the Senate would have to get 51 votes against to stop it and that the bill advanced beyond the point where anyone can filibuster. The House may be a better stopper.
Why don't we have a border fence across the US-Mexican border? The Republicans had control of the Legislature and Executive Branches and didn't get anything done!!!!! Just secure the damn border already!

McCain has damaged his chances in the race with the immigration issue.
Giuliani is DOA due to abortion stance and gun control comments of the past

It's obvious the worst thing is captured troops on video. Let's hope for the best that we find them and not so much about image and spin.

Congress should not act on issues of gas prices unless it's to push for alternative energy.
The market will correct itself. Consumers can go to smaller vehicles and car makers will respond in kind and start producing smaller cars again.
However, I do question if the timetable for maintenance on refineries are scheduled to impact prices during memorial weekend or if they strive to not allow an impact.

Ron Paul and Sean Hannity

I usually catch a few minutes of Sean Hannity during the afternoon as I'm driving and I heard him tearing apart Ron Paul. I admit I haven't heard much from Ron Paul except for the past couple weeks, but what I have heard I like. OK, so I watched the second debate and I didn't have a great feeling about Rep Paul's answer , in that, one would need more time to articulate these points without being misunderstood. Ron Paul long before 9/11 believed America should not be the world's policeman. We naturally should defend our nation but it also doesn't hurt to understand our enemies. If they say their reasons are due to America projecting ourselves around the world then we should note that but not allow that to be a reason to change our policies. Osama said he didn't want us (military-shut down mission at Prince Sultan AB) to be on Saudi ground and we still left Saudi ground right? Does anyone yell and scream that we may have done that to appease them? No, it was just a smart decision in consideration of our needs and the Saudi government's needs. Too bad we can't continue to leave other countries. We also discover that our enemies have been learning to hate western civilization in their Madrasahs. It's smart to try to understand your enemy so as to defend yourself.

Why does Sean Hannity get so worked up about Ron Paul? Does he think that Ron Paul could get the Republican nomination? I don't think he does so why does he get so angry? If he think Ron Paul will fade away, then why does he cut off all the callers that call his show? These aren't liberals. Sean just wants to shut them up because he doesn't care 2 cents about Ron Paul. Many people like Ron Paul's message which is more than the couple minutes in which the others want to bury him on. There's truth that liberals are enjoying these moments, but there's more to it. Sean is alienating a portion of the conservatives and that can only divide conservatives and drive some to the Libertarian Party and Sean you will be helping Hillary get elected.

Here's something about Ron Paul:

Brief Overview of Congressman Paul’s Record
He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.
He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Working Americans like lower taxes. So do I. Lower taxes benefit all of us, creating jobs and allowing us to make more decisions for ourselves about our lives

So called free trade deals and world governmental organizations like the International Criminal Court (ICC), NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and CAFTA are a threat to our independence as a nation.

The war in Iraq was sold to us with false information. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them.

The talk must stop. We must secure our borders now. A nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked.

The biggest threat to your privacy is the government. We must drastically limit the ability of government to collect and store data regarding citizens’ personal matters.

We must stop special interests from violating property rights and literally driving families from their homes, farms and ranches.

Pascal

Blaise Pascal -- Pensees (meaning pieces or fragments)

Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise and diversions?
But take away ther diversions and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they will feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.

How little pride the Christian feels in believing himself united to God! How little another grovels when he likens himself to the earth-worm! A fine way to meet life and death, good and evil!

When our passions impel us to do something we forget our duty. For example, if we like a book, we read it when we ought to be doing something else. But to remember our duty we need only decide to do something we dislike; we then make the excuse of something else to be done, and thus remember our duty.

When everything is moving at once, nothing appears to be moving, as on board a ship. When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving, but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.

Thanks for the CRACK Mr. Warburg!

The banking cartel holds a monopoly in the manufacture of money. Consequently, money is created only when IOUs are "monetized" by the Fed or by commercial banks. When private individuals, corporations, or institutions purchase government bonds, they must use money they have previously earned and saved. In other words, no new money is created, because they are using funds that are already in existence. Therefore, the sale of government bonds to the private sector, it is not. That is the primary reason the United States avoided massive inflation during the 1980s when the federal government was going into debt at a greater rate than ever before in its history. By keeping interest rates high, these bonds became attractive to private investors, including those in other countries. Very little new money was created, because most of the bonds were purchased with American dollars already in existence. This, of course, was a temporary fix at best. Today, those bonds are continually maturing and are being replaced by still more bonds to include the original debt plus accumulated interest. Eventually, this process must come to an end, when it does, the Fed will have no choice but to literally buy back all the debt of the 1980s--that is, to replace all of the formerly invested private money with newly manufactured fiat money--plus a great deal more to cover the interest. Then we will understand the meaning of inflation. From the Creature of Jekyll Island G. Edward Griffen (American Media) pg 201


The biggest doomsday mechanism of all, however, is the Federal Reserve System. It will be recalled that every cent of our money supply--including coins, currency, and checkbook money--came into being for the purpose of being lent to someone. All of those dollars will disappear when the loans are paid back. They will exist only so long as the debt behind them exists. Underneath the pyramid of money, supporting the entire structure, are the so-called reserves which represent the Fed's monetization of debt. If we tried to pay off the national debt, those reserves would also start to disappear, and our money supply would be undermined. The Federal Reserve would have to scramble into the money markets of the world and replace U.S. securities with bonds from corporations and other countries. Technically, that can be done, but the transition could be devastating. Under the Federal Reserve system, therefore, Congress would be fearful to eliminate the national debt...From the Creature of Jekyll Island G Edward Griffen (American Media) pg 510-511

Nevermind that let's watch cable news for more on Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton and Britney!

Read and judge for youself

U.S.-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course [Rush Transcript; Federal News Service]
Speakers:
Carla A. Hills, Chairman and CEO, Hills & Company; Vice Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; Task Force Cochair

Dennis C. Blair, Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Command; Task Force Cochair
Presider:
Kathryn Pilgrim, Correspondent, CNN
May 14, 2007Council on Foreign Relations
Excerpt:
QUESTIONER: I'm Hunter Smith In a recent speech, Wen Jia-bao characterized the fundamental -- the underpinnings of China's economic growth as unsustainable, and one aspect of that, which he indicated and which other analysts have cited, was the rampant growth of commercial lending, particularly to fund construction of fixed assets. And the analysts have pointed to the fact that control of commercial credit generally lies more in the hands of local and regional communist parties than with banking officials.
Is there any way for China to resolve this institutional conflict to create more sound credit growth?
HILLS: Without a question, there are things that China can do. It is spending about 43 percent -- 43 percent of its growth comes from investment. That's extraordinarily high for a developing country. And so it would be much better if instead of having the state fund new investment -- like steel plants and industrial facilities and real estate development -- if they would allocate those resources in the same percentage to consumption, which would also feed their economic growth. And two areas where they desperately need to stimulate consumption are in the health and pension field. If -- and they would moderate the possibility of upheavals if people were less anxious about their future.
The other thing about China's economy is that it has a 50 percent savings rate, rather extraordinary to this country when our private savings rate is in the minus column, but 50 percent is incredibly high vis-a-vis any developing country. The reason it's so high is precautionary savings. They're saving for their health; they're saving for their old age. And with a One-child Policy, they don't have much human insurance. So if the government would allocate monies to stimulate consumption that would create growth, alleviate the need for precautionary savings, we would get a better balance between our two economies.
The other thing they could do, which you would probably like, would be to open up the consumer credit market. You know, they don't have credit cards to the extent that other countries do or cannot buy houses with mortgages. If they would open up and let financial services into their economy that could lead by example -- other countries have done that with great benefit. And the -- I always think of the mortgage market, the consumer credit market and the insurance market are absolutely home runs from the point of view of the Chinese people, and the competing banks are not adversely affected because by seeing the good competitive practices, they become better. We've seen that in other countries; we've also seen it in China.
There a number of things that China could do to fix their imbalance, and we could talk to them about those but also talk about what we must do, which is to cut our deficit. And that means that we have something to talk about that has a positive outcome for the tremendous imbalance that is affecting global economics

Related article: http://www.jbs.org/node/4023

Do you think conspiracy theorists are crazy?

Here's a wacko site with crazy plans for population control and so on. The material from the pdf files on this site are used at several major universities with a list of the professors name, university and course of study. So if you think theorists are nuts, check out the elephant in the living room.

Advocates contraceptives, alternative means for pleasure in lieu of pregnancies, and the eventuality of a one-child policy expanding over most of the world. It's in the pdf...

Check out this site ...http://www.gsg.org/
http://www.clubofrome.org/

Read about population levels for their idea of the future, religion, one world etc.
Also look at "About GSG" and who provides major funding.

Sandy Berger, Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos

Sandy Berger will merely lose his license to practice law, a $50,000 fine and 100 hours of community service. How charitable of him to forfeit his license so he wouldn't have to divulge any information or drag the process any further.

From CNN.com:
On July 19, 2004, it was revealed that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating Berger for unlawfully mishandling classified documents in October 2003, by removing them from a National Archives reading room prior to testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The documents were five classified copies of a single report commissioned from Richard Clarke, covering internal assessments of the Clinton administration's handling of the unsuccessful 2000 millennium attack plots.
When initially questioned by reporters, Berger claimed that the removal of the top-secret documents in his attache-case and handwritten notes in his jacket and pants pockets was accidental. He later, in a guilty plea, admitted to deliberately removing the copies and cutting three up with scissors.[13] Two of the copies were recovered by DOJ investigators and returned to the archives.
Berger eventually pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material on April 1, 2005. Under a plea agreement, U.S. attorneys recommended a fine of $10,000 and a loss of security clearance for three years. However, on September 8, U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson increased the fine to $50,000 at Berger's sentencing. Robinson stated, "The court finds the fine [recommended by government prosecutors] is inadequate because it doesn't reflect the seriousness of the offense."[14] Berger was also ordered to serve two years of probation and to perform 100 hours of community service.[15]
Critics suggest Berger destroyed primary evidence revealing anti-terrorism policies and actions, and that his motive was to permanently erase Clinton administration pre-9/11 mistakes from the public record.

Funny how influential people get such a break! The cooperation extends between the Republicans and Democrats and explains why despite the fact that President Bush is in office and in charge of US Justice Department, a person that steals classified information and destroys it gets such a light punishment.

Conversely our Justice Dept, prosecutes to the fullest extent, Compean and Ramos of the US Border Patrol. Compean and Ramos shot a drug dealer transporting over 700 pounds of drugs across the border and would not cooperate and stop for the agents. The criminal was shot in the buttocks as a result. The agents are serving a decade long sentence in jail. The criminal was granted immunity for prosecution for his testimony on the agents conduct. He is now suing the United States for millions.

Way to go US Justice Department!!!

Iraq War -Going Forward

I can honestly say, unlike any congressman, senator or administration official, I do not know what the best approach is going forward for Iraq. Do we partition off into three sections? Should we continue with the same mission of 135,000-150,000 troops? Dare we increase the footprint up even higher despite the fact that the US Army can't continue maintaining the current levels without great strain? Do we cut and run? The Democrats will probably come up with the strategy of maintaining troops in safer locations inside Iraq or neighboring countries to be used when needed, but that is STUPID thinking. We can't really expect it to work without actually securing Iraq and mainly Baghdad. The plan would really put us back to where we are now. In the end, it may be solved by Iraqi lawmakers voting us out and we use that as a face saver. Everyone will still view the Iraqi effort by America as a failure despite this fact. We are looking at ways to influence the Iraqi politicians to make progress and perhaps a possible strong arm tactic would be to advise them that if they can't gain traction maybe the Kurds should take a larger role in the process. I know as soon as you think about the Kurds the next thought is of Turkey. Our hands are tied and we can't give more to the Kurds because we can't touch Turkey-right? The globalists want Turkey rolled into the EU and we can't upset the Turks. On the other hand, if the globalists are playing chess and if, they are 3-4 steps ahead: Kurds take greater role, Turks invade and claim greater Turkey (oil), when the dust settles they gain inclusion into the EU. I think I will stop right there before dwelling on what Iran and Saudi Arabia would do as that occurs. Anyways, that's more like rolling the dice as in the game of Risk.
For the record, I want America to take several steps back and start taking care of our own sovereignty. You may think that it's not in question, but you need to look at the big picture. I am not a fan of supporting huge lines of credit to third world nations under the guise of helping them. These countries end up in serious amounts of debt and the money hardly ever helps. If you want to help, give them grants or mind your own damn business! I support Ron Paul for President!

The Iraq War

My opinion and thoughts of the Iraq war:

After the first war with Iraq, we ended the battle after accomplishing our goals of removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Many have argued that we should have pressed on and removed Saddam from power. I honestly don't know if that would have been wise even today as we are faced with one of the toughest challenges America has faced. We probably would have had a difficult time keeping the Sunni, Shia and Kurds together as one country then as now.
The Shia in the south and the Kurds in the north needed protection from Saddam's forces and we provided help as part of Operations SOUTHERN and NORTHERN WATCH. As in our timeliness in getting aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina, we were slow in protecting them. We went on for years dealing with Saddam by flying US Air Force and US Navy missions in the southern and northern skies and the question was, 'how long are we going to put up with this guy (Saddam)'.
When President George W. Bush started his presidency, his team had several goals in mind and I believe that Iraq was a problem on their agenda. I don't think it was the top pressing issue, but they were not happy with the status quo of patrolling those skies and letting our pilots be targets. We could only imagine what mischief Saddam was up to in his country. All of us were unsure and we need to be honest on this point.
I was in Saudi Arabia on September 11th 2001. I watched countless hours of the same CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC reporting as the country did sans commercials. I soaked up Early Bird and Yahoo news every chance and I felt like most Americans -it's time to drop down their chimney with a few hundred nicely wrapped daisy cutters. Do I still feel that way? Do we still collectively have that anger? No, we do not. If we did, we would not accept this lackluster effort to capture Osama Bin Laden. 'Oh, he's probably somewhere on the Pakistani-Afghan border'-ho hum.
In the summer of '02 around July and August, the news media outlets started to carry on nearly a daily basis the thought of taking it to Saddam. The Bush Administration would make it publicly known that they were huddling on important issues and leading the media to start talking up the idea that Saddam poses a threat and would be the next stop on the terror war express. We know that Secretary Powell was pushing the UN route and the hawks were concerned that we would be wasting time with that approach. After all, we were attacked on 9/11 and the scope of this attack was unprecedented and we had the justification to go after all threats to our nation, as some argued. The administration had decided to give the green light. The first objective (other than to get the American people on board by way of the media) was to have Congress bring to vote a declaration of war. The need of this declaration by Congress was vital in order to have any hope of getting the United Nations on board. Congress gave President Bush the authority as many Democrats did not want to be on the wrong side of the vote as some Democrats were with the very successful first gulf war. Sen. John Kerry comes to mind as a sad example in that he voted against the highly successful first gulf war and then voted for this war. The news media hyped the war and provided countless hours of speculation on going to war with the foreknowledge that war = viewers = revenue.
The next stop would be the UN and this was an agonizing step for the hawks. The UN step was irrelevant to whether we were going to war or not, but all desired UN backing and international support. They just didn't want the UN lack of support to stop the train in it's tracks. The decision had already been made and only Saddam could stop it by possibly going into exile. We put conditions on the inspection process that illustrated the obvious. A quick timetable and the strictest conditions on supporting and not interfering with the UN team. The administration was flat out determined to convince Americans, Congress and the world that we were justified, the proof is there of the weapons, the Iraqi people will embrace us as liberators and their oil will pay for rebuilding. This administration's full court press to convince the world they knew what they were doing and had a rosy scenario answer for every possible pitfall, could have re-channeled that salesmanship, and sold every lemon on every used car lot in America.
I have to mention the weapons of mass destruction. We thought he had them and so did the world. The only debate was whether it was worthy of going to war for this perceived threat. If Americans were led to believe that Bush was connecting 9/11 to Saddam, that is not the case. The media inadvertently may have led some to think along those lines. I believe that the point was that Saddam is our enemy and so is Al Qaeda. Naturally, the fear is the two would get together because of the logic that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The fear would be that Saddam would provide the weapon and Al Qaeda would serve as the vehicle. Sadly, we will always have this fear of a supplier for Al Qaeda because of unaccounted nukes from the Soviet era, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea. I know that there were statements from the administration about a Saddam-Al Qaeda connection but that is NOT the same as saying there was evidence of a 9/11 -Saddam connection. In fact, I read for my own eyes the news ticker of a White House statement/release that their position is that they do not have evidence nor are suggesting that there is proof of a 9/11-Saddam connection. This statement came out around December '02 or January '03 as memory has it.
The execution of the war has been criticized as well. Clearly, the administration had thought that we would still be in Iraq but with fewer troops and needing less money to sustain the mission. We not only wanted to go in lean but stay lean and get leaner. Sadly, we approached the war like we seem to approach everything these days. We want everything to be easy and if anything gets difficult it's not 'we just have to knuckle down and work hard' but we must have done it the wrong way.
Lastly, it would be great if Congress would do something for our troops besides pay lip service. Can't we do something more for these troops? They are having to make 3-4 tours in Iraq and that is unprecedented. Our wounded troops have to struggle with the VA in getting help. If we are going to spend taxpayers dollars on something, let it be for them. We owe them!