An Open Letter to Senator Mel Martinez

Dear Senator Martinez:

I wish to voice my opposition to SB 1348, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007. This bill is flawed in so many ways it concerns me for several reasons.

The first is that far from enacting any meaningful reform, it actually grants amnesty to perhaps 20,000,000 existing illegal aliens, along with their extended families. This country was established as a nation of laws, but it seems that some, like yourself as co-sponsor of this bill, are willing to subvert that basic tenet, and allow lawbreakers to not only skate free, but to enjoy the benefits of citizenship. What do I tell my grandkids about the rule of law, when half their class contains illegal Mexicans? How did my great grandparents become citizens? How did you become a citizen, Senator Martinez? Is obeying the law no longer a requisite for citizenship? Is that your message?

Secondly, with threats of annihilation being made against the county and its citizens almost daily, the last thing the government should do is to throw open the borders and let these aliens roam free among us. Which one is a simple peasant looking for work, and which is a terrorist with a weapon? Is this a risk worth taking in exchange for the dubious benefit of cheap short term labor, or for 20 million future Democrats?

Lastly, this bill doesn't pass the light-of-day test. Where are the committee hearings? Where's the debate? Americans are generous by nature, and despite the spin by the media, they are not xenophobic. Americans welcome immigrants who come here legally, learn the language, work hard and pay taxes, and assimilate into the culture. They are, however, suspicious of back room deals that try to ram bad legislation like this bill down their throats, in the dark of night.

Shame, Senator Martinez, shame. I could expect socialist bills like this from Ted Kennedy or Harry Reid. I supported and voted for you, but I did not give you license to subvert the nation's rule of law, or its border security. Amnesty didn't work under President Reagan, and it won't work now. I urge you to withdraw your sponsorship of this bill, and to vigorously oppose it.

The Armed Citizen

In a story May 2, two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez, 23, and Enrico Garza, 26, probably believed they would easily overpower a home alone eleven year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two story home. It seems the two crooks never learned two things: first, they were in Montana, and second, Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine.

Patricia was in her upstairs bedroom when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father's room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun. Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buck shot from the girl's knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals. When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive.

It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen .45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. The victim, 50 year old David Burien, was not so lucky as he died from stab wounds to the chest.

Patricia staved off a robbery and potential rape because her parents taught her how to use a gun. Her parents wisely educated her on the power that a firearm provides, and that training made her comfortable around firearms. Ignorance can be deadly, but fortunately for this Montana family, knowledge was power.

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My daughter was taught to be proficient with handguns when she was 13, and that experience helped her in her military career. She remains the only female in history in the 63rd Chemical Company, 801st Battalion, 101 Airborne Division to qualify expert with the 7.62 mm SAW, or Squad Automatic Weapon.

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Proficiency with firearms is not only a requisite in today's world, it's fun too. On occasion I participate in IPSC (International Practical Pistol Confederation) competition, which is fun mixed with training. That competition entails shooting at various targets at various distances, scored by number of hits in the shortest time. This, and most other shooting sports, provides training that is applicable to real-life situations, and can save your life. It did for little Patricia.

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A May 15 story in The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) serves as a good reminder of how a person’s support for gun control often changes after a personal experience with crime.

State Representative Michael DeBose (D-12) of Cleveland was an opponent of Right-to-Carry, having voted against the measure twice. All that changed on the night of May 1, when he was confronted by two men, one of whom was wielding a gun. On that night, Rep. DeBose’s sense of security in his neighborhood changed, as did his view on lawful citizens being able to defend themselves.

Rep. DeBose was lucky—this time—that his running, screaming, and summons for help prevented him from being harmed. When asked how this recent experience may change the prism through which he views Right-to-Carry, Rep. DeBose was crystal clear: "I was wrong. I'm going to get a permit and so is my wife. I've changed my mind. You need a way to protect yourself and your family. I don't want to hurt anyone. But I never again want to be in the position where I'm approached by someone with a gun and I don't have one. There are too many people who are just evil and mean-spirited. They will hurt you for no reason. If more people were packing guns, it might serve as a deterrent.”

Welcome, Rep. DeBose, to the growing list of Right-to-Carry converts. While it is too bad it took a life-threatening situation to convert him, we hope he will share his experience, and his newfound respect for the right to self-defense, with his other colleagues who still don’t get it. It is our hope they won’t have to endure a similar experience to do so.

By What Name Torture?

For all the weak and wobbly who were so concerned about imagined US military abuses of terrorists held at Gitmo, news all but ignored today reveals the existence of a how-to manual for torture. Not for such heinous acts as water-boarding or sleep deprivation, but for the real, medieval variety of torture. Surprisingly, this how-to manual was not issued by the pentagon for field use by US troops. Nope, it's an Al Qaeda issued manual.

In a recent raid on an Al Qaeda safe house in Iraq, U.S. military officials recovered an assortment of crude drawings depicting torture methods like “blowtorch to the skin” and “eye removal.” Dragging victims behind a car, and how to electrocute victims were also portrayed. Along with the manual, soldiers seized various torture implements, like meat cleavers, whips, and wire cutters.

We will wait patiently while human rights groups and vocal news outlets across the globe decry this barbaric heinous activity. Any minute now. Just be a moment . . . No, there will be no such outcry. Amnesty International, the New York Times and their ilk criticize only US methods of information gathering, which they label "torture." Dismemberment and disfiguration, of course, are perfectly acceptable methods for genuine freedom fighters. And those things are certainly not "torture'.

Meanwhile the insane rabid Islamofascists, with the tacit approval of the global "human rights" community, continue with their barbaric medieval beheadings, the most recent of which forced a 12-year-old boy to do the heinous deed, while his elders give him instructions. Check the actual footage of this barbarism - banned in the western news outlets - if you dare. But be warned, it's real and it's graphic.

But don't wait for the "human rights" community to point out the blatant child abuse, or the savage beheading while still alive of this civilian, or the pure evil and hypocrisy of the "religion of peace."

As hypocrisy sits on its throne and laughs, evil flourishes.

Hat tip to The Jawa Report for the still photos of the beheading.

Bye, Bye, Rosie

Goodbye and good riddance to the loudmouth bully of the View. Rosie O'Donnell took an earlier retirement today from the View, weeks earlier than her canceled contract date.

Generally misinformed, Rosie always lead with her mouth, and relied on her domineering ways to back up her absurd far-left conspiratorial ramblings. One of the most hateful commentators on television, Rosie has uttered such bizarre statements as: the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11 was an inside job perpetrated by the Bush administration; that US troops are terrorists in Iraq, having killed 650,000 innocent Iraqi civilians; that none of the 9/11 hijackers were Arabs; that no airliner hit the pentagon on 9/11 (rather she alleges it was a planted bomb); and her hatred of the Bush administration and all things Republican is legion.

Thank goodness Rosie and her Jerry Springer brand of shock jock programming is now gone. Hopefully, for good. The culture is under enough stress without having to deal with a mentally unstable, insecure, loudmouthed bully of a self-absorbed, shrill lesbian screaming her twisted and cynical views in our face.

Ciao, Rosita. Darken our doors no more.

More Victories in Iraq

Despite the doomsday pronouncements from the Democrat seditionist Harry Ried, news from Iraq continues to indicate that al Qaeda continues to get, well, beat up. Admiral William Fallon told a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. military forces are "working very hard" to stop al Qaeda fighters entering the country through Syria.

"There's little doubt that there was a pipeline coming through Syria that was enabling these people to get into the fight," Adm. Fallon said. "But in the last couple of months, the significant turn to the government and coalition side by people in Anbar I believe has got to be having a detrimental effect on this, because that's the conduit, if you would, where these people were coming."

Admiral Fallon was referring to a number of senior Sunni leaders in Anbar province who have literally switched sides from supporting the terrorist insurgency who now actively support U.S. and Iraqi government troops. What? How can that be? Isn't the war lost? The New York Times must have missed that story. Prominent religious leaders have rejected al Qaeda because the group's indiscriminate bombings are slaughtering innocent Iraqis, according to U.S. military officials. The increased pressure on the underground transit route, the so-called Syrian pipeline "is not particularly hospitable to al Qaeda or foreign fighters; we'd expect to see some positive results from that," Admiral Fallon said.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in a speech yesterday that the United States needs to be steadfast in fighting the war against terrorism. That includes in Iraq, in Afghanistan and everywhere Islamofascists strike. He noted Winston Churchill's comment on the United States in 1943 that "the price of greatness is responsibility."

The current mission in Iraq, following the first mission which was the ouster of Saddam Hussein, has been either overlooked or misrepresented by the American mainstream media. This current task is to unite the three major factions - Sunni, Shi'a and Kurd - into a democratic self-government. When that is accomplished there will exist a substantial stability in the middle east. With democratic governments flourishing, al Qaeda and its murderous factions will have no place to train, arm or hide. When the Iraqis themselves fight al Qaeda and its insane dogma, the end of this war will surely be at hand. And they will then understand that responsibility is greatness.