We’ve known this for a long time. How about we get out of Iraq and spend the billions of dollars we are spending on that war here at home where it’s needed. Healthcare, education, security, infrastructure. While our country falls apart we destroy another, and spend billions to do it! That Bush…..he’s a genius! Just wait, history will prove it!!

Terrorists carrying radioactive materials could easily enter the United States from Canada undetected, government investigators said Thursday after they were able to cross the 5,000-mile border four times carrying a large, red duffel bag without being intercepted.

The crossings took place at unguarded and unmonitored sites in four northern-border states. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, did not disclose the sites.

“Our work shows that a determined cross-border violator would likely be able to bring radioactive materials or other contraband undetected into the United States by crossing the U.S.-Canada border at any of the locations we investigated,” the report said.

Even though the northern border is more than twice as long as the U.S.-Mexico border, it has less than one-tenth as many agents patrolling it.

More at McClatchy

from The New York Times

One way the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement was supposed to encourage free and efficient trade was by allowing long-haul trucks from Canada, Mexico and the United States to deliver goods throughout the three countries. Unfortunately, more than a decade later the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and their allies in Congress are still working to keep Mexican trucks out.

The Teamsters and their environmental allies claim that the trucks aren-t safe and are dirty. A new pilot program, however, would require that any Mexican trucks approved for entry into the United States be inspected for safety every three months. Environmental regulations that apply to American trucks would also apply to Mexican trucks.

That’s not enough to satisfy the Teamsters, which, we suspect, are just trying to stave off the competition. And it’s not been enough for the Sierra Club, which doesn-t trust the Bush administration - or the Clinton administration before that - to enforce environmental standards.

That stubbornness is counterproductive. Keeping Mexican trucks out only keeps transport costs higher, harming American businesses and consumers. It sends Mexico the message that the United States doesn-t stand by its commitments, and it reinforces suspicions that when it comes to free trade, the United States only likes it one way.

Last week, the Department of Transportation gave the first Mexican trucking company permission to operate under a one-year pilot program that would allow roughly 500 trucks from 100 Mexican carriers onto American highways. Congress seems determined to block that progress. Today, the Senate is scheduled to vote on an amendment, filed by Senator Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, that would deny financing for the pilot program next year. The House has already approved the cutoff.

read more HERE

Boeing has enlisted the aid of Elbit Systems, Israel’s major defense contractor, to construct high-tech surveillance along the border of the U.S. and Mexico. So far, the high-tech fiasco is not working and Arizona residents are organizing a lawsuit to halt government spying on U.S. citizens.

Arivaca resident Margaret Keoppen is among those opposing the 98-foot spy tower in her community, part of Project 28 of the Secure Border Initiative.

With a spy viewing range of 10 miles, the spy tower is pointed at the good folks of Arivaca.

“This system is entirely experimental with unknown results and I don’t wish to be used as a guinea pig with resulting harm to me, my family, my animals, area wildlife,” Keoppen told Project 28.

In Tucson, the search for the biggest joke in town–the environmental assessment of the spy towers — began at the public library.

“That’s odd,” said a research librarian, “there are no copies of it here.” Diligent, the librarian plowed through the web and made a phone call.

A copy of the environmental assessment for the new high-tech border surveillance was finally located at the Arivaca library. In Arivaca, the draft copy of the assessment arrived on a Saturday in April, with no public notice.

A typed cover letter from U.S.Customs and Border Protection said residents had four days to respond, April 14 — 18. The library was closed two of those days. Without phone calls from the librarians, no one would have known it was there. Few people had a chance to even read it.

More at CounterPunch

By ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN
Associated Press Writer

NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) - U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agents executing simultaneous raids discovered a recently completed smuggling tunnel linking the two countries, officials said Friday.

The entrances to the tunnel, described as a passageway its builders planned to use to smuggle drugs, were discovered in a home in Nogales, Ariz., and an apartment in Nogales, Mexico, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Five people were arrested during the raid on the Mexican location. No arrests had yet been made on the U.S. side of the border.

Investigators tipped to the tunnel’s existence during its construction have had it under surveillance since April, and no drugs were moved through it before authorities moved in, said Terry Kirkpatrick, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.

This tunnel crossed about 100 yards as the crow flies, but was actually about 200 yards long because it meandered and dipped. The dirt walls were reinforced in areas with wooden supports and sand bags and had a lighting system, but no ventilation.

Of more than 20 tunnels that have been found in Nogales, only about four, including the latest, have not been tied into the drainage system that runs cross-border beneath Nogales, Mexico, and Nogales, Ariz.

“To have a fully serviced independent tunnel absent using the drainage system under these two cities is a significant event for us,” said Tony Coulson, assistant special agent in charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Arizona.

Agents who served a search warrant late Thursday at the tiny, one- story home found the tunnel entrance hidden beneath plywood sheets weighted down with bags of dirt inside a utility room.

The home was largely unfurnished, and searchers found picks, a jackhammer and other excavation equipment.

The tunnel was the largest discovered along the U.S.-Mexico border since January 2006, when a tunnel extending nearly a half-mile from San Diego to Tijuana was found.

Federal officials said the tunnel discovered Thursday has been temporarily sealed and will be filled in after the investigation is complete.

Great, just what we need. A bunch of redneck border patrol agents! Well, the Army uses Nascar as a recruiting tool, so why not Border Patrol, too.

The U.S. Border Patrol, seeking to recruit 6,000 new agents by the end of 2008, has emblazoned its name on a NASCAR Busch Series car in an attempt to rev up its ambitious hiring plan.
The agency is teaming with Jay Robinson Racing for a 25-race sponsorship of the No. 28 Chevrolet that will run through the remainder of the 2007 NASCAR Busch Series season. The green-and-white Border Patrol vehicle made its debut May 11 at the Darlington Raceway in South Carolina during the Diamond Hill Plywood 200 — won by Denny Hamlin in a Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet. The Border Patrol’sponsored car finished 25th out of 43.
The NASCAR vehicle represents “what CBP Border Patrol is attempting to do with its hiring and recruiting efforts; it is fast, diligent and precise,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham said. “This partnership is exactly what we needed to rev our recruiting and hiring into high gear.”
The deal cost the agency $975,000, spokesman Bill Anthony said, adding that CBP is competing with NASCAR vehicles sponsored by the U.S. Army, Navy and Marines Corps in what has proven to be a successful recruiting tool.
“We’re trying to recruit a large number of agents without sacrificing quality, and NASCAR Busch Series vehicles are a proven technology on how to get that job done,” Mr. Anthony said.

More at the Washington Times

Congress yesterday sent the bill to build 700 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border to President Bush, who will sign it in a ceremony Thursday morning in the White House Roosevelt Room.

The decision to have a public ceremony is a reversal for the Bush administration, which had appeared reluctant to tie itself so publicly to the enforcement-only measure. Although Mr. Bush had committed to signing the bill, aides had said consistently over the past few weeks there would not be a signing ceremony.

But Republicans in Congress had demanded a public signing, with leaders saying the bill is a major accomplishment that will help their re-election prospects.

“The American people demand a secure border, and this Republican Congress has responded to the American people’s demand for a secure border by increasing the physical barriers and infrastructure along the border and by providing state of the art monitoring technology,” House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, said in a joint statement trumpeting the bill’s official transmission yesterday morning.

They had held onto the bill in order to guarantee Mr. Bush’s signature closer to the election, when it would have the biggest impact. Aides said they were also holding out for a signing ceremony, to use the presidential pulpit for maximum attention…

…”Democrat leader [Nancy] Pelosi voted against the Secure Fence Act because she has never been to the border to understand that it is a national security emergency. The Democrat leadership must think that border security is about adding more security guards at Borders Book Stores,” said Ron Bonjean, spokesman for Mr. Hastert.

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Congressional investigative report states Hezbollah is already crossing the Mexican border into the U.S.