Texas Conservative Republican News and National U.S. Political News. Texas Legislature, Texas Election News info and Conservative Events info. Michael "David Bellow" Jr blog posts.
As the run-up to early voting, which starts in just over two weeks, Texas Attorney General candidate, Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman, is taking his message to the voters with a new television ad which launched this morning.
“My first ad focuses on border security and prosecution of crime along the border because that will be one of my top priorities as the next Attorney General,” said Barry Smitherman.
“Too many Texas landowners, farmers, ranchers and south Texas families," Smitherman continued, "are being subjected to trespass, vandalism, violence and mayhem. We have got to restore law and order, keep people safe, protect their property and stop heinous crimes like drug, sex and human trafficking where it starts: on our border with Mexico."
"Stopping crime along the border before it migrates throughout the rest of the state is critically important. As the only former prosecutor in the race and the only candidate that has effectively run large state agencies like the Office of the Attorney General, I am uniquely qualified to lead the effort to stop crime along the border,” concluded Smitherman.
From the very beginning of his campaign, Smitherman has not only made border security and illegal immigration top priorities, but he has also detailed out specific plans on how to assist border sheriffs and prosecutors to increase enforcement as stated in two prior interviews done with TexasGOPVote. Interview 1 - Interview 2
- See more at: http://texasgopvote.com/issues/fix-immigration/barry-smitherman-campaign-takes-its-message-television-006338#sthash.2IfdLnhn.dpuf
the following article is from Brandon Darby posted at Texas GOP Vote:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has uncovered a massive tunnel Mexican cartels created to smuggle drugs and possibly human beings from Mexico into the United States. Authorities are describing the tunnel as “an elaborate cross border tunnel.”
The tunnel stretched from a warehouse in Tijuana, Mexico to a building in a San Diego, California industrial park. It was complete with its own electric rail system, lighting, and ventilation systems. Authorities describe the tunnel as “the most sophisticated tunnel discovered along the border in two years,” and it stretched six football fields in length.
In a rare move, the U.S. Attorney’s Office directly blamed Mexican cartels for the operation. “The cartels have spent years and tens of millions of dollars trying in vain to create an underworld of secret passageways to move huge quantities of drugs at will,” said U.S.
Attorney Laura Duffy, the head of the office prosecuting the case. The U.S./Mexico border is wide open for much of its nearly 2,000 miles, and U.S. Border Patrol Agents have spoken out publicly through their union, the National Border Patrol Council, on the obstacles they face in trying to secure the border. However, the open nature of such border crossings allows only trickles of drug smuggling and human trafficking in comparison to the large scale single shipments that a tunnel such as this makes possible. There have also been recent cases of U.S. law enforcement accused of receiving payments to allow such shipments to cross the U.S./Mexico border.
Such tunnels are also a grave concern in the realm of national security and terrorism. In 2012, the United Nations (UN) acknowledged that individuals from known terror states and regions, including the Horn of Africa, were traveling to Central America and then following the same paths and networks as illegal immigrants from Central America and Mexico to illegally enter the U.S.
According to ICE, this particular tunnel was found by pure chance by one police officer doing his or her duty. The officer pulled over a truck in San Diego for traffic violations and realized the vehicle contained three tons of marijuana. After this initial chance encounter, investigators began monitoring the area. Days later, they executed search warrants on two warehouses and found both the tunnel and a storage building for what came through the tunnel from Mexico. In addition to 17,292 pounds of marijuana, U.S. authorities also seized 325 pounds of cocaine.
This tunnel was the eighth large scale tunnel discovered in the San Diego area alone since 2006. A reported 75 cross-border tunnels have been detected by U.S. authorities in total.
Both Democrat and Republican leaders continue to espouse that the U.S. border with Mexico is secure, but I found the exact opposite to be true when I went to the border on assignment for Breitbart News.
These videos expose the ease at which illegal crossings occur in the southeast Texas area known as the Valley, one of the most heavy areas for illegal crossing into the United States.
The first video I took revealed a gaping hole in the border fence that resulted from a massive gate never having been installed. The opening was slightly more than 100 yards from the Rio Grande, the river that separates the U.S. from Mexico in Texas. I walked to the river, then walked through the open gate into a U.S. neighborhood. I did not see any security or border patrols for 30-35 minutes.
Approximately one mile from this gaping hole, I found the end of the border fence. The end of the border fence sits between another U.S. neighborhood and the river. A "wildlife management area" extends less than a mile between the fence and the river.
Here is the exclusive video:
Breitbart News’ Brandon Darby walks viewers from the Rio Grande River into a U.S. neighborhood, revealing just how unsecured the U.S./Mexico border really is. Darby walks viewers through the unfinished “Border Fence,” which had no gate or security of any kind. The location was west of Penitas, Texas.
Darby, who is on assignment along the U.S./Mexico border investigating cartels and public corruption, stated by telephone:
"The southeastern stretch of the Rio Grande river is where most of Texas' illegal immigration occurs. The area has many desolate regions and there simply aren't enough resources being applied to the issue.
"Cartels and street gangs control the human smuggling. The region where I took the video is currently heavily disputed between the Mexican Gulf cartel and the Los Zetas cartel, which is actually an armed insurgency," said Darby.
"Transnational crime syndicates usually have a stash house just on the other side of the wall. People cross the river and go to these houses. Then they are taken up various highways and let out just before the known immigration check points. They walk miles and miles from that point to the next stash house."
Darby was referencing a 2012 report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in his assertions about human smuggling.
"Breitbart News has just begun to open the taps on the human stories and issues of public corruption occurring on our southern border. We will continue to surprise our readers and the American public with the information we are uncovering," said Darby.
Violence like this along the border is getting worse and is already spilling over into the US and Texas. When will the Obama Administration and the Federal Government step up to do more to protect our own border from this escalating violence?
The car bomb article today from the associated press (see below) is yet another example of this escalating violence.
If you live on the border, massive gun battles and explosions can be heard on a nearly daily basis. Here are some articles I have posted about border violence just in the last year. I barely even scratch the surface:
It is a shame that most of this violence goes unreported in the national media and can only be found in a local newspaper or website....
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican officials say suspected cartel gunmen have launched a complex attack involving heavy weapons and a car bomb on a police dormitory less than 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) from the U.S. border.
The two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not yet authorized to release the information, said a number of police were wounded in the attack early Thursday morning in Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas state. The attack began with men opening fire, then setting off a car bomb in front of the police dorm. The officials did not provide details.
On the night of January 31st, 2012, many people in Rio Grande City, TX were too scared to even step out of their houses for fear that they might get hit by a bullet. The Starr County Memorial Hospital could not give me any patient information, but they did confirm that some individuals (at least one) were treated at the hospital on New Year’s Eve for wounds caused by bullets falling and hitting people.
These New Year’s Eve 2011 bullets were not from drug cartel guns though.
These bullets were from residents of Rio Grande City, TX celebrating the New Year by foolishly shooting their guns into the air. I called the Rio Grande City Police Department and asked them about the celebratory fire that had occurred. The Detective I talked to was very polite and open to talking about the incident. He told me that this is something that happens all along the border, not just in Rio Grande City, and it has gone on since he was young. He said that what goes up must come down and that throughout the years there have been random damages from bullets going through roofs, etc.
Gunfire could be heard all night in all corners of the city. The bullets were dropping everywhere and many people were too scared to even go outside. My brother said that one man had a bullet hit him in the back. He said that some had hit people’s roofs. My brother himself even received damage because he had a large .40 caliber bullet damage his truck(see pictures of truck below).
My brother also used his cell phone video camera to capture audio of the constant sound of high caliber, rapid gunfire (see video below to hear gunfire).
Truck Damage from .40 Caliber Bullet:
Video (AUDIO) of gunfire on New Year’s Eve 2011 in Rio Grande City: (Yes, some of what you hear in this video is only noise from fireworks but the gunfire is pretty easy to distinguish)
Rio Grande City Police Say Woman Murdered an Illegal Immigrant – But was it Self-Defense/Fear for Life? Something Sounds Fishy…
As I was scanning through the internet to see if I could find any other media reports of the injuries and damage caused by the New Year’s Eve celebratory fire in Rio Grande City, I came across a very interesting story involving a woman charged with murdering an illegal immigrant and attempted capital murder.Something seems very strange about this story and it seems as though the police are closing the case without even getting any evidence.
The deceased illegal immigrant, Jose Antonio Solis Sanchez, was found dead under a tree in Rio Grande City, TX. It took 2 weeks before any leads came in about what happened. Finally, the police got a lead from the man who was driving Sanchez the night he was shot. According to the driver, Sanchez was in a van with the driver and 2 other men (all men were unrelated). The van somehow ended up in the yard of the alleged murderer, Lizbeth Hinojosa Garcia. The driver says that Garcia came out yelling and shot 2 times at the van. One of the bullets struck Sanchez (Garcia and Sanchez are unrelated). The police have admitted that they do not know why the van and those men were on her private property. They police admit that they do not know what happened to the van or where it is located. The police admit they do not know how the man ended up dead over half a mile away from where he was shot. The police do not even know what the motive was for the shooting.
With that information (or lack of information), the Rio Grande Police are sure about one thing:
REALLY? How can you rule out self-defense or manslaughter if you do not even know the details of what happened that night? You don’t think a 28 year old mother of 2 children might possibly have feared for her life because there were 4 unknown men on her property in the middle of the night? The area is known for drugs and cartel violence after all. If you believe the driver, the woman was yelling and shot twice. She did not riddle the van with bullets trying to kill everyone in the van. Maybe she was yelling to get off of her property and then one of the men in the van did something to startle her so she reacted by pulling the trigger twice? She might not even know that she has shot anyone if the van drove off after she shot at it. Maybe she thought she saw something in the van like a gun?
I am not necessarily defending this woman. This woman very well might have committed cold blooded murder by leaving her house to intentionally kill an innocent person in a van on her yard, but this woman might likely have also feared for her life and is simply guilty of manslaughter or not guilty at all due to self-defense. WE JUST DON’T KNOW. The police have no evidence. Can the police really fully believe what the occupants of the van say? These men did not call police for weeks, have no explanation of why they were in the woman’s yard, do not know where the van is, and they did not even call for an ambulance and do not know how the man ended up dead half a mile away from where he was shot.
It all sounds very strange if you ask me. I think there is more to this story. I also think that the Rio Grande Police have jumped to conclusions by ruling out self-defense and calling this cold blooded murder before they have any evidence.
Just last year, in a different part of Texas, the Hardin County District Attorney charged Clint West with the murder of Nicole Janca. West had previously only been charged by the Hardin County Sheriff’s Department with providing alcohol to a minor. This is an example of a case getting closed before all the evidence was looked at. Thankfully the Hardin County case was reopened and more evidence was examined which resulted in the murder charge.
The Starr County District Attorney and the Rio Grande City Police Department need to step back and get the evidence first before they close the case or make any final determinations. They especially cannot rule out the possibility of self-defense yet. They should especially not close the case before they even know what happened.
Something just seems fishy about this murder charge in Rio Grande City and I sure am interested to see how the case moves forward and what new evidence will come out.
SOME PICTURES ARE ATTACHED TO THIS EMAIL BUT FOR MORE PICTURES CLICK ON LINK TO SEE THE SHOCKING PICTURES FROM MEXICO BORDER BATTLE:http://fronteras-unidas.mexicoforo.net
My Brother and I are soldiers in the Army National Guard. My brother, James Bellow, is currently deployed on the Texas/Mexico border. In the early morning hours of April 21st, 2011, my brother witnessed and recorded a MASSIVE firefight and Battle in Mexico, right across from the city of Roma, TX. This battle lasted for hours and included machine gun fire and several explosions from grenades of mortars. What would have happened if this would have spilled over into Texas????
My brother filmed some of the footage of the battle on his phone
plus a reporter (Iris Rodriguz) on the Mexico border sent me these pictures and the link to the blog with more pictures.
The Zetas are said to be responsible for this attack, Mexico authorities have not confirmed nor released any info...
