“Do The Math”
The state of AZ in 2007 consumed 5 million tons of cement that was locally produced plus several hundred thousand tons brought in from out of state. This year (2010) the state will consume somewhere in the vicinity of 1.5 million ton. There is a new, state of the art cement plant recently completed with nowhere or anybody to sell their product to. To say the economy has cooled off would be a gross understatement. Currently around 30% of AZ residents receive some sort of government assistance; food stamps, unemployment, etc. Houses that were selling like hotcakes for $300,000.00 can be bought for half price, the housing market being so bad that house flipping is no longer in vogue.

For several years I’ve been hearing from horsemen friends of mine that a common man cannot expect to own a few race horses and compete and win anymore because there is so much drug money in the industry the little guy is being squeezed out. A very famous race was recently won by a horse who, insiders say, is owned by cartel members. Recently at a famous horse sale, where colts that are bred to compete at the highest level are sold, the top buyer walked up to the window and paid for his purchases, all $930,000.00 of them in $100 bills. I’ll let you guess where the money came from.

What does cement and horse racing have in common? Perhaps more than you think.

I have a film that shows a picture of, among other things, a brick of drug money seized by authorities in a bust against cartel members. This stack of money is 8 feet long by four feet wide and three feet high. They say two million in $100 bills will fit nicely in a brief case 18 inches by 12 inches by 5 inches. If that is so, this stack of money totals somewhere around $154 million. Mere pocket change in an industry that grosses billions annually.

In recent months Barack Obama and Janet Napolitano have announced many times on national TV that the border is safer than ever. They claim that traffic is down. There are however conflicting reports coming from other sources within the government. Ed Preciado an upper echelon ICE official from AZ, and Peter Gadiel also an upper level ICE official from New York have recently been quoted saying the Phoenix ICE field office is processing more illegal aliens than ever, 92, 000 in the Phoenix field office through Oct. of 2010 compared to 76,000 in all of 2008. This includes 35,000 criminals identified in 2010 compared to 15,000 in 2008.

The federal government has 63 deportation centers scattered throughout the U.S. that are used solely to process illegal aliens at the cost to American taxpayers of $2.6 billion a year. At these deportation centers the aliens are put on a diet of two very good hot meals a day. If an individual stays at one of these centers for 5 weeks they never have to eat the same meal twice. If they get to feeling ill they receive professional medical care – guaranteed within 24 hours. Under Obama care, health professionals predict it may take 2 or 3 weeks to get a doctors appointment. In some cases it will take longer.

I have had a million dollar Border Patrol MSS unit (ground radar) parked within 4 hundred yards of my house which is 23 miles north of the border. Even with this expensive piece of equipment close by I witnessed a dope pick-up just several miles away. There was a burglary in Portal a few days ago committed by illegal aliens and Border Patrol agents admit the dope is still filtering through.

In the Peloncillo Mountains that straddle the Arizona and New Mexico border, mule trains loaded with dope go north on a nightly basis. Our government sends American boys to Afghanistan to fight and die in some of the most rugged mountains in the world between Afghanistan and Pakistan and yet these low hills called the Peloncillos are too dangerous for the average Border Patrol agent. As one Douglas Border Patrol supervisor told me one time, “If there is a loaded AK47 out there, we aren’t going to be there!”

Fort Huachuca on the west side of Sierra Vista is one of the largest military bases in the lower 48 states and dope passes through the base on a regular basis. Illegal traffic around Naco, Nogales and areas southwest of Tucson is extremely heavy at this time. And traffic through Hidalgo and Don Ana counties in New Mexico has picked up recently. Murder and gross acts of violence are a daily occurrence in border town like Ciudad, Juarez and of late the violence in Agua Prieta, Sonora has picked up. Several weeks ago in Agua Prieta a police commander was murdered in broad daylight by cartel members.

Time changes everything and life here in the Cochise County ranching community has changed dramatically in the last few months. The idea of living a peaceful life in the country has become a distant memory replaced by warily looking over one’s shoulder and wondering who the enemy is. Personally I’m bothered more by the government than Mexican outlaws who roam the hills sometimes no more than several hundred yards from my home. At least one can guess what the outlaws are about.

I cannot believe the position that our government has taken in the border crises that now faces our once great nation. You have Mexican outlaws roaming to and fro across America with paper sacks full of $100 bills making million dollar business deals, tax free, no IRS tax return, no audit, no disclosure, and virtually no fear. The dirty money isn’t coming, it’s already here and the more that comes, the more violence comes with it. On the other hand you have a Campaigner in Chief who chooses to insult, fight, sue and deplete the recourses of the very people (like Larry Dever) who have sworn to defend an endangered species – the American tax payer.

You would think that a man immersed in as much red ink as the current resident of the White House would want to do something to befriend the dwindling number of Americans who still do business the legitimate way like filing an IRS return or paying social security taxes. Instead we few taxpayers who are still fortunate enough to have a job have become the enemy of Obama and the radical left. As Obama sycophant, Katy Couric, would say, taxpayers are part of the unwashed masses.

It has been said and rightly so, that if Americans didn’t have such an appetite for dope the nonsense on the border would come to a halt. So I have a solution: if you feel the need to get high, drink “Makers Mark” or “Jack Daniels” whiskey or “Adolph Coors.” They are brewed in America by tax paying Americans who contribute in trying to preserve our great nation by paying off our astounding national debt which is now approaching the size of our total GDP.

This won’t make Cheech and Chong happy but who cares, after all they have been wandering around in a constant stupor for forty years while California, the state they claim they love, wallows in 13% unemployment and a deficit that can only be matched by Pelosi and Obama’s federal government.

Ed Ashurst
Apache, Arizona

Submitted to the Federal Observer, by the author for publication.

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