Border Patrol is a ....

MESS

I have been a Beck Fan for several years now. You either love him or hate him. He is an aquired taste. Degfinately not for everyone. He is not for everyone.
The following is from last night's show. It show cases how damn stupid the politicians and judiciary can be.

Transcripts

Let me take you back to February 2005. Two U.S. border agents are in pursuit of a suspected Mexican drug smuggler. The smuggler ditches his van near a canal and begins to flee on foot. One of the agents hears a gunshot and sees the other agent down.

Just then, he sees the suspect through the dust ahead of him. The suspect turns around, and the agent sees what he thinks is a gun. The agent fires; the suspect flees. Two agents return back to the road, search the van. Inside the van, 700 pounds of pot. Two weeks later, a Department of Homeland Security investigator tracks down the suspect in Mexico.

This would be a happy ending, if it wasn`t that the guy was tracking him down not to arrest him, but instead to offer the drug smuggler full immunity in exchange for testifying against the border agents who shot at him. Turns out the smuggler had been hit by the bullet. Yes, yes, so they needed to treat him here in America and give him all kinds of medical money for it.

Now the agents have been convicted on charges of assault with serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, and civil rights violations. The minimum sentence these guys can get is 10 years. The recommendation? Twenty years.

But as if all of this just wasn`t a happy enough package for you under the Christmas tree, listen to this: The assistant U.S. attorney told the jury that the Border Patrol agents are not even allowed to pursue fleeing suspects. And they also better not exceed the speed limit unless they get the supervisor`s approval first. And I`m not kidding.

What are we doing down on the border? Don`t sit there in Washington and tell me you`re serious about national security and protecting the border when you`re handcuffing the people on the front line every step of the way. This is a war on the border. You know, and like any war, except Vietnam, you give our soldiers the tools and the weapons they need to win it.

Ignacio Ramos and his attorney, Stephen Peters, join us now telephonically. That means "on the phone." Stephen...

STEPHEN PETERS, ATTORNEY FOR BORDER AGENT: Yes.

BECK: ... what happened with the judge? How did the jury actually come to this sentence or this conclusion?

PETERS: Well, I think government prosecutors can be very persuasive when they want to be. And they convinced the jury that the drug smuggler was telling the truth when he said he didn`t have a gun and that Mr. Ramos was lying when he said he thought he saw a gun.

BECK: Well, wait a minute. Hang on just a second. The guy`s a drug smuggler. He was running away from officers. I mean, don`t they have a right to say, "Hey, stop it"? If the guy happens to see a gun, whether he had one or not, what difference does it make?

PETERS: Well, it matters if Mr. Ramos thought that he had a gun, and if he did, then he would have been justified in shooting.

BECK: Right.

PETERS: The government didn`t believe Mr. Ramos; they chose to believe the drug smuggler.

BECK: Did the jury know this guy had 800 or 700 pounds of pot in the van?

PETERS: Well, the jury found that out. The government went to some effort to prevent the jury from finding out about it, but the judge let it in.

BECK: I understand this guy was just nabbed again for trying to smuggle more drugs.

PETERS: That I know nothing about.

BECK: Ignacio, how do you get up in the morning and think, "This is America"? How do you do that?

IGNACIO RAMOS, CONVICTED BORDER PATROL AGENT: It`s been very hard, and I felt abandoned for a very long time. It`s been hard to live with.

BECK: You`re facing the possibility of 20 years in prison. I know that, you know, you don`t -- I don`t even want to ask any question that might hurt you in the sentence process. So let me ask you this: The guys that you know that were working with you on the border, how apt are they to actually do anything to stop anybody on the border after they see you getting 20 years?

There is more to this transcript. What a sad state of affairs we have in our nation. The bad guy always has the rights.

Then there is this JarheadJohn's this at My-Republican_blog or scoot on over to here DeMediacraticNation