Well, you’ve gotta’ hand it to PBS’s Frontline. They are very consistent in offering up red meat for the rabid left. The actual show is called Frontline/World, a sort of spin-off that occasionally takes the place of the normal Frontline show on Tuesday nights. It’s a news magazine format that typically covers three stories and they often feature interesting stories from around the world. But the first story that aired tonight was about corruption among border agents. The reporter, Lowell Bergman, purports that the amount of money in the smuggling trade has greatly increased since the U.S. has started erecting a wall and increased our level of border agents. This seemed to me to be largely speculation, although, I’ll grant that it might very well be true. The report was very blatant in it’s assertion that the wall and other measures have only increased smuggling. This is an interesting theory, and I have no problem with Frontline/World reporting on border agent corruption or increased smuggling, but this story takes a typical left-wing slant. Wall bad, open borders good.
I did agree with one person in the story, who I believe was a Mexican, that alot of these people are desperate and this problem may be more difficult to fix than some might imagine. It doesn’t help though, that there are so many open border advocates, even in states such as Texas. Apparently the Senators from Texas managed to water down the border wall bill. This was the assertion from Duncan Hunter on the Glenn Beck show (see video). Frontline is capable of doing some really good work, but the slew of left-wing episodes they’ve done trying to tear down the administration is enough to get this conservative breathing fire. I expect one day soon we are going to fix PBS’s wagon.
Well this is an old blog post, but I found it randomly through Google so here’s a response in defense of Ron Paul’s position.
According to this article from Fox News - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,85446,00.html
“…the presence of American forces here has long been an irritant for Saudi rulers facing strong anti-American sentiment among a growing and increasingly restive population. Fifteen of the 19 alleged Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudis, and Saudi-born Osama bin Laden cites the U.S. military presence in his homeland as a reason for his hatred of America.”
Even if our troops were there at the invitation of the Saudi government, it well-known that their government does not represent the will of the people. Apparently Bin Laden perceived our presence there as an occupation.
Also, Ron Paul votes against every appropriations bill. However, because his district is paying loads of taxes, just like every other district, it is Ron Paul’s duty to represent his constituents and try to get some of that money back in the form of earmarks. If Ron Paul did not submit the earmarks, that money, which has already been appropriated, would be taken by an earmark for another district or just spent without oversight by the Executive branch.