Anyone know what's up with the Border Patrol everywhere in Bellingham? I see them driving in random places all over the area. I see them on Chuckanut Drive, I see them on the reservation, I see them 4 cars deep in Sehome Village.

I drove down to the boat launch on Cove Rd. off of Chuckanut and there was one parked down there for over an hour idling in his Tahoe.

WTF is up with this and why is no one pissed that all they do is drive around? These guys make good salaries -- make them work on the border, not 35 miles south of it in professors' neighborhoods.

I know for a fact they do a lot of training drills in Bellingham. They seek out areas to create "problem scenarios" for officer advancement. Their K-9 training program is pretty active in your area as well. I know a guy who works on their drug task force and he's always in Bham. Makes sense to me that most of the drug runners would live in the greater Bham area....

I thought the reason for increased border patrol was terrorist activity.

Homeland Security is huge and terror alerts are low. I'm sure there's plenty of those guys sitting on their thumbs right now, but drug trafficking is always going to be prominent in that area. Smack, crack, boom, pow, you name it, it's in Whatcom County and it's always going to be a main artery for runners.

In the words of a very famous Bellingham uberliberal.........."wwwwwwwwwwip

wiiip

wiiip

ear"


you can just hear the intelligent thoughts forming, can't you?

Saw one cruising through Howard Miller Steelhead Park on the Skagit last weekend. I asked him how many terrorists he's apprehended in east Skagit County. Since he didn't answer, I took that as a "zero." I wish HS and Border Patrol would focus more on the terrorists, or lack thereof, and quit hassling the BC bud smugglers and the Mexican farm workers. Somebody's gotta' pick the spinach. Maybe they haven't heard, they already lost the war on drugs. We lost the war on terrorism too, but that's a different topic.

Sg

"undocumented pansy planter," That has a nice ring to it. I mean how much trouble can an undocumented PP cause? 'sides where can you find a documented PP besides KK that is.

I wish you all the weed you can smoke and chew and any other form
of ingestion you might dream up in your folly. You are undoubtledly
better entertainment when whacked out.
Cheech and Chong were funny too. Bet they were better paid than
you.

We worked with them on a regular basis in 94-96 when I was a deputy in Whatcom County. They have always been around up there, but they do have increased staffing now. They do their part to help make sure we are kept safe. If they weren't there, there wouldn't be a deterrent to cross the border illegally.

It would be nice to find the odd hockey bag now and then, though.

With all due respect, I don't think a GS-10 officer sitting at the bottom of Cove Rd reading a paper is keeping me safe. Sounds kind of like the Nazi Party telling the public that the Gestapo was serving and protecting the German people.

Cops don't protect people. They are trained to kill people first and foremost. Second, they are trained to show up to a crime scene *after* the crime has been committed further negating the "to protect" part.

The only one who protects me is me and me alone.

Additionally, if it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars (but more realistically hundreds of millions) to find 1 hockey bag of pot, then the CBP is not worth their weight in drugs.

You gots issues, boy!
Cops are mostly reactionary (after the fact) by nature, not training. On occasion, they are also on the spot at the right time, but mostly they "respond" to circumstances.
So the part above in blue is almost correct.......the rest.....pthththth.

Where's Dirty Harry when you need him. Prevention beats the hell out
of symtom treatment.

Hank, in a couple years when you're laying on your death bed hopefully somewhere in California, you'll think back and regret all of the hurtful things you said in your last pathetic years.

I find it uncomfortable that you still dwell on my previous income -- it's almost psychopathic in a way. But, since you have always sucked off the teat of the government or family, and other peoples' success in general, you don't understand what it takes to make sacrifices. My sacrifice paid off in the end and now I live very comfortably. There's no point in explaining this to you though, since you're a loser and will die a loser.

So no one needs any firearms to protect themselves, right? I figured you'd be the poster child of the right to bear arms to protect one's self. Guess not, since you feel comfortable knowing that the cops down the street will save you when you're about to be murdered.

All the National TSA VIPR Teams and extra patrols haven't found one ounce of terror on our soil, that why Kimberly Clark, one of their spokespersons, refuses to answer when asked how effective all the additional security has been to thwart terrorist activities.
They only thing they do find is the poor schmuck who decided to bring two joints along on his weekend vacation. If they did have any successes, they would have it all over the 5 o'clock news, bank that.

In Addition, Ask yourself.....What would a real terrorist do if they were carrying a bomb and were discovered? They would probably blow themselves up right there on the spot, in line at the border, or at a checkpoint somewhere.
All this extra security is not making us one bit safer.

All this extra security is draining our precious tax dollars, and making Chertoff's inner circle of friends rich as hell...on the lie that Terrorism is soaking America's soil.

You've pointed out nothing other than making yourself look like an idiot trying to act like you hold some lucrative position and have been some high-flying member of society, when in all reality you're just an X-ray technician. Once a loser, always a loser.

Trust me, they really don't do anything.

Most of them are lazy, some of them are missing part of their brain and the rest act like dicks.

Dogfish accused some of you of third grade behavior. He was wrong. Most of this is not that sophisticated. Does this insult you? Good, that's who I was aiming at.

Fire away - no one gives a shait.

I get to drive through in my opinion an illegal checkpoint tomorrow 50 miles north of the border. I agree with what some have said, border patrol should stay at the border. also, get rid of homeland security all together it is a huge waste of money.

KK has never been spot on in his entire life and neither has
has his near mute cheerleader.

I will let you know if my fourth amendment right is abused tomorrow.

"I get to drive through in my opinion an illegal checkpoint tomorrow 50 miles north of the border."


Correct me if I'm wrong BUT, if the check point is 50 miles NORTH of the border, then you would be in Canada. I'm pretty certain they haven't adopted the 4th amendment or our Constitution up there.

yeah i should have been more clear. I am in las Cruces NM heading towards Houston.

Ahhhh

Kotex Kid

I think Hankster suffers from repeated yeast infections.

The border patrol has technically always had authority 100 miles inland and with the increased manpower they've now chosen to grab that power and do things like set up check points here on the Pennisula even though check points violate our states constitution and pull people over who may be illegals. Gotta do something with the new guys. Last summer every day at mid day you'd see a border patrol truck parked above Sekiu. Maybe they should be called the Broader Patrol?

Whenever we contacted someone in the country illegally, we just called BP and they came over and took them off our hands. Probably one or two every other week. There wasn't a shortage back then of likely targets.

We've always had Customs and Border Patrol. It's our reactionary creation of Homeland Security and the big increases of BP that demonstrate how we lost the war on terrorism. Americans have changed how they live in response to 9/11. And parts of the government encourage Americans to live in fear and put up with TSA, HS, and the over-loaded BP. It was the old BP that caught Ressam at PA, doing their usual job. The inflated BP is just that, inflated. What is the measurable increase in security?

Training Americans to live in fear of terrorism and accept increased government intrusion in their lives is the very definition of the terrorists have won.

Sg

One of my very good friends is in the BP. He is a smart guy, fluent in 3 languages, history degree from UW, as well as just a really funny genuine friend. He worked on the CA/WA border for a year, but left telling me it was "Just too boring", and most of the time was spent interrogating and then transferring illegals from the Border to INS in
Tacoma.

In his opinion the extra funding for BP and HS has just increased the amount of paperwork and beareaucrats with nothing to do at places like PA, and Bellingham. He has transferred back to AZ, where he tells me it is "Not Boring" and would feel a lot better at times if he had an entire army of BP agents with him.

Surprise DC's bureaucracy addiction can screw up any process. Spend
more tax money. Get more tax money.

"Spend more tax money. Get more tax money."

Yup. GW really F'ed us over.

Can I replace the word "terrorists" with "crisis freaks"?
Sure seems to fit.
(Your statement, Sg, is fine.....but it also fits a broader picture.)

Don't put yourself in the same category as that f'''kin' hankeyboy. You obviously don't understand the amount of intelligence gathering which goes into most of the big seizures at the border. Smugglers aren't running back and forth in a straight line 10' from the international border. Surveillance goes on all over the county. These agents put their lives on the line everyday, which is more than you and Hank ever do.
My uncle worked for the INS border patrol for over 45 yrs. From Minnesota to Tucson to Oroville,Washington. Oroville and Nighthawk. He had a gun put in his face on more than one occasion, and lived to tell about it , do to his training. They were taught to never let their guard down, no matter what the scenario. Smuggling cases are built over time. Confidential reliable informants (Snitches) help them to climb the ladder to bigger fish. Sometimes, seizures go unreported to protect agents, snitches and to build cases. You don't go calling channel 5 every bust. One of the subcontractors who worked with me was caught at the canadian border with a large quantity of drugs. We had no idea this guy was even involved in this sort of thing. He played cornerback for the Montreal Alouettes and had a sizeable savings account. He was the last person I would of suspected. He had on his possession, 2 firearms. I really doubt he had target practice on his mind.

So far GW holds the all time record for increased spending.

It is a bit amusing that some will never get over having Bush to blame for everything. Even their illustrious leader, the O guy has to lean on Bushe's shoulders when he has no other out.
The history books will treat Bush as one of the most influential CinCs we have ever had, if nothing else than for all the heinous activities
attributed to him and his cohorts.

You mean the Revisionist History books? Look in the fiction section for GOP written history books.

Just for variety you should take a break from the fiction aisles and try some American History and current events. Might be painful for you but those Gothic novels and Lib propaganda rags must be a bit boring.