Minutemen Continue to Fight Over Highway

The San Diego Minutemen are challenging the proposed change in the location of their "adopt a highway" stretch of road. From The New York Times:

The group filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month arguing that the decision violated its constitutional rights to free speech, due process and equal protection under the law. The Minutemen are asking for permission to work at the original site, as well as for the payment of legal fees and $50,000. A hearing is scheduled for March 14 in the United States District Court in San Diego.

Because it's theirs and belongs to them and they should have it cause they saw it first.

It has nothing to do with the fact that it's very near a border station and they are a group of people who fancies themselves freelance border patrol.

And it has nothing to do with the odd symbolism of the whole thing, what with them "picking up trash" on the side of the road near the border patrol where they like to pretend to be the border patrol.

And it's not like they are going to stand on the side of the road in their orange vests and look for immigrants themselves, irregardless of if they are trained to do so, or even if they are targeting ACTUAL illegal immigrants, they're just picking up trash you see.

Really it's about fairness, you dig? They should be able to stand on the side of the road, scan for interlopers, point and yell and generally infringe upon the rights of others, because it's ONLY FAIR. Sure they are really in it to adopt a highway, but they don't want any old highway in East County... they reject you old highway in East County.

But really they are in it for the highway... just not that highway.

Poor east county highway.

Cal Trans lets just about anybody adopt a freeway; wear silly vests

From the LA times:

Caltrans has granted an Adopt-A-Highway stretch of Interstate 5 to the ardent foes of illegal immigration -- and not just any stretch. The two miles of freeway the Minutemen will be charged with beautifying include the U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoint near San Clemente.

Caltrans spokesman Edward Cartagena said the Minutemen got the stretch of I-5 purely by chance. The group submitted its application in November, he added, and it was reviewed and found to comply with the rule. According to the agency's website, it bars "entities that advocate violence, violation of the law, or discrimination based upon race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry" and other factors.

"The Department will not discriminate against groups that otherwise meet the program criteria based on the fact that some members of the public might disagree with the particular group's agenda or reputation," Caltrans said in a prepared statement.


And there you go immigrants, Caltrans has spoken and allowed the Minutemen to stand on the side of the road in orange vests and pick up trash. Somebody protest (stand on the road and yell and scream about how they are taking perfectly good work from perfectly good community service sentenced drunk drivers, start a group, call it the Hourmen, adopt your own highway...).

You Throw a Rock at me, I Tear gas you and make your nose bleed for two weeks and call it a day.

On the last day of summer, ten hours before fall . . . . . .

my grandfather took me out to the Wall. - The Butter Battle Book

My husband and I pretty much agree on everything (or he pretty much agrees with me). We like to live in our liberal bliss, watching the TV, shaking our heads at the moronic nature of those who are as enlightened as we are, shake oure heads at each other when one of us reminds the other that The Terminator is our Governor, and he's not as bad as this guy was. Any way you cut it, we can have a nice conversation about this, or that, and not end it with "you conservative psycho get out of my house! Have fun at your dinner party with Bill O'Reily and Rush and SATAN!"

On one level we disagree about immigration. I won't go in to our opposing views on the subject, only to say that as a Native American person (me) I'll usually end the conversation with some joke about how he's just an immigrant himself and maybe he should go on back to France with his people (and then something about how, in California he's a double immigrant, being that, ahem, Mexico was kind of here for a while too).

However we both feel about the whole "hey I like how we're building a big fence to keep Mexico out, when it's the dang Canadians who are always coming down here paying for surgery they can't have because of their dang universal health care system", we do agree in the fundamental basics, you know, life, liberty, not getting tear gassed while in your home as retaliation for people throwing rocks over the border fence.

From NPR:

Rubis Guadalupe Argumedo's kitchen window looks out at the border fence. She says one sweltering night last summer she had all the windows open and tear gas poured inside.
She says Border Patrol agents lobbed a canister over the border fence and told her it was payback for the rocks that were being hurled at them.Argumedo says the tear gas gave her son nosebleeds for two weeks.Argumedo says after a tear gas attack one recent Saturday night, she yelled at a Border Patrol agent from her front porch. "I told him, 'Don't throw anything. There are kids here,'" she recalled. "I said, 'You're not in Iraq.'"She said he responded that he was sorry, but that the tear gas attacks would continue because rocks were being thrown at the agents.

While the Border Patrol agents will not confirm the use of tear gas in retaliation for the rock throwing incidents, they have said that they use whatever means necessary to protect the agents. Mexico has asked the Border Patrol to investigate and are awaiting the results.

I'm sure they'll get those real soon.

Cat Dirt Sez...

And San Diego City Beat reports on what Cat Dirt Said.

In a post a few months ago on his blog Cat Dirt Sez, San Diego defense attorney/music promoter Scott Pactor wrote: “If a hypothetical journalist asked me this question: ‘If you were looking to start a new blog, what subject matter would you pick and why?’ My answer would be ‘Illegal Immigration.’”

Wow, bloggers, take over, world, I will give you back your ad revenue so you can continue to put out publications that are really only a bunch of ads (magazine industry) for one billion dollars!

Cat Dirt is our leader, somebody get him a cat and shave his head.