WASHINGTON (AP) — Bowing to President Bush, the Democratic-controlled Congress grudgingly approved fresh billions for the Iraq war Thursday night, minus the troop withdrawal timeline that drew his earlier veto.

“The Iraqi government needs to show real progress in return for America’s continued support and sacrifice,” said the commander in chief, and he warned that August could prove to be a bloody month for U.S. troops in Baghdad’s murderous neighborhoods.

The Senate vote to send the legislation to the president was 80-14. Less than two hours earlier, the House had cleared the measure, 280-142, with Republicans supplying the bulk of the support.

-The Associated Press

To be entirely honest, I haven’t been keeping up with the War in Iraq very much, but it seems to me that this is a sign the Democrats aren’t all insane people wanting to destroy our nation. That may be an exaggeration, but the point remains, that Congress should leave control of the military to the military.

I don’t know the slightest bit about military strategy, but it sure seems to me that in order for a nation to win a war, they should give the best commanders and generals nearly full control. In my mind, in finally passing a spending measure without a timetable, Congress is both sending a message that they still support American troops, and recognizing that sometimes the good of our nation must transcend politics.

I also find this to be an interesting turn, especially with so many prominent Democrats recently speaking out against bills without timelines. My best guess would be that, once the ball’s rolling - the war had begun - it’s not something any amount of political power can stop and it must come to an end on it’s own time.

What does this hold for the future and what will September bring? I guess only time can tell.

A bloodbath just south of the Mexican border has alarmed neighboring Arizona towns that have nervously monitored a rise in violence in the Mexican state of Sonora the past two months.

Mexican police killed 15 armed assailants in a fierce gun battle Wednesday after tracking a group that killed four policemen, leading to fears this morning that an armed outlaw convoy was headed to the U.S. border.

About 40 assailants apparently related to Mexico’s powerful drug gangs, drove in a convoy of up to 15 vehicles into the town of Cananea, 20 miles south of the U.S. border, to seize the policemen Wednesday. Mexican state police confronted the gunmen in the mountains 60 miles south of Cananea and reportedly killed 15 of the gunmen.

Source: WorldNetDaily

I’m really not sure what to say of this, but I guess it just goes to show further reasons that we need to be as careful as possible when it comes to border security and drug law enforcement. It seems to me that the best way to deal with these Mexican Drug Gangs would be to increase enforcement of our own laws and to more severely prosecute those who are caught smuggling drugs - or anything for that matter - across the border. Is that really too much to ask?

Then again, especially with Thursday’s travesty of an amnesty bill, I’m really not sure I have much faith left in our national leadership to make this happen. Even as Bush was pushing for immigration ‘reform’, I had confidence that the Republican congress would be smart enough to avoid it. When the Democrats took over, I was just about ready to start praying that they would never agree with Bush enough to get a bill through. Now that they all seem to agree, I guess the only option left is for public opinion to squash the bill - something I don’t see us having the power to do.

Yes, the proposed bill includes many security and enforcement procedures, but I refuse to accept any form on amnesty until every inch of the border is walled off with high fencing, barbed wire, and under video surveillance. Until every vehicle legally crossing is inspected and the cargo x-rayed, and until every police officer in the country is required to check immigration status when making an arrest. If all of this was done, then I’d be willing to discuss amnesty.

At the same time, I have to give props to the Senators for working out such a difficult agreement and, despite my many dislikes, making a number of important and needed reforms. Taking a look at the White House Fact Sheet, some of it actually looks decent.

• The plan establishes a merit based system for immigration, granting priority to the best of the best
• New English requirements and a push for greater assimilation
• An end to extended family (uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.) family migration benefits, which apparently account for nearly 2/3 of green cards issued
• Temporary worker program - although I don’t really support it, it seems like a good way to reduce future illegal immigration or at least track people - if we enforce the laws
• Increased sanctions on companies who hire illegal workers

Despite the good aspects, there are a few major things I still really want to see

• Recognition of English as the official language of the United States
• An end to the ‘birth right’ citizenship of the 14th amendment - you should be born a citizen if and only if one or both of your parents is a citizen
• Severe increases in the penalties for future illegal immigrants, including no-questions-asked deportation and a permanent bar from gaining a green card once that occurs, for both those who sneak in and those who overstay visas

If someone had a bill which included all that, I’d be ecstatic. Until then, down with amnesty and immigration ‘reform!’ Congress and President Bush, please give the American People what we want, don’t give in to illegals and huge corporations.

I’m a big fan of the approach that Lou Dobbs has taken to covering Illegal Immigration over the past few months and years - in fact I strongly believe he provides the most balanced coverage of the issue of any major news program - and I truly appreciate that fact. Now that he’s extensively criticizing the way most mainstream media handles the issue, I think he’s finally raising some issues that need to be raised. I’m not one to make predictions, but I hope others listen to him and stop the excessive appeasement of Illegal Aliens, the ACLU, and the Illegal Immigration Lobby.

That said, he has offered similar views in the past, but to see it in a concise and through segment is very pleasing. Among my favorite points:

“They’re selling an agenda. And they’re not applying critical judgment. And critical judgment and skepticism is our job as journalists. We’re talking about comprehensive immigration legislation as reform. We’re using the word ‘reform’ as if it were true. There’s no skepticism.”

Exactly. Calling what they want to reform is like calling a major heart attack or a ruptured cerebral aneurysm a ‘minor medical problem’ - it’s simply idiotic and everyone knows it.

And the fact that the president of the United States, the fact that the Congress of the United States, and the Democratic leadership, particularly in the Senate, could put this legislation before the American people — the Flake-Gutierrez bill, 700 pages of utter nonsense that, frankly, no one in Congress has read. But it’s an absurdity. It’s amnesty. It would cost this country a fortune. And for what? The issue is secure borders. The issue is not 12 to 20 million illegal aliens in this country. The issue is enforcing the law.

Any bill that needs 700 pages cannot be anything but nonsense. I bet more than half is pork and amnesty. Why can’t we have a bill to secure the border without amnesty or faulty funding?

We need immigrants in this country. That’s why we bring in more than two million. Has anybody over the past hour on this broadcast or this network reported, or any other network, reported that we bring in more than two million immigrants into this country lawfully each and every year? Has anybody on this broadcast, any news organization in the country, said, wait a minute, why in the world are we worrying about illegal immigration into this country and their — and their situation, before we’re worrying about how long it takes to become a lawful immigrant in to this country and what we’re doing with people who are playing by the rules? This is upside down. It’s wrongheaded. And it is simply, to me, a travesty that mainstream media journalists are not focusing on the facts.

I agree, we are a nation of immigrants and a healthy stream of immigrants is needed to maintain our status as the greatest nation on the planet. On that note, however, we don’t need millions of illegal aliens coming here and picking our fruit ro cooking our burgers - we need engineers and PhDs.

Check out the rest of the transcript (and a video clip) over at NewsBusters.org