Obamas Horses

[Rick Oltman]

In responding to a question about the border and the swine flu President Obama said Wednesday that, “the horses are already out of the barn.” And with that naïve, flippant remark we’re supposed to presume that we don’t need any additional border security.

That statement is more than naïve, it is potentially dangerous.

All around the world governments are reacting to the H1N1 flu outbreak. And the precautions being taken may be necessary, or may not be. Some appear to be excessive; Russia, China and other countries are banning pork products from Mexico and parts of the U.S. even though the disease is transmitted human to human, not pig to human, for instance.

So far a lot isn’t known about the virus or where it even came from. AP reported yesterday “A portrait is emerging of a slow and confused response by Mexico to the gathering swine flu epidemic. And that could mean the world is flying blind into a global health storm.”

The news media is pouring out competing and conflicting headlines like, “Officials act to soothe global swine flu fears” and “Swine flu pandemic 'imminent'” and “Mexico begins shutting down as flu fears spread.” And yet the U.S. government is doing nothing at the border or ports of entry with the very country from where this version of the disease apparently began.

And, despite Thursday’s denials by DHS that CBP inspectors at the Ports of Entry were not told to remove their masks, a very reliable source told me Wednesday night that they in fact were ordered to remove their masks because it looked “unprofessional.” And my source also had first hand knowledge that inspectors at the San Ysidro and El Paso Ports of Entry were complaining loudly to management. On Thursday, after a CBP union official made an on camera appearance in uniform resulting in national news coverage the inspectors were told they could wear the masks. Great, we’re apparently back to government by public opinion poll.

Another source told me that Border Patrol agents on the line were issued masks and gloves and warned about getting into close proximity to the illegals they arrest, which is unavoidable as they have to search the detainees and transport them in their vehicles. As of last night the agents on the line had not been told they couldn’t wear the masks, presumably, according to my source, because they were not in the public eye.

Let’s go back to basics for a minute.

Question: Do we actually have something to worry about with this flu coming from Mexico?
Answer: A definite maybe. First of all, the regular flu is no joke; it kills on average 100 people a day in America, about 36,000 people a year. This flu could be more deadly than the average influenzas people suffer from all the time, especially in winter. We don’t know, yet. Based on news reports it seems to be closely related genetically to strains that have been quite deadly in the past. We need more information so let’s proceed cautiously.

Question: Should we take precautions, like many of the other nations in the world?
Answer: Yes, we should take precautions and act based on what we know and adjust our reactions as more is learned. And make those decisions based on successful models that prevent the spread of disease.

Question: What would have happened a century ago if there had been no health screening at Ellis Island and everybody was simply waved in to the Port of New York?
Answer: You know what would have happened. And, nobody said the "horses are out of the barn" back then.

Some countries have taken very active steps. Egypt ordered the slaughter of 300,000 pigs yesterday over the protests of their pig farmers. That does seem a little radical to me since you can’t catch this swine flu from eating pork (and yes the virus does apparently have genetic markers coming from pigs after all). But, that is their country; let them deal with it in their own way.

Our interest is in protecting our country. Which now brings us to the discussion of border security as the World Health Organization raises its Pandemic Alert to Level 5.

Politicizing the Outbreak
CHIRLA (The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles) issued a press release today that said, “As concerns over the spike in H1N1 virus flu cases increase in the United States, conservative commentators such as Michael Savage and Neal Boortz, Fox’s Glenn Beck, and columnist Michelle Malkin, in addition to separatist group Americans for Legal Immigration, have engaged in racist, anti-immigrant, anti-public health diatribes…” http://www.americanpatrol.com/HEALTH/090501-CHIRLAWhineMexiFlu.htm

And Rep. Steve Israel D-NY issued a press statement titled; Michael Savage, Jay Severin, Neal Boortz spread dangerous lies about the flu outbreak, fueling discrimination and hate. http://israel.house.gov/?sectionid=12&sectiontree=5,12&itemid=640

Israel is in New York and CHIRLA in Los Angeles, but it would seem this is a coordinated effort by open border radicals to silence any discussion about illegal aliens and the Mexican sourced swine flu.

Israel said, “Michael Savage, Jay Severin and Neal Boortz, among others, have blamed immigrants for the spread of the virus in the United States.”
http://israel.house.gov/?sectionid=12&sectiontree=5,12&itemid=640

And Savage confirms he said, “Make no mistake about it: Illegal aliens are the carriers of the new strain of human-swine avian flu from Mexico.”

Hey, Congressman? Anybody who knows the slightest bit about the state of our border security has already figured that out. That horse is out of the barn. But, by all means do whatever you can to end any discussion about illegal aliens. Your corporate sponsors expect you to…and so do we.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, any comment on immigration, immigrants, illegal aliens, border security and anything related that is not a glowing reflection of the contributions made to our country is now automatically “hate” and “racist.” Forget that they don’t even know the definition of racism or immigrant, but then, that's the open border crowd.

Back to the basics:

Question: Are illegal aliens likely carriers of the flu?
Answer: Very possibly, along with legal border crossers from Mexico and, yes, Americans returning to our communities from trips to Mexico. However, since the number of illegal entrants is much larger than legal aliens and returning Americans, (it could be as high as 4 million a year or more) it is logical to think that if exposure in Mexico is uniform for all three groups that illegal aliens as a group could in fact have a greater possibility of carrying in the flu. This is a numbers game. It has nothing to do with race.

Back to Obama

The President’s statement that “the horses are already out of the barn.” is a diversion, a misdirection like other statements that, “it is already here,” etc. There are a lot of horses yet to leave the barn, Mr. President. And more are entering our country every day.

America is big with a population of 308 million people and growing to 500 million in less than 40 years at the current rate of legal and illegal immigration and the children they will have. (I had to get that in.) We have thousands and thousands of communities, large and small, and exposure to this flu is not equal. Just because there are confirmed cases in some parts of the country doesn’t mean that the government should just throw its hands up and say, “Well, its here, closing the border won’t do any good now!” That is not leadership.

BTW, I am only aware of one person, Congressman Eric Massa D-NY, who has actually called for the border to be “closed.” The phrase “close the border” needs to be defined.

But to simply say that the flu is already here and then throw in the towel is completely unacceptable. And it leaves Americans at risk.

Example
I live in a population center of approximately 7 million people. Two people were confirmed a couple days ago to have the H1N1 flu in a town just 5 miles from where I live. They had just returned from a trip to Mexico. (And they are doing fine now and recovering.) Now, should we just say, “Hey, the flu is in the area, the horse is out of the barn,” and give up? Is it not possible that in a population mega-region that is approximately 80 miles long and 50 miles wide with scores of communities that the population of 7 million people might just want to avoid someone else carrying the disease? Is it not possible that someone, or several people; illegal aliens, legal aliens or American citizens returning from Mexico might have been exposed to this flu and are entering the towns and cities of this population center every day? Of course it is possible given the huge unrestricted flow of legal and illegal traffic across our border every day. That is why we need something more at the border than the current response which is nothing. Regarding the legal traffic, the inspectors are waving them through, not asking about flu symptoms or anything.

I am as strict an advocate for border security as anybody, and even I haven’t called for “closing the border.” I continue my call for securing the border against illegal entry by drug traffickers, kidnappers, terrorists, common criminals and your typical run of the mill illegal alien. In short, everybody coming in illegally.

And I don’t give a damn about anybody’s claims today that you can’t stop this at the border. In 2003 WHO recommended screening of all those leaving countries that had the SARS virus and credited that screening with halting the spread of the disease. What is the difference between that successful outcome six years ago and increasing our response at our border today? Well, the 2003 screening didn’t interfere with our commerce, I guess you could say.

This attitude by our government that commerce is more important than anything else puts us all at risk, and they obviously don’t care. They don’t want us to get sick, kidnapped or killed like when an airliner slams into our place of work, but they really don’t care so long as business continues to flow. Now, if we could make the case that our open border threatens corporate assets, or that a pandemic could deny them millions of customers (it would have to be a high number, since they know there are more where those came from) then we might get the government to take action to secure the border.

But, until that happens, how about this? How about we slow down the flow coming in at the Ports of Entry just a little and ask those coming in, “Everybody feeling OK? Any cold or flu symptoms, got a fever? If you do we can have a doctor take a quick look at you and give you some medicine.” And, of course, be alert for obvious symptoms.

It would take about 9 seconds to ask those questions. And, if somebody did volunteer that they have some symptoms it would just make sense to check them out before letting them into our communities with this disease, or sending them back into Mexico with it for that matter. And, who knows, maybe when the word gets out that our inspectors are asking those questions and looking for symptoms, it might deter someone with flu symptoms from trying to enter the country. All of this is possible. And, if it doesn’t work at least we tried to identify the sick at the cost of slowing down the influx for just a few seconds. Seems to me like that’s worth a try. It would be something compared to what they are doing now, which is nothing.

As for President Obama’s horse comment, yeah, it actually has something to do with horses all right, just not barns.
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