No sh-t. Regardless of its truth, it's a good excuse though for redneck militia minutemen wingnuts to go driving around in bassboats with shotguns, blathering incoherently about John Paul Jones. So it's got that working for it.
No idea what happened in this case, but there were several armed robberies on the lake earlier this spring/summer. http://www.aolnews.com/crime/article/mexican-pirates-prey-on-boaters-on-texas-lake/19495275 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052903707.html
If you don't like it, put pressure on the government to secure the border from criminal activity. This woman could be lying through her teeth, but no one is disputing that the USA/Mexican border is a beehive of lawlessness, and more and more citizens are justifiably angry over the government continuing to do nothing about it, other than a few empty gestures.
I'm disputing it. This year and last - crime in most border regions in the US is down, and illegal immigration is actually down too. Don't let facts and reality get in the way of morons parading around borders shooting guns and playing fantasy though, like Governor Jan Brewer and her made-up "beheadings in th desert".
That's only because crazed wingnuts made such a stink about crime and illegal immigration that the feds responded by putting a LOT more boots on the ground there. Meanwhile, there's enough crime on the other side to make up the difference........you know.........the side where they claimed this took place.
I think I'll start my own Merry Band of Pirates on Lake Travis. I'm going to target the boats with the hot chicks on them though, not guys on Jet skis. And how does a person on a jet ski get caught anyway. I think once I saw a boat of pirates with one squeeze of the thumb I'd be gone.
The wingnuts only took up the immigration cause wholeheartedly this year. The crime trends have been going on for at least 3 or 4 years now.
Huh!?! I remember this being an issue before Obama even took office. I guess "wholeheartedly" is your qualifier. This issue has been ramping up for years.........along with increased border security. Why the hell else do you think our crime statistics along the border may have eased up a bit when things are becoming increasingly more bat **** crazy just across the border. The cynic in me doesn't want to believe some woman who says her husband was shot by "lake pirates," but I'm not comfortable coming out in public and calling her a liar when mayors across the border are being executed left and right. I realize the fact that this probably plays right into the crazed minute-men's plans doesn't sit well the clutchfan's cadre of back slappers, but come on........we need a bit more evidence before suggesting this woman is lying (which is basically the same as suggesting she murdered her husband). BTW Major..........I'm not as nearly as informed or as fact savvy as you are, but it took me two seconds to google this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5196778 Like I said, this has been ramping up for years.
Sorry. To clarify, immigration has always been an agenda item. Bush tried to push immigration reform during his administration and the fence has been a topic for a long time, and it was part of Obama's campaign platform. But as far as being a vote driver and something that really forced government action, that happened this year. The Arizona thing is when immigration really took off as a national topic of importance, and when the Obama admin sent more troops to the border. I can't find the poll offhand, but post-Arizona, the % of people that considered immigration an "important topic" (or something similar) spiked from what it was earlier. If I recall correctly, it also spiked in importance for a bit somewhere in 2006 or 2007 as well when Bush was dealing with the issue. That's what I was referring to with the crazies. It didn't become a primary tea party issue until it exploded with Arizona. Until then, it was just sort of a background issue, but not something that really drove the national conversation.
So your argument that "THE GOVERNMENT IS DOING NOTHING ABOUT IMMIGRATION SO ITS EXPLODING SO WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING" is that "THE GOVERNMENT IS DOING LOTS OF STUFF TO STOP IMMIGRATION AND ITS DECREASING " Please note, your theory also requires the use of a time machine (immigration started to decrease prior to the late 2009/early 2010 vintage of hysteria.) I have a theory that this thing called economics may be more responsible.
My feelings on immigration aren't strong enough in either direction to really argue much about.........much less use all caps. Having many relatives in the healthcare industry, I'm empathetic to their concerns about what a drag illegal immigrants are on the healthcare system, but I'm also pretty fond of Hispanic culture and empathetic to how they are being maligned in all of this. I'm just not crazy about the tone in this discussion. I think this woman is an innocent victim until proven otherwise, and it sure seems like some of you are using the story of her husband's probable death as nothing more than a vehicle to push your agenda.............at her expense.
These people must be as stupid as the people who hiked too close to Iran. They knew Mexico has cartels running rampant and all near the border areas. Yet, they ride jet skis down to the Mexico side? They must be really dumb or something stinks about this case. As was said, insurance fraud? Better check what is set up and how much she would get in the case of her husband's death. We've seen it before. Nothing surprises me anymore. It's nice the in-laws are so firm in their belief that she couldn't possibly be involved...but we've seen great acting before. For all we know, she shot her husband, tied him to the jet ski, and sank it to the bottom of the lake.
the fact that there is no body or jet ski doesnt automatically make her a liar - the pirates (yarghh) more than likely would have retrieved the body and jet ski and took them back into mexico rather than leave evidence behind for u.s. or mexican authorities to find.
So they went through the trouble of murdering and hiding the body in their jet-ski heist, but they left an eyewitness and a jet-ski behind? All my years of watching Horatio Cain have taught me never to believe the story in the first 5 minutes.
It appears, Mr. Fisher, that the jet ski disappeared and took the victim along for the ride. YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
