Brent Colton is a retired CIA operations officer now in the employ of the Creighton Corporation, a privately owned think tank that advocates various opinions on world issues, but it’s his clandestine job to solve the dirty problems for their private clients for a million dollar fee with no questions asked. When recovering stolen technology from a Vietnamese industrialist, Colton obtains evidence that he secretly partnered with a U.S. Senatorto rig the recent presidential election and elect him to the nation’s highest office.

MINUTEMAN FOUNDER SEEKS CALIFORNIA HOUSE SEAT
by Terry Heath, 2005

Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist is seeking a new venue to broadcast his dire warnings of pending economic and social disaster from the illegal alien invasion that is currently overwhelming the state and local governments along the southern and western borders of the United States. The halls of Congress.

Gilchrist publicly announced on a Los Angeles, California radio talk show on August 19 that he is a candidate for the newly opened California District 48 House of Representatives seat that became vacant when nine-term Republican Congressman Christopher Cox resigned after being selected by President George W. Bush then confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Gilchrist, a former Vietnam War veteran and retired accountant, started the Minuteman Project with Arizona newspaper publisher Chris Simcox to help publicize to the American public the fact that thousands of illegal aliens were crossing into our borders. They organized a successful watch in Arizona in April of this year and just concluded a similar successful observation of illegal border activities in California in July.

Former longtime Republican Orange County Congressman Robert Dornan has broken ranks with his Republican allies and has publicly endorsed Gilchrist, stating that electing the independent would create ‘shock waves’ in Washington and help bring the illegal alien invasion problem to the top of issues facing our nation’s politicians.

Congressman Cox previously submitted his resignation to the U.S. House of Representatives Office of the Clerk that took effect on August 2. One of his last votes before resigning was in favor of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) which passed the House of Representatives on July 27 with a 217-215 vote before both houses of Congress recessed for their August summer break.

Gilchrist will be running as a candidate on the American Independent Party, which is the California version of the Constitution Party, and will be one of at least six candidates who have filed the necessary paperwork to run in the special election that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called to take place on Tuesday, October 4, 2005. In that race, if one candidate gets fifty percent plus one of the votes cast then they will be declared the winner. If no one gets a majority then the leading candidate from each of the political parties who have fielded a candidate will face each other in a general election on December 6th to serve out the remainder of this term of the 109th Congress that will expire on January 3, 2007. It is then presumed that whomever wins this race will run for re-election in November, 2006.

He stated that his decision to run for the opened seat was because of the millions of decent people across this country who love America and have worked so hard to makes this (Minuteman) project get the attention of our political representatives.

“I have grown weary and frustrated with the decades of long refusal, and I mean refusal, of federal, state and local governments to simply enforce U.S. immigration laws,” he spoke to those at the public gathering.

The relevance of the illegal alien invasion issue to all citizens of the country that Gilchrist further elaborated on in his announcement was to counter what the other candidates will attempt to exploit as they paint him as a one-issue campaigner instead of representing the wishes of the voters in that district on all matters.

“Our opponents love to try and portray us as single issue radicals. But they are misguided and misinformed at best. The truth is that this single issue veils a number of threats to the domestic tranquility of our nation. The floundering public schools, the bankrupt hospitals, the ever-increasing tax burden, traffic gridlock, runaway housing prices and much more. That’s just a handful, because of the failure of our elected leaders to enforce the law, we are facing a great threat to the security and safety of our families.”

He continued with what law-abiding citizens of the nation will endure to suffer from in years to come if the illegal invasion is not stopped now. “We are seeing the infusion of criminal gangs like the MS13 El Salvadoran gang into our communities.”

The candidate explained why he needs to go to Congress and alert the politicians of the dangers that America is facing. “And most of all, we face the continued risk of terrorist infiltration and attacks by U.S. territory and citizens by international saboteurs. Simple enforcement of U.S. immigration laws is not too much to ask. The fulfillment of our elected leaders’ primary duty, which is to protect the lives of the American people, is not too much to ask. If you see fit to elect me as your congressman I will never take my eyes off these fundamental truths.”

The district is considered to be a safe Republican seat with 58 percent of voters registered to the G.O.P. and is comprised of suburban cities along the coastline of southern Orange County which could make it difficult for Gilchrist to win as he runs as an independent. Republican Cox won re-election in 2004 to that seat with 65 percent of the vote and the local political pundits are saying that California Republican state senator John Campbell who represents in the state legislature much of the same area and has filed paperwork to run for the congressional seat is the current presumed favorite in the race.

Gilchrist’s announcement that he is running for Congress comes several weeks after the Minuteman Project announced plans to resume their border patrol monitoring in Arizona in October. He and his movement have been getting plenty of attention by members of both major political parties as concerned citizens in the states along the Mexican border are demanding that something be done by those same politicians to curb the thousands of illegal aliens crossing into our country on a daily basis.

The California 48th District is the only one of the 435 House districts that is currently unrepresented since Ohio voters selected Republican Jean Schmidt on August 2 to succeed Republican Congressman Rob Portman for their Second District after Portman had resigned upon being named U.S. Trade Representative by President Bush. If Gilchrist can win this California seat then he would be only the second independent congressman in the Republican controlled House of Representatives with longtime representative Bernie Sanders of Vermont being the other.

Since Schmidt only won by 3500 votes in the Ohio contest over her neophyte Democratic opponent Paul Hackett, a recently returned Iraqi war veteran who was critical in the campaign of the president’s handling of the war, in a similarly assumed safe Republican district in that state would an independent candidate’s upset win in the California house race indicate a significant shift in voter’s attitude and patience toward the Republican Party and the lame duck Bush administration over the illegal alien issue? And could it mean bad omens for the G.O.P. as the country approaches the 2006 mid-term election and the last two years of the Bush presidency as the chief executive attempts to fulfill his legislative legacy?

Terry Heath California E-Mail readermail@terryheathbooks.com