But first, Obama’s National Debt.

Ahem.

That out of the way, what have we here?

Remember when the Democrats and the mainstream media raked the Bush Administration over the coals over the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina and her tragic aftermath?

When Dubya obeyed The Law and allowed then Louisiana Governor Blanco to put him off, which is within the authority of a governor to do in the event that the federal government offers or requests permission to act when a disaster befalls a state? When the Democrats and the liberal propagandists in the media, for purely political reasons, ignored that little tidbit of The Law in order to accuse Bush of sitting on his hands while Nawlins “drowned”, even going so far as to make a racist incident out of it (the left never loses the chance to milk every last political point out of an event, whether it be flood, fire, famine or any other disaster)?

Well…

There were some odds things in Saturday’s New York Times. Not only was President Obama criticized over his administration’s failure to react faster to the massive oil spill in the Gulf caused by a BP America drilling rig, the paper even compared his dilatory response to…that of George Bush and Hurricane Katrina.

My first thought was that while Katrina was sort of an unprecedented action on the part of nature, one that took an unexpected toll on the levy system down yonder, there have been oil spills before and it’s “kinda’ funky” that this being the case, the Obama Administration has a lot less ammunition with which to fire up a ready excuse, if any excuse for that matter, for the spill’s being neglected, from a government point of view, for so long, only to have the government’s response, late but evident, come along with what can only be termed a paucity of rapidity.

There’s a world of difference between the impact of an oil spill and a deadly hurricane. And the White House hopes it stays that way.

As President Obama, who will visit the Gulf region on Sunday morning, has stepped up his administration’s response to the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, ordering a moratorium on new offshore drilling leases and dispatching cabinet secretaries and cargo planes to the region, the White House is also trying to avert the kind of political damage inflicted on former President George W. Bush by his administration’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina.

The shoe, as they say, is now on the other foot.

A Saturday editorial, “Unanswered Questions on the Oil Spill,” made the same Bush-Obama comparison:

There are many avenues to pursue. Here are two: the oil company’s response, and Mr. Obama’s. The company, BP, seems to have been slow to ask for help, and, on Friday, both federal and state officials accused it of not moving aggressively or swiftly enough. Yet the administration should not have waited, and should have intervened much more quickly on its own initiative.

A White House as politically attuned as this one should have been conscious of two obvious historical lessons. One was the Exxon Valdez, where a late and lame response by both industry and the federal government all but destroyed one of the country’s richest fishing grounds and ended up costing billions of dollars. The other was President George W. Bush’s hapless response to Hurricane Katrina.

Now we have another disaster in more or less the same neck of the woods, and it takes the administration more than a week to really get moving.

So where are the leftie members of the Fourth Estate, asking “tough questions” and filling the papers and evening newscasts? Where are the environmentalists to substitute, during the oil spill festivities, a “nature-hating president” for the “racists” at Katrina’s media dog and pony show?

Guess there is none, since as we know, it’s a one way street.

So far, one third of a travesty of justice has been rectified.

A U.S. military jury cleared a Navy SEAL Thursday of failing to prevent the beating of an Iraqi prisoner suspected of masterminding a 2004 attack that killed four American security contractors.

The contractors’ burned bodies were dragged through the streets and two were hanged from a bridge over the Euphrates river in the former insurgent hotbed of Fallujah, in what became a major turning point in the Iraq war.

The trial of three SEALs, the Navy’s elite special forces unit, has outraged many Americans who see it as coddling terrorists.

Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas, 28, of Blue Island, Ill., was found not guilty by a six-man jury of charges of dereliction of duty and attempting to influence the testimony of another service member.

As far as I’m concerned, the so-called “victim” (Ahmed Hashim Abed, scumbag) is damn lucky that I wasn’t there, and yeah, these politically correct assholes who in any way believe the SEALs in question should even be in the position of having to defend themselves in this case are coddling friggin’ tangos.

Huertas is the first of three SEALS to face a court-martial for charges related to the abuse incident. All three SEALs could have received only a disciplinary reprimand, but insisted on a military trial to clear their names and save their careers.

The trial stems from an attack on four Blackwater security contractors who were driving through the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad in early 2004. The images of the bodies hanging from the bridge drove home to many the rising power of the insurgency and helped spark a bloody U.S. invasion of the city to root out the insurgents later that year.

The Iraqi prisoner who was allegedly abused, Ahmed Hashim Abed, testified Wednesday on the opening day of the trial at the U.S. military’s Camp Victory on Baghdad’s western outskirts that he was beaten by U.S. troops while hooded and tied to a chair.

…beaten by U.S. troops while hooded and tied to a chair. is, to my way of thinking and whether it happened or not, quite a bit milder than burned bodies were dragged through the streets and two were hanged from a bridge, but a certain species of service personnel known as REMFs, along with a whole lot of civilians back home with spines of asparagus or a general bone to pick with the brave folks who keep ‘em safe and preserve their freedom, can’t seem to tell the difference.

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Kevin DeMartino, who was assigned to process and transport the prisoner and is not a SEAL, testified he saw one SEAL punch the prisoner in the stomach and watched blood spurt from his mouth. Huertas and the third SEAL were in the narrow holding-room at the time of the incident, he added.

PO3 DeMartino probably enjoys “don’t ask, don’t tell” status, giving him the privilege of getting to hang around real men, even though he has to keep the fantasies he entertains about them to himself.

But defense attorneys tried to cast doubt on the beating claims, showing photographs of Abed after the alleged beating in which he had a visible cut inside his lip but no obvious signs of bruising or injuries anywhere else.

In her closing arguments, Huertas’ civilian attorney Monica Lombardi pointed to inconsistencies between DeMartino’s testimony and nearly every other Navy witness. She also reminded the jury of the terrorism charges against Abed, who is in Iraqi custody and has not yet been tried, saying he could not be trusted and may have inflicted wounds on himself as a way of recasting blame on American troops.

Lombardi is no doubt correct.

But prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. Jason Grover said DeMartino said the SEALs were itching to abuse Abed as payback for the killings of the Blackwater guards — two of whom were former SEALs.

DeMartino will most likely resign his commission in due course and become one of those civilian lawyers who make their lucre through fraudulent and frivolous lawsuits, following in the footsteps of one John Edwards, priss.

Let’s see what happens with our other two brothers. If either of them is convicted, justice will not have been served to the extent it needs to be. In fact, the whole thing will be, as I said above, a travesty of justice.

The only justice here would have been served if Ahmed Abed was dead (hey, that rhymes!).

…into its own hands, as the phrase goes, it’s more like, unlike the U.S. Government, they’re enforcing the law.

For some time now, it’s appeared that certain politicians and, sadly, Americans, interpret the word illegal to mean “a sick bird”. We already know that we’re presently governed by a president and a congressional majority who believe that the Constitution, printed on a long, narrow, perforated roll of tissue paper, can be found rolled up on a spool in a bracket on the wall beside the commode, but the additional knowledge that they get hives, a rash or some other ailment as a result of defying their allergy to the law is a bit much.

Thankfully and in hopes that it sets a precedent of some kind, the governor of Arizona, in accordance with the the will of the majority of her constituents, has signed a statewide illegal immigration bill into law.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed a law making it a state crime to be an illegal immigrant, just hours after President Obama criticized the measure and said the federal government would review it to see if it violates civil rights laws.

In signing the bill, the Republican governor said she has also issued an executive order to set standards to ensure racial profiling does not take place under the new law, which goes into effect in 90 days. She said the state had to step in and protect its residents because the federal government has failed.

“Though many people disagree, I firmly believe it represents what’s best for Arizona,” the governor said as she signed the law.

The law makes it a state crime to be in Arizona without proof of legal status, and would authorize police to demand documents from those they suspected could be illegal immigrants. It would also make it a crime to transport or hide illegal immigrants.

The Arizona law has the support of the state’s two Republican senators, who said criminals among the illegal immigrant population are responsible for a marked increase in violence and crime.

Of course, there are always those who have no respect for the sovereignty of our country, in fact no respect for anything that stands in the way of their agendas, even when they’re bad for the United States and the citizens herein.

But one of the state’s congressman, Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat, has urged businesses to boycott Arizona in retaliation for the proposed law. He said the measure would encourage racial profiling and predicted that without some sort of penalty falling on Arizona, other states would try to follow its lead.

Yes, there will be dissent from Mexican residents with U.S. citizenship who haven’t a clue as to what words like “patriotism”, as regards their citizenship status, engender and lawless liberals who see a massive amnesty they hope someday to bring about, gain the votes of a million criminal aliens once they’ve been amnestied and then naturalized.

Even “our” president will be attacking the bill, using as a basis, among other already tired arguments, that it will encourage racial profiling.

Arizona’s governor vows the state’s tough new law targeting illegal immigration will be implemented with no tolerance for racial profiling, but at least two advocacy groups were preparing legal challenges and Mexico has warned that the law could affect cross-border relations.

Cross border relations, hmmmmm…….There’s another argument that’s become tired.

It’s none of Mexico’s business what laws we enact in order to protect our citizens from cirme and safeguard, to the best of our ability, our economy, as long as we’re not going south across the border and physically disrupting their state of being.

The fact that the corrupt, unctuous bottom feeders who govern Mexico are not favorably disposed toward taking responsibility for anything other than lining their own pockets is not a prerequisite factor for any of our own internal legislation, and therefore we are not responsible for taking in, at massive cost to our own citizens in terms of livelihood, well being, safety and the disposition of our taxes, the bulk of their neglected, unemployed population, let alone the legions of violent criminals spawned by corruption and neglect on the part of that same government.

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer on Friday signed into law a bill that supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation’s busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico and home to an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants. The law requires police to question people about their immigration status — including asking for identification — if they suspect someone is in the country illegally. It’s sparked fears among legal immigrants and U.S. citizens that they’ll be hassled by police just because they look Hispanic.

With hundreds of protesters outside the state Capitol shouting that the bill would lead to civil rights abuses, Brewer said critics were “overreacting” and that she wouldn’t tolerate racial profiling.

“We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act,” Brewer said after signing the law. “But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.”

My emphasis, there.

And that says it all, I should think.

Federal Law dictates in no uncertain terms that these illegals are just that, illegal. It is the federal government’s job to enforce federal law. They are failing at that task, more out of unwillingness for political reasons than anything else, and if they aren’t going to do the job, states have to do it themselves in what amounts to pure self defense.

Earlier Friday, President Barack Obama called the Arizona bill “misguided” and instructed the Justice Department to examine it to see if it’s legal. He also said the federal government must enact immigration reform at the national level — or leave the door open to “irresponsibility by others.”

Seems to me, the door’s been open to Irresponsibility by the federal government, and what Arizona’s doing is simply working to patch that particular hole in the fabric in the society of their state. It’s truly amazing what that lying, anti-Constitution, phony American has the moxi to say, expecting intelligent people to acknowledge his statements a seven a trifle respecting of their sensibilities.

The new law makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. Immigrants unable to produce documents showing they are allowed to be in the U.S. could be arrested, jailed for up to six months and fined $2,500.
It also allows lawsuits against government agencies that hinder enforcement of immigration laws and toughens restrictions on hiring illegal immigrants for day labor and knowingly transporting them.

My thoughts: “Way to go, Jan Brewer!”

…for today.

When I was in New York a couple of years ago, I was approached by some guy with a clipboard who wanted me to sign a petition advocating homosexual “rights”, specifically same sex marriage — as a federal issue.

I told him that I believed such issues, which are not Constitutionally within the purview of the federal government, belong to the individual states to decide upon.

He, of course, disagreed, but that’s about what you can expect from a “progressive”, part of a left wing bastardization of the Democrats, in fact now the owners of that once patriotic, mostly Constitution-respecting party, who endorse micromanagement of our nation through oversized, overregulating, overtaxing government and the abolishment of states’ rights as they interfere too much with the facist ambitions of these portsiders.

While I do not endorse dictating what consenting adults do behind closed doors, I strongly object to the sexual deviations of a few being made into a subject of federal legislation, in effect the legalization of forcing the American people, by law, to accept and absorb carnal behavior that neither their religious beliefs nor their sensibilities condone.

And heeeeerer’s ENDA.

Pro-family advocate Andrea Lafferty is warning about the potential ramifications of ENDA, pro-homosexual legislation that has been revived in Congress.

Congress is moving ahead on plans to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 (H.R. 3017). The bill presents a lot of problems, according to Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition, who says it requires that every state, local, and federal government and businesses with 15 or more employees comply with the law.

“A lot of people have heard of ENDA. What they’re not aware of is that they’ve added a term — ‘gender identity’ — to the bill,” she explains. “[That] means that every school in America will be forced to comply with the hiring of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgenders.”

And what about states’ rights? Lafferty tells OneNewsNow the bill will stifle laws in many states.

“Currently these 38 states do not allow for transgendered teachers in the classroom or ’special protections’ for transgenders,” she points out. “[But] what ENDA will do is…tell these 38 states ‘We’re overriding your law — and you must comply.’”

Lafferty says although transgendered people have a serious mental disorder, President Obama and congressional leadership want to protect them through ENDA. She suggests voters let their elected representatives know how they feel.

A committee vote on the legislation could come as early as Wednesday.

What’s needed is some sort of spray that will make these people go away!

…at the White House and in Congress, and the simplicity is startling, to say the least!

It happens to all of us on occasion, we figure we know how to do something, or we’re confident that we can figure it out on our own, so we don’t bother to waste time reading the instructions. We’re in too big a hurry.

That’s what the problem is!

It’s little more than an innocent mistake, a small but correctable error: President Obama, and the Democrats running the House and Senate, forgot to read the instructions, the employee handbook for those running the United States Government.

As I intimated above, this cannot be an irretrievable error, not in Washington, D.C. Why, I’ll bet copies can be found all over the place in that town!

If they can get directions or get a cab, these politicians can head over to a sure-fire place that their job instructions can be found. It is at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. and has entrances on both Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues N.W. between 7th and 9th Streets.

It’s called the National Archives Building, and from what I’ve heard, it just might be the ideal place for a whole passel of elected officials to do some serious reading, and brush up on the entailments of the jobs for which they were hired.

Such a refresher course could only make these politicians perform more like patriotic…uh, patriotic… Americans! That’s it! Americans!

I must make a confession, here.

Most of this Internet stuff, including blogs, is pretty new to me.

Seth and Wolf were once both of the same persuation as I’ve been until recently.

Neither had any use for the Dubya Dubya Dubya, nary an email address nor a website.

Wolfie (don’t you call him that, there are only a few of us who can get away with it), however, has full grown kids who, in the course of their adolescence, needed to have a computer around the house. He ignored the damn thing as long as he could, then the young folks demanded that he use it for email purposes so they could communicate. Right, that’s what a perfectly good telephone and the U.S. Postal Service are for.

Then Seth came along, first introducing Wolf to blogs, then talking him into becoming a contributing author.

Now the Wolf spends a few hours a day on-line when he’s not otherwise occupied.

Seth says he was dragged kicking and screaming onto the Internet back in late 1981, and ended up becoming “addicted” to it.

It was he who first got me on-line not long ago, and now gotten me blogging.

The worst part of it all is that I’m enjoying the #%&*^##% out of it.

Wolf here.

We haven’t really had a post here at Hard Astarboard on Islamofascism for quite awhile. It’s not that there has been any “easing up” of the threat the evil 7th Century cult of Islam poses to free thinking, free worshipping and free living societies everywhere on the planet, because believe me, there has been no such thing. The fundamentalist Muslim enemy is working just as hard as ever, to each region of the world its own strategy, to press on toward their goal of a global caliphate.

Nah, it’s just that Seth decided, since most of my career was rather directly involved in confronting and combating the reemergence of that dark force in modern times, I should take on the role of Islamic Affairs (read that as terrorism) author.

I must admit that I haven’t had much to say on the subject, mainly because I’ve had a lot of other things on my plate the last year or so, but at the same time haven’t felt entirely remiss, since there have been others carrying that guide-on with profound eloquence, others such as W.C. and Always On Watch at The Gathering Storm.

Okay, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, I have here some linkage that came from a comment left in one of Seth’s previous posts by Jake Neuman, author of Islam: Evil in the Name of God, which, in the linked summary, says,

This is an historical book totally devoid of any political

correctness. The Western World is engaged in a life and

death struggle with Islam.

Following the above link, you can read the synapsis and judge for yourself — I have not yet read the book, but I plan to order it as from what I can see, the author has pretty well nailed the beast called Islam.

He seems to cover their stealth agenda, the political cover they are enjoying from governments such ours in the name of political correctness and the price we’ll pay if we don’t start addressing this threat soon.

To order Islam: Evil In The Name Of God from Felibri Publishing, you can go to this link.

This one’s for the paperback copy.

In a reply to an email from me, the author sent the content of an article he wrote for an Israeli website, but according to Seth(he be da boss)’s policy, before I publish content from another site, I have to have a link to it. Hopefully, the author will link to it in a comment on the thread from this post.

This looks like a good read for anyone who either isn’t yet convinced that we face a dire threat by the continued existence of Islam, or anyone who wants more information about the danger it poses for our future.

Wolf out.

Who’d of thunk it?

James Taranto at Best of the Web Today has this to offer on the difference between lefty media coverage of liberal behavior vs that of conservative behavior in the course of protesting or otherwise putting across a conflicting political point of view:

The popular rebellion against ObamaCare–and the Democrats’ counterattack against the voters–has turned out to be the political story of the year. But of course it’s far from the first time that America has seen protests against a president’s policies. Writing at FoxNews.com, Bill Sammon faults the media for covering today’s protests differently than yesterdays–specifically, than a rowdy 2002 gathering outside a Portland, Ore., hotel where then-President Bush was speaking:

Protesters stalked his motorcade, assailed his limousine and stoned a car containing his advisers. Chanting “Bush is a terrorist!”, the demonstrators bullied passers-by, including gay softball players and a wheelchair-bound grandfather with multiple sclerosis.

One protester even brandished a sign that seemed to advocate Bush’s assassination. The man held a large photo of Bush that had been doctored to show a gun barrel pressed against his temple.

“BUSH: WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE,” read the placard, which had an X over the word “ALIVE.” . . .

A third sign urged motorists to “HONK IF YOU HATE BUSH.” A fourth declared: “CHRISTIAN FASCISM,” with a swastika in place of the letter S in each word.

Although reporters from numerous national news organizations were traveling with Bush and witnessed the protest, none reported that protesters were shrieking at Republican donors epithets like “Slut!” “Whore!” and “Fascists!” . . .
angry demonstrators brandished signs with incendiary rhetoric, such as “9/11 - YOU LET IT HAPPEN, SHRUB,” and “BUSH: BASTARD CHILD OF THE SUPREME COURT.” One sign read: “IMPEACH THE COURT-APPOINTED JUNTA AND THE FASCIST, EGOMANIACAL, BLOOD-SWILLING BEAST!”

Yet none of these signs were cited in the national media’s coverage of the event. By contrast, the press focused extensively on over-the-top signs held by Obama critics at the president’s town hall event held Tuesday in New Hampshire.

Sammon was with the Washington Times at the time; part of his Aug. 25, 2002, report is here.

To some extent the discrepancies in coverage are defensible as a matter of news judgment. A left-wing protest is a dog-bites-man story; screaming, chanting and carrying obnoxious signs is simply what those people do. On the right, by contrast, there is no tradition of such demonstrations–with the notable exception of the antiabortion movement–so that when one (or many) materializes, it represents a genuine phenomenon.

To my way of thinking, the liberal media is doing the entire American public a disservice of massive proportion. They are, after all, the people whom the public trusts to give us fair and balanced news reporting so that we, as individuals and as voters, partners in the enterprise that is the United States of America, can possess well rounded information with which to build our own opinions on the state of our nation.

It certainly indicates a paucity of shame on the part of these so called “news” people that they are so easily able to twist their data, include, exclude and emphasize events and elements thereof as they do for the sole purpose of programming the public to believe whatever party line happens to best suit the propagandist needs of a given political agenda or the public image, truly or falsely depicted, of one major political party or the other.

What’s worse, the majority of those following the media for news apparently still believe that they can trust those people.

Read the entire edition of Best of the Web Today here.

Although I’ve read and own Unhinged and plan to read Culture of Corruption, I had never seen a Michelle Malkin interview (yes, sigh, it’s true), despite watching hundreds and hundreds of other interviews at FOX and all manner of other places, and then today, in an emailed edition today from Human Events, I had the opportunity to watch this one, in which Michelle is spot on with Matt Lauer, much to his apparent chagrin.

She is cool, eloquent and spot-on, and it’s easy to see why she’s considered a “threat” by various liberal loons.

After what, about 2 years? I finally understand what they want!

Of course, of course.

They want us to give a few states back to Mexico because the Mexicans can run them in a more civilized, peaceful manner, right?

Viva La Raza, indeed…