…if I neglected to post this one.

A team of national security experts assembled by the conservative Center for Security Policy, a Washington, D.C., think tank, issued a report last week warning of that Shariah law–which they described as a “legal-political-military doctrine”–is the “preeminent totalitarian threat of our time.”

Continuing…

The team was led by retired Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, the former deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and Lt. Gen. Harry Edward Soyster, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. It also included, among others, James Woolsey, the former director of Central Intelligence Agency; retired Adm. James A. Lyons, the former commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet; Joseph E. Schmitz, the former inspector general of the Defense Department; Frank Gaffney, the former assistant secretary of defense for international security policy and current president of the Center for Security Policy; and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew C. McCarthy, who successfully prosecuted Omar Abdel Rahman, the Muslim jihadist leader convicted of being the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The group drew a distinction between Muslims who embrace Shariah law as the comprehensive model for governing all human society and those who view it as a reference point for personal behavior but not for the conduct of government and the state.

“Shariah is the crucial fault line of Islam’s internecine struggle. On one side of the divide are Muslim reformers and authentic moderates–figures like Abdurrahman Wahid, the late president of Indonesia and leader of the world’s largest libertarian Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama–whose members embrace the Enlightenment’s veneration of reason and, in particular, its separation of the spiritual and secular realms,” the authors write.

“On this side of the divide, shariah is a reference point for a Muslim’s personal conduct, not a corpus to be imposed on the life of a pluralistic society,” they say. “By contrast, the other side of the divide is dominated by Muslim supremacists, often called Islamists. Like erstwhile proponents of Communism and Nazism, these supremacists–some terrorists, others employing stealthier means–seek to impose a totalitarian regime: a global totalitarian system cloaked as an Islamic state and called a caliphate.

“On that side of the divide, which is the focus of the present study, shariah is an immutable, compulsory system that Muslims are obliged to install and the world required to adopt, the failure to do so being deemed a damnable offence against Allah,” they write. “For these ideologues, shariah is not a private matter. Adherents see the West as an obstacle to be overcome, not a culture and civilization to be embraced, or at least tolerated. It is impossible, they maintain, for alternative legal systems and forms of governments peacefully to coexist with the end-state they seek.”

The “kicker”:

The report concludes that U.S. policy-makers must confront this insidious threat, saying to ignore it any longer would be “intolerable.”

“Under successive presidencies, the United States has failed to understand, let alone counter successfully, the threat posed to its constitutional form of government and free society by Shariah. In the past, such failures were reckless. Today, they are intolerable,” the report concludes. “As we have seen, Shariah explicitly seeks to replace representative governance with an Islamic state, to destroy sovereign and national polities with a global caliphate.”

{Above Emphasis Mine}

This is an important article.

Read it all here.

…so to speak, I have a bit more to say, this concerning security for the most part.

Or, should I say, a lack thereof.

As we all know, or at least assume, it’s the job of any government to protect its citizens and, where possible, its allies and friends, which in itself goes hand-in-hand with protecting said citizens and also operating in the best interests of itself and, again, therefore, its citizens.

So why are we allowing Iran to go so far with their nuclear weapons program?

From Mark Steyn:

News from around the world:

In Britain, it is traditional on Shrove Tuesday to hold pancake races, in which contestants run while flipping a pancake in a frying pan. The appeal of the event depends on the potential pitfalls in attempting simultaneous rapid forward propulsion and pancake tossing. But, in St. Albans, England, competitors were informed by Health & Safety officials that they were “banned from running due to fears they would slip over in the rain.” Watching a man walk up the main street with a skillet is not the most riveting event, even in St. Albans. In the heat of the white-knuckle thrills, team captain David Emery momentarily forgot the new rules. “I have been disqualified from a running race for running,” he explained afterwards.

In Canada, Karen Selick told readers of The Ottawa Citizen about her winter vacation in Arizona last month: “The resort suite I rented via the Internet promised a private patio with hot tub,” she wrote. “Upon arrival, I found the door to my patio bolted shut. ‘Entry prohibited by federal law,’ read the sign. Hotel management explained that the drains in all the resort’s hot tubs had recently been found not to comply with new safety regulations. Compliance costs would be astronomical. Dozens of hot tubs would instead be cemented over permanently.” In the meantime, her suite had an attractive view of the federally-prohibited patio.

Yeah, we can see where this is going.

Anything else? Oh, yeah. In Iran, the self-declared nuclear regime announced that it was now enriching uranium to 20 percent. When President Barack Obama took office, the Islamic Republic had 400 centrifuges enriching up to 3.5 percent. A year later, it has 8,000 centrifuges enriching to 20 percent. The CIA director, Leon Panetta, now cautiously concedes that Iran’s nuclear ambitions may have a military purpose. Which is odd, because the lavishly funded geniuses behind America’s National Intelligence Estimate told us only two years ago that Tehran had ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Is that estimate no longer operative? And, if so, could we taxpayers get a refund?

This is a perfect snapshot of the West at twilight. On the one hand, governments of developed nations microregulate every aspect of your life in the interests of “keeping you safe.” If you’re minded to flip a pancake at speeds of more than 4 miles per hour, the state will step in and act decisively: It’s for your own good. If you’re a tourist from Moose Jaw, Washington will take pre-emptive action to shield you from the potential dangers of your patio in Arizona.

On the other hand, when it comes to “keeping you safe” from real threats, such as a millenarian theocracy that claims universal jurisdiction, America and its allies do nothing. There aren’t going to be any sanctions, because China and Russia don’t want them. That means military action, which would have to be done without U.N. backing — which, as Greg Sheridan of The Australian puts it, “would be foreign to every instinct of the Obama administration.” Indeed. Nonetheless, Washington is (altogether now) “losing patience” with the mullahs. The New York Daily News reports the latest get-tough move:

“Secretary of State Clinton dared Iran on Monday to let her hold a town hall meeting in Tehran.”

All of which goes to show the difference between our two political belief systems, I suppose: One, barring status quo politicians of the “new school” variety on the right, many of whom are even older than me, believing in tangible and decisive action, the other, from the right side of the aisle, believing that do-nothing symbolism will suffice, until…

BOOM!, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Paying a brief visit to our friends and steadfast allies, the Israelis, my head’s still spinning a bit from the Bush reversal, a few years back, of his initial support of Israel’s being allowed to win their war in Lebanon. Once he backpedalled and sided with France (spit!), pressing Tel Aviv to withdraw the IDF, the stage was set for Lebanon, beleaguered as it has been by the Islamofascists of Hezbollah who are well entrenched in the government in Islamabad, to rabble-rouse further in pursuit of a road to the destruction of Israel.

At least, wherever they can.

Two Lebanese vessels are planning to leave shortly for Hamas-controlled Gaza, in defiance of an Israeli maritime blockade on that territory. The ships, the Naji Al Ali and the Mariam, are expected to set sail from the Lebanese port of Tripoli as early as Friday (July 23) or Saturday (July 24).

Meanwhile, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev has sent letters to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and the UN Security Council calling on Lebanon and other countries to prevent the flotilla from illegally entering the area.

Said Shalev, “All goods that are not weapons or material for war-like purposes are now entering the Gaza Strip through appropriate mechanisms that ensure their delivery as well as their civilian nature.” Israel announced June 17 that it would ease restrictions on allowing civilian goods via land crossings into Gaza and increase the delivery of construction materials.

Wait just a minute, I don’t see the word “humanitarian” up there anyplace. Oh, wait… It is purely humanitarian based, goodwill toward all, etc, by French (spit!), general Muslim, U.N. or Obama Administration standards. How can we tell? Just peruse the emphasis (mine) below.

Most of the passengers aboard the Naji Al Ali are journalists, while the Mariam is an all-women’s ship. Yasser Qashlaq, a Syrian national and the two-vessel flotilla’s chief funder and organizer, has said the main aim of the ships is to stage a public relations stunt and force Jews out of Israel. Said Qashlaq, “A day will come when the ships will carry the remainder of the European garbage which came to my homeland [i.e., Israel] and return them to their homelands. Gilad Shalit will go back to Paris and those murderers [the leaders of Israel] will go back to Poland.”

Lastly, we have more of the usual bullshirt from Janet Napolitano, our illustrious Homeland Security Secretary whom any security supervisor with even a 1% competence level wouldn’t trust on a job as a uniformed rent-a-cop in a corner grocery store.

Six years after the Sept. 11 commission issued a series of recommendations to boost U.S. defenses against terrorist attacks, the federal government has achieved “historic advances” in fulfilling them, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday.

Historic advances, yes, of course. Ahem…

But back to Mark Steyn, whom I find has more security sense in his left pinky than Napolitano will have in her entire lifetime.

The average Canadian can survive an Arizona hot tub merely compliant with 2009 safety standards rather than 2010. The average Englishman can survive stumbling with his frying pan: You may get a nasty graze on his kneecap, but rub in some soothing pancake syrup, and you’ll soon feel right as rain. Whether they — or at any rate their pampered complacent societies in which hot-tub regulation is the most pressing issue of the day — can survive a nuclear Iran is a more open question.

It is now certain that Tehran will get its nukes, and very soon. This is the biggest abdication of responsibility by the Western powers since the 1930s. It is far worse than Pakistan going nuclear, which, after all, was just another thing the CIA failed to see coming. In this case, the slow-motion nuclearization conducted in full view and through years of tortuous diplomatic charades and endlessly rescheduled looming deadlines is not just a victory for Iran but a decisive defeat for the United States. It confirms the Islamo-Sino-Russo-everybody else diagnosis of Washington as a hollow superpower that no longer has the will or sense of purpose to enforce the global order.

What does it mean? That a year or two down the line Iran will be nuking Israel? Not necessarily, although the destruction of not just the Zionist Entity but the broader West remains an explicit priority. Maybe they mean it. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they’ll do it directly. Maybe they’ll just get one of their terrorist subcontractors to weaponize the St. Albans pancake batter. But, when you’ve authorized successful mob hits on Salman Rushdie’s publishers and translators, when you’ve blown up Jewish community centers in Buenos Aires, when you’ve acted extra-territorially to the full extent of your abilities for 30 years, it seems prudent for the rest of us to assume that when your abilities go nuclear you’ll be acting to an even fuller extent.

Hillary! Janet! B. Hussein, wake up! Oh, wait, B. Hussein Obama is wide awake, he just hasn’t decided whose side he’s on.

Oh, well.

But, even without launching a single missile, Iran will at a stroke have transformed much of the map — and not just in the Middle East, where the Sunni dictatorships face a choice between an unsought nuclear arms race or a future as Iranian client states. In Eastern Europe, a nuclear Iran will vastly advance Russia’s plans for a de facto reconstitution of its old empire: In an unstable world, Putin will offer himself as the protection racket you can rely on. And you’d be surprised how far west “Eastern” Europe extends: Moscow’s strategic view is of a continent not only energy-dependent on Russia but also security-dependent. And, when every European city is within range of Tehran and other psycho states, there’ll be plenty of takers for that when the alternative is an effete and feckless Washington.

It’s a mistake to think that the infantilization of once-free peoples represented by the microregulatory Nanny State can be confined to pancakes and hot tubs. Consider, for example, the incisive analysis of Scott Gration, the U.S. special envoy to the mass murderers of Sudan: “We’ve got to think about giving out cookies,” said Gration a few months back. “Kids, countries — they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.”

Actually, there’s not a lot of evidence “smiley faces” have much impact on kids in the Bronx, never mind genocidal machete-wielders in Darfur. So much for the sophistication of “soft power,” smiling through a hard-faced world.

So, Iran will go nuclear and formally inaugurate the post-American era. The Left and the isolationist Right reckon that’s no big deal. They think of the planet as that Arizona patio and America as the hotel room. There may be an incendiary hot tub out there, but you can lock the door and hang a sign, and life will go on, albeit a little more cramped and constrained than before. I think not.

The truth is, actually, that like our economic policies, our security policies are these days derived via about 90% political considerations and 10% common sense. Combine that with a lot of political appointments of key people who are astronomically unqualified to make security decisions, and, well…

BOOM! (or, again, a reasonable facsimile thereof).

Once again, Arizona is proving to be the only wet-back infested state in the nation that’s thinking with anything other than its nether regions.

“Anchor babies” isn’t a very endearing term, but in Arizona those are the words being used to tag children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. While not new, the term is increasingly part of the local vernacular because the primary authors of the nation’s toughest and most controversial immigration law are targeting these tots — the legal weights that anchor many undocumented aliens in the U.S. — for their next move.

Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they’re on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona — and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution — to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of state Sen. Russell Pearce, a Republican whose suburban district, Mesa, is considered the conservative bastion of the Phoenix political scene. He is a leading architect of the Arizona law that sparked outrage throughout the country:

Senate Bill 1070, which allows law enforcement officers to ask about someone’s immigration status during a traffic stop, detainment or arrest if reasonable suspicion exists — things like poor English skills, acting nervous or avoiding eye contact during a traffic stop.

But the likely new bill is for the kids. While SB 1070 essentially requires of-age migrants to have the proper citizenship paperwork, the potential “anchor baby” bill blocks the next generation from ever being able to obtain it. The idea is to make the citizenship process so difficult that illegal immigrants pull up the “anchor” and leave.

This issue is serious business; Using childbirth as a means to evade the law of the land and its acceptance as such by authorities is the kind of affair that should leave, at the very least, a bad taste in the mouth of any thinking individual.

It’s just as pitiful that the pro-amnesty/pro-illegals crowd, using the usual left-handed tactic of laying guilt trips, defends the acceptance of anchor babies by claiming that sending the parents back to “the old country”, wherever it may be, will divide families.

However, it doesn’t have to, does it? Simply deport the cute little tyke in the company of his/her parents. Problem solved.

Naturally, the supporters of illegal immigration and of amnesty for those felons who have swum the ol’ Rio Grande or come across the border in a dryer context will lay guilt trips, the only weapon of the “progressives” that is second to accusations of racism, distorting a Constitutional law to fit their scenario:

The question is whether that would violate the U.S. Constitution. The 14th Amendment states that “all persons, born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” It was intended to provide citizenship for freed slaves and served as a final answer to the Dred Scott case, cementing the federal government’s control over citizenship.

But that was 1868. Today, Pearce says the 14th Amendment has been “hijacked” by illegal immigrants. “They use it as a wedge,” Pearce says. “This is an orchestrated effort by them to come here and have children to gain access to the great welfare state we’ve created.” Pearce says he is aware of the constitutional issues involved with the bill and vows to introduce it nevertheless. “We will write it right.” He and other Republicans in the red state Arizona point to popular sympathy: 58% of Americans polled by Rasmussen think illegal immigrants whose children are born here should not receive citizenship; support for that stance is 76% among Republicans.

Anchor babies spring forth from illegal aliens. Illegal aliens are illegal.

You know that, I know that and the illegals know that. So do the Democrats and their far left “progressive” masters, yet they continue to insult the intelligence of the American people by remolding laws to suit their agendas, expecting citizens to emulate simpletons and go unquestioningly with the program…

The rest of the article.

You can’t say the same about most California cops anymore, they’re too busy performing the “kiss where the moon don’t shine” on far left politicians who see their come-one-come-all policy toward illegal immigration.

If they gave a damn about anything more than just having a job, like maybe enforcing the law, they would let the courage of their convictions take them down a different road, up to and including going to other states and getting on the cops there.

Maybe that’s just me, perhaps I just believe that a man needs to stand for something.

Like Arizona cops.

From One News Now:

PHOENIX - Sheriff’s deputies raided two Sizzler steak house restaurants in Phoenix on Saturday, arresting nine employees who are suspected of being illegal immigrants and using fraudulent documents to get jobs.

The raids were part of a yearlong investigation into whether the operators of the two Sizzler locations broke a civil law by knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Brian Lee said in a statement.

Deputies were looking for 23 suspects wanted for identity theft, Lee said. Authorities believe one of the suspects was deported three times and has been hired back by Sizzler each time he returned.

The sheriff’s office received a tip from a former Sizzler manager who claimed he had been fired for his refusal to hire employees without the proper documents, Lee said.

“This is another example of a case where desperately needed jobs are being occupied by illegal aliens who have disregarded our laws and our borders,” Sheriff Joe Arpaio said in the statement.

Arpaio, known for pushing the bounds for how local law enforcement agencies can confront illegal immigration, frequently raids workplaces in the greater Phoenix area for people in the U.S. illegally.

A message left at one of the two restaurants wasn’t immediately returned Saturday afternoon. A manager at the other restaurant declined to provide his name and publicly comment on the raid.

Hats off to Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Lt. Brian Lee, for doing what a law enforcement officer is supposed to do: Arresting criminals.

There’s some hope when an opinion coming out of California disagrees with those of the usual suspects on the left.

From One News Now:

A California based lawyer is dismissing claims by many that the Arizona law aimed at cracking down on illegal aliens amounts to racial discrimination.

Brad Dacus, founder of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), does not think opponents of Arizona’s immigration bill have a real argument. He notes that all attempts to dismantle the measure are merely political.

“If Arizona was caught in violating basic due process rights — if they were pulling people over without cause — then that would be one thing,” he contends. “But the law is indisputably constitutional, and any contentions against it are purely politically based.”

Last week, the Los Angeles Unified School District voted against the Arizona law and sought to place a dent in the state’s economy by ending funded employee travel to the neighboring state. The school district also pushed for history and civics classes to discuss the measure “in the context of unity, diversity and equal protection for all.”

The city of Los Angeles, which had more than $26 million in contracts with Arizona this year, showed its disapproval of the bill by proposing a boycott against the state, calling for actions like ending pension and municipal bonds. Gloria Molina, the city’s supervisor, called the immigration bill unconstitutional. She believes it goes “too far” and says she must defend the Constitution.

Dacus argues that the Arizona law is constitutional, and he does not think that actions against the state have legal basis.

“This boycott by the city of Los Angeles is purely political and has no legal foundation to support its legitimacy,” he explains. “The law passed by Arizona is a duplicate of the federal statute. The only difference is that the federal government isn’t enforcing their statute. This law is to explicitly prohibit any issue of race as a basis of pulling someone over.”

The boycott would end contracts with Arizona-based companies and would demand review of other contracts with the state that may be canceled.

Yes, I know. On the other hand:

Gloria Molina, the city’s supervisor, called the immigration bill unconstitutional. She believes it goes “too far” and says she must defend the Constitution.

Right, right. The Constitution. This Molina moonbat indicates, in her statement, that she wouldn’t know the Constitution from an aging Moose.

Remember, we’re talking the L.A. area, here.

To demonstrate the general state of “out there” in L.A., when the “progressives” here began their crusade to boycott the State of Arizona, large numbers of air-headed lefty Los Angelenos made great hay about no longer buying beverages from Cincinnati-based AriZona Beverage Company.

In many ways, living in southern California among the Molinas of this world is similar to living inside a cartoon.

As anyone who’s been visiting Hard Astarboard for a long time knows, The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is one of Seth’s “pet peeves”.

Well, before he began his temporary absence from these pages, he made it known among friends that he supports the nomination of John Pistole to head up the TSA, himself registering surprise that the Obama Administration was actually able to produce a nominee who doesn’t seem to have any legal or ethical baggage to bring with him.

Since Seth, da boss hereabouts, is concerned both professionally and patriotically with security, I figured we should post this article from Homeland Security Today:

FBI Deputy Director John Pistole impressed members of the Senate Commerce Committee in his first of two confirmation hearings Thursday with his knowledge and experience with terrorism concerns in his bid to become administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

His long career at the FBI left such a positive impression on lawmakers that even Republicans seeking an outright declaration of opposition to collective bargaining rights for TSA screeners–which they did not receive–were left acknowledging they would support his nomination.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who derailed the nomination of Obama’s first pick to become TSA chief earlier this year over the issue of collective bargaining, again raised it Thursday.

DeMint insisted that officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must question how collective bargaining rights for TSA screeners would improve security. He was unsatisfied with an earlier reply from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that security and collective bargaining weren’t mutually exclusive.

“When the secretary of homeland security can’t tell us how something would improve security, it should stop us in our tracks,” DeMint protested.

Collective bargaining for TSA screeners “would have a direct negative impact on security” by applying a 19th century industrial era model to a 21st century information age environment, DeMint argued. Transportation security officers (TSOs) could jeopardize national security if they demanded changes in their workplace, through the use of collective bargaining, that restricted rapid redeployment or changes in work schedules due to threat information, he said.

Pistole acknowledged that Napolitano asked him to conduct a review of the issue if he is confirmed. That review would involve collecting as much information as possible from relevant stakeholders to make an informed judgment or recommendations.

As the FBI has no unions or collective bargaining rights, Pistole emphasized that he was “attuned to safety and security issues” as a priority.

DeMint warned Pistole that he would face intense political pressure to grant collective bargaining rights to TSOs. While DeMint endorsed Pistole’s credentials to lead TSA, the senator said he would question his competence if he caved to that pressure.

“If we see you yielding to political pressure, that would suggest to us that priorities have changed,” DeMint stated.

DeMint was visibly disappointed by Pistole’s position on the issue, however.

Although Pistole said collective bargaining would not work at the FBI because it would impair the agency’s ability to surge resources and to deploy people worldwide at a moment’s notice, he could not commit to the same status at TSA because he had not yet conducted his review of the issue.

Lacking a firsthand knowledge of how TSA managers work together, Pistole could not say for certain if TSA would benefit from a third party such as a union facilitating discussions. He also declined to promise that his review of collective bargaining would be made available to the committee.

Despite those positions, DeMint conceded, “I will trust your judgment until proven otherwise.”

Other issues

If confirmed, Pistole said he would immediately examine intelligence to assess soft targets that may provide attractive opportunities to al Qaeda and other terrorists seeking to strike the United States.

Successful attacks in Europe and India against rail networks and a thwarted plan to attack the subway system in New York City have demonstrated terrorist interest in hitting passenger rail systems because they are not protected as well as airports, Pistole said.

Security at general aviation airports also requires a second look, Pistole said, as the spring attack on a federal building in Austin, Texas, underscored the vulnerabilities involved with privately owned aircraft. Fiscal restraint may restrict how much attention those airports receive from TSA, however, he said.

As for aviation security, Pistole vowed to be guided by threat information to ensure the best use of the “latest intelligence, latest training, latest techniques, and latest technology” at TSA.

To that end, Pistole endorsed the use of advanced imaging technology (AIT) at US airports, saying it was the best means to detect the sort of sophisticated explosive carried by suspected Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Pistole provided some of the most detailed public comments to date on the bomb allegedly carried by Abdulmutallab, noting that it used an initiating charge of acetone peroxide (TAPT) with a main charge of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN).

PETN also was the explosive used by shoe bomber Richard Reid in his attack on a US-bound airliner in December 2001, Pistole noted, but Abdulmutallab carried almost twice as much PETN as Reid did.

Reid’s PETN would have caused a manhole-size hole in the airplane had it detonated, so Abdulmutallab’s charge “would have caused catastrophic damage” to Northwest Airlines Flight 253 had it worked, Pistole noted.

Given the level of the threat, TSA must continue its rollout plan of AIT and strive to engage foreign partners to adopt standards similar or better to the United States for aviation screening, Pistole said.

Pistole identified his top priority at TSA as making certain that TSA has the latest intelligence and threat information. The major failing of the Christmas Day bombing attempt was that information sharing did not occur in a fashion timely or robust enough to trigger a visa revocation or watchlisting for Abdulmutallab, he commented.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), chair of the committee, predicted that Pistole would receive Senate confirmation as early as next week in a vote to occur after his second confirmation hearing June 16 with the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Soon after, Rockefeller revealed, the Commerce Committee will unveil a TSA authorization bill as well as a port security bill, both of which will have a great deal of impact on TSA operations.

Of course, given that we’re dealing with the Obam/Pelosi and Reid trimvirate, one never knows what ulterior information might be concealed beneath Deputy Director Pistole’s publicized personna, but from the looks of the man’s background and from what he says, he gets the benefit of the doubt here at Hard Astarboard.

Nope.

Congress is apparently being overlooked as well where our supposedly transparent Administration is concerned.

A top lawmaker on the House intelligence committee said Sunday the Obama administration is withholding information about the botched Times Square bombing from Congress, continuing a pattern in which Capitol Hill isn’t getting the information it needs to conduct oversight.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the panel’s ranking Republican, said he agrees with the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate intelligence committee, who last week sent a letter to the White House accusing the administration of putting national security in jeopardy by failing to keep lawmakers apprised of the probe into suspect Faisal Shahzad.

“Having to fight over access to counterterrorism information is not productive and ultimately makes us less secure,” wrote Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Dianne Feinstein and Vice Chairman Christopher S. Bond in a letter to President Obama on Thursday, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

If I’m not mistaken, that’s against the law, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t Congress supposed to be apprised of such things, what with the U.S. not being a dictatorship?

Mr. Hoekstra said the lack of information prevents Congress from evaluating whether the government is adequately prepared to thwart future attacks.

“One of these days there will be an attack, it will be successful, and then people will want to know what was done and why weren’t things done to stop it, and it will all be on the heads of this administration because they ran it and they didn’t involve Congress in the process,” he said. “On the most recent terrorist attacks they’ve given us no opportunity, no invitation to work with them, to enhance or modify our intelligence tools … and that we did everything we could to try to get them to work and be more open about it.”

In the letter, the senators say U.S. intelligence agencies repeatedly refused to provide relevant information on the Times Square case that would allow the committee to conduct oversight without hampering the ongoing investigation. Senate intelligence staffers were told that the Department of Justice had instructed the agencies not to convey information on the Times Square plot without its approval, they said.

However:

The White House wouldn’t comment on the charges…

What’s new?

…but a spokesman for the Justice Department said the department reached out to Congress “shortly after” the May 1 incident, providing information by phone and e-mail beginning on May 3.

Spokesman Dean Boyd said officials from the FBI, Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center provided a classified briefing to members of the House intelligence panel on May 6 and briefed their Senate counterparts on May 11. He also said the Justice Department did not tell intelligence officials not to cooperate with lawmakers.

“The Justice Department did not order anyone in the intelligence community to withhold information from the Senate intelligence committee in connection with the attempted bombing,” Mr. Boyd said. “In fact, when the Justice Department was notified by certain intelligence agencies that they were planning to make calls to the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Justice Department encouraged those agencies to do so.”

A spokeswoman for Rep. Silvestre Reyes, head of the House intelligence panel, said the Texas Democrat — the only one of his counterparts not to sign — was generally “pleased at the detailed level and the timeliness of the briefing, given we were briefed less than 72 hours after Shahzad’s arrest.”

Reyes, a combat vet, was a career mover and shaker on the U.S. Border Patrol, but he is also one of today’s Democrats, who haven’t exactly distinguished themselves of late in the “protect and defend the Constitution” arena.

“So,” we ask, “what’s the story?”

But, Mr. Hoekstra countered:

Ah! A “but”!

“It’s a joke when the administration says ‘well, Justice, they’re fully cooperating and they’re telling everybody else to cooperate’ but then they put handcuffs on them about what they can tell and actually share with us.”

Dissatisfaction with the administration on oversight matters goes beyond the intelligence panels. Last month, Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, the top members of the Senate panel on homeland security, issued the administration its first congressional subpoenas over the Fort Hood shootings in Texas. Mr. Hoekstra argued that that case has documents — such as Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan’s e-mails — that the administration could share with lawmakers without jeopardizing the investigation.

“They’ve got enough information to convict Hasan and probably send him to jail for the rest of his life; he killed 13 Americans in front of what, 100 people,” Mr. Hoekstra said.

Barack Hussein Obama is not very “talkative” for the nucleus of a “transparent administration”, now, is he?

The only transparent things about his presidency are the “czars” he appointed ‘way back in every sector so that he’s got people on the scene who can go around Congress and deal directly with him and his moving the results of the U.S. Census into the white house so he and his cabal of convict material can manipulate demographic information to suit their political agendas.

“Don’t turn around, uh oh uh oh, der kommissar’s in town, uh oh uh oh…”

Chuck here.

By now, most of us have heard about the La Raza mayored Mexican colony City of Los Angeles proclaiming a boycott of Arizona (I’ll tellya’, folks, if you ever want to see some real political comedy, along the lines of Dumb and Dumber meet the cook in Fawlty Towers, you have only to go as far as the lefties and Mexican nationalists whom Los Angelinos elect to run their city for them).

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Wednesday defiantly rejected a warning by a top Arizona utilities official that the state could cut off power to Los Angeles should the city proceed with its boycott of all things Arizona.

Spokesman David Beltran told Fox News that the message didn’t even warrant a response.

“We’re not going to respond to threats from a state which has isolated itself from the America that values freedom, liberty and basic human rights,” Beltran said.

If I were a druggin’ man, I’d be after David Beltran to get the name and phone number of his dealer.

isolated itself from the America that values freedom, liberty and basic human rights is laying things on a little thick, even for an obvious hack like Beltran who, unless he’s stoned on something so illegal you probably couldn’t get a prescription for it, or simply a collossal bonehead, would never have said that.

That was after Gary Pierce, a commissioner on the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission, wrote a letter to Villaraigosa slamming his City Council’s decision to boycott the Grand Canyon State — in protest of its immigration law — by suspending official travel there and ending future contracts with state businesses.

Anyway, the “Make my day” moment;

Noting that a quarter of Los Angeles’ electricity comes from Arizona power plants, Pierce threatened to pull the plug if the City Council does not reconsider.
“Doggone it — if you’re going to boycott this candy store … then don’t come in for any of it,” Pierce told FoxNews.com.

In the letter, he ridiculed Villaraigosa for saying that the point of the boycott was to “send a message” by severing the “resources and ties” they share.

“I received your message; please receive mine. As a statewide elected member of the Arizona Corporation Commission overseeing Arizona’s electric and water utilities, I too am keenly aware of the ‘resources and ties’ we share with the city of Los Angeles,” Pierce wrote.

“If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation.”

Appearing to tap into local frustration in Arizona over the raft of boycotts and threatened boycotts from cities across the country, including Los Angeles, Pierce warned that Arizona companies are willing and ready to fight boycott with boycott.

“I am confident that Arizona’s utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands,” Pierce wrote. “If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona’s economy.”

I’d love to see that, I truly would.

You see, L.A. is filled with “talk the talk” liberals, the kind who are more than happy to “send messages”, but most of them just ain’t “walk the walk” types. Having to go without electricity would be too large a sacrifice to make, and the politicians responsible would receive an even louder message from their constituents.

Los Angeles officials were furious with the Arizona immigration law passed last month and joined local officials in cities across the country in pushing boycotts to register their dismay. Critics say the law will lead to racial profiling and civil rights abuses.

That ain’t what the lying liberals are worried about. They’re simply concerned that a state has opted for survival over political correctness and so decided to enforce a law that’s already on the books.

The racial profiling outrage is merely a leftist tactic to discourage enforcement of laws that the kommies and their ilk would prefer are not enforced.

Arizona officials have defended the law, saying the state needed to take its illegal immigration problem into its own hands. Pierce said he’s “supportive” of the state’s efforts to control the border.

The law requires local law enforcement to try to verify the immigration status of anyone they have contact with whom they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. It empowers them to turn over verified illegal immigrants to federal custody. The legislation explicitly prohibits screening people based solely on race or national origin.

Seems pretty clear to me, but…

Go ahead, L.A., make Arizona’s day.

…at blaming ‘radical Islam’ for terror attempts

Of course he does!

Despite crediting the Pakistani Taliban with fostering the recent failed car bombing in Times Square, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was reluctant Thursday to say radical Islam was part of the cause of that and other recent attacks.

Mr. Holder, testifying to the House Judiciary Committee, repeatedly balked at a half-dozen questions from Rep. Lamar Smith, the ranking Republican on the committee, about whether “radical Islam” was behind the attempted car bombing, last year’s so-called “underpants bomber” or the killings at Fort Hood in Texas.

“There are a variety of reasons why people do these things. Some of them are potentially religious,” Mr. Holder told the committee Thursday, though he would not go further than saying people who hold radical views may have “had an ability to have an impact” on Faisal Shahzad, the man the Justice Department says tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square.

There are a variety of reasons why people do these things

may have “had an ability to have an impact”…

Oh, yeah, this is the guy who declared that the Arizona illegal immigration law is so dastardly that he needs to take action against it, then admitted he hadn’t read the law.

What a friggin’ clown! I take pride in high ranking U.S. officials who address their respective offices in a mature, honest and informed manner. This jamoke is comic relief.

Of course, some of that is just his way of towing the Obama line.

The exchange comes as President Obama and Republicans spar over whether the administration is taking a tough-enough approach to the war on terrorism. Critics want the president to hone his criticism, while he and his advisers have sought to avoid painting the conflict as a battle against a religious belief or its adherents.

The long and the short of it seems to be that everybody except the administration of B.Hussein Obama knows we are presently at war, as defenders, with Islamofacism, under constant threat of attack by Muslims, who started it and continue to strive to demoralize the citizens and governments of western nations in order to bring about change — change to the slavery of Islam and Sharia Law, but the Obamanation POV is that there is no danger to us from anyone even remotely connected with the Religion of Peace ©.

No, in all the terrorist attacks from the bombing of the Khobar Towers to 9/11 to the most recent Times Square mutt it was mere coincidence that everyone involved was Islamic and claimed their motives were related to their being Muslims.

The exchange comes as President Obama and Republicans spar over whether the administration is taking a tough-enough approach to the war on terrorism. Critics want the president to hone his criticism, while he and his advisers have sought to avoid painting the conflict as a battle against a religious belief or its adherents.

So let me understand this, now… we are not fighting radical Islam, we are at war with “the nameless enemy”.

Sure.

…speaks for itself.

Covertly taken photos of CIA interrogators that were shown by defense attorneys to al Qaeda inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison represent a more serious security breach than the 2003 outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, the agency’s former general counsel said Wednesday.

John Rizzo, who was the agency’s top attorney until December, said in an interview that he initially requested the Justice Department and CIA investigation into the compromise of CIA interrogators’ identities after photographs of the officers were found in the cell of one al Qaeda terrorist in Cuba.

“Well I think this is far more serious than Valerie Plame,” Mr. Rizzo said after a breakfast speech. “That was clearly illegal, outing a covert officer. I am not downplaying that. But this is far more serious.”

I’ll say it is!

Ain’t it grand when your safety and survival and those of all your friends and loved ones hinge completely upon the whims of a portside president and a leftist congressional majority whose political agendas do not even remotely coincide with any concerns for your safety and survival and those of all your loved ones?

Read on.