…like the supremely unqualified Secretary of “Homeland Security” Janet Napolitano, apparently have no qualms about insulting our intelligence in even the most blatant and offensive manner.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday the U.S.-Mexico border is not as secure as it could be, though she contended that the Obama administration has shown an “absolute laserlike focus on that border.”

The only thing remotely resembling a laser in the Obama Administration is aimed at our border defenses and seems to be drilling quite a large hole in them.

Napolitano claimed, we will recall, that the border is as “secure as it has ever been”.

Last week, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Miss Napolitano said it was an “unfair question” to ask if she could certify that the border was secure.

Thomas Jefferson once said that it was an American’s duty to look over the shoulders of the politicians and keep an eye on what they were doing on We, The People’s behalf.

However, this has been amended by the Obama Administration:

Forget what we say as soon as possible, so that you won’t be confused when we tell you the exact opposite later.

After the Underwear Bomber’s scorcher of a screw-up, Ann Coulter remarked in her column that it is harder to get on the no-fly list than it was to get into Studio 54 back in the 1970s.

Well, while his attempt to head for the tall timber didn’t get off the ground, Faisal of recent Times Square fame did manage to get aboard the airplane.

The no-fly list failed to keep the Times Square suspect off the plane. Faisal Shahzad had boarded a jetliner bound for the United Arab Emirates Monday night before federal authorities pulled him back.

The night’s events, gradually coming to light, underscored the flaws in the nation’s aviation security system, which despite its technologies, lists and information sharing, often comes down to someone making a right call.

Literally.

As federal agents closed in, Faisal Shahzad was aboard Emirates Flight 202. He reserved a ticket on the way to John F. Kennedy International Airport, paid cash on arrival and walked through security without being stopped. By the time Customs and Border Protection officials spotted Shahzad’s name on the passenger list and recognized him as the bombing suspect they were looking for, he was in his seat and the plane was preparing to leave the gate.

The part about his reserving a ticket on the way to the airport, paying cash on arrival and then strolling casually while whistling walking through security is enough to make anyone who has travelled as extensively by air, especially post 9/11, as I have stop and take a few seconds out to be surprised — very surprised.

Unless the system has been severely downgraded under Secretary of Homeland Insecurity Janet Napolitano, travellers who reserve flights at the last minute, and you’ve got to figure that this one was one way — one way flights are pretty much strike two with the last minute bit — and then pay for the ticket with cash are subject to immediate scrutiny. One would think the fine folks at the airline would have checked thoroughly to see if Faisal Shahzad’s name was a no-fly, and in this case definitely checked for new list entries.

Even given that the airline in question was not a U.S. carrier, well…

But it didn’t. At the last minute, the pilot was notified, the jetliner’s door was opened and Shahzad was taken into custody.

After authorities pulled Shahzad off the plane, he admitted he was behind the crude Times Square car bomb, officials said. He also claimed to have been trained at a terror camp in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region of Waziristan, according to court documents.

That raised increased concern that the bombing was an international terror plot.

Shahzad, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, was charged Tuesday with terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Saturday evening’s failed Times Square bombing. According to a federal complaint, he confessed to buying an SUV, rigging it with a homemade bomb and driving it into the busy area where he tried to detonate it.

The Obama administration played down the fact that Shahzad, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, had made it aboard the plane. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wouldn’t talk about it, other than to say Customs officials prevented the plane from taking off. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the security system has fallback procedures in place for times like this, and they worked.

The Obama administration played down the fact….Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wouldn’t talk about it…White House spokesman…and they worked…

Yes, as Napolitano, in the aftermath of the Underwear Bomber’s debut, tolf us that “the system worked”.

So far, the only thing that’s now averted two disasterous terrorist attacks has been the incompetence of the terrorists themselves, which doesn’t say much for the Obama Administration’s protective efforts.

And these incompetents, such as they were, managed to not only come close to accomplishing their objectives, but also to get aboard two airplanes, one inbound, the other outbound.

Napolitano’s luck has thus far been good, but eventually, one terrorist will come along who actually knows what he’s doing or isn’t packing a dud, and then even the most obtuse American will see and know just how much the Obama Administration is placing the American people at risk in the name of politics.

The rest of the linked article is here.

…by way of a hypocrisy by the lying, corrupt scumball Mexican president.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon denounced as “racial discrimination” an Arizona law giving state and local police the authority to arrest suspected illegal immigrants and vowed to use all means at his disposal to defend Mexican nationals against a law he called a “violation of human rights.”

But the legislation, signed April 23 by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, is similar to Reglamento de la Ley General de Poblacion — the General Law on Population enacted in Mexico in April 2000, which mandates that federal, local and municipal police cooperate with federal immigration authorities in that country in the arrests of illegal immigrants.

Under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to re-enter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six-year terms. Mexicans who help illegal immigrants are considered criminals.

The law also says Mexico can deport foreigners who are deemed detrimental to “economic or national interests,” violate Mexican law, are not “physically or mentally healthy” or lack the “necessary funds for their sustenance” and for their dependents.

Hey, liberals, how come we aren’t hearing any cries of “racist!” against the Mexican government? Is their law fairer than Arizona’s (which only actually mimics the federal law the U.S. Government was supposed to enforce but didn’t/hasn’t)? Or is your only true motivation your craving for the majority Mexican vote, and the American people be damned?

“This sounds like the kind of law that a rational nation would have to protect itself against illegal immigrants — that would stop and punish the very people who are violating the law,” said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, refugees, border security and international law.

“Why would Mr. Calderon have any objections to an Arizona law that is less draconian than his own, one he has pledged to enforce?” Mr. King said.

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security, described Mr. Calderon’s comments as “hypocritical to say the least.”

Hey, liberals! Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls!

Now the federal government, under the inspired leadership of Obama tool/Attorney General Eric Holder, is discussing legally challenging Arizona’s new anti-illegal alien law.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Tuesday said he would not rule out a legal challenge to Arizona’s new immigration law.

Speaking with reporters in Washington, Holder said no decision had been made but the Department of Justice was coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security on how Washington should respond to passage of legislation that would punish people who are detained in Arizona and are unable to prove they are in the United States legally.

“We are considering all possibilities, including the possibility of a court challenge,” he said.

Holder said the Arizona law was “unfortunate.”

“I think that it is, I fear, subject to potential abuse,” he said. “And I’m very concerned about the wedge that it could draw between communities that law enforcement is supposed to serve and those of us in law enforcement.”

Unfortunate? Potential abuse?

There is a reason these people are called illegal aliens, and that is because federal law makes it so, yet here we have a federal government that is not only failing, by design, to enforce its own laws, but is preparing to dispute the enforcement of those same laws by a state that is suffering greatly from this failure on the part of the federal government to enforce those laws, in effect treating the state of Arizona like some band of vigilantes and ignoring Arizona’s sovereignty as a state.

The reason for the Democrats and O pretending that illegal doesn’t mean illegal is simple: They hope someday to enact an amnesty bill, and then each amnestied alien would equal one Democrat vote, and to hell with the American people or what’s best for them. This should be obvious to anyone who can pick up a newspaper or get on the internet.

Obama called the new law “misguided” and ordered the Justice Department to investigate whether it would violate civil rights.

These criminal aliens do not have American civil rights, they are neither Americans nor even legally here.

Check ‘em, cuff ‘em, stuff ‘em and send ‘em off!

…can be seen below.

Here, we have some bad news that is part of the National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010.

Three Border Patrol agents are assaulted on the average day at or near the U.S. border. Someone is kidnapped every 35 hours in Phoenix, Ariz., often by agents of alien smuggling organizations. And one-in-five American teenagers last year used some type of illegal drug, many of which were imported across the unsecured U.S.-Mexico border.

These facts are reported in the recently released National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010, published by the National Drug Intelligence Center, a division of the U.S. Justice Department….

Here, we have Janet Napolitano in action.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, while testifying before a Senate panel, said the United States’s southwest border is “as secure now as it has ever been.”

“I say this again as someone who has walked that border,” she said. “I’ve ridden that border. I’ve flown it. I’ve driven it. I know that border I think as well as anyone, and I will tell you it is as secure now as it has ever been.”

Napolitano made that remark in response to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was questioning her during Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the oversight of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

…as secure now as it has ever been.

Notice that unlike when she announced that the “system” works in the aftermath of the Christmas attempt to blow up a plane by the underwear bomber, this time she says the border is “as secure as it has ever been.”

In other words, it ain’t too secure, is it, Mzzzz Homeland Security Secretary?

…general purpose useful idiots, have visited the anti-American despot in Venezuela to fawn over him, praise him and kiss his touchas. Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Danny Glover, Naomi Campbell and, famously, the wretched Cindy Sheehan.

Of course, I’m talking about Hugo Chavez, the guy we’ve largely ignored for some time now, who’s been forging all sorts of alliances with communists and Islamofascist terrorist organizations while letting it be known he is an enemy of the United States.

Latin America experts are warning about the growing threat from Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, citing new evidence of Chavez’s expanding ties with Iran and Hezbollah and other terrorist groups.

The Venezuelan president also has demonstrated his willingness to buy elections throughout the hemisphere to empower enemies of the United States, several experts said in presentations Thursday during a conference that the Center for Security Policy sponsored on Capitol Hill.

“Today, Venezuela airports are being freely used by drug cartels to export drugs to Europe and the United States,” said Luis Fleischman, senior adviser for the center’s Menges Hemispheric Security Project. “Chavez has helped the FARC fight against Colombia, [while] Hezbollah cells have increased their fund-raising and other activities in the area.”

What’s more, Fleischman said, “Young Venezuelans are being trained in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon . . . and Venezuela has reportedly produced uranium for Iran.”

Because of the close ties between Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “there is a real possibility” that Chavez could get a nuclear weapon from Iran after Iran acquires that capability itself, he said.

But we have nothing to worry about, thanks to President Obama’s outstanding diplomatic applications.

Obama’s “friendly interaction” with Chavez at last year’s Summit of the Americas has only emboldened the Venezuelan strongman in thinking that the United States will do nothing to oppose his regime or his anti-American activities, a panelist said.

Anyhow, read on.

…vs. Nukes shouldn’t be a matter of competing priorities, both being concerns involving weapons of mass destruction, though I’d have to agree with those who believe that the former are more likely to be employed, or attemptedly so, by terrorists than the latter.

The Obama administration’s push to address the specter of nuclear terrorism has some proliferation experts fretting that the White House isn’t as focused on the more likely scenario of being attacked with chemical or biological weapons.

Last week’s nuclear-security summit in Washington took steps to thwart attempts by al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to acquire the fuel for a nuclear bomb, which White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan called “one of the greatest threats to our national security.”

But some proliferation experts worry that chemical and biological weapons are much more likely to be used in a terrorist attack, and that the administration and Congress hasn’t adequately addressed this threat.

Okay, so…

One example: The Obama administration has yet to name an ambassador to the Chemical Weapons Convention in The Hague, a group that monitors military-grade chemical weapons and dual-use chemicals that could be used as weapons by terrorists.

A National Security Council strategy paper released in November concluded that a bioattack could kill hundreds of thousands of people and the cost of each incident could exceed $1 trillion. Chemical weapons, though less deadly, are easier to acquire and use.

Nuclear terrorism would be catastrophic, but the odds of a terrorist group acquiring fissile material, assembling it, and delivering a bomb are low, given the extreme difficulty of these tasks, experts said.

“People concentrate on what’s most terrifying, not on what could really happen,” said Eric M. Javits, ambassador under President George W. Bush to the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons in The Hague.

The bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism concluded in late 2008 that terrorist use of a biological weapon was “more likely” than the use of a nuclear weapon. The commission’s final report card, issued in January, noted the administration’s “keen understanding” of the nuclear threat but said there had been “no equal sense of urgency displayed towards the threat of a large-scale biological weapons attack.” The commission gave the U.S. an “F” grade for preparations against a biological attack.

The chairmen of that commission—former Sens. Bob Graham, a Democrat, and Jim Talent, a Republican—stressed before the House Committee on Homeland Security this week that the U.S. was still unprepared to deal with a large-scale attack using biological weapons, whose lethality could “rival or exceed that of an improvised nuclear device.”

I concur. There’s not a whole lot I can add to this one, as the author has laid it out completely in the article linked above, but I will say that I sincerely hope the Powers That Be, which unfortunately include such august personages as B. Hussein Obama and Janet Napolitano, will do something right, just this once, and refrain from basing whatever decisions they engender on our behalf based upon the last couple of paragraphs in the article.

But some WMD experts remain convinced that al Qaeda’s goal remains an attack that will trump the scope of Sept. 11, including the use of nuclear weapons. “I don’t get any sense al Qaeda is going downscale,” said Graham Allison, Director of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a member of the WMD commission.

“What’s Osama bin Laden’s icon? It’s a mushroom cloud enveloping a city,” Mr. Allison said.

Sure, Mr. Allison, you go with the icon while those of us with a little more sense pray that O and company disregard a dumb logo and, though it’s not exactly a strong point of theirs, pursue a more logical course.

…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!”

…ala Barack Hussein Obama.

This is what the Obama Administration considers Homeland Security.

A Department of Homeland Security official told a Senate panel on Wednesday that the Christmas Day bomber, who was allowed to board a U.S.-bound plane from Amsterdam, probably would have raised a red flag at the airport when he arrived in the United States.

“In the Abdulmutallab case, had he arrived in Detroit, it is possible we would have–it is likely that we would have noted the derogatory information, gone to the secretary and perhaps made a recommendation to the State Department to refuse the visa,” David Heyman, an assistant DHS secretary, told the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

…probably would have raised a red flag at the airport when he arrived in the United States.

Lovely, and if Abdulmutallab had known that, he wouldn’t have attempted to set off his bomb until after the plane had landed in Detroit and everyone had debarked.

“In the aftermath of the Abdulmutallab case, there was some confusion over which agency considered itself ultimately responsible for revoking a visa on terrorism grounds,” Collins said. “I remember the National Counter-Terrorism Center director testifying before us and expressing his bafflement at some of the comments that were made by the State Department personnel.”

Collins quoted a State Department spokesman — shortly after the Christmas Day bombing attempt – as saying, “It would be up to the National Counter-Terrorism Center to make the determination whether to revoke a person’s visa or take other action.” And Collins noted that when the spokesperson was later asked why the State Department did not revoke Abdulmutallab’s visa, the spokesperson said, “Because it’s not our responsibility.”

“Because it’s not our responsibility.”

“Ees not my yob, hombre.”

Hokay…

“The idea was to ensure that security considerations were given the weight they deserve. Eight years later, I’m sorry to say it seems clear this program has not been a priority for either department,” Lieberman said.