…General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker wasted their valuable time testifying before Congress.

Oliver North tells it like it is.

Five years ago this week, American soldiers and Marines liberated Baghdad from Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and the foreign fedayeen who had flooded into the despot’s capital. For those of us who were there, it was an unforgettable event. But as Ambassador Ryan Crocker so cogently noted this week while he and Gen. David Petraeus were testifying before Congress, “The euphoria of that moment evaporated long ago.” The assembled lawmakers, perched on their raised daises, barely noted the anniversary — while subjecting the warrior and the diplomat to a 16-hour spectacle. For the general and the ambassador, it had to be an excruciating exercise in patience and bladder control.

The hearings — two in the Senate and two more in the House — all were choreographed carefully to give maximum exposure to the potentates on the Potomac. The masters of the mainstream media all were gathered. Professional protesters were present. The solons, all carefully prepared by their staffs, made their little speeches and then shamelessly angled for the best “gotcha” question to win the sound bite sweepstakes — and the honor of being replayed repeatedly on the news and entertainment channels. Like so many of these hearings, it was a bit like Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s “Greatest Show on Earth” — without a ringmaster. I know — as they say — I’ve “been there, done that.”

Yeah, he’s “been there, done that”, all right (and I can’t say I envy the man for that particular ordeal, when I worked on Wall Street some quarter century ago, my immediate supervisor, who had gone through a congressional grilling over the Hunt Brothers affair, told me in graphic detail what that’s like), though I don’t know if he was ever issued the tee-shirt. I’ll say this though: Despite the rhetoric of our political left, the man is the kind of patriot this country needs a hell of a lot more of, and the kind of journalist the media should be proud of (fat chance of that!) — the kind who calls it like he sees it and retains the perspective that he is an American who knows what it means to serve his country in time of war. The kind of guy who would rather cover a combat situation with shrapnel and bullets whizzing past his head than sit in a lounge in the “Green Zone” and get his information second hand, or buy photos from some photographer who may or may not have Photo-Shopped them to favor the enemy’s propaganda campaigns.

Sadly, the attending members of Congress evinced little interest in hearing from a decorated general fighting a bloody military campaign or a skillful U.S. ambassador trying to help a democratically elected government survive against brutal foreign and internal foes. Rather, it seemed as if our elected representatives would have preferred hearing from soothsayers who could read palms and interpret horoscopes. That our Congress has sunk to such a level is a sad testament to the state of our political process.

Sadly, indeed.

Our Democrat-run Congress isn’t interested in facts, only in a political agenda that hasn’t got room for the concept of victory or for the elements of common sense necessary to protect our country from future terrorist attacks. In order to appeal to their political base, which consists of a Code Pink/Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan (remember her?)/George Soros/Jane Fonda/Barbra Streissand mentality, they are more concerned with an agenda that would involve our abandoning the Iraqis to an Islamic extremist take-over and the resulting Taliban style rule that would transform Iraq into what would amount to a terrorist stronghold with “legitimate” nation status.

This is a very liberal “progressive” point of view. Let’s enjoy instant gratification without giving the proverbial rat’s hind quarters about whatever tragedies it will present for us down the road apiece.

So rather than ask pertinent questions or seek the truth about our brave troops’ progress in Iraq…

When will it end? When will we be out? When can we take the money we’re spending on the war and divert it to bailing out our constituent borrowers and lenders caught up in the subprime mortgage mess? Petraeus and Crocker came equipped with facts, maps, charts and progress reports, but for this crowd, they should have brought Ouija boards, tarot cards and a crystal ball.

I don’t know, though I can guess, how fellow right thinkers and other sane Americans feel about this, but speaking for myself, I find it rather chilling that the majority of those we’ve elected to lead our country seem to be addressing this grave responsibility we’ve bestowed upon them using a far left field (perhaps pre-adolescent would be a more accurate term) approach.

They apparently don’t see fit to apply any sort of reality to their reasoning, that’s for sure, it’s more like “screw the down-the-road penalties, get the votes now!”

Well, good for them! When suicide bombers, briefed in Baghdad, walk into restaurants, theatres, shopping malls and other crowded places in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and Duluth and blow themselves up along with scores of men, women and children, our fearless leaders can always “blame Bush”.

Speaking of whom…

While Congress was berating the general and the ambassador, the commander in chief was honoring one of the more than 4,000 Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq. In an Oval Office ceremony, President Bush presented the Medal of Honor — our nation’s highest award for valor — to the parents of Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor, a Navy SEAL. Mike — as his fellow SEALs called him — was killed Sept. 29, 2006, in Ramadi, Iraq, when he threw himself on top of an enemy grenade in order to spare the lives of his fellow SEALs.

His platoon commander, now a lieutenant commander with whom our Fox News team has been embedded, said of the 25-year-old hero, “He made an instantaneous decision to save our teammates.” Though wounded by shrapnel in the explosion, one of those with him that terrible morning said of Monsoor’s unhesitating action: “He never took his eyes off the grenade. His only movement was down toward it. He undoubtedly saved mine and the other SEALs’ lives.”

Monsoor is just the fourth member of our armed forces to be awarded the Medal of Honor since war was declared against us Sept. 11, 2001. Call your grandstanding members of Congress and ask whether they know the four names.

Hmmmm, let’s see, there were Corporal Jason Dunham, USMC, U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Paul Smith and Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor, Iraq, and U.S. Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, Afghanistan.

Saying “Thank you” is not nearly enough.

I wonder if Representative John Murtha knows these four names or, for that matter, if he even cares. Probably not.

…I knew I just had to share it, as it couldn’t be more accurate.

CHARLEY REESE explains incompetent Congress

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton- picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a SPEAKER, who stood up and criticized G.W. Bush ALONE for creating deficits.

The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.

Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow Democrats, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility.

I can’t think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in IRAQ, it’s because they want them in IRAQ.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess.

–CHARLEY REESE (born January 29, 1937) is a syndicated columnist known for his plainspoken manner and paleoconservative views. He was associated with the Orlando Sentinel from 1971-2001, both as a writer and in various editorial capacities. King Features Syndicate distributes his column, which comes out three times each week.

H/T Shana

Look, we on the right and those on the left have our political differences, more bitter and more divisive today than in decades, but the fact of the matter is that we elect our politicians to do a job for us, that job being to govern our country to their best ability.

Though they seem to have forgotten, they are our employees, not the other way around. They are there to work for us, as Americans, whether they are Democrats or Republicans. As members of the same team, that being, collectively, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the President, their job is to represent the nation as a whole, as co-workers, and to work together to see that the best interests of this country and its citizens are served.

In the private sector, such behavior and such results as we’ve seen on the part of our government would result in a whole bunch of pink slips and the same amount of new hires, so why should government be any different? Why do we give these career politicians the sort of free passes for failure that we, as citizens, would never get in our own occupations?

In the case of our elected officials, each and every one of us voters is “the boss”. If our employees can’t work together in a proactive manner, securing the fruition of our best interests, we need to fire them and hire people who will.

It’s great that so many people enjoy the salesmanship skills it takes to convince a majority of voters in their respective bailiwicks to elect them, but it would be even greater if they also had the skills, to say nothing of the negotiating abilities and statesmanship, to work together, compromise where needed and produce results that actually benefit We, The People, their employers.

Instead, as Charley Reese wrote so eloquently, we have a bunch of people at management level who are not part of any solutions, but rather are the factors behind the problems.

If ever a short-but-on-point video that was both really funny and a total “must watch” arrived in my in-box, it has got to be this one!

A major hat tip to Brenda.

Linda Chavez has most certainly pegged Scooter’s successor in the annals of legal vandalism from the left.

His name isn’t yet familiar to most Americans, but I expect it will be by the end of 2008: Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. He is the man, according to recent press reports, who ordered the destruction of interrogation tapes made by the CIA, which allegedly show the effects of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” used against terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. In the next few months, his name will likely be dragged through the mud, and he will be vilified as a rogue official engaged in a massive cover-up. I think he deserves a medal.

Hard Astarboard is behind her column 100%. It’s like, like… some occult prescience or, at the very least, simply a conclusion based upon what The Racing Form refers to as Past Performances, only applied to donkeys instead of horses.

I am in full agreement that Rodriquez is highly deserving of a medal for his actions, not the collosal villification he’s sure to have come his way in the not too distant future.

Perhaps it’s just me, a product of Ukranian and Polish grandparents who, prior to producing my mother and her two sisters and later raising me, immigrated to the United States and immersed themselves in the business of becoming English speaking, patriotic Americans, but…

I have long been rather nonplussed at the drive by our portside political community to make light of the above concept.

Should the Salvation Army be able to require its employees to speak English? You wouldn’t think that’s controversial. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding up a $53 billion appropriations bill funding the FBI, NASA and Justice Department solely to block an attached amendment, passed by both the Senate and House, that protects the charity and other employers from federal lawsuits over their English-only policies.

The U.S. used to welcome immigrants while at the same time encouraging assimilation. Since 1906, for example, new citizens have had to show “the ability to read, write and speak ordinary English.” A century later, this preference for assimilation is still overwhelmingly popular. A new Rasmussen poll finds that 87% of voters think it “very important” that people speak English in the U.S., with four out of five Hispanics agreeing. And 77% support the right of employers to have English-only policies, while only 14% are opposed.

But hardball politics practiced by ethnic grievance lobbies is driving assimilation into the dustbin of history. The House Hispanic Caucus withheld its votes from a key bill granting relief on the Alternative Minimum Tax until Ms. Pelosi promised to kill the Salvation Army relief amendment.

What aggravates me here is that, we being a democracy and all, the Democrats, knowing that the vast majority of Americans believe that the English language should be coin of the realm here in the U.S., continue to press their multi-lingual agenda — of course, we know that they are motivated by targeted minority votes rather than the good of our country — and that they are willing to make light of the will of The People as such.

Maybe they should rename their party…

Yet the public is ready for leadership that will forthrightly defend reasonable assimilation. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger won plaudits when he said last June that one way to close the Latino learning divide was “to turn off the Spanish TV set. It’s that simple. You’ve got to learn English.” Ruben Navarette, a columnist with the San Diego Union-Tribune, agreed, warning that “industries such as native language education or Spanish-language television [create] linguistic cocoons that offer the comfort of a warm bath when what English-learners really need is a cold shower.”

“SNIP”, as they say,

But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that last year filed over 200 lawsuits against employers over English-only rules, has a different vision. Its lawsuit against the Salvation Army accuses the organization of discriminating against two employees at its Framingham, Mass., thrift store “on the basis of their national origin.” Its crime was to give the employees a year’s notice that they should speak English on the job (outside of breaks) and then firing them after they did not. The EEOC sued only four years after a federal judge in Boston, in a separate suit, upheld the Salvation Army’s English-only policy as an effort to “promote workplace harmony.” Like a house burglar, the EEOC is trying every door in the legal neighborhood until it finds one that’s open.

The EEOC is no friend of the American People. They stink of the SPP/NAU agenda.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), who authored the now-stalled amendment to prohibit the funding of EEOC lawsuits against English-only rules, is astonished at the opposition he’s generated. Rep. Joe Baca (D., Calif.), chair of the Hispanic Caucus, boasted that “there ain’t going to be a bill” including the Alexander language because Speaker Pelosi had promised him the conference committee handling the Justice Department’s budget would never meet. So Sen. Alexander proposed a compromise, only requiring that Congress be given 30 days notice before the filing of any EEOC lawsuit. “I was turned down flat,” he told me. “We are now celebrating diversity at the expense of unity. One way to create that unity is to value, not devalue, our common language, English.”

That’s what pro-assimilation forces are moving to do. TV Azteca, Mexico’s second-largest network, is launching a 60-hour series of English classes on all its U.S. affiliates. It recognizes that teaching English empowers Latinos. “If you live in this country, you have to speak as everybody else,” Jose Martin Samano, Azteca’s U.S. anchor, told Fox News. “Immigrants here in the U.S. can make up to 50% or 60% more if they speak both English and Spanish. This is something we have to do for our own people.”

Azteca isn’t alone. Next month, a new group called Our Pledge will be launched. Counting Jeb Bush and former Clinton Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros among its board members, the organization believes absorbing immigrants is “the Sputnik challenge of our era.” It will put forward two mutual pledges. It will ask immigrants to learn English, become self-sufficient and pledge allegiance to the U.S. It will ask Americans to provide immigrants help navigating the American system, the chance to eventually become a citizen and an atmosphere of respect.

Go to any other country in the world and try to undermine its official language, and see how well recieved you are.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton said “new immigrants have a responsibility to enter the mainstream of American life.” Eight years later, Clinton strategists Stan Greenberg and James Carville are warning their fellow Democrats that the frustration with immigrants and their lack of assimilation is creating a climate akin to the anti-welfare attitudes of the 1990s. They point out that 40% of independent voters now cite border security issues as the primary reason for their discontent.

In 1996, Mr. Clinton and a GOP Congress joined together to defuse the welfare issue by ending the federal welfare entitlement. Bold bipartisan action is needed again. With frustration this deep, it’s in the interests of both parties not to let matters get out of hand.

The entire quoted Opinion Journal column, by John Fund, is here.

The only reason the Democrats are so dead set on creating a multi-lingual America is to get the votes of those immigrants/minorities who don’t consider learning English or otherwise assimilating into mainstream America a priority.

The modern Democratic Party is so, so different from the one to which I belonged and that which I supported during my younger, less informed years. Today, they are more than willing to sacrifice our country, the form of government that makes it great and any and every other ideal that distinguishes America from infinitely less desireable geographic entities for the sole purpose of having their politicians elected to office.

To my way of thinking, that is not only grossly disgraceful, but it is also pure, unmitigated treason.

…”catching up” posts.

First, there’s an excellent column by Caroline Glick on the ongoing western policy of appeasement in the face of what I personally prefer to term aggressive Islam.

MUSLIM MINORITIES throughout the world are being financed and ideologically trained in Saudi and UAE funded mosques and Islamic centers. These minorities act in strikingly similar manners in the countries where they are situated throughout the world. On the one hand, their local political leaders demand extraordinary communal rights, rights accorded neither to the national majority nor to other minority populations. On the other hand, Muslim neighborhoods, particularly in Europe, but also in Israel, the Philippines and Australia, are rendered increasingly ungovernable as arms of the state like the police and tax authorities come under attack when they attempt to assert state power in these Muslim communities.

Logic would have it that targeted states would respond to the threat to their authority through a dual strategy. On the one hand, they would firmly assert their authority by enforcing their laws against both individual lawbreakers and against subversive, foreign financed institutions that incite the overthrow of their governments and their replacement with Islamic governments. On the other hand, they would seek out and empower local Muslims who accept the authority and legitimacy of their states and their rule of law.

Unfortunately, with the notable exception of the Howard government in Australia, in country after country, governments respond to this challenge by attempting to appease Muslim irredentists and their state sponsors. The British responded to the July 7, 2005 bombings by giving representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood an official role in crafting and carrying out counter-terror policies.

In 2003, then French president Jacques Chirac sent then interior minister Nicholas Sarkozy to Egypt to seek the permission of Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi of the Islamist al-Azhar mosque for the French parliament’s plan to outlaw hijabs in French schools.

In the US, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the FBI asked the terror-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations to conduct sensitivity training for FBI agents.

In Holland last year, the Dutch government effectively expelled anti-Islamist politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the interest of currying favor with Holland’s restive Muslim minority.

At the minimum, I would say that sanity does not seem to prevail here; They are in the minority in all these countries, yet their demands are complied with post-haste, even to the point of exceeding accommodations accorded the majority in a respective host population.

This acquiescence is not restricted to laws of a social nature, on the contrary it has found its way into global politics.

THE FOREIGN policy aspect of the rush to appease is twofold. First, targeted states refuse to support one another when individual governments attempt to use the tools of law enforcement to handle their domestic jihad threat. For instance, European states have harshly criticized the US Patriot Act while the US criticized the French decision to prohibit the hijab in public schools.

More acutely, targeted states lead the charge in calling for the establishment of Muslim-only states. Today the US and the EU are leading the charge towards the establishment of a Palestinian state and the creation of an independent state of Kosovo.

In two weeks, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will host the Annapolis conference where together with her European and Arab counterparts, she will exert enormous pressure on the Olmert government to agree to the establishment of a jihadist Palestinian state in Israel’s heartland with its capital in Jerusalem and its sovereignty extending over Judaism’s most sacred site, the Temple Mount.

The establishment of the sought-for Palestinian state presupposes the ethnic cleansing of at a minimum 80,000 Israelis from their homes and communities simply because they are Jews. Jews of course will be prohibited from living in Palestine.

To continue,

FOR ITS part, the Palestinian leadership to which Israel will be expected to communicate its acceptance of the establishment of Palestine, is one part criminal, and two parts jihadist. As Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues have made clear, while they are willing to accept Israel’s concessions, they are not willing to accept Israel. This is why they refuse to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

A rare consensus exists today in Israel. From the far-left to the far-right, from IDF Military Intelligence to the Mossad, all agree that the Annapolis conference will fail to bring a peace accord. Since Rice’s approach to reaching just such an accord has been to apply unrelenting pressure on Israel, it is fairly clear that she will blame Israel for the conference’s preordained failure and cause a further deterioration in US-Israeli relations.

While Israel is supposed to accept a Jew-free Palestine, it goes without saying that its own 20 percent Arab minority will continue to enjoy the full rights of Israeli citizenship. Yet one of the direct consequences of the establishment of a Jew-free, pro-jihadist State of Palestine will be the further radicalization of Israeli Arabs. They will intensify their current rejection of Israel’s national identity.

With Palestinian and outside support, they will intensify their irredentist activities and so exert an even more devastating attack on Israel’s sovereignty and right to national self-determination.

“Ma zeh?” {Hebrew for “what’s this?”} you may ask. Well, one answer is that it’s lackluster diplomacy — you know, just like what an employer might expect from a lazy employee of the “sweep under a rug” persuasion. The politicians and diplomats on the western side of the equation want only to put the Israeli-”Palestinian” affair to bed once and for all, the consequences of any expediency be damned, and as a bonus, giving Israel the fid will also fulfill the requisites of The New Dhimmitude©.

SHORTLY AFTER the Annapolis conference fails, and no doubt in a bid to buck up its standing with the Arab world, the US may well stand by its stated intention to recognize the independence of Kosovo.

Yeah, well,

As Julia Gorin

(Julia is profoundly well informed on affairs in the Balkans, and the bulk of her columns specialize therein)

documented in a recent article here, in Jewish World Review, Kosovo’s connections with Albanian criminal syndicates and global jihadists are legion. Moreover, Kosovar independence would likely spur irredentist movements among the Muslim minorities in all Balkan states. In Macedonia for instance, a quarter of the population is Muslim. These irredentist movements in turn would increase Muslim irredentism throughout Europe just as Palestinian statehood will foment an intensification of the Islamization of Israel’s Arab minority.

The Kosovo government announced last month that given the diplomatic impasse, it plans to declare its independence next month. Currently, the Bush administration is signaling its willingness to recognize an independent Kosovo even though doing so will threaten US-Russian relations.

In a bid both to prevent the Bush administration from turning on Israel in the aftermath of the failure of the Annapolis conference and to make clear Israel’s own rejection of the notion that a “solution” to the Palestinian conflict with Israel can be imposed by foreign powers, the Olmert government should immediately and loudly restate its opposition to the imposition of Kosovar independence on Serbia.

In the interest of defending the nation-state system, on which American sovereignty and foreign policy is based, the US should reassess the logic of its support for the establishment of Muslim-only states. It should similarly revisit its refusal to openly support the right of non-Islamic states like Israel, Serbia and even France, to assert their rights to defend their sovereignty, national security and national character from outside-sponsored domestic Islamic subversion.

There’s a lot more happening in Ms. Glick’s column, which can be read in its entirety here.

In my mind’s ear (if there can be a mind’s eye, there must surely also exist a mind’s ear) I keep hearing the phrase, “The creep of Islam”.

“Moving right along”…

This is really funny. Put down your coffee cup before you listen.

A car accident happened in the Dallas-Ft.Worth area.

This is a recorded phone call from a man who witnessed the accident involving four elderly women. It was so popular when they played it on the local radio station the station decided to put it on their website.

Next up, and while the following articles are several days old they are by no means historical,

Nearly two dozen illegal immigrants were arrested Wednesday, accused of using fake security badges to work in critical areas of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, including the tarmac, authorities said.

The 23 illegal workers were employed by Ideal Staffing Solutions Inc., whose corporate secretary and office manager also were arrested after an eight-month investigation that involved federal, state and Chicago authorities.

The company contracted work for carriers including UAL Corp.’s (UAUA) United Airlines, KLM and Qantas Airways Ltd. (QAN.AU), said Elissa A. Brown, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

“The investigation identifies a vulnerability that could compromise national security, while bringing criminal charges against individuals who built an illegal work force into their business practice,” Brown said.

Read the entire article here.

As if that weren’t enough,

The Transportation Security Administration touts its programs to ensure security by using undercover operatives to test its airport screeners. In one instance, however, the agency thwarted such a test by alerting screeners across the country that it was under way, even providing descriptions of the undercover agents.

The government routinely runs covert tests at airports to ensure that security measures in place are sufficient to stop a terrorist from bringing something dangerous onto an airplane.
Alerting screeners when the undercover officer is coming through and what the person looks like would defeat the purpose.

But that’s exactly what happened April 28, 2006, according to an e-mail from a top TSA official who oversees security operations.

This one’s a real winner, read on…

On the one hand, we have airports hiring HR contractors who make a practice of endangering the lives of scores, hundreds or thousands of people and on the other, the government agency responsible for U.S. airport security is rigging security inspections to make it appear that they are doing their job.

No matter how much effort I put into it, I can’t find even the slightest hint of justification for the above two situations. Does this make me a bad person?

Some people definitely need to be punished to the fullest extent that the law allows, some people need to be replaced and some people need to be majorly retrained….

…defines, in this column, the true source of the “War On Children”.

Put as succinctly as this, any logic blessed American voter reading the column should stop and ponder:

1. Why aren’t the Democrats in Congress thinking about the future their social programs will leave to “the children”, who will grow up to be tax-paying adults? Why do they attempt to emulate failed European policies while ignoring the negative results of same?

Could it be that they’re only concerned with the politics of the now rather than the realities of the future?

2. Assuming they are concerned about the future of our country and about “the children”, is this simply a case of the Democrats being incapable of assessing the down-the-road ramifications of policies they set today?

Are political leaders who lack even an iota of perspicacity qualified to lead the country?

The United States of America is a perpetually ongoing concept, yet the Democrats treat it as though it is a political Busy Box whose attention span needs only to extend from one Election Day to the next.

If the Democrats feel the need to invoke “the children”, they need look no further for invokees than those occupying seats to the left of the aisle.

…that I didn’t like.

Well in time for Labor Day, he gives us the true history of the holiday, whom it was intended to honor and what it has become.

Spot-on column!

Every once in awhile you run across a column that is as direct and unwaveringly on target as a solid punch in the gut. A column that presents the truth about its subject in a brief but all-encompassing summation.

While catching up on my reading, I ran across a column by David Limbaugh in the weekend edition of Jewish World Review that is every inch that kind of column.

The 2008 election is shaping up to be one of the most important in decades. With every passing day we are seeing a greater contrast between the Democratic Party platform and the national interest — as witnessed by the positions of the leading Democratic presidential candidates in their debates.

Indeed, the unpopularity of the war in Iraq has fueled a remarkable boldness by these candidates in bringing their liberalism out of the closet. Whether the candidates are sincere in advocating some of their radical positions or merely sucking up to the various interest groups, they are parading their extremism on national television.

I think it’s a little bit of both, myself. There are some people on the left side of the aisle who regularly say some pretty “out there” things that no one with a rational mind would ever utter in a public forum.

The Democrats rail against lobbying, as if to suggest they abhor special interest politics and the undue influence of these interests on policymakers. Yet they are nothing if not beholden to a collection of special interest groups, from labor unions, to gay activists, to race-baiting civil rights leaders, to illegal immigrants, to feminists, to global warming alarmists to antiwar, antimilitary groups to outright class-warfare-waging socialists.

Had Mr. Limbaugh delivered the last in a speech, I could see myself jumping up, applauding vigorousy and shouting “Bravo!”

What he put in that single paragraph sums up the reason I believe that in November, 2008 the GOP will enjoy the same kind of election victory the Democrats did last November, along with a new Republican in the White House. The intense political storm that raged around the recent ill fated (for the left) immigration “reform” bill energized The People and caused our collective will to be exercized upon and by those who represent us in Congress, and the end result is that now, more Americans are watching and listening. It has become plain that this irresponsible, left-dominated Congress cannot be left to its own devices.

It will not take anyone with a doctorate, or even a GED for that matter, to realize where the Democrats want to take us, once The People have begun listening to their “message”, and to vote accordingly.

Read the entire column here.

…that arrived as an email forward, this one attributed to one of my favorite sons of the south, one long haired country boy whom they’d better leave alone.

I don’t know how everybody else feels about it, but to me I think Hispanic people in this country, legally or illegally, made a huge public relations mistake with their recent demonstrations.

I don’t blame anybody in the world for wanting to come to the
United States of America , as it is a truly wonderful place.

But when the first thing you do when you set foot on American soil is illegal it is flat out wrong and I don’t care how many lala land left heads come out of the woodwork and start trying to give me sensitivity lessons.

I don’t need sensitivity lessons, in fact I don’t have any-thing against Mexicans! I just have something against criminals and anybody who comes into this country illegally is a criminal and if you don’t believe it try coming into America from a foreign country without a passport and see how far you get.

What disturbs me about the demonstrations is that it’s tanta-mount to saying, “I am going to come into your country even if it means breaking your laws and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

It’s an “in your face” action and speaking just for me, I don’t like it one little bit and if there were a half dozen pairs of gonads in Washington bigger than English peas it wouldn’t be happening.

Where are you, you bunch of lily livered, pantywaist, forked tongued, sorry excuses for defenders of The Constitution? Have you been drinking the water out of the Potomac again?

And even if you pass a bill on immigration it will probably be so pork laden and watered down that it won’t mean anything anyway Besides, what good is another law going to do when you
won’t enforce the ones on the books now?

And what ever happened to the polls, guys? I thought you folks were the quintessential finger wetters. Well you sure ain’t paying any attention to the polls this time because somewhere around eighty percent of Americans want some thing done about this mess, and mess it is and getting bigger everyday.

This is no longer a problem, it is a dilemma and headed for being a tragedy. Do you honestly think that what happened in France with the Muslims can’t happen here when the businesses who hire these people finally run out of jobs and a few million disillusioned Hispanics take to the streets?

If you, Mr. President, Congressmen and Senators, knuckle under on this and refuse to do something meaningful it means that you care nothing for the kind of country your children and grand-children will inherit. But I guess that doesn’t matter as long as you get re-elected.
Shame on you.

One of the big problems in America today is that if you have the nerve to say anything derogatory about any group of people (except Christians) you are going to be screamed at by the media and called a racist, a bigot and anything else they can think of to call you

Well I’ve been pounded by the media before and I’m still rockin’ and rollin’ and when it comes to speaking the truth I fear not.

And the truth is that the gutless, gonadless, milksop politicians are just about to sell out the United States of America because they don’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to face reality.

And reality is that we would never allow any other group of people to have 12 million illegal in this country and turn around and say, “Oh it’s ok, ya’ll can stay here if you’ll just allow us to slap your wrist.”

And I know that some of you who read this column are saying “Well what’s wrong with that?”

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it. These people could be from Mars as far as we know. We don’t know who they are, where they are or what they’re up to and the way the Congress is going we’re not going to.

Does this make sense? Labor force you say? We already subsidize corporate agriculture as it is, must we subsidize their labor as well?

If these people were from Haiti would we be so fast to turn a blind eye to them or if they were from Somalia or Afghanistan ?

I think not.

All the media shows us are pictures of hard working Hispanics who have crossed the border just to try to better their life.

They don’t show you pictures of the Feds rounding up members of MS 13, the violent gang who came across the same way the decent folks did. They don’t tell you about the living conditions of the Mexican illegal some fat cat hired to pick his crop.

I want to make two predictions.

No. 1: This situation is going to grow and fester until it erupts in violence on our streets while the wimps in Washington drag their toes in the dirt and try to figure how many tons of political hay they can make to the acre.

No 2: Somebody is going to cross that border with some kind of weapon of mass destruction and set it off in a major American city after which there will be a backlash such as this country has never experienced and the Capitol building in Washington will probably tilt as Congressmen and Senators rush to the other side of the issue.

I don’t know about you but I would love to see just one major politician stand up and say, “I don’t care who I make mad and I don’t care how many votes I lose, this is a desperate situation and I’m going to lead the fight to get it straightened out.”

I don’t blame anybody for wanting to come to America , but if you don’t respect our immigration laws why should you respect any others?

And by the way, this is America and our flag has stars and stripes Please get that other one out of my face.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

H/T Brenda.

Actually, there is one fellow in Congress who does speak his piece, no holds barred and, unlike the three Republican “front-runners” in the Presidential race (Romney, Giuliani and RINO McCain) favored by the uninformed, the indifferent and the obtuse, doesn’t waffle on issues according to prevailing political winds, and embraces strong conservative views on all issues and he, too, is running for President. His name is Tom Tancredo.