….but acknowledging a reality I never thought I’d live to witness in this great nation;

I first want to thank Mrs. Wolf, along with her big bad husband and our good friend Chuck for holding the fort here in my absence — especially Mrs. Wolf who has put in such an effort for so long….

However, while I have been out of the mainstream as well as away from the blog for so long — I still have a few issues to contend with before I can return, though as far as Hard Astarboard is concerned, I don’t know exactly to what, though, again, possibly not politics as I see little point in playing against a stacked deck, which is what the United States of America has become, and blatantly so.

I spent a couple of days in New York recently and in walking around Manhattan found it rather depressing.

A few examples:

Yesterday’s immigrants, largely from east Asia and Europe, came over, assimilated into our society and contributed to the whole as new Americans, leaving their own legacies while becoming, as we say, “Americanized”.

Today’s crop, however, seems to come entirely from third world shitholes with little if any concern about becoming Americans. Rather, they bring said third world shitholes over here with them and this baggage they bring becomes the new American standard.

Sub Saharan Africans line the sidewalks, even in front of large established department stores, with stands purveying cheap knock-offs, others appear like magic right as rain begins to fall and sell cheap umbrellas that fall apart as soon as a slight breeze strikes them, so inevitably as one walks along one sees every corner trash receptacle overflowing with broken umbrellas in every level of disrepair. Still others illegally sell counterfeit watches (hundreds of them out there doing it daily from Canal Street all the way through midtown Manhattan), posting lookouts to warn them of approaching police officers. Hundreds of others run tables selling the same cheap items, from wallets to cell phone cases to scarves to gloves to who knows what all…

Jihadi wagons (those eyesore, unsanitarily maintained stainless steel “Hallal” food carts, many with a Muslim inside, many with one on the sidewalk in front of a grill) are virtually everywhere, all but underscoring the number of legitimate restaurants, cafes and diners, sometimes as many as four or five along one side of a block and the numbers keep growing, as though there’s no limit to how many can be out there to compete with regular eateries.

Most of the smaller retail businesses you go into are staffed by people who have no concept of that great American tradition known as Customer Service, nor have they any clue about the concept of product knowledge. All they know is how much an item costs.

You go into a stall in a public restroom, and you can rest assured that if some brownskinned guy from a third world shithole is coming out, he has just finished urinating without lifting the seat and hasn’t bothered flushing the commode, either.

The modern New York cab driver is a Muslim from one or another of those Third World shitholes (many even wear shalwar kamiz, the outfits seen in Pakistan and Afghanistan consisting of a long, loose shirt falling low over loose fitting pants — Wolf tells me that before he retired from service, he had occasion to punch a few holes in some shalwar kameez from time to time) who, despite a legal condition of a hack license being that he takes a fare wherever said fare wants to go in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx or Brooklyn, tends to make a potential fare stand there, hat in hand, and say where he or she wishes to go before getting in the cab and if the driver doesn’t see the trip as revenue advantageous, he turns down the fare.

So now those same New York liberals who so fight to force multiculturalism on us have accepted the fact that now they have to stand there like sheep and hope a cabbie will agree to take them where they want to go.

Since it’s an illegal practice, many cabbies keep their “off duty” light on so they can say “I was off duty — if they wanted to go in the direction I was going, I could have taken them.”

This is multiculturalism in action.

While these barely civilized third world shitholers are being imported in droves, men and women from countries whose natives are infinitely more compatible with our sensibilities, our culture and our sanitary standards have to jump through hoops for the opportunity to live in America.

What a concept! Thank you so much, liberals.

Of course, this is all just cosmetic where the real problems we’re having are concerned; the real problem is that while Constitutionally, the federal government isn’t supposed to have the power to stomp our economy into the ground and spit on it or to micromanage our lives, they are doing a great job of both nonetheless. They are screwing us royally, without even a kiss, while feathering their own nests at our expense.

For some time, the far left has been firmly in charge of the media, our education establishment, American labor and the U.S. government, and in the latter case they’ve had a whole lot of help from those whores we conservatives have been electing to represent us in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

That’s right, whores.

The so-called “Republicans” have sold us out. Last time out, they used the Tea Party movement to advance themselves, then turned around and started denouncing those true patriots when they didn’t need them anymore.

As Mrs Wolf pointed out recently, prior to that, we had six years of a Republican presidency underlined by Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate…

…and our country STILL moved steadily to the left.

Meanwhile, our children are being dumbed down by the left-controlled education system that turns out a product that seems to have no concept as to political reality, who’d probably tell you Kathleen Sibelius is a long deceased famous composer and Joe Biden used to be the Tidy Bowl Man (actually, that has possibilities…). They’re voting irresponsibly, based on malarkey generated by a propagandizing mainstream media that, if there were any justice and the First Amendment notwithstanding, would be mass-prosecuted for treason.

But somewhere along the bottom line, that’s neither here nor there;

What is, is the fact that we’ve become a country of sheep, our politicians, who were supposed to be serving us, our shepherds. They enact unconstitutional laws and we tolerate them, they vote themselves (again unconstitutionally) health care and retirement and now Obama’s given them and the rest of the government an opening to get still more compensation… a bribe to vote his way, which you know they’ll accept in a heartbeat.

Slowly stripping our freedoms and raising taxes until…what? The 75% Gray Monk informed us in his comment to Mrs. Wolf’s last post that the French are now subject to? Will they not stop before America dies from an Overdose of Redistribution?

Yet throughout all this, our inboxes fill up with urgings from various “conservative” politicians, the GOP and a whole gaggle of Republican PACS to donate money so they can “continue to fight for the cause“.

What cause is that, exactly? Or better, whose cause?

It’s no conservative’s cause that I know of, in fact flushing our money down the commode would probably do more for any conservative cause than sending it to those RINOs in Washington.

They’re not using the money for any proactive results that I can see, yet it’s getting spent.

I’ve reached the point, in fact, where I’m about to mark every single email that comes in from any politicians, PACs or the GOP as Spam, because anything they say is pure bullshit.

They make a lot of conservative noises and, as Mrs Wolf puts it, rattle their sabers, and that’s all they do, as the country lists farther and farther to port.

Meanwhile, in New York there are more and more cops on the street along with some patrolling in unmarked black vans dressed in combat gear and armed with M4 assault weapons like those carried by our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan — these guys will stop and deploy for no known reason at some point in front of a store or along a stretch of sidewalk, just to be seen… to get citizens accustomed to seeing a military or paramilitary presence in the course of the day, as we see National Guardsmen in Penn and Grand Central Stations on a daily basis now.

Is eventual Martial Law on the table now, as well?

All I see is the end of a great nation, sold down the river by the same self seeking politicians who so falsely purport to be American patriots.

So, while we’re not throwing in the towel just yet, neither are we going to concern ourselves with the politics of the day as enacted by the whores we’ve elected to enact them.

When I eventually return to full time blogging, I may go to topics other than politics, because the more we here at Hard Astarboard post from our conservative political point of view, the more we feel as though we’re flogging a dead horse.

I believe the writing was on the wall when Barack Obama was reelected. America as we longingly remember her, the Constitution we so love and the morality that once underlined American thought have all gone by the wayside, kicked unceremoniously aside by the very system that once supported them as the system was corrupted and bastardized from within by the far left, abetted by and with the spinelessly treasonous cooperation of a gaggle of whores masquerading as Republican Party politicians.

Every last one of those sniveling RINO toilet cakes, from Boehner on down, should be hung as traitors from the nearest lamp post.

So while Hard Astarboard will remain, we will put the fickle, defeatist politics of the GOP on the back burner and hope that somewhere in the future, with any luck in our lifetimes, those elected to give voice to the conservative viewpoint in the governing of the United States will once again be issued spines, pride in America as it was in the days of our youths and some semblance of patriotism….

As we know, this is Memorial Day weekend.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead” Duke University’s (Source: Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860’s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

Those who gave their all.

General John A. Logan
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [LC-B8172- 6403 DLC (b&w film neg.)]

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

In 1915, inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields,” Moina Michael replied with her own poem:

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.

Let us remember our fallen heroes, the members of our military forces who, throughout the history of our great nation, have laid down their lives so the rest of us can live in freedom.

From Patriot Update:

Americans for Limited Government opens their new viral hit with a simple line, “If I wanted America to fail …”

From there, the video recounts a number of disastrous energy policies currently being pursued by our government which are stifling growth and hampering the economy.

From smothering entrepreneurship under pages of red tape, to throwing good money after bad on unproven green energy companies, it’s clear this Administration’s energy policies have failed and, as the video above suggests, are working against America’s best interests.

This is an excellent video, a little over 4 1/2 minutes and surprise, surprise, “if I wanted America to fail” bears a striking resemblance, in every respect, to the policies of a certain (ah hem!) incumbent president…

The Video.

…What have we here?

On November 8, 2006, Nancy Pelosi, on the precipice of becoming the third most important public official in our government, uttered the now infamous words that will prove to define her tenure as Speaker of the House:

“The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history…”

When you read that today knowing what’s happened in the last three years, you might not know whether to laugh or feel appalled. You have your garden variety scandals at the hands of Eric Massa, Charlie Rangel & Maxine Waters, but what’s more, the complete disregard for the voters’ voices by the very people who promised to lead an honest and transparent Congress: Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Congressional Democrats’ actions have been devastating to our economy, healthcare, and most important, the civil discourse in the United States. You thought you couldn’t take anymore head-scratching, face-palming comments from the very people whose salaries you pay? You are sadly mistaken.

Read on.

Meanwhile, Rep. John Shadegg is once again trying to persuade his fellow representatives to do the right thing.

A Republican congressman says all bills introduced in Congress should include a statement setting forth the specific constitutional authority under which a law is being enacted.

Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) says his Enumerated Powers Act will force Congress to re-examine the role of the national government and curb its “ever-expanding reach.”

“For too long, the federal government has operated without Constitutional restraint, creating ineffective and costly programs and massive deficits year after year,” Shadegg writes on AmericaSpeakingOut, a Republican Web site that seeks ideas from the American people.

Shadegg says the trend of Congress overstepping its role has gotten “alarmingly worse” in the past 18 months.

As CNSNews.com has reported, some lawmakers apparently do not consider the Constitution in writing legislation.

In the debate over health care, for example, CNSNews.com asked various members of Congress — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — “Where does the Constitution authorize Congress to force individuals buy health insurance?”

Pelosi’s response — “Are you serious? Are you serious?” — was one of many nonplussed answers CNSNews.com received.

Indeed, who would expect today’s Democrats, especially under the perverse, corrupt and treasonous leadership of Komrade Pelosi, to even consider applying the appropriate Constitutional authority to any bill? If the party presently holding the majority in Congress were held to Constitutional requirements, all we’d hear from that side of the aisle would be crickets chirping.

The question is, when the GOP regains its majority or at least wins enough seats for more even voting power this November, will they be willing to adopt Shadegg’s proposal as a requisite to voting on all bills in Congress?

It was their lackluster performance that lost them the majority in the 2006 elections, so…

Time, as they say, will tell. Time, however, is something our beloved republic, as we know it, seems to have developed a paucity of.

Liberals always accuse conservatives of “playing politics” when we point out the unconstitutionality of so much of their legislation.

Does this mean that if John Q. Citizen breaks the law and a cop arrests him for it, he can accuse the cop of “playing politics”?

Same difference.

…of the political equation to take a step back and a deep breath, and try and consider what the ongoing snowballing polarization is doing. In essence, it’s shaking our great nation apart.

Seth here.

I’ve had almost no time to spend, of late, on-line and even now I’m making a quick stop because I believe that this has to be said.

The battle between the left and the right has gotten so extreme on both sides that the only losers are the American people. That’s right, We, the People.

It’s true that the current recession can be laid mostly at the feet of our left-dominated House and Senate, the “groundwork” for disaster having begun when they took over the majorities in January, 2007, and our “esteemed” president, B. Hussein Obama. Where the first two are concerned, however, whose fault is it that the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were able to become the leaders of the houses on the Hill?

Answer: A fat, complacent, self serving collection of Republican senators and representatives whose only priorities revolved around keeping themselves in office, career politicians who couldn’t give a good goddamn about the American people or their own conservative voter base, only about their own benefits, perks and continued jobs in a field that was never even meant to be a career path.

What we have now is a no-holds-barred street fight, totally devoid of even an iota of honor or human decency, between the Democrats and the Republicans, all politics, all the time.

We, the People are nothing to any of them but collateral damage, at apparently “acceptable” numbers, as the fight for political victory rages on.

The American people have already begun to demonstrate dissatisfaction with this state of affairs, in the sheer volume of Tea Party support, the moves to block incumbent Hill critters from running for reelection on both sides of the aisle and enough browbeating of same to move numerous Democrats to oppose the “sunsetting” of the Bush tax cuts.

Unfortunately, the elected combatants are still going full steam ahead. The American People? Who are they?

This country was founded (see the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution) on the principle of the people controlling the government, not the government controlling the people. Our founding fathers spilled a lot of blood to evict the concept of royalty from our shores…

…yet here we are, once again under the control of royalty, people we’ve elected who have somehow seen their election and/or reelection as mandates to decide for us what the Constitution says is ours to decide, to enact laws that are blatantly contrary to the letter of the Constitution, to go to war with each other, for self serving political purposes, at the public’s expense.

Case in point: Obama’s destructive economic policies, preceded by a whole passel of stealthy and not so stealthy bills pushed on us by Pelosi/Reid Enterprises have been responsible, in major share, for what? Not only a national debt now topping thirteen trillion, two hundred forty billion smackers, but around twenty five million unemployed.

The Democrats want to extend unemployment benefits, the Republicans do not.

“Where are we going to get the money!?” They demand.

Well, this is that case in point.

The people did not spend us into that thirteen trillion dollar debt, the government did, a government that, as I said earlier, has not been doing its job and listening to the people.

Millions of those who have become unemployed are undoubtedly people who didn’t even vote for Democrats.

I read all the time about Republicans and conservatives (there is a difference) protesting the extension of these benefits. Somehow, I doubt that those who do are unemployed and struggling to survive in the recession our government hath wrought.

Which is where I’m coming from with this.

The government interfered in the private sector, and caused this mess.

To the man on the street who’s trying to keep his roof over his head, eat and pay his bills to the best of his ability while he busts his touchas trying to find a new job, it’s not the Democrats or the Republicans who caused this recession, it’s The Government.

Period.

The Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, filibuster against the extension. Why?

Not because “we can’t afford it”, which we can’t, but we couldn’t afford the “stimulus” and, as we’ll soon find, we won’t be able to afford Obamacare, either, but because the more suffering Americans go through under the Democrats now, the better chances the Republicans will have to win back more seats in the next election.

Pure and simple.

Screw the people, win the politics.

The government, party responsibility aside, caused the problems these people now face, the government can’t simply leave them in the lurch.

The United States Government is supposed to be one government, not a shopping mall of political special interests. If the people serving in elected office can’t understand that and start governing like responsible adults, perhaps it’s time we got rid of the whole bunch of them, good, bad or indifferent, and started from scratch.

For the first 200 years, while there was a lot of opposition between the two parties, our government managed to conduct itself in a mature, adult manner and get things done pretty much proactively. Of course, this was when politicians placed America and Americans first.

Now, we no longer have a government, we have a political Tower of Babel.

If we don’t step back from the partisan firing line very soon and start remembering that both parties are still supposed to be part of the same government, serving the same electorate, the United States will fast become a part of history.

This will likely be the last post for a bit, as I am going on a trip and Seth has not yet returned, and Wolf is also indisposed.

That said, as we enter Independence Day weekend, we would like to leave you with a 4th of July Op-Ed by a spot-on columnist and a man who knows what being a conservative and a real American is all about, Greg Crosby.

Happy 234th birthday to America! The Fourth of July is the celebration of our nation’s birth, of course, but it’s also an ideal time to reflect on what our country is all about. A good place to start would be the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence specifically mentions three unalienable rights which human beings possess by birth and by their Creator - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nobody can deny us these things, no one. And since they are “unalienable,” we cannot rightfully surrender them either…

…Read on…

See you when we get back.

Seth, Wolf, Chuck.

America is this blog’s first love.

Over two centuries ago, we took this great piece of real estate away from the Brits, who have since then become not only the cousins they were, but the friends they are.

What better tribute than a live video of a 1970s song from a British rock band, a version its original composer, American Paul Simon, complimented guitarist Steve Howe on this version of?

So,

AMERICA.

…. my next post was going to be my book review, but I’ve run into something else in the meantime… A particuar idol of mine, Julia Gorin, has some really great stuff, we’re talking rare patriotic comedy (that’s right, rare — most of today’s comedy seems to come from the far left — not just the left, mind you, but the far left).

Here, we see some education in progress.

Julia is the hot, cute, dark haired woman.

Moving right along, let’s think about programs like The View, or whatever that show is, that allows a treasonous, tongue-in-something other than cheek kind of gal to make treasonous statements against our government and honor an equally treasonous, leftist midget to the point that they allow him to come on the air drunk out of his mind and demean our country.

Here is Julia’s response to that one , and even though one of the only two hats I ever wear is a ball cap that says: Animals: It’s what’s for dinner, that hat goes off to her.

From the awesome Julia Gorin

There are 3 Frenchman in the world whom I respect, one I know personally and two I have never met, one of those latter of whom I would like to meet.

This one is a blogger I’ve mentioned before, one of my all-time favorites who, for reasons of which I have no idea as it is a loss, rarely posts anymore, and more’s the pity because he is infinitely more a friend to America and the principles that make it great than the entire spectrum of American liberals.

Due to 4th of July activities, I only just saw his new post, and it is a wonderful Independence Day flash video tribute to America.

Thank You, Frogman!