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.

Ha ha! And ha!

Actually, it’s more pitiful criminal than amusing. Criminal with just a hint of treason, but then whoever (except the Democrats, that is) said the party on the left side of the aisle cared about “the means” when it comes to achieving “the end”?

An investigative report from a media watchdog group reveals that the left is involved in a systematic strategy to undermine the ability of election officials to effectively manage elections and prevent voter fraud.

As previously reported on OneNewsNow, Accuracy in Media (AIM) has published a report that exposes the history, current tactics, and implications of left-wing voter fraud and intimidation. “The Left’s National Vote Fraud Strategy Exposed” reveals a “deliberate, premeditated, comprehensive plan to win the 2012 presidential election at all costs.”

James Simpson was commissioned by AIM to author the special report. He says vote fraud is widespread and typically occurs in areas where the enticers can get away with it — places like inner-cities where few people care to venture.

“They do whatever they want, and what they want to do is stuff the ballots,” he explains.

Simpson alleges another tactic involves flooding polling places with fraudulent voter registrations, as the controversial group ACORN has done in past elections.

“They created chaos in the local electoral offices by swamping them with huge numbers of registrations,” he reports. “And, of course, when they’re so overwhelmed with all that, it’s kind of hard to keep track of who of these registrants is a legitimate real voter and who isn’t.”

According to Simpson, two Democrats recently caught in a vote fraud scandal told police that “voter fraud is an accepted way of winning elections.”

Like it or not, this kind of thing constitutes attempting to tamper with our electoral system and that, in turn, is an attempt to illegally shape the leadership of this nation and that, in turn, has got to be some kind of treason.

On the other hand I did say, “but then whoever (except the Democrats, that is) said the party on the left side of the aisle cared about “the means” when it comes to achieving “the end”?

Ahem….

Of course, as we know, honesty is the best policy

Obama Denounces Republicans For “Bamboozling Folks” Into Thinking He’s a Big-Spender

Bamboozling folks? Even the left-leaning Politifact labelled him the “undisputed debt king” of the last five presidents.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — At a fundraiser for his re-election campaign in Denver tonight, President Obama set out to upend conventional Republican wisdom that his administration has been defined by excessive government spending.

“I’m running to pay down our debt in a way that’s balanced and responsible. After inheriting a $1 trillion deficit, I signed $2 trillion of spending cuts into law,” he told a crowd of donors at the Hyatt Regency. “My opponent won’t admit it, but it’s starting to appear in places, like real liberal outlets, like the Wall Street Journal: Since I’ve been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years. Think about that.”

Continue Reading on weaselzippers.us …

“Aw, leave Obama alone,” you say, shaking your head, “Anyone who doesn’t believe every lie that comes out of his head and support his reelection is obviously a racist!”

Tuesday night, Barack Obama was handed two more embarrassing near-defeats in the Democratic primaries held in Arkansas and Kentucky. In the Arkansas primary, challenger John Wolfe won nearly 42% of the vote, and in Kentucky 42% of Democrats selected “uncommitted” over President Obama. So far, four states — AR, KY, WV, and OK — have given over 40% of their primary vote to someone other than Barack Obama. All of these races were closed primaries, meaning that only Democrats were eligible to vote in them.

If this kind of inter-party rebellion had struck a Republican presidential incumbent (and I’m specifically thinking of George W. Bush) it would be the lead story on every cable news network, and an above-the-fold front page story on every major newspaper for the remainder of the week. Yet it barely gets mentioned these days, with the exception of this curious headline from the Washington Post: “Kentucky, Arkansas primaries: Is it racism?”

Ha-ha. And by the way, have you stopped beating your wife yet?

Naturally the article brings up the infamous “Bigot Belt” graphic that showed Redneckland to be the only area of the nation that rejected Barack Obama outright in 2008. Certainly it wasn’t Obama’s elitism, or his anti-Americanism, or his sleazy Chicago cronies, or his youthful infatuation with cocaine and Marxist professors, or his long-time association with a radical domestic terrorist, or his membership in a church led by one of the most inflammatory Black separatist pastors in the country. Nah, it couldn’t possibly be any of those things that disinterested voters in the South. It must be because he is half African. Because that’s all we ever think about down here.

You know what? I’m actually kinda proud of that map. Seems we Okies ain’t as dumb as they think we is.

Thanks for that one from Wiz Bang.

Hmph! All this talk about dishonesty coming forth in the same breath as liberals and their useful Democrat idiots…

On the subject of the liberal conception of honesty, there’s some very timely commentary here from Ann Coulter.

Figures don’t lie: Democrats do

It’s been breaking news all over MSNBC, liberal blogs, newspapers and even The Wall Street Journal: “Federal spending under Obama at historic lows … It’s clear that Obama has been the most fiscally moderate president we’ve had in 60 years.” There’s even a chart!

I’ll pause here to give you a moment to mop up the coffee on your keyboard. Good? OK, moving on …

This shocker led to around-the-clock smirk fests on MSNBC. As with all bogus social science from the left, liberals hide the numbers and proclaim: It’s “science”! This is black and white, inarguable, and why do Republicans refuse to believe facts?

Ed Schultz claimed the chart exposed “the big myth” about Obama’s spending: “This chart — the truth — very clearly shows the truth undoubtedly.” And the truth was, the “growth in spending under President Obama is the slowest out of the last five presidents.”

Don’t stop there, keep reading…

Later.

I know, that’s a terrible thing to say about our president, but let’s face it, this gentleman sitting incumbently in the Oval Office is rare…unique…singularly individual in nearly every way among U.S. presidents: He is the antithesis of what the leader of our country is supposed to be. All that he stands for is in direct opposition to that which the founders of this nation employed as the building blocks of our great and free society.

There were reasons why the U.S. Constitution was written as it was, and two subsequent centuries of adherence to that document made America THE nation among nations, a prosperous, powerful and free nation to which people from all over came, often at peril and hardship, to enjoy the liberty, the opportunities presented to build a good future, to worship and opine according to ones beliefs without hindrance from oppressive, micromanaging government…

This is the country that opposed communism and stood by those around the world who were willing to put their lives on the line for freedom…

And until now, with perhaps the exception of the peanut farmer in the late 1970s whose name we won’t mention (though even he wasn’t as offensive to patriotic American sensibilities as the subject of this post), U.S. presidents have shown themselves to be….well, Americans.

Today we have Barack Hussein Obama, whose every philosophy, political, moral, you name it seems to be the direct opposite of our former chief executives.

This man is so profoundly opposite what a President of the United States is supposed to be that even a lot of members of his own party are becoming disgusted with him.

Sure, you’ve got your basic die hard kommies “progressives” who see Obama as a messiah and who either believe (as anti-American as it may seem), as he does or are just so commited to having a left winger in the White House that they’ll support any lie, accuse anyone telling a negative truth about the president’s policies of being a racist, a fascist, a Christian right winger, whatever it takes to ignore the truth and strive to keep their icon in office.

The mainstream media is the same way.

Unfortunately, there are apparently quite a few Dewmocrats out there who, like us right thinkers, have had a bellyfull of this president dragging down the country, demeaning America under the guise of trying to “save” it, and, well…

From FOX News

Four in ten Democratic voters chose someone other than President Obama on Tuesday in primaries in Arkansas and Kentucky.

In Arkansas, John Wolfe — a perennial, long-shot candidate — took 41 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, with 71 percent of precincts reporting. Obama came in just under 60 percent. The Associated Press did not call the race for Obama until close to midnight.

And in Kentucky, 42 percent of Democrats chose “uncommitted” rather than cast a vote for the incumbent president. Obama took 58 percent, with 99 percent of precincts reporting.

SNIP!

When you have a failed president on your hands and a re-election just a little over five months away, it’s easy to panic and rationalize and do everything you can to convince yourself the problem isn’t your candidate but instead anything and everyone else. After a Texas inmate took close to 42% of the primary vote against Obama in West Virginia a couple weeks ago, desperate Democrats screamed racism at their own. Last night, Obama was humiliated by similar numbers in both Arkansas and Kentucky, a trend so troubling that even the Washington Post is looking beyond race but not at the President’s real problem: a lack of enthusiasm in his own party:

It’s pretty obvious that the media is desperate to avoid narratives surrounding Obama’s glaring problems with his base. After all, with the economy going in the wrong direction and all the very public Bain Capital rebellion (the centerpiece of Obama’s re-election strategy) from his very , Obama has enough problems.

But the media covering up this narrative doesn’t mean it’s not playing out in real time in the real world. Obama’s sole focus has been on securing his base for weeks now and a large number of self-identified Democrats are obviously eager to register their unhappiness with their candidate. The media ignoring how serious this all is doesn’t mean it’s not serious. And if Obama had an “R” after his name, you can bet these primary showings would create the narrative of his candidacy, at least throughout the summer.

The media might not be able to dismiss reality forever though. Should unknowns and “uncommitted” continue to do well in the upcoming primaries, the media might find it has no choice but to start talking about a sitting President who’s looking like a loser.

Let’s hope he’s more than looking like a loser, this country simply cannot afford four more years of Obama. If the smarter and more reality aware members of his own party “sit this one out” or vote for someone else, and it helps old Barack Hussein lose this November’s election, well…

What’s bad for Obama will be good for America.

Y’know, it’s truly becoming tiresome that virtually every single day when one reads of news and current events someplace (other, of course, than the liberal media), there is unfailingly at least one item about something else the administration of Barack Hussein Obama is doing or saying that goes against the Constitution or is otherwise a threat of some kind to the U.S. economy, our national sovereignty, our country’s morality, our national security, sound foreign policy or something… always something, every day…

This time, it’s back to an issue best left to dry up and blow away.

Morning Bell: The Danger of Article 82 and Obama’s Latest Treaty

Back in 1982, President Ronald Reagan decided not to sign a treaty known as “Law of the Sea” (LOST), a United Nations convention that would raid America’s treasury for billions of dollars, then redistribute that wealth to the rest of the world by an international bureaucracy headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica. But today, the Obama Administration has revived that treaty, and tomorrow Senator John Kerry (D-MA) will hold hearings designed to illustrate its supposed benefits and generate support for its ratification. Without a doubt, Reagan’s decision should stand, and LOST should remain relegated to the trash bin of history.

The rationale for LOST is that it supposedly brings order to the world’s oceans, defines the rights and responsibilities of nations as they navigate and conduct business across the seas, protects the marine environment, and allows for the development of natural resources of the deep seabed. On the surface, these all sound like worthwhile goals. The thing is, the United States doesn’t need to join another United Nations treaty to make it happen.

For more than 200 years before LOST was adopted in 1982 and for 30 years since then, the U.S. Navy has successfully protected America’s maritime interests regardless of the fact that the United States has not signed on to the treaty. The United States’ navigational rights and freedoms have been secure, and they are best guaranteed by a strong Navy.

But of course, for some reason fathomable only to the left, America’s sovereignty is low on any priority lists and treasure rightly belonging to us needs to be divided with every tinpot dictatorship and all others the United nations sees fit to distribute the hard earned dollars of the U.S. taxpayer among.

They also seem to believe that it is in our best interests to allow other countries to come in and tell us how to conduct the business of the United States of America.

We need none of that.

LOST is not without consequences, either. One of the more nefarious and insidious of its provisions is Article 82, which requires the United States to forfeit royalties generated from oil and gas development on the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles – an area known as the “extended continental shelf.” That money, which one estimate says could be worth many billions, if not trillions of dollars, would go to the International Seabed Authority, a new international bureaucracy created by the treaty and based in Jamaica. Heritage’s Steven Groves explains that from there, America’s money could be shipped to the Middle East, Africa, China, and even state sponsors of terror:

LOST directs that the revenue be distributed to “developing States” (such as Somalia, Burma … you get the picture) and “peoples who have not attained full independence” (such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization … hey, don’t they sponsor terrorism?). The assembly – the “supreme organ” of the International Seabed Authority in which the United States has a single vote to cast – has the final say regarding the distribution of America’s transmogrified “international” royalties.

The assembly may vote to distribute royalties to undemocratic, despotic or brutal governments in Belarus, China or Zimbabwe – all members of LOST. Perhaps those dollars will go to regimes that are merely corrupt; 13 of the world’s 20 most corrupt nations, according to Transparency International, are parties to LOST. Even Cuba and Sudan, both considered state sponsors of terrorism, could receive dollars fresh from the U.S. Treasury.

Continuing:

In addition to shipping America’s money overseas to unsavory recipients, LOST could have other negative consequences, as well, by exposing U.S. industry and manufacturing to baseless international lawsuits. In fact, environmental activists and international legal academics are actively exploring the potential of using international litigation against the United States to advance their agendas. And for those who say LOST is a tool for mediating international disputes, take a look at the Philippines, which signed on to the treaty and yet today is finding itself browbeaten by China and its claims in the South China Sea.

If America truly wants to preserve its rights on the sea, then it needs to bolster the one tool that has guaranteed those rights throughout history — a strong U.S. Navy. Unfortunately, under President Obama’s watch, the United States is seeing its fleet diminished in size and ability. A lone piece of paper will not defend America’s interests on the sea, and neither will transferring billions of dollars to an international authority in Jamaica for redistribution the world over. LOST should not be ratified and signed, and instead Washington should turn its attention to ensuring that the U.S. Navy has the resources it needs to protect America’s interests on the high seas.

Why would anyone empowered with governing this country want to even consider the “Law of the Sea” for even fifteen seconds!?

Given that these are supposedly intelligent men and women, we have to conclude that they know what they’re doing and, as such, intentionally want to subscribe America to destructive programs of this caliber.

Shame on them…

The infamous Ninth Circuit (9th Circus) Court of Appeals, the friends of every communist and every other anti-American entity that needs some Constitution haters to legislate from the bench on their behalf are going on vacation. Yee hoo!

Two U.S. senators are criticizing a federal court system for planning to hold its annual conference at a pricey Hawaiian resort in August.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference plans to gather at a Maui hotel that costs upwards of $230 a night – for four nights. Taxpayers will foot the lodging and travel tab, which could exceed a million dollars, Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) complained.

Yes, we, the taxpayer get to treat those so-called judges and their retinue to an all expenses paid wing ding in Hawaii!

Aside from the business meetings, activities available to attendees include golfing, yoga, surfing lesions, snorkeling, Zumba (a Latin-inspired dance program), and a tennis tournament.

I’m sure that all the fun stuff is of little concern to those esteemed, patriotic, God-fearing individuals who attempted to extract “one nation under God” from the pledge of allegiance; They’re only headed to the white sands, blue waters and wonderful tropical weather to closet themselves for solemn dialogue on the Letter of the Law.

Just ask them:

“While the [court’s web] site makes clear that government funds are not to be used for any recreational or sporting activities and that court related matters will be substantively considered, the programs reads more like a vacation than a business trip to discuss the means of improving the administration of justice,” Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sessions, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said in a letter to Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski.

The Ninth Circuit’s website says the conference is authorized by law “for the purpose of considering the business of the courts and advising means of improving the administration of justice within the circuit.”

Of course it is.

Liberals don’t care which end of the tax system they grab our money from: If they can’t steal it by overtaxing us, they’ll steal it through frivolous spending.

The entire story is here.

Sorry, sometimes I can’t help but get a little bit silly, but perhaps that’s because when our country’s so-called “leaders” expect me to believe a load of silliness as justification for a senseless act on their part, I get to feeling, well, silly.

I mean…

From Weasel Zippers

Bring Out Your Dead! Obama Regime Launches National Drive to Counter Voter-ID Laws

President Obama’s reelection campaign launched a national drive Friday to counter new restrictive voter-access laws, which advisers said threaten his electoral chances in November.

Organizers will fan out in key swing states this weekend to teach volunteers and voters how to navigate a series of laws passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures imposing stricter identification requirements, limiting early voting and making it harder to organize voter-registration drives.

It is the beginning of a months-long effort, campaign officials said, to combat what they described as a Republican effort to stifle voting among young people and minorities, two groups that traditionally tend to vote Democratic. . . .

This is downright dumb, not to mention as transparent as a freshly cleaned window.

Anyone who is legally in America has a way to obtain identity documents, whether we are talking about a driver’s license, a state ID, a passport, a green card, some sort of legal picture ID that proves who he or she is.

Even homeless people, tattered and dirty on the streets, pushing shopping carts, begging on corners, sleeping in alleys, have to have some definitive way to prove who they are, or they couldn’t obtain such benefits s welfare, food stamps and whatever else they get (I looked into this before posting, and yes, people who dwell on the streets can get most of the same benefits as poor people living in subsidized housing and so forth), but THEY HAVE TO HAVE ID, regardless of race, religion, birthplace and other such statistics. Therefore, all those undomiciled people who receive government benefits of one kind or another don’t seem to have a problem obtaining ID.

Getting back to the issue at hand, so to speak, THE VOTE, through which we in this nation elect our leaders, constitutes a right whose eligibility extends solely to American citizens.

The Democrats, who champion the cause of illegal immigration, know that because of this illegal aliens would vote for them in a heartbeat if they could get to the polls.

“Bummer”, they can’t vote because they’re not eligible.

Despite the fact that whenever Democrat politicians are caught abusing their positions, cheating or blatantly violating other ethical rules of thumb or outright federal laws their proponents say “both parties do it”, the fact is that Democrats do it more, something like 90% - 10%.

Just look at any list of politicians caught committing corrupt practices, for example, and this will stand out like a beacon.

“So,” you inquire, “What’s yer pernt?”

My point is that casting votes using the registrations of people who have passed on, as they say, to their rewards, is more in line with the Democrats’ “win at any cost” campaigning philosophy than with that of the Republicans, who tend to respect the rule of law and accept it for what it is: The Law.

So, yes, the transparent silliness of Obama and the rest of those clowns over there on the left side of the aisle in expecting any intelligent person to believe their motives herein are to prevent Republicans from being able to “stifle voting among young people and minorities” and the way the liberal media supports them as though they, too, were as dumb as they evidently believe we, the people are is just… silly.

Is that pitiful, or what?

The Obama campaign’s “weekend of action” is part of a field effort that in 2008 helped identify, register and turn out millions of new voters. Those new voters gave Obama wins in unlikely places, including North Carolina and Virginia, where young and minority voters helped make the difference. Turning out those voters again this year is key to the president’s reelection strategy, but it is also more challenging this year in part because of the new voting laws.

Right.

“Over the past century, we expanded this fundamental right, making sure no one’s race, gender or economic status is ever used to deny this fundamental right,” said campaign strategist Michael Blake in a call with reporters Friday afternoon. “Unfortunately,” he added, “Republican-controlled legislatures in many states have been taking us backward, not forward.”. . .

You mean, Republican-controlled legislatures in many states have been preventing Democrat voters’ engaging in voter fraud.

According to Project Vote, a voting-rights advocacy group, about 15,000 people voted without identification in Virginia in 2008.

And how do we know how many of these were legally eligible to vote?

We don’t!

Yes, keeping up with Seth’s reading, in his absence, in order to try to keep up with Hard Astarboard (and I stress “try”) can be a highly informative activity.

Also in line with the boss’ particular interest in his own profession, Security, there’s some material (though not the more Protection Industry specific, “non-publishable” stuff) on the subject that I spend time reading, and if I believe it is relevant to Seth’s security blogging interests, share it.

One of his greatest pet peeves, as long time readers will know, is the inept sieve of useless bureaucracy known via oxymoron as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

From NJ.com

Top ranking TSA managers are not telling the head office about nearly half of the security breaches at the country’s major airports — including Newark — making it more difficult to spot dangerous weaknesses in the national fight against terrorism, according to a federal report obtained by The Star-Ledger.

But much of the fault may lie with the Transportation Security Administration headquarters itself, which has a poor system for reporting and monitoring breaches, says the report, which is scheduled to be released today by the Inspector General’s Office of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the TSA.

Let’s not all have cardiac arrest as a result of our amazed shock!

“The agency does not provide the necessary guidance and oversight to insure that all breaches are consistently reported, tracked and corrected. As a result, it does not have a complete understanding of breaches occurring at the Nation’s airports and misses opportunities to strengthen aviation security.” states the report, signed by Anne L. Richards, the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant inspector general.

The report grew out of a February 2011 request by U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) for an investigation into articles by The Star-Ledger about at least half a dozen security breaches at Newark Liberty International Airport in January and February of that year.

While the report focused on breaches occurring at Newark Liberty from January 2010 to May 2011, it says investigators also reviewed security breaches at five other major airports during the same 16-month period, to determine the severity of Newark’s problem as well as deficiencies at other airports and for TSA operations generally. The five other airports were not identified, though Lautenberg had requested investigators also look at John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports.

While the actual number of breaches were blacked out, the redacted report said that only 42 percent of breaches detected in Newark during the survey period were then reported by local managers to the agency’s central Transportation Security Operations Center. The average reporting rate among all six airports surveyed was 53 percent, while the highest rate at any one of them was 88 percent.

Doesn’t that just make you want to make immediate flight reservations?

SNIP!

“A TSA source told The Star-Ledger newspaper there were three more security lapses, but TSA has disputed them,” Lautenberg stated in letter dated Feb. 24, 2011, asking Inspector General Richard Skinner to look into the beaches.

Even before last year’s breaches in Newark, Lautenberg told Skinner, in January 2010 a Rutgers graduate student took advantage of a vacated security post at a checkpoint exit lane to enter a secure area and kiss his girlfriend, shutting the airport for six hours and disrupting air travel around the world.

SNIP 2!

Investigators found local officials often may not report security problems because of confusion over what the national guidelines from TSA headquarters require.

Ah, yes, your typical “well oiled machine”…

One of the six airports did not report that a passenger had been allowed into a secure area without a valid boarding pass because the local TSA management did not consider it reportable “based on their interpretation of the guidance.”

Well oiled: Supplying KY for airline passengers headed for Bendover, Massachusettes.

Now, now, Mrs Wolf… Actually, I remember Seth telling us that of every U.S. airport he’s passed through, the only one in which he found any professionals working for TSA was Logan International, in Boston.

One possible reason for the under-reporting, the report suggested, is that the definition of a breach varies in internal agency literature.

Yeah, guys, better talk fast…

For example, the report quotes one TSA operations directive, titled “Management of Security Breaches,” as defining a breach as, “any incident involving unauthorized and uncontrolled access by an individual or prohibited item into a sterile area or security area of an airport that is determined by TSA to present an immediate and significant risk to life, safety or the security of the transportation network.”

But a different directive, involving the agency’s Performance and Results Information System, titled, “Reporting Security Incidents via PARIS,” refers only to individuals’ gaining access improperly, not to prohibited items. The result, the report states, was differing interpretations of what constituted a breach among local TSA managers, resulting in inconsistent reporting, with only headquarters to blame.

“At the six airports visited, TSA did not always take action or document their actions to correct security breach vulnerabilities because,” the report states, “the agency did not provide TSA management at the airports with a clear definition or guidance for identifying and reporting security breaches through its reporting systems.”

Sure, sure…

Hat Tip to an email link from Steven Emerson and the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

I always wanted to say that, LOL.

Having posted a couple of things today, I was actually just about to log off for the afternoon and take care of some errands when I ran across this.

From PJ Media:

Remember the Trayvon Martin brouhaha? The MSM almost universally concluded that George Zimmerman both stalked and then murdered Martin in cold blood. Many commentators ignored any evidence to the contrary. The geniuses at Slate.com even had a reporter go to the Florida community where Martin was shot and interview some women who claimed to see Zimmerman shoot him in cold blood. They said that Martin was never on top of him and had not been banging Zimmerman’s head on the ground at all.

Now, the Florida district attorney has released 67 CDs of evidence, and made them available to the press. ABC News has for once done the MSM proud, by headlining their story with a bold conclusion: “Cops, Witnesses Back Up George Zimmerman’s Version of Trayvon Martin Shooting.” The network report states:

Two police reports written the night that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin said that Zimmerman had a bloody face and nose, according to police reports made public today.

The reports also note that two witness accounts appear to back up Zimmerman’s version of what happened when they describe a man on his back with another person wearing a hoodie straddling him and throwing punches.

In addition, Trayvon Martin’s father told an investigator after listening to 911 tapes that captured a man’s voice frantically calling for help that it was not his son….

So what’s going to happen next?

So the district attorney, true to her word at the time of the Zimmerman arrest, told the press that she would be guided by the evidence alone. Now, the only remaining issue is the argument that the prosecutors will evidently make: If Zimmerman had not followed Martin and instead taken the advice of the police to stay put, nothing would have happened and Martin would not have been killed.

But clearly, Zimmerman’s claim that “that he shot Martin in self-defense after the 6-foot tall, 160 pound teenager knocked him to the ground, banged his head against the ground and went for Zimmerman’s gun” is apparently true. It is also true that Zimmerman’s face was bloodied, that his nose was broken as he said, and that previously unreleased photos of the back of his head show severe lacerations.

The witness report released has the witness saying the following:

“He witnesses a black male, wearing a dark colored ‘hoodie’ on top of a white or Hispanic male and throwing punches ‘MMA (mixed martial arts) style,’” the police report of the witness said. “He then heard a pop. He stated that after hearing the pop, he observed the person he had previously observed on top of the other person (the male wearing the hoodie) laid out on the grass.”

From the left, whose goal is not justice but merely to fry Zimmermen, there’s the argument…

…the argument that the prosecutors will evidently make: If Zimmerman had not followed Martin and instead taken the advice of the police to stay put, nothing would have happened and Martin would not have been killed.

Could have, would have, should have vs “it’s what it is.”

My prediction is that the prosecution will try Zimmerman nevertheless, and try to build a circumstantial argument that had he not followed Martin, things would have been quite different. Of course, the defense will undoubtedly argue that Martin could have waited for police to arrive, not attacked Zimmerman, and explained that his father was visiting friends in the community and that he had only gone to the store to purchase candy. Whether the jury will still find Zimmerman guilty of second degree murder because he followed Martin is your guess.

The main point is that all those who jumped to the conclusion that Zimmerman had attacked Martin because he was black, and that it was a racially motivated crime, have some apologizing to do. Slate, which ran the summary, should apologize to its readers for the previous story I referred to at the start. Their post today does not link to their own past coverage, which I have been unable to find with a Google search. Will Bruce Springsteen also apologize for reviving his song “American Skin(41 shots)” and dedicating it to Trayvon Martin? And what about Rev. Al Sharpton, who was down in Florida for days revving up the crowd, and acting as if a 1940s-style lynching had occurred, while practically leading a lynch mob himself? And will Spike Lee apologize for making public what he thought was the address of Zimmerman’s family, so people could harass them and threaten them? Don’t hold your breath.

Let’s hope that the rest of the media follows ABC’s lead and acknowledges the truth rather than perpetuating the lie they helped cultivate to begin with, trashing an innocent man…

Let’s hope the court does, as well…

The Left: If it moves, regulate it. If it doesn’t move, regulate it anyway. Control, micromanage, apply every dollar of taxpayer funds available (or not, just keep the spending going!)

There’s an informative Op-Ed in today’s Washington Times on-line by Representative Jeb Hensarling (R, Texas) about the Dodd Frank Act and what it means in the Real World as opposed to the one occupied by today’s Democrats and their liberal mentors.

The news of J.P. Morgan Chase’s recent trading loss has raised the cry of “I told you so” from proponents of the almost 2-year-old Dodd-Frank Act. They say the law’s Volcker rule would have prevented such a loss and that without more regulation, financial institutions will continue to make poor investment decisions.

As an opponent of Dodd-Frank and one of many who have warned against the politicization of our economy, the threat of future bailouts and attempts by the government to eliminaterisks, I also wish to say, “I told you so.”

Within Dodd-Frank’s 2,300 pages are provisions allowing the government to designate certain financial firms “systemically important financial institutions” - otherwise known as “too big to fail” (TBTF). The law then empowers the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to seize a troubled TBTF firm for the purpose of winding it down. In doing so, the FDIC can borrow up to the book value of the institution from taxpayers, an amount that could be astounding, as Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan are all $2 trillion institutions.

Because private financial firms such as J.P. Morgan inevitably will blunder regardless of their size or sophistication, designating any firm TBTF is bad policy and worse economics. It causes erosion of market discipline and risks further bailouts paid in full by hardworking Americans. It also becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, helping make firms bigger and riskier than they otherwise would be. Look no further than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their taxpayer-funded bailout to the tune of nearly $200 billion.

Unfortunately, Dodd-Frank codifies TBTF into federal law. Since its passage, the big banks have become larger and the small banks have become fewer. As a nation, we would do well to rethink TBTF’s fundamental premise before it’s too late.

Even if some conclude that certain financial firms are indeed TBTF, it begs the question whether Washington is even competent to manage their risk. A review of the federal government’s track record in this area does not inspire confidence. The Federal Housing Administration’s poor risk management has left it severely undercapitalized. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. has an unfunded obligation of $26 billion. Even the National Flood Insurance Program is $18 billion underwater (pun intended). Then we have Fannie and Freddie.

Yes, then we do.

We have said here before that one of the greatest shortcomings of “progressives” is that they never learn from mistakes: “It failed the first ninety nine times, so it’s got to work the hundredth!”

Of course, as most of us already realize, regulating, along with its partner, taxing, are hand in glove activities for the left, and any mishap of any kind, even one caused by them, provides them with an excuse to pass legislation applying more rules, thereby creating more bureaucracy as people must be brought in as permanent staff to monitor compliance and churn out additional idiocy in order to justify their stuffed salaries, pensions and overblown benefits.

Anyway, the entire Op-Ed is here.

I finally got around to obtaining former President George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, and am about halfway through reading the book.

It’s so far enjoyable, revealing as to W’s character and the motives behind many of his most important decisions and, thus far, an all around good and worthwhile read.