It’s about time, you say? C’mon, do you really believe it mattered, in the scheme of things, that Obama met head-to-head with the governor who signed the “controversial” anti-illegal immigration bill?

They met for half an hour and, of course:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) said Thursday that President Obama assured her that he would send White House staff members to her state to talk with officials about efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

The governor said her meeting with Obama in the Oval Office was cordial, despite their disagreement over the widely criticized state law she signed in April, which gave police greater powers to enforce federal immigration laws.

She said Obama declined to discuss whether the Justice Department plans to file a lawsuit to block the law before it takes effect next month.

The White House said in a statement that the meeting went well but that Obama reiterated his concerns about the law, including that a patchwork of state immigration regulations would complicate the federal government’s role in setting and enforcing immigration policy. The White House said Obama would like Brewer to work with him to help pass comprehensive changes to the immigration system that would provide a path to citizenship for those already in the country illegally.

Of course Obama didn’t say whether or not his Attorney General and chief legal henchman, Eric Holder, was going to file a lawsuit to block the Arizona law; Assuming that Holder’s even gotten around, finally, to reading the ten page document, he’s probably busting his (pick a noun) trying to find something to take to court. Seeing as it’s pretty much the same thing as the federal law that the federal government hasn’t been enforcing, he probably doesn’t yet know if there’s anything in it he can use.

As regards a “patchwork of state immigration regulations”, maybe there would be no need for that, either if, once again, the federal government had been doing its job in that arena.

Moving right along, comprehensive changes to the immigration system that would provide a path to citizenship for those already in the country illegally would do what, exactly?

I’ll tell you, and you can call me a racist if you’d like, though I assure you I am anything but. I am merely stating facts.

The “progressives” assure us fiscally concerned types that awarding U.S. citizenship to illegals would mean that they would start paying taxes, now that they’d have social security numbers and employers would report their wages to the IRS.

Right.

You’ve got millions of people earning low wages, people who — and this is fact, not a “racist” diatribe — tend to have a lot of children in their families. Four, maybe five children in a family whose total annual income is in the ballpark of $20-25,000.00, maybe as high as $30,000.00.

Folks, have you ever heard of earned income credit?

These newly minted American citizens will not be paying taxes, they’ll be receiving anywhere from $3,000.00 and change to $5,000.00 plus, depending upon whether they have 1, 2, 3 or more children.

Multiply those numbers by anywhere from 6,000,000 to 12,000,000.

I’ll tell you one thing, that Barack Hussein Obama has absolutely no compunction when it comes to plunging our nation ever deeper into “unprecedented” (one of his favorite terms when describing his dubious “accomplishments”) debt.

When Obama says he wants somebody to “work with him”, he means, “My way or the highway”, so…

I don’t really see as that meeting between Brewer and Obama really meant much.

Do you?

Hard Astarboard is a pro-Israel blog.

We view the Jewish State as a staunch ally and friend of the United States, and the only real free country/democracy in the Middle East. We view those entities such as European countries, third world cesspools and the U.N. who support Palestinian terrorism to be lower than dirt, and yes, we do not for a second believe that countries like France or orgs like the U.N., or Barack Obama and his pastor Rev. Wright, for that matter are and among others are, despite any protestations to the contrary, spineless scumbags who endorse anything, no matter how abominable, that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the rest of those cowardly murderers of women and children do to the Israelis.

That said, what happened a few days ago aboard the Mavi Marmara, the circumstances surrounding the events and the subsequent “outrage” directed toward Israel have all been typical in that once again, Israel’s actions of self defense have been translated as acts of monstrous aggression against innocent “victims”.

Right.

A couple of videos of what actually transpired are here and here.

These so-called “peace” activists attempting to run the Gaza naval blockade under the transparent guise of ferrying in humanitarian supplies, actually came equipped with bats and other blunt instruments to use in assaulting Israeli military personnel when they boarded the ship, Mavi Maramara, to inspect her cargo, and assault them they did.

The Israelis acted in pure self defense and with great restraint and there people on both sides were tossed in the hurt locker, some terminally so, and as is forever the case the corrupt, left wing world smelly body known as the United Nations and the rest of the usual suspects made victims of the aggressors.

Protests were held throughout the Middle East and Europe on Monday in reaction to Israel’s commando raid on a Turkish ship ferrying supplies to Palestinians that left at least nine people dead.

Israel defended the raid and posted video on the Internet showing Israeli soldiers during the raid being attacked with metal pipes and knives by the Turkish ship’s crew.

The incident prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a planned visit to Washington for a meeting with President Obama set for Tuesday.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council, prompted by Arab governments, convened a special session to discuss the incident, which took place in international waters near Gaza. The Palestinians and Arabs, backed by a number of council members including Turkey, also called for Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza, immediately release the ships and humanitarian activists, and allow them to deliver their goods.

Assistant Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco said in his briefing to the U.N.’s most powerful body that the early-morning bloodshed would have been avoided “if repeated calls on Israel to end the counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza had been heeded.”

The White House issued a statement saying it regretted the loss of life. “The president also expressed the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances around this morning’s tragic events as soon as possible,” it said.

At the State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley, said, “We are working to ascertain the facts, and expect that the Israeli government will conduct a full and credible investigation.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak telephoned Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and National Security Adviser James L. Jones to explain the raid. In a statement from Mr. Barak’s office, the minister said the raid was within maritime law. “The passengers on the Marmara beat our soldiers with every object they had and wounded some of them,” the statement quoted Mr. Barak as saying. “The soldiers defended themselves.”

Not, of course, that that makes any difference, and being of one mind with their fellow leftists in the U.S. Justice Department, such as Attorney General Eric Holder who condemned the recently passed Arizona anti-illegal immigration bill without first reading the ten page document, the U.N. Security Council was quick to condemn Israel without first investigating the chain of events involved in the flotilla incident.

From CNS News:

The rapid condemnation of Israel by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), made without a full knowledge of the facts, makes the international body look “ridiculous,” says a leading Middle East expert.

“It makes the United Nations look ridiculous when it comes to solving world problems,” Michael Rubin, a Middle East scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told CNSNews.com. “After all, the United Nations reacted much more swiftly and with much more fervor to this than they did with regard to the North Korean sinking of the South Korean boat, which could precipitate a war that could kill millions.”

The U.N. is ridiculous when it comes to anything it does, in a tragic sort of way.

The UNSC statement, issued May 31, “condemns” Israel’s actions in boarding a fleet carrying pro-Hamas activists, an operation in which activists aboard one of the vessels attacked Israeli sailors who had boarded the boat. Ten of the so-called activists were killed when the Israeli sailors returned fire in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called self-defense.

However, the UNSC condemnation repeatedly admits that the Security Council has no “independent information” and no idea as to the actual chain of events.

According to the statement, U.N. Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, who briefed the Security Council on the incident, nonetheless “[made] clear the United Nations has no ‘independent information on what transpired.’”

Fernandez-Taranco also told the council that “it is not possible to state definitively the sequence or details of what happened.”

Nevertheless, the council condemned Israel, citing the loss of civilian life and saying, “The Council, in this context, condemns those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 civilians and many wounded, and expresses its condolences to their families.”

The UNSC condemnation does not offer condolences or express its regret for the six Israeli sailors who were injured after being attacked by activists with knives, stun grenades, and guns.

…does not offer condolences or express its regret for the six Israeli sailors who were injured after being attacked by activists with knives, stun grenades, and guns.

Why would they do that, when it is their unwritten policy to support anti-Israeli terrorism and anything that supports the terrorists?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…

…hotly rejected calls to lift a blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza on Wednesday, insisting the ban prevents missile attacks on Israel and labeling worldwide criticism of his navy’s bloody raid on a pro-Palestinian flotilla as “hypocrisy.”

“This was not the ‘Love Boat,’” Netanyahu said in an address to the nation, referring to the vessel boarded by commandos, setting off clashes that led to the deaths of nine activists. “It was a hate boat.”

Shortly after his address, planes carrying hundreds of activists detained after the raid on the six-boat flotilla started leaving for Turkey and Greece. Turkey has been pressuring Israel to release the detainees, most of whom are Turkish. Also on the planes were the bodies of the nine dead.

While Israeli officials spent most of the day trying to contain the flood of diplomatic condemnation of the raid, Netanyahu was anything but conciliatory in his first nationally broadcast comments since Monday’s military action.

“Israel is facing an attack of international hypocrisy,” he said, asserting that the Jewish state is the victim of an Iran-backed campaign to arm the Hamas rulers of Gaza with missiles that could hit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Netanyahu said the aim of the flotilla was to break the blockade, not to bring aid to Gaza. If the blockade ended, he warned, hundreds of ships would bring in thousands of missiles from Iran, to be aimed at Israel and beyond.

The result, he said, would be an Iranian port on the Mediterranean. “The same countries that are criticizing us today should know that they would be targeted tomorrow,” Netanyahu said.

Which sums things up nicely, I would say.

Thank GOd Netaniahu won the last election. Had the bribe taking, far left Ehud Olmert or his equally treasonous minion, Tzippi Livni still been in charge over there, they’d probably (assuming, of course, that there would even have been a blockade for the international criminals to run) have smooched U.N. and Palestinian butt and ceded all of Jerusalem to the Arabs to “make amends”.

Here, Lawrence J. Haas weighs in with Surprise! Violence erupts, Israel condemned.

And from Wesley Pruden, a favorite columnist of Hard Astarboard’s, in its entirety:

When the going gets tough, the not-so-tough call in the cliches. The world’s “leaders” are shocked! — shocked! — when Israel defends itself. Actually, they’re about as “shocked” as Claude Raines, the police inspector in “Casablanca,” who was shocked to learn that gambling was going on in the casino at Rick’s Cafe.

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations who rarely sees third-world evil, shocking or otherwise, says he was “shocked” by the Israeli navy’s stopping a convoy attempting to break through the blockade of Islamist terrorists in Gaza. The governments of Sweden, Greece and Jordan were so “shocked” they recalled their ambassadors to Israel to get the inside dope to fuel further “shock.” Tony Blair, who is some sort of “peacemaker”-at-large in the Middle East, was “shocked,” too. If he is, it’s only because he hasn’t been in the Middle East long enough to unpack his Gladstone. France was not just a little bit “shocked,” but “profoundly shocked.” There was so much “shock” in the air that the mourning became electric.

The convoy of six ships not only carried thousands of tons of supplies, but hundreds of “activists” and when the smoke cleared nine or so “activists” — the count varied through the day — had been rendered “inactivists,” and capable of no further mischief. The European Union demanded an official inquiry, so profound was its “shock.” The United Nations went into emergency session to recover from “shock.”

The usual suspects went riding off in several directions even before they could mount their horses, but an investigation, official or otherwise, is not really necessary. Verdict now, facts later. The Associated Press, which once took pride in its reporting but is awash now in activists and pundits, set out the early story line: “Dozens of activists and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the bloody predawn confrontation in international waters. The violent takeover dealt yet another blow to Israel’s international image, already tarnished by war crimes accusations in Gaza and its 3-year-old blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory.”

The account of the Israeli commandos tells a different story. The Mava Marmara, the lead ship in the flotilla, was told to change course and not land in Gaza. When it ignored the warning Israeli marines and commandos boarded the ship, some by rope ladders from helicopters. A fierce fight erupted on deck and only after taking severe casualties and fearing for their lives the commandos, armed only with pistols and paint ball rifles because they were expecting genuine peace activists and not trained street fighters, fired back, trying to aim first at the feet of the “peace activists.”

Israel is at war, fighting for its very existence, surrounded by hostile Islamic regimes, some more hostile than others. Not all the hostile regimes approve, or so they say, of the Islamist campaign of extinction of Israel by attrition (until Iran gets a working nuclear bomb). None of these hostile regimes, so in love with peace, will do anything to persuade or compel the Palestinians to give up the dream of destroying Israel in a second Holocaust. This is the reality in the Middle East and the cowering milklegs in Washington, London, Paris and the other capitals of the West know it. Who could be shocked when the Israelis do what they must do to survive?

The facts on ground and sea are, as usual, ignored in the bang and clang of rioting in the streets and the din of diplomatic argle-bargle, with the media peddling the usual story: The flotilla of “peace” ships was only intended to relieve the suffering of women, children and maybe even an occasional cute kitten or adorable puppy. But the “activist” account is bunk.

Adequate supplies of food, medicine and other necessary goods are regularly delivered to Palestinians in Gaza — and by the Israelis. The government in Jerusalem invited reporters to the Kerem Shalom crossing to see, and photograph, the convoys of trucks delivering these goods to Gaza. The Israelis even offered to transfer the goods from the flotilla as soon as the ships could be unloaded and inspected. The sponsor of the flotilla, the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, is regarded by Israel as a radical Islamist organization, part of a global fund-raising operation of Hamas. If the Israelis allow such flotillas to deliver supplies to Gaza, other ships will follow, not with rice and beans but with explosives, rifles and long-range Iranian Fajr-5 missiles.

But the attack of the “peace” ships was intended for a larger and more important purpose — to undermine Israeli determination to continue the struggle against the radical Muslims who are determined to kill Jews. The Israelis are determined there won’t be a second Holocaust. This shouldn’t shock anyone who’s been paying attention.

******UPDATE******

This article, of the aftermath and some background on Hamas and Gaza by Steven Emerson is a must read.

Talk about a screw-up!

It just seems like a bad time for any firm with the word “British” in its title. We know all too well the various setbacks experienced by the oil giant once known as British Petroleum; now British Airways has drawn much unwelcome attention to itself with a photo touting its new mobile-boarding pass system as it appears to expedite the air travel of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man.

The photo appeared in the LHR News, the company’s internal staff magazine covering London’s Heathrow Airport. The image accompanied an article spelling out the benefits of the mobile-boarding setup, which permits users of mobile digital devices to print out their boarding passes on the fly. The boarding pass reads “Bin Laden/Osama” and appears in the graphic panel of a user’s iPhone. (AT&T reception in remote Pakistani caves is apparently better than anyone might have guessed.)

What’s more, the image features a frequent-flier number for passenger bin Laden — so much for all those airport terrorist watch lists — and has him flying first class on Oct. 26, 2010. As the travel site Gadling.com mused, “sadly, knowing the brilliant minds behind the anti-terror organizations, the terror level will be raised to ‘red hot’ on October 26, 2010, while airport police all over the world try to figure out which airport the most wanted terrorist in the world will be flying to.”

Whoever made that error, even if he or she did it as a joke, will be answering some rather pointed questions real soon, if they haven’t already, heh heh.

So how did this happen? The short answer is that no one knows — or at least, no one’s telling if they do. A British Airways spokeswoman told ABC News reporter Scott Mayerowitz that “a mistake has been made in this internal publication and we are working to find out how this occurred.” And in response to a follow-up call from Yahoo! News, another spokeswoman for the airline remained firmly on message, saying, “We’re still working to find out how this occurred at this time.”

I’ll bet they are.

One of the things we hear a lot from the left, everywhere from Code Pink to the environmentalists, is references of the most ominous description in reference to “Big Oil”.

Evil, Profits at Any Price, Corrupt and Corrupting, enemy-of-the-planet, (Big) Oil.

Naturally, these opponents of that nasty menace to all that is “nice” and all that is “right” in the world are “progressives”, so there’s no way there could be any kind of hypocrisy afoot within their ranks, no way!

Then how could this be?

British Petroleum’s (BP) reputation has been marred by the April oil rig explosion and subsequent oil spill which is still gushing more than 40 days later. But according to The Washington Post, the reputation of some left-wing environmental groups has also been polluted by the incident.

“[T]he Nature Conservancy lists BP as one of its business partners. The Conservancy also has given BP a seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years,” Joe Stephens wrote for the Post May 24.

It’s not just Nature Conservancy either, the Post found $2 million in donations to Conservation International and relationships between BP and other lefty activist groups Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Sierra Club and Audubon.

So once again, over there on the left, we learn that lucre can, and quite easily at that, replace “convictions”. Who’d have suspected?

“The crude emanating from BP’s well threatens to befoul a number of alliances between energy conglomerates and environmental nonprofits. At least one group, Conservation International, acknowledges that it is reassessing its ties to the oil company, with an eye toward protecting its reputation,” the Post said.

Conservation International is “reassessing its ties,” is it?, “with an eye toward protecting its reputation.”

Okey dokey, so what we may infer from this is that even though these leftist organizations rail against oil giants 24/7, some bribery doesn’t come amiss now and then, and let’s not play like “progressives” and call it anything else, as though gentle phraseology takes the harshness out of a harsh deed.

“Hey, you adorable little environmentalists, we at Big Oil really approve of your cause, in fact we love your cause so much that we’re bribing your corrupt liberal asses contributing ten million smackeroos to your cause — to you — and as a gift, bestowing upon you these hundreds of acres of prime virgin land that we will never drill on”.”

“That’s just great, sugarplum, y’all sweeties, you, and between you and me, we’re gonna misplace all the material we were gonna use to campaign against your company, that is, we were ’til we realized what a generous buncha’ cutiepies y’all really are.” (fluttering eyebrows).

So much for “progressives’” convictions.

This was front page news at The Post on May 24, but received only silence from other mainstream media outlets including the three broadcast networks. Even after the oil spill, when the networks interviewed experts from two of the groups that had partnered with BP, reporters failed to make the connection. In the past, the research of conservative organizations has been undermined by reporters for such corporate contributions.

So much for “honesty in the media”.

The Story’s Here.

If you can’t seem to make any progress in practice, though, do it in court.

Opening a new front in the battle to contain the worst oil spill in the nation’s history, the Obama administration on Tuesday began a criminal investigation into the causes and consequences of the environmental disaster plaguing the Gulf Coast.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. revealed the criminal and civil probes into the BP oil-rig disaster just hours after President Obama vowed that government investigators would conduct a “full and vigorous accounting” of the still-uncapped spill. The president also ordered the oil giant to compensate those whose livelihoods have been harmed.

“We have an obligation to investigate what went wrong and to determine what reforms are needed so that we never have to experience a crisis like this again,” Mr. Obama told reporters in the Rose Garden after a meeting with the two co-chairmen of a new government panel that will oversee the probe.

While on a tour of the area in New Orleans, Mr. Holder promised a “meticulous, comprehensive and aggressive” government probe to ensure that “the American people do not foot the bill for this disaster and that our laws are enforced to the full extent.”

“That is our responsibility, and we will do nothing less,” said Mr. Holder, revealing that a team of Justice Department lawyers from Washington had met with attorneys general and U.S. attorneys in the states and districts whose coastlines and residents have been affected by the spill. “We will not rest until justice is done.”

They will not rest until justice is done.

What a load of crud! There’s plenty of time to go after BP, they’re not going anywhere, right? So instead of trying to deflect the public’s attention from the mess in the gulf and at the same time take the public’s attention off the fact that the Obama Administration’s not doing anything of a substantial nature about it, they do a diversionary tactic.

This reminds me of the cruise missiles Bill Clinton had launched during his sexcapades hearings, in order to take the peoples’ mind of the Lewinsky situation.

It is a perfect example of why we shouldn’t allow “progressives” to run the country: Their attributes lie in campaigning and slinging rhetoric, but do not extend into running the nation once they’ve won.

Once in office, they become clueless, so they feel compelled to resort to useless symbolism as a means of mollification of the people.

Remember?

I just read an interesting column by John Stossel, where he weighs in on the issue.

“Backwards and hateful ideas … oust John Stossel,” said Colorofchange.org.

In a newspaper, the organization went on:

“It’s time that FOX drop Stossel … we’ll go directly after the network with a public campaign unlike anything we’ve pursued to date.”.

Media Matters joined: “By airing Stossel’s repugnant comments, Fox legitimizes his indefensible position.”

What “indefensible” position did I take?

I said this: “Private businesses ought to get to discriminate. I won’t ever go to a place that’s racist, and I will tell everybody else not to, and I’ll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist.”

Read that carefully: I condemned racism. I said I’d speak out against and boycott a racist’s business. But to some people, I committed heresy. I failed to accept the entire catechism. I didn’t say that we need government to fight racism and prohibit racist policies in private establishments.

That’s always the way of the Racecard Left, ain’t it? You’re in for a penny, in for a pound. Their way or the highway and anyone who’s for the latter is a racist.

Here’s the entire column.

Yeah, I do, and that’s why you’ll occasionally catch me posting an article from Red State, like this one.

It is becoming increasingly clear that neither Obama nor his administration nor the Democrat Congress are up to the task of governance. Yesterday we chronicled the shouting match between former MMS director Liz Birnbaum and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that resulted in her being fired shortly before she was scheduled to testify before a Congressional subcommittee headed by the corrupt Jim Moran on the lackadaisical efforts of the administration to ameliorate the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The ineffectualness of the administration was on display for all to see this week. Over a month after the spill began, Obama was able to take time away from his busy schedule of back to back vacations to visit the Gulf. He was there for about three hours — which would equate to about nine holes of golf — gave an insipid speech and left. And then there was this:

Perhaps you saw news footage of President Obama in Grand Isle, La., on Friday and thought things didn’t look all that bad. Well, there may have been a reason for that: The town was evidently swarmed by an army of temp workers to spruce it up for the president and the national news crews following him.

Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, whose district encompasses Grand Isle, told Yahoo! News that BP bused in “hundreds” of temporary workers to clean up local beaches. And as soon as the president was en route back to Washington, the workers were clearing out of Grand Isle too, Roberts said.

If there was ever an appropriate metaphor for Obama’s total absence of leadership or even interest the Gulf oil spill is it. It has demonstrated both the administration’s general lack of concern about anything other than imposing a socialist agenda upon an unwilling nation and the inability of the administration to address any crisis without seeking to further its political aims.

Hopefully, November will see at least the House of Representatives freed from the thrall of these cretins and an effective regime of oversight can be imposed upon federal agencies saturated with political operatives and activists who could care less about their duty or the nation.

All I can say to that is… Amen!

Back from a Memorial Day spent aboard my maritime home, celebrating Memorial Day with half a dozen ‘Nam and “other places” buddies. To us, celebrating is the proper word, for we do indeed celebrate… the lives and times, the bravery and the selfless patriotism of friends and comrades who died while putting themselves willingly in harm’s way for our great country.

There were surpluses of good food (I had the modest affair “catered” by an excellent local eatery I frequent), Jack Daniels, both black and green labels, Sam Adams and Anchor Steam Beer and their dy-na-mite Porter (three of the better American brands, since imports wouldn’t be right on a day honoring fallen American heroes) and a lot of heartfelt toasts to good men gone.

This post is also on the topic of war, in this case an injustice that is apparently being done by Big Brass to cover their own asses by kicking the truth to the curb.

Many readers of Hard Astarboard are probably familiar with war correspondent Michael Yon, an ex Special Forces guy who has covered the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as an embed who, unlike most of his “colleagues”, actually gets in there and covers his beat, risks be damned, then reports things as he sees them, without the political bias of mainstream media reporters. With his own military background, again unlike his “colleagues”, he is eminently qualified to comment knowledgeably on that which he encounters.

That said…

The military has cut short a war correspondent’s embed, and there may be evidence that the decision may have been part of a smear campaign against the writer.

Michael Yon, a former Green Beret, has been covering Iraq and Afghanistan for six years. He has also covered conflicts in Thailand, the Philippines, and Nepal. Following a string of events covered by Yon that cast a negative light on two top NATO commanders, the military decided to terminate Yon’s embed prematurely, citing reasons that didn’t add up.

ISAF’s reason for disembedding Yon was “embed overcrowding.” Yet in an email to Admiral Gregory J. Smith, an ISAF public affairs officer, Yon wrote, “I rarely see journalists. Those journalists I see have been doing drive-by reporting.”

Yon states that he has forwarded to his attorney “compelling evidence” of a smear campaign perpetrated by members of Gen. McChrystal’s staff. He says that the general’s staff have released official statements that are “defamatory and libelous.”

“A writer must be able to spot libel just as a soldier must be able to spot IEDs,” writes Yon. “It’s part of the job. If you can’t spot it, you will get hurt.”

So here they go, members of the military top brass, purportedly looking to save their own skins by using a technique favored by propagandizing, low life commie liberals “progressives”.

Sweep the man under a rug, render him inoperable in hopes of preventing him from imparting the truth to the people.

In March, Yon began investigating a possible weapons mishap by Canadian Brig. Gen. Daniel Menard, the top Canadian general in Afghanistan and also Commander of Task Force Kandahar. Reports say that Menard nearly shot Canada’s Chief of the Defense Staff, Gen. Walt Natynczyk while preparing to board a helicopter at Kandahar Airfield. According to Yon, Menard didn’t acknowledge the incident until ISAF learned that Yon was looking into the matter. Menard was found guilty of negligent discharge and fined $3500 on Tuesday.

Menard has operational control over three battalions of U.S. Army soldiers. And as Yon points out in his website that “while Canada increasingly shies from combat, American units under Canadian command will spill blood under Canadian military leadership that answers to Ottawa.”

The Canadian general’s defense counsel stated Menard “accepted full responsibility.” But in a separate incident just days before the shooting, Menard took absolutely no responsibility for a fatal incident on a strategic bridge near Kandahar when a suicide bomber killed a U.S. soldier.

On the morning of March 1, a suicide car bomber attacked a U.S. convoy as they crossed the Tarnak River Bridge leading to Kandahar. The bridge is a chokepoint on a crucial route between Kandahar Airfield and the town of Kandahar, and on out to Helmand Province. The bridge was damaged in the attack, which killed U.S. Army Specialist Ian Gelig, several Afghan civilians, and wounded several other soldiers. Numerous missions were canceled as the river could not be crossed.

The Stryker Brigade that Yon was embedded with was tasked with keeping the roads open. And the British Royal Air Force is responsible for much of the ground around Kandahar Airfield, including the land around the bridge. And the Afghanistan National Police, mentored by U.S. military police were guarding the bridge. However when Yon investigated the matter, he was informed by multiple officers that Menard was ultimately responsible for the bridge at the time of the attack as it belongs to Task Force Kandahar.

“Menard ultimately had responsibility for the bridge,” Yon stated in an interview. When Yon investigated the matter, he was informed by multiple officers that the bridge at the time of the attack belonged to Task Force Kandahar. Menard tried to pin the blame on his supervisor, British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter. Yet during a meeting with ISAF officials, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Ben Hodges took full responsibility, although Yon did not believe him.

When asked why the U.S. military would possibly cover for Menard, Yon replied, “I think the cover was in the interest of Coalition warfare. An American putting it to a Canadian would have had political ramifications.”

I’ve followed Yon’s reporting and photo-journals for a long time, now, and, even though he was a blanket-head in service (that’s what we used to call those Army dudes with the berets back in my time), he was still a member of the elite community of warriors and one whose word I would take over some self-serving career officer’s line of lube any day of the week.

Yon has stood alone in his criticism of Menard and received heavy fire for doing so. He called Menard incompetent and said he needed to be fired. He also stands alone saying the same about McChrystal. Yon recently wrote, “This is clear as day: General Stanley McChrystal will lose this war.”

“The reason stated for my disembed was ‘overcrowding.’ Clearly this is untrue,” Yon said. “The war is going poorly and it is widely known that I will call the ball where it lands. We are losing the war and it seems likely that McChrystal and staff don’t want me in combat reporting their failures.”

So with the upcoming operation in Kandahar – which would be commanded by Menard – it seems entirely possible that ISAF wanted Yon out of the theater. His criticism of not only Menard but of ISAF commander Gen Stanley McChrystal could well be the reason behind the ending of his embed.

While the military may view Yon’s dispatches as controversial, the American people deserve the truth. And as Kay Day from the US Report says, “No one reporting on the Global War on Terror has done a more effective or honest job than Michael Yon.”

Past statements by Yon were initially viewed as controversial – such as being the first journalist to say the “Surge” was working, or that Iraq was experiencing a “civil war.”

However, these events would soon become conventional wisdom. Could his assessments of Gens. Menard and McChrystal soon become conventional wisdom as well?

Perhaps a comment from a reader at the United States Naval Institute sums it up best:
Frankly, I trust Yon more than I trust McChrystal at this point.

The man who took part in the cover-up of [Army Ranger and former professional football player Pat] Tillman’s death has lost quite a bit of credibility. In fact, McChrystal admitted as much – years later – before the Senate.

Yon, meanwhile, was right about Iraq. He was right about Afghanistan. He was right about Petraeus. He was right about Menard.

And I suspect he’s right about McChrystal.

The Tillman link above was added by me, to refresh the memories of anyone who may not recall any of the details.

Hell, to my way of thinking, while Michael Yon is a proven force in his area of endeavor, General McChristol is, as I said, a career officer and, more to the point, he is acceptable to President Barack Obama, or he wouldn’t be there.

Now, knowing how we at this blog feel about the lack of scruples and the paucity of American patriotism present in the Obama Administration, what kind of a reference is that?

As we’ve already made more than plain here at Hard Astarboard, we completely support the bill recently signed by Arizona’s governor that, when you come right down to it, only reiterates federal immigration laws that the federal government has been shirking their duty to enforce.

Arizona has been hard hit by the toll of illegal immigration, from the violence in the border region, to the Mexican drug trafficking into their state, to the crime, loss of revenues and jobs and other effects of a flood of illegals, so they decided to do something about it, and did.

So what happens?

Other states like California, which has been hurt by criminal immigration but continues to pride itself on being a sanctuary state, are kvetching about Arizona’s anti-immigration law, but hey! States’ rights are firmly etched into the U.S. Constitution, and if Arizona feels this is in its own best interests, it is within its right to do so.

As far as this is concerned, well…

Thousands of people from around the country marched to the Arizona state Capitol on Saturday to protest the state’s tough new crackdown on illegal immigration.

Marchers carrying signs, banners and flags from the United States and Mexico filled a five-mile stretch of central Phoenix. Dozens of police officers lined the route, and helicopters hovered overhead.

Police declined to estimate the size of the crowd, but it appeared at least 10,000 to 20,000 protesters braved temperatures that were forecast to reach 95 degrees by mid-afternoon. Organizers had said they expected the demonstration to bring as many as 50,000 people.

…if the photo in the linked article is any indication, it seems like this is a largely Mexican event; I wonder what the percentage of protesters is that are Latinos, as opposed to white bread “progressives”? Granted, there’ll undoubtedly prove, at the end of the day, to have been a few thousand gringos in evidence, but then as Seth, a veteran of numerous demonstrations and counter-demonstrations has told me, the lefties tend to bus in multitudes of people to these events to bolster up their showing, basically a propaganda move — to make it look like there are a hell of a lot more people who support their agendas enough to find their own way to an event than there actually are.

Having said that,

Q. Why don’t these people from other states, likely a number of which are not being smothered as much by illegal immigration problems as Arizona has been, simply stay in their own states and mind their own business?

A. Because they’re treasonous, pink, faggot, commie liberals “progressives”, meaning that they don’t know how to mind their own business, not when there’s an opportunity available to force their anti-America programs down the throats of the unwilling.

Before I get into this, I should say that yesterday? I broke out the ol’ satellite dish on the boat and watched part of the U.S. Coast Guard & Minerals Management Service Joint Investigation hearings at Kenner, Louisiana.

I say “part of it” because that was all I could stomach.

You see, BP had one of their professional liars at the hearing, one of those ivy league educated goons whose job it is to obfuscate without appearing to do so, yet who are so obviously lying with the proverbial practiced straight face that it should turn the stomach on any honest man.

Well enough said about that except, oh, yeah, for Seth, his being an ex-coastie and all: Two U.S. Coast Guard officers have now completed BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEALs) training, and three more coasties are in the pipeline.

These new SEALs, after their graduation at Coronado, will return to the Coast Guard, bringing their new skills to bear within the homeland security segments of the maritime military force’s responsibilities.

Now, what, I ask, is this? Still more skullduggery by the White House branch of the corrupt Chicago political machine? I’ve been out on the boat for the last couple of days and may have missed something since then, but…

With all the attention on President Obama’s bungling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the news of Congressional calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate of an alleged job offer by the Obama Administration to get Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA) out of the Pennsylvania Senate race has been pushed down the news pages. This is a serious matter and something that will not be brushed aside. Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), former Bush Administration official Karl Rove and Senate Judiciary Republicans have raised the issue that somebody in the Obama Administration may have committed a felony.

Wow, someone in the Obama Administration might have committed a felony?

I mean,

This Administration has held themselves out to be more ethical than administrations of the past. President Obama’s declared in his inaugural address on January 21, 2009 that:

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept, but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.

This “new era of responsibility” should include an open discussion by the President about whether they did offer Congressman Sestak a job to get out of the primary race for the Democrat nomination to be the next Senator from the state of Pennsylvania.
The White House Web Site promises transparency and accountability right now:

President Obama has consistently made clear that he will strive to lead the most open, transparent, and accountable government in history. Whether it is reigning in the influence of lobbyists in Washington, bringing unprecedented accountability to federal spending, opening doors to engagement with the American public, or shutting down the “revolving door” that carries special interest influence in and out of the government, the highest standards will be sought in every thing the federal government does.

…the most open, transparent, and accountable government in history.

When does that come into effect?

Those promises will be tested over the next few weeks with calls by some Republicans for the Obama Administration to come clean about an alleged job offer to Sestak. Karl Rove has alleged that one of two things are true: either Sestak is lying;

or, a crime may have been committed by somebody in the Obama Administration.

Karl Rove via the L.A. Times as quoted on the Fox News Channel:

One of two things is true, you can’t have two things true. One or the other is true. Either Joe Sestak is lying and he was not offered a position in the administration in return for getting out of the primary. You know he’s a liar, in which case not worthy of public service. Or, he’s telling the truth, in which case somebody inside the White House committed a felony. 18 USC 211 says that, a government official cannot promise a job in return for anything of value and it has a long list of values.

The entire article is here.

If I were a betting man, I’d bet that this gets ignored as much as possible by the quasi communist editors within the mainstream media.