Thursday morning boost

More kick than a double Grande Cappuccino

This has been making the rounds for a while. If you missed it, this patriotic Army veteran will make you proud. Watch the brief video here.

A soaring opportunity

Honor or exploitation?

In a blatant attempt to influence the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, soon to be deciding whether to use the name Piestewa Peak on official documents and maps, the daily pounds again on their racial-guilt drum.

Try this: As a nation and as a community, we honor our war dead. We want to ease the pain. There are other pains that we, as a nation and a community, need to acknowledge. The historic treatment of Native Americans is one of those. The injustices that were committed against these First Americans are a painful legacy.

Today we are not only treated to guilt, but another editorial dose of their pro-Napolitanoism. The ham-handed renaming of Phoenix’s Squaw Peak mountain to honor a fallen solider, adverse to the five-year waiting period was simply wrong. But bestowing such an honor on this specific soldier was not serendipitous.

It should be acknowledged that this particular solider, Lori Piestewa, a member of the Hopi tribe, was able, in death, to do for Arizona’s crafty governor what the unfortunate young mother of two could never have done in life. She gifted the politically ambitious Janet Napolitano with a vitally important inroad to Arizona tribal votes.

We grieve for Army Pfc Lori Piestewa and her family–just as we do for every military life lost and disability suffered by our combat personnel. Yet we also recognize that this was a purely political move that requires some rational reflection be brought to this issue.

Today the paper acknowledges the governor’s political maneuvering and outlandish tactics were beyond the pale when her swaggering henchman and former aide, Mario Diaz, threatened commissioners on the Arizona panel to ramrod the name change through by saying: It was the wrong way to do it, but it was the right thing to do.

The editorialist omitted two important words: For Napolitano.

Marking the five year anniversary of Iraq war

Arizona needs a troop surge, too

Addressing an audience of Pentagon officials, soldiers and diplomats, he said: “The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just. And, with your courage, the battle in Iraq will end in victory.”

President Bush effectively linked the Iraq war to the global battle against the al Qaida terrorists, invoking the success of last year’s troop surge, which he credited with turning the situation in Iraq around. “Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al Qaida out“, he said. “War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq, so now they argue the war costs too much.”

Although this site has often taken the president to task for his limp border policies which place the United States in harm’s way in a post-9/11 world, we support his vigilance on the global front—and urge the same commitment to national security to protect American citizens here at home.

Arizona has become the gateway for the influx of illegals into the United States. The dollar costs alone, passed on to taxpaying Arizona citizens, are skyrocketing. Four years ago, they were estimated at $1.3 billion annually.

Former Presidential candidate, Congressman Duncan Hunter (R - CA) writing for Human Events, states the threat clearly: Consider that in 2005 alone, 155,000 foreign citizens from countries other than Mexico were apprehended attempting to cross our border with Mexico. These individuals came from countries all around the world, several of which have an adversarial relationship with the United States. If it is accurate to assume that an estimated 4 out of every 10 crossing attempts are successful, as some reports suggest, then we can infer that at least 62,000 individuals from countries like China, Iran and Syria, made it into the United States.

Arizona needs a troop surge, too.

Who’d ever thought we’d agree with Janet?

Wants to delay pullout of National Guard troops on the border

Saying the new “virtual fence” in Southern Arizona is flawed, Gov. Janet Napolitano is asking the nation’s security chief to delay the pullout of National Guard troops from the area, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the governor said the 28-mile experimental segment near Sasabe has had “continuing problems.” The result, she said, is that plans to expand the network of cameras and sensors is now being pushed back to 2011.

Napolitano said that makes plans to withdraw the remaining Guard soldiers from the border by July 15 ill advised. But Russ Knocke, Chertoff’s press aide, said while adjustments have had to be made, the virtual fence is working.

And, if you believe that, Knocke has a bridge to sell you.

An article well worth reading: To Die For NAFTA

“Lost U.S. jobs should not be our primary concern,” said McCain, “I’ve always felt the best thing to do is to create the best weapons system we can at minimum cost to taxpayers.”

Read the entire Pat Buchanan column here.

Repeated Mexican military incursions into U.S.

Confirmed by FBI, but not on Chertoff’s radar screen

Scarborough Country reports on shocking incidents—including shooting at U.S. border patrol agents, as Mexican military units provide cover for drug cartels and human transporters.

Remembering Veteran’s Day

 

With gratitude to all who have served this great nation, protecting our freedoms, while sacrificing so much.

Take a moment and read this proclamation honoring America’s heroes by President George W. Bush.

Packages From Home: Casualty of Governor’s budget cuts

 

Military will be disappointed over the holiday season as anticipated packages are halted.

Governor  Napolitano’s budget cuts  will impact the Arizona National Guard troops she so warmly embraced on her whirlwind trip to the Iraqi battle zone several months ago.

“We are not happy here,” said Kathleen Lewis, founder and executive director of the four-year-old, non-profit Packages From Home .

Lewis said she learned of the cut last Thursday and was told that the National Guard would no longer pay for packages being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan after 3 p.m. the next day. The group packed as many boxes as possible, Lewis said, to meet the Friday deadline.

Packages From Home shipped about 2,000 packages a month, drawing from donations dropped at 60 sites throughout the Valley. “Our military family never quits on us; why would we quit on them?” asked Lewis.

Donations can be made by going to www.packagesfromhome.org or by calling (602) 253-0284.

Court rules in favor of anti-war activist

ACLU: “Pleased with decision.”

U.S. District Judge Neil Wake has issued a preliminary injunction allowing an anti-war activist to continue manufacturing T-shirts bearing the names of fallen American soldiers, for profit,

Flagstaff resident, Daniel Frazier, has previously sold the shirts bearing slogans such as “Bush Lied, They Died.”

The Arizona State Legislature passed a bill which Gov. Napolitano signed into law in May, banning the use of the names of dead soldiers in such a manner, without expressed permission of their families. In June, the ACLU filed a suit challenging the law.

Judge Wake’s 30-page decision was based upon free speech considerations.

“The nation’s debt to its fallen soldiers may not be paid by giving their families a toll on free speech. The debt must be paid in other ways.”

Frazier said he has stopped answering his telephone due to the irate phone calls he’s received.

Inventive component of DREAM Act is a nightmare

Military service: route to U.S. citizenship

As reported in the  morning daily, hundreds of thousands of illegals would be eligible for the gift of citizenship by enlisting in the U.S. Military, if our congress is allowed to advance the nightmarish Dream Act. 

DREAM is an acronym for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, granting in-state tuition to students who are in this country illegally.

Columnist  Michelle Malkin  covers this backdoor attempt at forcing amnesty on the American people who vigorously and successfully protested such measures earlier this year.

The United States Military  Enlistment Standards  includes tiered educational requirements:

Tier 3 - Non-High School Graduate. Individuals who are not attending high school and are neither high school graduates nor alternative credential holders. The services rarely accept a Tier 3 candidate for enlistment.

Yet a report by  Robert Rector  of the Heritage Foundation provides these facts:

The education levels of illegal aliens are lower than those of legal immigrants. Approximately sixty percent of all adult Latin American or Mexican illegal immigrants lack a high school degree with only 7 percent possessing a high school diploma. By contrast, among U.S. native-born only 6 percent have failed to complete high school degrees and nearly a third have a college degree.

So where are all of the high school graduate illegal recruits going to be found? There is an immense underground market for counterfeit documents such as driver’s licenses, social security cards and birth certificates How difficult would it be to create diplomas, which are not government issued credentials?