From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — As President Obama tries to turn around a summer of setbacks, he finds himself still without most of his own team. Seven months into his presidency, fewer than half of his top appointees are in place advancing his agenda.

Of more than 500 senior policymaking positions requiring Senate confirmation, just 43 percent have been filled — a reflection of a White House that grew more cautious after several nominations blew up last spring, a Senate that is intensively investigating nominees and a legislative agenda that has consumed both.

While career employees fill many posts on an acting basis, Mr. Obama does not have his own people enacting programs central to his mission. He is trying to fix the financial markets but does not have an assistant treasury secretary for financial markets. He is spending more money on transportation than anyone since Dwight D. Eisenhower but does not have his own inspector general watching how the dollars are used. He is fighting two wars but does not have an Army secretary.

Get the whole story here

…..

-Cnation

Transnationalist Harold Koh Makes The Big Time

With healthcare, cap and trade, and the most important news item of all -  the death of Michael Jackson – dominating the news all week, this one quietly slipped by virtually unnoticed.

On Friday, Harold Koh was confirmed by the senate as Legal Adviser of the Department of State.

Harold Koh is a self-described ‘transnationalist’, which means he believe that the United Stated should apply international law here at home. Mr Koh has written “transnationalists believe that U.S. courts can and should use their interpretive powers to promote the development of a global legal system.”

In other words, Mr. Koh believes that United States sovereignty comes second to international law. In his new job as State Department Legal Advisor, he will be in perfect position to ensure that’s exactly what happens.

According to Fox News, “Obama nominated Koh on March 23 to become the State Department’s legal adviser — an appointment that, if confirmed by the Senate, will give Koh far-reaching influence over the extent to which international norms affect U.S. law.  “This is not a desk job. This guy will be the face of American international law around the world,” said Steven Gross, legal expert and fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.”

Apparently, congress – along with the precedent -  has forgotten their oath of allegiance. It goes like this:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

While the Republicans attempted a filibuster, Republican senators Snowe, Collins, Alexander, Hatch, Gregg, Lugar, Martinez, and Voinovich voted ‘Yes’ to cloture (ending the debate) on Wednesday 6/24. The cloture vote was:
YEAs 65
NAYs 31
Not Voting 3

Koh was confirmed on Thursday by a vote of 62-35:
YEAs 62
NAYs 35
Not Voting 2

The R.I.N.O.s who voted in favor of Koh’s confirmation were no big surprise: Snowe, Collins, Lugar, Martinez, and Voinovich.

Some background on Koh:
Ethics and Public Policy Center: Harold Koh’s Transnationalism: A Collection of Posts on the State Department Legal Adviser Nominee

G.O.A Video: Harold Koh, another anti-gun Obama nominee

Nokoh: Coalition To Preerve American Sovereignty

-Cnation

From the Department Of Homeland Security website:

This Department of Homeland Security’s overriding and urgent mission is to lead the unified national effort to secure the country and preserve our freedoms. While the Department was created to secure our country against those who seek to disrupt the American way of life, our charter also includes preparation for and response to all hazards and disasters. The citizens of the United States must have the utmost confidence that the Department can execute both of these missions.

In light of recent events, the above reads like a comedy piece. Except nobody is laughing.

Brought to my attention via an article at Michelle Malkin’s site:

This past Sunday (4/19/2009), DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano was being interviewed on the CNN show ‘STATE OF THE UNION WITH JOHN KING’. At one point during the interview, King asked Napolitano about comments made by Maricopa (AZ) County sheriff Joe Arpaio. Here is the exchange including Napolitano’s jaw-dropping response:

KING: A lot of Democrats in Congress want to you investigate him. They think he is over the line. He says he is just enforcing the law and the problem is the federal government.

NAPOLITANO: Well, you know, Sheriff Joe, he is being very political in that statement, because he knows that there aren’t enough law enforcement officers, courtrooms or jail cells in the world to do what he is saying.

What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor, the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery.

And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well.

That’s right. The head of the Department of Homeland Security, an agency tasked with keeping our nation secure, just said on live television that crossing the border is not a crime. And John King, the hack, didn’t even call her on it.

For the record, illegal entry into the United States is a crime; specifically, first offense is a misdemeanor, second offense is a felony.

Of course, Napolitano knows damn well that it is a crime, and the fact that she’s willing to lie about it so freely is deeply troubling. The fact that she can lie about it without any fear of repercussions from above strongly suggests, if not proves outright, that she is carrying out the Obama game plan which, in my opinion, is to allow and keep as many illegals in our country as possible so that when amnesty is finally passed, the Democrats will have a voting base large enough to virtually ensure permanent Democrat rule.

Don’t believe it? Consider the fact that she:

• claims to want to target employers, but has not yet done so
• claims to be “going after those [border jumpers] as well“, but as we all know, has been doing nothing of the kind
• has pretty much halted all interior enforcement in the aftermath of the raid in Bellingham, Washington, where she ordered the release of the illegals picked up in that raid.

This pretense of getting tough while actually doing nothing at all, or worse – doing the opposite of what  they are telling us they are doing (try to square ‘tax cuts for 95% of Americans’ with Cap and Trade, for example, and see if your head doesn’t explode from the sheer dishonesty of it all) is classic Obama administration doublespeak.

With this administration, you just cannot listen to the words coming from their mouths. These people are masters of con.; you instead need to look at and scrutinize what is actually being done, or undone as the case may be, and then ask yourself if any of it passes the smell test. You’ll find that very little of it does.

In Napolitano, the President has found his perfect lap dog, and our national security and economic well-being is on a death spiral as a result.

Change indeed.

-Cnation

Enriching us with their culture and heritage

Quiet Amnesty takes another step forward. Nevermind the rising crime rate among illegal aliens, the almost epidemic number of illegal alien-caused drunken driving deaths, the propagation of illegal alien gangs like the latin kings or the ms13, the mexican drug cartels that have taken root in and brought horrific levels of violence to hundreds of cities across the country, or any of the millions upon millions of illegals who have driven blue collar wages into the dirt and put a corresponding amount of citizens out of work.

No, forget all that, because it seems that in the course of making even token efforts at enforcing our immigration laws we’ve managed to enrage “Latino community and religious leaders, immigrant advocates and civil liberties groups important to the Democratic base…”, which, as we all know, is much more important than the sovereignty of our nation and the safety of our family, friends and neighbors.

Is this an outrage? You bet your ass it is. At every turn though, Barak Obama and his administration are doing everything they can both here at home and internationally to bring the United States of America down. There’s simply no other explanation for their reckless disregard for the safety and well being American people.

Want some more? How about this from another Phoenix-area news agency:
Pinal immigration task force on hold

The bastards.

-Cnation

Is there nothing this administration won’t do to embolden our enemies?

From Fox News:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has an explanation about why she never mentioned the word “terrorism” during her first testimony on Capitol Hill.

Napolitano tells the German news site Spiegel Online that while she presumes there is always a threat from terrorism: “I referred to “man-caused” disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.”

James Carafano, senior research fellow at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation says: “By deliberately trying not to use the T word they run a serious political risk. If something does happen, they’ll be accused of taking their eye off the ball and no amount of explanation after the fact will suffice.”

Here’s a clue, bubblehead – it wasn’t a ‘man-caused disaster’ that took down the twin towers. It was a pair of commercial aircraft piloted by Saudi terrorists. You know, terrorism.

Hat tip to Sean Hannity, who said of this (I’ll paraphrase) “If you can’t even call it what it is, how can you expect to fight it?”

-Cnation