It seems that McCain fooled everybody when he picked Alaska governor Sara Palin. It seems that hardly anyone knew anything about her, except the residents of Alaska.

Having lived in Alaska back in the 80's I find that her being elected to be the states governor not at all strange because Alaska is not just a place to live it is a mind set and about as far as you can get from the "lower 48" and still be on the mainland in the United States. Besides folks up there just for the good paying jobs there are folks that went there because of an independent spirit and a real desire to get away from all the BS in the rest of the country.

As you may know The Brass Monkey Blog .Net is not inline with either of the major political parties and will go after anyone that it seems to us is wrong.

That being said I think her being picked as John McCain's running mate was a stroke of genius on his part. Heck I would vote for her if she was the number one on the ticket. Why is that you may ask? Well lets take a look. The first thing that pops to mind is the fact that she is without question and beyond doubt not a Washington insider. She said in a speech that when she was elected Governor that she was going to clean up the "good ole boy" politics as usual in Alaska. Darn what an idea! If any place needs a change it is Washington. All of the "good ole boys" need to be sent packing. The fact that her 17 year old daughter has "a bun in the oven" and not married should have no effect on her being the vice president. I would bet that a lot of her detractors have had the same thing happen to them or there family members.

To wrap up I think that she would make a great addition to Washington DC and I hope that she can for a lack of a better description bring some of that Alaskan "mindset" to our capitol. Just like looking at all of the fireweed and the first snows in the fall, the Northern Lights in the winter, the rapidly gaining sun light in the spring, and the short sweet summers that create massive quick growth of the flora in Alaska. Sara if you get to live in DC please bring some of Alaska to the "lower 48".

A Federal Judge ruled that Caltrans did "irreparable harm" to the Constitutional rights of the San Diego Minutemen by unlawfully revoking our legal adopt-a-highway permit, thereby squelching our free speech, Caltrans finally put our sign back up today that they had ripped out of the ground literally in the middle of the night on Jan. 28th

A spokesman for the San Diego Minutemen said,,

We are all thrilled to see our adopt-a-highway recognition sign back up standing more proudly than ever. The U.S. Constitution has thankfully trumped the lies and coercion of the illegal alien activists and the corrupt California Mexican Caucus, especially assembly member Lori Saldana who joined forces with Enrique Morones late last year to wage a destruction crusade against the fine, multi-ethnic Patriots of the San Diego Minutemen. Her malicious lies have been exposed for the judge and the world to see!

To read more of this story see this post from July 25th titled San Diego Highway Dedicated to Ramos & Compean on a blog dedicated to freeing imprisoned Border Patrol Agents Ramos & Compean

Obama was not thrilled about making the cover of the New Yorker.

A recent issue of The New Yorker magazine had a cartoon with a backdrop of the oval office and an American flag burning in the fireplace with a portrait of Osama over it showing Obama in Muslim garb with his wife depicted as a terrosist compleat with a machine gun strapped over her shoulder. Osama, opps I mean Obama did not see the humor and alot of other folks felt the same way, calling the cartoon tasteless.

Senator McCain said,

"I just saw a picture of it on television ... I think it's totally inappropriate and frankly I understand if Senator Obama and his supporters would find it offensive,"

I have no opinion one way or the other on this issue, but I am sure if you surf around the net you will find many, like this one in the Huffington Post. People Complaining About The Obama "New Yorker" Cover Are Wrong

At a town hall meeting in Georgia, presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama told an audience that,

you need to make sure that your child can speak Spanish.

I am so disgusted with this statement that if I ever entertain the thought to vote for this elitist bozo, all I will have to do is remember his statement to snap me back to my senses

In fact I am to pissed off to elaborate on this story. So for the whole story see Obama Tells Audience, “You Need to Make Sure that Your Child Can Speak Spanish”

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Earlier this week the Supreme Court cleared the way for U.S. officials to press ahead with the project with little worry that judges will be able to stop it.

This is a welcome blow to open border advocates and socio-ethnic special interest groups who want an open border so as not to block human and drug smugglers and illegal aliens from easily crossing the border.

These special interest groups clearly have no patriotic feelings for the United States but are loyal to Mexico.

These sneaky bastards even got the help of groups like the Sierra Club to help them kill the fence.

This ruling coupled with ICE's recent raids cracking down on employers who hire illegal alien lawbreakers is definitely a step in the right direction in starting to curb illegal immigration.

"Take Our Energy, Our Passion, Our Strength And Do All We Can To Help Elect Barack Obama"

Hillary offically suspended her campaign today in front of a crowd of supporters numbering in the thousands and threw her full support to Obama. She also urged her supporters to do the same.

This long primary season has some records and some precedents. It showed that a women and an African-American could run for the job of President. This was also we believe the closest a runner up {Hillary) has ever been in votes behind the winner.

She showed nothing but class in her speech today and on a scale of 1 to 10 The Brass Monkey gives it a

Phoenix in response to intense pressure from the public has dropped it's policy of not checking the immigration status of persons picked up for any crime.

The changed policy would allow police to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement when any law has been violated by a person police suspect to be an illegal immigrant, a significant change that drew intense criticism from immigration advocates.

The Brass Monkey sees this move as very positive and is part of a growing movement of various cities, counties and states that are passing laws or changing policy to crack down on illegal aliens.

We might add that ICE also seems to be cracking down and in some cases (finally) starting to lay some heavy fines on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.

They are at it again!! Late at night Senator Feinstein and Senator Craig (better known as Mens Room Larry) attached an Amnesty provision for well over a million illegal aliens to a bill that would provide funds for our soldiers.

You will remember that last year amnesty was voted down in congress because of the outrage of the American people. Therefore this is just a blatant attempt to sneak a portion of that defeated bill threw congress by hiding it at the last minute in an attachment to the military funding bill.

The Brass Monkey thinks this is an outrage and an attempt to subvert the will of the people in favor of special interest groups

Remember this at election time voters and kick out these traitors to America. In fact The Brass Monkey believes that the only way to get back control of the government is to throw all of the incumbents out and start anew.

Dianne Feinstein and Larry Craig
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Republican presidential nominee John McCain seems to be backing off his secure the border first statement and is again using the term Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

You might remember that he was the co-author of that defeated legislation along with Senator Ted Kennedy.

The timing of this is very apparent, as the remarks came after he had the Republican nomination sewed up. I will give him credit for one thing though, he stands by his convictions even though his stance on the Iraq war and illegal immigration might well cost him the election this fall.

That being said let us not forget that Senators Clinton and Obama are also for Amnesty for illegal aliens!

You may ask why is this because it is clear that the majority of voters do not want amnesty and want the border secured. The only reason that makes any sense at all is all three of the candidates are pandering to the greedy unpatriotic bastards that run big business and are not at all interested in what the voters think.

Scary!! Sure they will give the voters some lip service on issues, but when elected it will be back to business as usual. And then there is NAFTA and all the other free trade agreements that were a disaster. But we will not get into that at this time.

Inferior Steel imports from China that fall apart easily are making U.S. manufacturers and constructions firms more than a little nervous. Reports of failures during initial fabrication and questions about certification documents will mean closer scrutiny.

The biggest concern is hollow structural sections widely used in construction of skyscrapers, bridges, pipelines, office, commercial and school buildings. This high-strength steel is also commonly used in power lifts, cranes, farm equipment, furniture and car trailer hitches.

Failures of this "tube steel" has already happened in several California schools

Chinese high-strength steel tubes and pipes are also a potential problem. They’re used extensively in power plants and in large industrial boilers, and must withstand enormous pressures and hellish heat around the clock for weeks or months on end. This kind of steel also is used extensively in scaffolding that's erected on building exteriors during construction or renovation, as well as for interior work.

Inferior high-strength steel could cause catastrophic failures of buildings, pipelines or in power plants' boiler tubing. This is a large worry for structural engineers who will be working overtime as states embark on what amounts to a crash program to shore up bridges, following the collapse of the Minnesota span over the Mississippi River. China is already seeing problems. A Chinese power plant exploded recently when high-strength steel tubing blew out, says Roger Schagrin, general counsel for the Committee on Pipe and Tube Imports, which represents U.S. manufacturers of these products.

The following from the Shanghai Daily

HALF the steel material sold at wholesale markets and now being used in construction has failed quality tests.
The Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau inspected 52 batches of steel material at three markets and 15 construction sites in seven districts, including Xuhui, Zhabei and Baoshan, and officials said 27 batches had quality problems.
The tested materials were too light to reach the country's standard - some of the products were five times lighter than the required weight.
About 22 percent of the tested products failed tension tests. Buildings with such steel would not be able to withstand major earthquakes, the bureau said.
Forty-eight percent of the tested material had inadequate amounts of carbon. Shortage of carbon can cause steel to break easily, officials explained.

Bear in mind this point folks: The US is importing a lot of cheap inferior Chinese steel, up from almost nothing a couple of years ago. The importers include the US government!

That's right folks, less than a week after Chertoff accepted Project 28 on Feb. 22, the Government Accountability Office told Congress it

"did not fully meet user needs and the project's design will not be used as the basis for future developments."

The government is scrapping a $20 million prototype of its highly touted "virtual fence" on the Arizona-Mexico border because the system is failing to adequately alert border patrol agents to illegal crossings.

On a scale of 1 to 10 The Brass Monkey gives Homeland Security and Boeing a score of 1.

The move comes just two months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced his approval of the fence built by The Boeing Co.

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The Brass Monkey proudly gives our first Punk Ass Chump award to Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is at it again doing his job by doing crime suppression sweeps and in the process rounding up law breakers including illegal alien law breakers and the bleeding heart Mayor of Phoenix Phil Gordon does not like it.

Gordon who already lost the public relations battle with Sheriff Joe now is trying to get him nailed for civil rights violations. The Mayor says the Sheriff is using racial profiling by targeting brown skinned people. Duh Mayor!
The last time we checked there were no illegal aliens from Canada here. As far as we are concerned the only right these aliens have is to be deported post haste and while they are leaving they can take this buffoon Mayor with them.

Time and time again the majority of citizens in the Phoenix area have voiced there opinion, which is very much in favor of what the Sheriff is doing. This Mayor is as out of touch with the majority of the people as congress and the Bush administration are.

We racked our brains and the only reasons we could come up with for the Mayors actions are, he is caving in to his cronies in special interest groups like the La Raza thugs and to businesses who have lost there cheapo illegal alien workers and now might have to pay a decent wage to American workers

He is doing this despite the fact that late last year Phoenix Police officer Nick Erfle was shot and killed by an illegal alien scum bag who was on the streets because of the area policy of Phoenix and suburbs of not deporting or asking if a person is here legally. This scum bag was in jail in one of the suburbs and released to the streets!

This is totally unacceptable and if the leaders of these various communities continue this policy of not asking folks if they are legal, especially if they are jailed for some offense that they should all move to the closest Mexican border town to get a real first hand look at what is going on.

Peter Lynch a University of New Mexico student and Air Force vet was outraged when he saw a Mexican flag flying alone in front of the UNM administration building last September. He responded by pulling it down and tearing it up after futile calls to UNM officials and the ROTC. Lynch did admit to being overzealous, he remained resolute that his actions were righteous.

It seems that they were righteous because in section C of US Code: Title 4.7 it states

No other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for the personnel of the Navy. No person shall display the flag of the United Nations or any other national or international flag equal, above, or in a position of superior prominence or honor to, or in place of, the flag of the United States at any place within the United States or any Territory or possession thereof: Provided, That nothing in this section shall make unlawful the continuance of the practice heretofore followed of displaying the flag of the United Nations in a position of superior prominence or honor, and other national flags in positions of equal prominence or honor, with that of the flag of the United States at the headquarters of the United Nations.

A caller to an Albuquerque radio talk show said

If someone raises a foreign flag over another country's sovereign territory, that it is a hostile act. What La Raza did was actually seditious behavior. They should be apologizing to us for raising that flag.

On April 2nd Mr. Lynch was convicted of destroying property and sentenced to six months of probation, 48 hours of community service restitution in the form of replacing the flag. He had only been out of the Air Force 72 hours at the time of the incident.

This brings to mind the incident last year of a Mexican bar owner in Reno Nevada flying the Mexican flag above that of the United States. In that case another service vet tour it down and cut it up.

With May just around the corner and the La Raza type thugs planning a repeat of the marches of last May, we are pretty sure there might be more "flag incidents".

Finally, I don't know about you but I think that these amigos who fly the Mexican flag are not patriots of the United States but patriots of Mexico and Mexico is were there loyalties lie. If that is the case we suggest they all head south post haste

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Puerto Palomas Mexico which sits on the Mexican side of the border just a little south of Columbus New Mexico USA used to be a quiet town where a lot of US citizens could just walk across to and save big money on good dental work and prescriptions.

Recently though violence has erupted there  in the form of gun battles in the streets, which is going on in a lot of Mexican border towns. Just in the last few weeks the US customs station had to shut down for an hour or so because of flying bullets! Around the same time Emilio Perez the chief of police in Palomas in fear for his life came to the customs station and asked for sanctuary in the United States.

Also recently, the bodies of two people were found wrapped in blankets and dumped along a road near Palomas, and several other people were seen taken hostage around the same time by heavily armed men, the newspaper El Diario of Juarez, Mexico, reported. (Jaurez is up to it's eyeballs in murders also)

In February two men were gunned down at a gas station near the international checkpoint, officials said.

Ok now back to the top of the story, the part about US citizens going to Palomas for excellent low cost dental work. Mayor Eddie Espinoza of Columbus New Mexico USA visited a dentist in Palomas - only to have his root canal interrupted by two pistol-toting men who came in demanding money. No one was injured.

The Brass Monkey wonders what these open borders advocates are thinking. Do they want the gunfights to move across the border into the USA and a return the the days of the wild wild west? Today though the shootings are about drugs, human smuggling, slavers and kidnappings.

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Duh! I have no idea what's wrong with using 40 year old ammo. Heck it is probably the same stuff that was used during the Vietnam war, which by the way Dick and I skillfully avoided.

To arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

A growing collection of free anti-war posters, anti-occupation posters, anti-empire posters, peace posters, bumper stickers, buttons and artwork by artists worldwide against war.

Blood For Oil artwork is being posted everywhere, so we've found this link for you to check out all of the artwork, some is dated.  Blood For Oil

The Brass Monkey has up until now steered clear of the war in our posts but with the US military death toll in Iraq topping the 4,000 mark we thought it was time to get humbly involved.

A federal judge today upheld a Georgia man’s First Amendment right to criticize Wal-Mart’s business practices by using satire to compare its destructive effects on communities to both the Holocaust and al-Qaeda terrorists.

Source Public Citizen Press Room

The staff at The Brass Monkey Blog applauds this judges decision because not only does Wal-mart destroy communities it forces it's suppliers to out source there manufacturing to places like Communist Chinese sweat-shops to knock down the price or they will not sell the product at Wal-Mart. So the effect is a double blow, 1 they force all competitors out of business and 2 they force the loss of thousands of jobs as manufacturing opt to manufacture in Chinese sweat-shops.

There are alot of greedy companys out there doing the same thing, Mattel comes to mind but make no mistake about it Wal-Mart is "The King Of Greed". If you haven't already please see the video Big Box Mart

Tsk, Tsk, Tsk. The liberal senator from Massachusetts caught dumping Diesel fuel into Nantucket sound a place that he calls a national treasure. Well not him actually but a crewman.

The photographer that took the above picture rowed out to ask what the heck was going on and was told by a crewman that he was told to dump the fuel that had somehow gotten into the bilge. When told by the photographer that he was in coastal waters near shellfish beds and people swimming, the crewman replied, “Whatever.”

If you were old enough in 1969 to remember, Ted Kennedy left something else in the waters of Nantucket sound. His car and 28 year old Mary Jo Kopechne, when he drove off of a Chappaquiddick Island bridge.

His punishment, 2 months in jail, suspended!

Pork Pork Pork

The Senate could not even vote for a measly 1 year moratorium on earmark spending (more commonly referred to as Pork). 71 voted against the moratorium. You might recall one of the most famous Pork requests which came from Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska who tried to get over 200 million for a bridge to nowhere.

Not even one year, damn that is sad folks and it is just another reason that all incumbents need to get the boot. It is the only way we can get a government for the people and not for big-business and other assorted fat cats who the congress really works for.

They pander to the people, saying what ever it takes for us to elect them then once in office they go to work for the fat cats.

See CAGWs Porker Of The Year Video here at The Brass Monkey

The Brass Monkey is wondering what all the fuss is about concerning the Air Force's decision to give the new tanker contract to EADS, a European company.

The folks who say that outsourcing the contract to a non US company is outrageous and that Boeing should have got the contract. Let's be real folks Boeing is here pretty much in name and final assembly only. Don't forget that Boeing's new passenger plane supposed to debut in August of '07 is way behind schedule. The reason, Boeing OUTSOURCED the manufacture of the various parts of the plane to several foreign manufactures, and only the final assembly was going to be done in the US. The parts to be assembled came back from the various sources and guess what, they did not fit together!

Pretty much the same thing was going to be done by EADS who would be using various sub-contractors like, GE and Northrop Grumman. The final assembly would be done in here in the good ole US.

So what's the big deal?

If Boeing was going construct the whole tanker here and could truly say, made in the USA (totally and not just assembled) that despite the higher bid, it should have been excepted. Then a lot of Americans would have some badly needed good paying jobs.

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