Hello—I go by See-Dubya on the web, and I used to guest-blog here for Michelle back in 2008. Then I retired from blogging, but I’m coming back just this once to tell you about my trip to 7-11.

It was actually only near 7-11; I didn’t go in. The parking lot was too crowded. It was raining and it was early in the morning and my windows were fogged up but I pulled in across the street, turned my headlights off, and one of the three or four dozen men who were hanging around the lot (despite the miserable downpour) came out to see me. One little guy in an orange shirt and a ball cap, who looked to be in charge, came up to my window, but I just smiled and waved him off and fooled with my phone. So he smiled and went back to leaning on his truck. I think he thought I wanted to pick up some day labor.

I wasn’t, but hat’s understandable: this particular 7-11 has a reputation as a place to pick up day labor. It has had that reputation for at least ten years, probably longer. Every time I’ve driven by there, there the laborers are. There’s a lot of places like this in America today, probably some of them 7-11s, where day laborers gather in hopes they’ll get picked up for a job.

This particular 7-11 (you can see the sign, and the workers, in the background, through the monsoon) is in Falls Church, Virginia, on the Leesburg Pike, just down the road from the Dar al-Hijrah mosque. Ten years ago, a charismatic imam named Anwar al-Awlaki manned the pulpit there, and a U.S. soldier named Nidal Hasan listened to his sermons in the congregation.

In fact just a little over ten years ago a couple of worshipers from Dar al-Hijrah drove up to this particular 7-11. They weren’t really interested in hiring the day laborers so much as getting someone to help them acquire forged identification. That turned out to be a fellow named Luis A. Martinez-Flores, himself an illegal immigrant, and he walked the two Arabs, Hani Hanjour and Khaled Almidhar, through the process of getting Virginia ID cards—after which they returned to this particular 7-11, withdrew $100 from the ATM, and handed it to Mr. Martinez-Flores.

Around five years ago Michelle went to this particular 7-11. She talked about what had happened there on her then-new website called Hot Air. Her video isn’t there anymore, but it made quite an impression on me. Now that I live in Northern Virginia, every time I drive past that particular 7-11 I point it out to my family. I don’t want them to forget why that particular 7-11 is special. That’s where Hani Hanjour and Khaled Almidhar ten years ago used the ID’s they bought so easily at this day labor bazaar to board American Airlines Flight 77 out of Dulles, and then to take it over and fly it into the Pentagon. They had also, according to Martinez-Lopez’s federal indictment, used these ID’s to procure ID’s in turn for three other 9/11 hijackers. “In all,” notes the 9-11 Commission report, “the five hijackers based their Virginia identification documents on the residency information of one bribed Salvadoran.”

You would think the first thing that the newly-formed Department Homeland Security would have done would be to raid this particular labor market, frequented by illegal aliens and the document fraudsters that enable them to feign legitimacy, and shut it down for good. This is the site of our immigration policy’s greatest, most shameful failure, after all. Of course, ten years on, it’s just business as usual and the shame and failure continue unabated. There’s no marker to commemorate what happened there. You’d never know anything historically significant had happened there ten years ago.

You’d have no indication at that particular 7-11 what a petty, commonplace, wretched little conspiracy was committed, and what a dreadful, monstrous crime was thereby abetted. That was where and when our self-deception about the illegal labor market and the security risks it presents caught up to us. Everyone should know this place. Everyone should vow that what happened there will never be permitted to happen again.

But everyone won’t know; the memory is fading. Like the pictures of the man jumping from the Twin Towers, like the pictures of the rejoicing Middle East, this is one story that you never see in the “respectable” media accounts of what happened a decade ago.

I just drove by there the other day to remind myself. And ten years later it looks like nothing has changed, especially not the policy permitting this market to occur. When Michelle made her video for Hot Air five years ago we were in the midst of debating President Bush’s new policy of amnesty for illegal immigrants, a policy which was just beginning to erode the support of his conservative base. And today the current President has just recently opened yet another door to illegal alien amnesty.

One more thing remained the same: Writing in Human Events about that particular 7-11 in November of 2001, Timothy Carney and Terence Jeffrey noted that Fairfax County police cars often stopped there in the mornings and kept an eye on the crowd. And sure enough, this week, right there in front of that particular 7-11, in the midst of the mob of day laborers (no doubt enjoying Fairfax County’s ongoing status as a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants,) there was parked a Fairfax County police cruiser, just waiting, watching the traffic. Hoping, perhaps, to find some illegal activity going on.

Keep watching! Another ten years, and you may start to see something.

[This post was written and researched on my own time, on my own equipment. Opinions are strictly my own.]

I wrote this column seven years ago, on the 2nd anniversary of the 9/11 jihadi attacks. Sad to say, I could have just as well written it today.

Spitting on their graves
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
9/10/03

Across the nation, public officials will strike somber poses and shed television-friendly tears and bow their blow-dried heads in memory of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

They’ll hold hands, light candles, and pass around a plateful of platitudes: “Never forget,” they’ll intone. “Let’s roll,” they’ll thunder. “God bless America,” they’ll warble in perfect harmony.

They’ll assure us that they are committed to fighting terror and securing our borders and doing whatever it takes to protect the homeland from another horrific mass murder at the hands of freedom-hating fanatics. And then?

And then, from Washington state to Washington, D.C., they’ll go back to work, roll up their sleeves, and spit on the graves of the 9/11 dead.

Your pious city councilwoman will return to the office to draft a resolution condemning the common-sense detention and deportation of Middle Eastern illegal aliens suspected of terrorism.

Your politically correct police chief will refuse to cooperate with federal authorities in criminal investigations of illegal visa overstayers and border-crossers and ship-jumpers.

Your pandering mayor will stealthily renew his policy of preventing city employees from reporting illegal aliens.

Your indignant local librarian will promote fear-mongering and misinformation about the Patriot Act.

Your regional Chamber of Commerce president will join forces with Canadian and Mexican government representatives to put business interests ahead of border enforcement.

Your tuition-thirsty university president will lobby behind closed doors against federal efforts to track foreign students and ensure that they go home when required. Your vote-hungry governor will encourage document fraud through his support of insecure foreign-issued identification cards and driver’s licenses for “undocumented workers.”

Your race card-fearing congressman will court Arab and Muslim special interest groups and donors who have coddled Islamists on college campuses, in prisons, and in the U.S. military in the name of “diversity.”

Your grandstanding senator will block funding for long-delayed homeland defense measures — such as a national entry-exit system to monitor temporary foreign visitors — even as he whines about the need for more money to ensure our safety.

Your incompetent Transportation Security Administration will stonewall pilots who want training to be armed, squander tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on lucrative contracts for weapons-detection equipment that doesn’t work or get used, and continue to ban racial profiling.

Your indifferent Interior Department will look the other way as underequipped and understaffed park rangers along the southwestern border remain vulnerable to drug smugglers and terrorists.

Your bloated Homeland Security Department will keep Clinton-era holdovers in pivotal positions, reduce routine inspections at seaports in the name of efficiency, and continue to shortchange interior enforcement against deportation fugitives and asylum con artists in favor of duct tape tipsheets and cosmetic color-coded alerts.

Your corrupted State Department will appease Saudi terror-backers, reward butt-covering managers, assuage European travel industry tycoons, and continue to defend lax visa screening policies.

Your Democratic presidential candidates will unanimously endorse the very kind of amnesty policies that allowed several al Qaeda operatives to infiltrate this country and hatch terrorist plots.

And your Republican Party elites will continue to spurn immigration enforcement reformers within their own ranks for fear of alienating ethnic constituencies that will never vote for them anyway.

To those who lost their lives on Sept. 11 because their government failed to enforce its borders, laws, and sovereignty, the politicians and bureaucrats and civic leaders will ostentatiously offer one measly day a year of dedication in rhetoric — and 364 days of desecration in deed.

In 2010, when you say “Fat Man and Little Boy,” you could be referring to Michael Moore and George Stephanopoulos, but 65 years ago, devices sporting those seemingly innocuous names caused historically unmatched destruction, and abruptly ended a long war.

Tomorrow marks the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which was the beginning of the end for the Japanese empire.

For the first time, the US will send an official delegation to the Hiroshima ceremony in Japan:

Survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are welcoming a decision by the United States to send its first ever delegation to a ceremony marking the anniversary of the attacks, but are asking for something they aren’t likely to get — an apology.

Tokyo has praised the decision to send U.S. Ambassador John Roos to the Hiroshima anniversary on Friday, though some survivors of the attack, which is seen by many in Japan as an unjustified use of excessive force against a civilian population, say they have mixed feelings.

“They best thing they could do would be to apologize,” said Terumi Tanaka, who survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki at age 13 and is now secretary-general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Associations. “But I doubt that is going to happen.”

I wouldn’t be so sure, Mr. Tanaka. Apologizing for the US is what this administration does best. I must have missed the part where Japan apologized for bombing Pearl Harbor though — and if memory serves, that’s what started the whole thing in the first place.

The reason an apology may be forthcoming from this administration is that the ending of the US/Japan war violated the very tenet of philosophy embraced by many members of Team Obama: fairness.

The liberal/leftist is more inclined to look at the incendiary attacks on Dresden, carpet bombings on German and Japanese cities, and the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — millions of civilian casualties in all — and assume the United States was unfairly advantaged because Japan and Germany were unable to return the favor to Joe Sixpack in Boston, Los Angeles and Paducah (due to lack of enemy ability, not desire). They’ve seen “Failsafe” so much that the only acceptable final ending to the US/Japan war would have been for Henry Fonda to order American planes to nuke New York to level the playing field, figuratively and literally.

In President Obama’s Prague speech, he pledged to lead the charge in creating a nuclear-free world. This means that, even though Japan may never receive a formal apology, the world will get a dramatically weaker United States, thus ensuring that such an unfairly lopsided US victory never again occurs.

Update: Hillary’s on board.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The 4th of July weekend was fast approaching, so somebody at the California Department of Transportation figured it was the perfect time to paint over a US flag mural that was painted near an expressway days after 9/11. And why? Because it was on State property, of course:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is apologizing for a decision by state transportation officials to paint over a giant American flag mural on the side of a Northern California freeway.

The 35-foot long flag was painted on a concrete slab near Interstate 680 in Sunol by three men about two weeks after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Even though the mural had been in clear view of commuters for nearly nine years, a Caltrans spokesman says it wasn’t until last month that someone in the agency asked if the flag was on state property.

Spokesman Allyn Amsk says it was covered up with grey paint Wednesday morning.

In a statement Friday, Schwarzenegger extended his “apologies to the artists whose mural inspired drivers along 680 for over eight and a half years.”

Before:

After:

I don’t know which is more surprising; The depths of bureaucratic idiocy to which many government officials have sunk, or that it took somebody in the California government nine years to get his or her shorts in a wad about this.

I’d hope that the people who decided to do this are on Arnold’s “minimum wage” hit list, but this is California we’re talking about — they’ll probably get a raise and a promotion.

Video of the story is at KTVU.

(h/t Dan Riehl)

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

President Obama went to Arlington Cemetery to lay the wreath last year, but this year Obama’s handing the wreath to Plugs and heading off to the more welcoming political climes of Chicago:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama plans to spend a long holiday weekend in Chicago.

The White House says Obama and his family will travel to their hometown on Thursday and stay through the weekend. It will be their first trip back home since a visit for Valentine’s Day weekend in February 2009.

On Monday, Obama is scheduled to participate in a Memorial Day ceremony at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Ill.

In Obama’s absence, Vice President Joe Biden will participate in the customary wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington.

Obama will however make it back to Washington in time next week to honor Paul McCartney, who has sacrificed so much for the freedoms we enjoy.

Boy, I’m starting to think that West Point speech wasn’t from the heart.

Update: Obama will alter vacation plans slightly and travel to the Gulf on Friday in a desperate attempt to “plug the damn hole” in his approval ratings.

**Written by guest-blogger Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

You have got to see the entire stomach-turning photo series of the Arizona 9/11 memorial disgrace over at Hot Air. Many thanks to Hot Air commenter AZ Patriot for taking the pics.

The blogswarm has been building over the moonbattered memorial, which was supposedly built so that future generations will not forget the tragic losses of life and the inspiration, heroism and lessons learned that day,” but which stands as a Blame America monument that will make the despoilers of Ground Zero and the Flight 93 Red Crescent memorial jealous.

Espresso Pundit sounded the alarm after visiting the site and reported: “The memorial looks like a MoveOn.org webpage.” Flopping Aces and Allah followed up. Ace and his commenters are all over it. The East Valley Tribune picked up on the blogswarm here. MKH tracking here, with campaign donor info on some of the Arizona 9/11 commission members. You won’t be surprised.

Dan Riehl and Ace report on the educational curriculum being offered by the Arizona 9/11 memorial organization. It includes lessons like this:

Describe how key political, social, environmental, and economic events of the late 20th century and early 21st century (e.g., Watergate, OPEC/oil crisis, Central American wars/Iran-Contra, End of Cold War, first Gulf War, September 11) affected, and continue to affect, the United States.

Fox News covered the controversy this afternoon. Here’s Brian Wilson’s interview with Arizona state rep. Russell Pearce.

Five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, we must remain as vigilant as ever against those who would exploit jihadi acts of war and mass murder as opportunities to erect literal Guilt Complexes on American soil. They tried it at Ground Zero. They tried it at Shanksville. They succeeded in Arizona.

Where next?

***

Update: GOP AZ gubernatorial challenger Len Munsil is hosting a press conference tomorrow morning at 11am and has audio of Gov. Napolitano’s fawning over the memorial.

It’s hard to improve on the memorial moonbattery, but the Photoshopping has begun: Sean Gleeson and Six Meat Buffet have fun.

***

Contact Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano:

The Honorable Janet Napolitano
Governor of Arizona
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007

Telephone (602) 542-4331
Toll Free 1-(800) 253-0883
Fax (602) 542-1381

E-mail the Arizona 9/11 memorial organization: information@AZ911Memorial.com

Here are the 30 members of the Arizona 9/11 memorial commission approved by Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (I’m hyperlinking with contact info or adding email info as I find it):

Crystal Allman Assistant United Phoenix Fire Fighters (callman@phxfirefighters.org)
Benito Almanza President Bank of America
Joe Anderson Chairman & CEO Schaller Anderson
Marcos Andrade
Johnny Basha Vice President Chairman of the Board Bashas
Viana Bruce Marine Semper Fi 24/7 Support Team
Cassidy Campana Public Relations Manager R&R Partners
Lynne Christian
Shelley Cohn Executive Director Arizona Commission on the Arts
Kathy Copeland Lieutenant/ Investigation Division Glendale Police Dept.
Rich Dozer President Arizona Diamondbacks
Susan Ehrlich Judge State Court of Appeals
Paul Eppinger Executive Director Arizona Inner Faith Movement
Jennifer Glazar Flight Attendant Southwest Airlines
Dan Hoffman Architect Studio MA
Jake Jacobsen President P.L.E.A.
Donna Killoughey Bird General Council Life Teen, Inc.
Ronnie Lopez Chairman P.I.C.
Paul Luna President Valley of the Sun, United Way
Ken Magoch Past President FOP Retired Sgt. Tucson PD
Cindy Petrovich Buyer I Arizona Dept. of Veterans’ Services
Penny Pfaelzer PfaelzerJohnsAmen&Dean
Bob Ramsey Chairman & CEO Starwest Associates/American Life Star
Diane Saunders Assistant to the Governor Governors Office
Billy Shields President United Phoenix Firefighters
Sonia Singh
Steve Speisman Teacher
Joe Tucker CPA
Daniel Valenzuela
George Weisz Mayor’s Office

Who sponsored the memorial? Here’s a list provided by the AZ 9/11 memorial foundation:

Arizona Emporium
AZ Comm Financial Services
azcentral.com
Bank of America
Bashas’
Blue Cross Blue Shield AZ
City of Glendale
City of Phoenix
City of Tempe
Concert
Fort McDowell Casino
Future Vision Investment
Grupo ñ Advertising
Honorable George Weisz
Humana
iHealth Technologies
Levine Foundation
Maricopa Community College
Mass Electric Construction
McCarthy Construction
MTI
Nationwide
Phoenix Councilmember Greg Stanton
Phoenix Suns
Primestaff
RBC Dain Rauscher
SCF Arizona
Schaller Anderson
Sleep America
State government agencies
The Arizona Community Foundation
The Arizona Republic
The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association- PLEA
The Ramsey Foundation
UFCW
United Phoenix Fire Fighters