Janet Napolitano is not having a good month.

That wouldn’t be a problem if she was Secretary of the Interior, but Ms. Napolitano is Head of Homeland Security.

If you get some of the details wrong while Secretary of the Interior, maybe a couple of national parks close early or they run out of brochures at the visitor’s center.

The stakes are a little higher in Homeland Security.

I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer my Homeland Security chief to have a little better grasp of both the details and the big picture than Janet has demonstrated so far.

Over the past few weeks Janet has released a report suggesting veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan could be fertile recruits for right-wing extremists. In the process, Ms. Napolitano managed to alienate an entire group of service people who are pretty much the first line of Homeland security defense.

Later, in an interview with CNN, “Ms.Napolitano, whose career has included stints as a U.S. attorney and attorney general and governor of Arizona, said: ‘Crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil.’”

I didn’t go to law school, but I always thought that, whether criminal or civil, a crime is a crime. Althought, I’m sure Bernie Madoff will be glad to hear that civil offenses aren’t really “crimes per se.”

Topping off the trifecta (and doing her best to rile two of our closest allies who share a border with us), Ms. Napolitano suggested that the Canadian and Mexican borders should have similar security procedures since they have similar problems. Ms. Napolitano supported her case by saying that the 9/11 terrorists entered the country by crossing the border from Canada.

The only problem being that none of the 9/11 terrorists entered the country from Canada, a minor detail one might think the head of Homeland Security might be up on.

In fairness, it’s easy to confuse Canada with the Middle East … but only if you’ve never looked at a map of the world.

When her mistakes regarding the Canadian border were pointed out to her, Ms. Napolitano replied, “I can’t talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here’s the future. The future is we have borders.”

With that kind of sharp insight on display by the person in charge of Homeland Security, I know I’ll sleep much better tonight.

But only if I’m in Australia.

-

Neopolitan ice cream and Janet Napolitano. One is soft, runny and can cause a mess — the other is a popular dessert.

———————-

.

Image: Dr Craig on Flickr
Image: cobalt123 on Flickr

-

Post from: EveryJoe

Janet Napolitano Is A Bit Fuzzy On Details

The Mexican government announced today it will pay “two million dollars each for information leading to the arrest of 24 top drug lords in a public challenge to the cartels’ violent grip on the country.”

The government also announced it will be paying local bands throughout Mexico and the U.S. seven million dollars each to stop playing the Macarena at weddings.

The first question at the government’s press conference was directed to the spokesman and concerned the drug cartel bounty. A man in dark glasses at the back of the room asked the spokesman how much he’d be willing to pay to get his family back.

With the recession in the U.S. spilling over into Mexico, the Mexican government is hoping the cash will encourage informants to reveal information about various drug cartel members and encourage producers of Dog The Bounty Hunter to film more episodes south of the border.

In other news, the head of the Sinaloa drug gang proposed his own stimulus plan whereby anyone keeping their mouth shut would get 10% off their first kilo of Colombian cocaine and would also be allowed to live.

-

Heeeeyyyy, make it legal…

-

Post from: EveryJoe

Mexican Government Announces Stimulus Plan