Washington Monument Defense News

Yes, Virginia, there is a publication called Defense News. But it's not what your beloved Offender has in mind this fine morning. Nor have there been any reports of an attack on the Washington Monument. No confirmed ones, at least.

No, what I have in mind is more like this under-reported outrage:

Washington (AP) - After weeks of denials, the Obama administration acknowledged Thursday that it had, in fact, released more than 2,000 illegal immigrants from immigration jails due to budget concerns during three weeks in February. Four of the most serious offenders have been put back in detention.

The administration had insisted that only a "few hundred" immigrants were released for budgetary reasons, challenging as inaccurate a March 1 report by The Associated Press that the agency had released more than 2,000 immigrants in February and planned to release more than 3,000 others this month. Intense criticism led to a temporary shutdown of the plan. The director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, John Morton, told a congressional panel Thursday that the agency had actually released 2,228 people from immigration jails over the course of three weeks, starting February 9, for what he described as "solely budgetary reasons." They included 10 people considered the highest level of offender.

That durned Sequester! Next thing we'll hear is that it will force Washington to cancel Christmas. No more Venti Macchiatoes with extra espresso for you, America.

It's all a ploy. Punishment for resisting Obama's demand for "new revenue." It's even got a charming name: the Washington Monument Defense. It's the only WMD the federal government pops off on American soil. The whole idea is to make you regret denying Washington the tax increases it's demanded -- and the command to deploy the Defense always comes from the top.

Federal agencies always comply willingly with the Defense. As Thomas Sowell wrote recently, if there were a federal agency with two jobs:

1. Distribute medicines to poor children;
2. Build statues of Benedict Arnold;

...faced with a budget cut, that agency would cut back on medicines for poor children. More, it would proudly announce that it had been "forced" to do so. That's the way to get the cut restored.

But this is the Age of the Intertubes. The Defense was a lot more effective when it was the Main Stream Media or total ignorance -- when we didn't have all these little citizen-journalist pixies running about, ferreting out the stuff the feds don't want us to know and hauling it into the sunlight. Today, the use of the Defense involves risks. You'll stand a better than even-money chance of finding yourself in front of a gaggle of reporters, each one eager to ascend the ranks by climbing on your corpse, asking "So why are you building statues of Benedict Arnold, eh, hero?"

The "fringe" news services, such as CNS and Newsmax, are more important to the health of the nation than most people appreciate. We need more of them -- and the more aggressive and irreverent their reportage, the better. Remember that it was the National Enquirer that broke the stories about Bill Clinton's White House dalliances with Monica Lewinsky and John Edwards's love child with Rielle Hunter.

The real reporter dines out more often than not at a fast-food place...and his favorite dish is the Sacred Cow Burger, very well cooked.