Questioning the Obama-Holder Gun-Control Plot behind Fast and Furious

by John Hinderaker in Fast and Furious, Obama Administration Scandals

Was Fast and Furious Intended

To Promote Gun Control? Another View

Paul wrote here that he doesn’t buy the theory, advanced by Bill Whittle and others, that the real purpose of the Fast and Furious program was to lend support to the assertion that the weapons used by drug gangs in Mexico come overwhelmingly when gun shops in the American Southwest, so as to advance the political cause of gun control in the U.S. Paul’s arguments were cogent as always, but I find that theory more plausible than Paul does.

First, though, some caveats: there is no hard evidence, at this point, that Fast and Furious was intended to spur the cause of gun control. Indeed, because the Obama administration has so far successfully stonewalled the Congressional committees that are investigating the scandal, we don’t know who conceived, initiated or approved the program. It is arguably premature to argue about motive when we don’t yet know whose motive we are talking about.

Further, the charge is a serious one that should not be entertained lightly. If the Obama administration really did promote violence in Mexico on purpose, with the foreseeable consequence that hundreds of people were murdered, in order to advance its domestic political agenda, it would be a scandal unparalleled in our modern history. Governments do stupid things, as Paul says, and the Obama administration now characterizes Fast and Furious as stupid. But if the theory advanced by Whittle and others is correct, Fast and Furious wasn’t just dumb, it was criminal. We certainly should be slow to draw such an explosive conclusion.

All of that said, I think the suggestion that Fast and Furious was politically motivated is rather plausible, for two reasons. First, no one has offered an alternative explanation for the program that makes any sense. The administration has suggested that it was trying to make cases against higher-ups in the drug cartels. But how could that possibly have worked? Under Fast and Furious, straw purchasers were allowed to cross the border unimpeded. At that point, if not before, no effort was made to track either the purchasers or the guns. The Obama administration kept the program secret from the Mexican government. So how could any cases against drug kingpins possibly have been made? The guns were lost, and the only way they would be found is if they showed up at a crime scene. But at that point, DOJ had no link between the gun and anyone other than the original straw purchaser–and, of course, the gun shop that sold it at ATF’s request.

This is why the ATF whistle-blowers who eventually brought the program to light thought it was not just misguided, but crazy: they could see no possible law enforcement justification for letting thousands of guns walk into the hands of drug gangs. And when the program came to light, the administration responded by initiating prosecutions to try to show that it had not been without value; but those prosecutions were not of higher-ups, but of straw purchasers who could have been arrested at any time during the preceding months.

The second reason I find the political hypothesis plausible is that when news reports about Fast and Furious began to surface, the administration at all levels promptly lied about it. If the program had a legitimate purpose, albeit one that was not achieved, one would think that the administration would explain what that purpose was and why it believed the program made sense. But instead, administration spokesmen lied about the essential nature of the program, implying that they knew there was no publicly-acceptable justification for what actually happened.

Thus, when a reporter from the Arizona Republic asked Bill Newell, who ran Fast and Furious for ATF in Phoenix, whether the Bureau had ever allowed guns to “walk,” Newell replied, “Hell no!” In fact, gunwalking was the entire point and essence of Fast and Furious, and DOJ’s internal emails continually use the term “gunwalking” to describe Fast and Furious. Similarly, when ATF whistle blowers had gotten the attention of Senate and House committees, and the Department of Justice responded to a letter from Senator Charles Grassley on February 4, 2011, DOJ completely misrepresented what Fast and Furious was all about:

At the outset, the allegation described in your January 27 letter–that ATF “sanctioned” or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them into Mexico–is false. ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico.

Ten months later, DOJ admitted that these statements were false.

So, to sum up, if Fast and Furious had a legitimate purpose, why didn’t the administration defend that legitimate purpose truthfully, rather than lie about the essential nature of the program?

Again, I want to emphasize that at this point, we can only speculate about how and why Fast and Furious came into being. Until the Obama administration is more forthcoming with information–something that likely will never happen–we may never be able to get past speculation. In the meantime, the best source to learn more about the scandal is Katie Pavlich’s Fast and Furious.

I read Fast and Furious last night in preparation for an interview early this morning on Wisconsin Public Radio. The interview, by substitute host Rob Ferrett, was intelligently conducted and I thought brought out a lot of good information. We took a couple of calls, too, one from a guy who had heard the Democratic Party line. It was an entertaining 19 minutes; you can listen to it right here if you are so inclined:

Click here to listen.

And the Child, Obama, Rose to Speak to His Minions: “I am not perfect”. Re-elect my countless imperfections anyway!

Obama: “I Hope You Still Believe In Me”

“I’m not a perfect and I’ll never be a perfect president but I told you that I’ll always tell you what I thought, I’ll always tell you what I believe and most importantly I told you I’ll wake up every single day and fight as hard as I knew how for you,” President Obama said at a campaign event at the Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel in Atlanta.

“That I’d fight as hard as I knew how for all those folks who were doing the right thing out there. All those people who’ve kept the faith with this country and you know what? I’ve kept that promise,” Obama said.

“I have kept that promise. I believe in you. I hope you still believe in me,” he said.

The total misfit for the office of president speaks…….a video from realclearpolitics….click below:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/06/26/obama_i_hope_you_still_believe_in_me.html

Stalin’s Berlin Blockade of 1948

Check out the History section at realclearpolitics, I cam across the following article regarding the Berlin Blockade.   Much has been known and already forgotten about the heroics and sufferings of those who plotted to overcome the Wall, but does anyone these days know anything about the Berlin Blockade and Josef Stalin?

 

We Americans now live in a Marxist-Obama era of  “Soviet” education…up is down, good is evil, hot is cold.   It is likely George W. Bush has been replaced in its annals as  more evil than Josef Stalin.

 

For the handful of Americans who actually know something about the Soviet Union, the USSR, especially during its Stalin era, they will not  be impressed by his rank as the world’s second greatest murderer in history, second only to fellow Marxist,  China’s Mao Tse Dung.     Marxism has always been a religion worth killing others  for.

 

I remember the Berlin Blockade well despite  being only thirteen when this act of beligerence was declared in 1948.   It was about the same time that we Americans discovered that this vile Soviet Marxist mass murderer now had  atomic bombs in his arsenal of weapons.    It was then we felt vulnerable.   It was then Joseph McCarthy, a second year U.S. Senator became obsessed with the cancer of Marxism in America…..the cancer determined to destroy  the Nation by whatever means possible including sabotage.

 

Listening to adult conversation, reading the daily news and following world evens  via  the radio,  and viewing the destruction and suffering from the nuclear bombings over Japan in August, 1945   on the news reels I and some of my friends would discuss when the war might start…..what city would be bombed first….New York?

 

America was a Christian nation then……one far more Marxist today with its ever-growing numbers of its entitlement people.     Only some in Hollywood and others at a  few universities were being paid by Moscow to spread the Marxist word.

 

Follow this 1948 Stalin crisis by reading the following page from history:

 

Back to the 1940s

The Berlin Blockade

The first heightening of Cold War tensions occurred in 1948 when the Soviets imposed a partial blockade of Berlin in April, and then a full blockade in June. Understanding the events that led to the imposition of the blockades is the key to understanding the later division of Berlin in 1961 by the Berlin Wall, and the division of the German state that had occurred earlier in 1949 when separate west German (Federal Republic of Germany) and east German (German Democratic Republic) states were established.

There are three key events that led to the Soviet blockades of Berlin: the institution of the Marshall Plan for European Recovery; the London Conferences of winter and spring of 1948; and the resultant London Program which called for a separate West Germany and currency reform as a means to reach this end.

In light of the communist rebellions in Greece and Turkey in March of 1947, President Harry Truman announced the Truman Doctrine, which stated that America promised to “support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures (with U.S. military aid).” Three months after this policy announcement, the Marshall Plan was introduced to serve as an economic and financial extension of the Doctrine.

In light of this increasing tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the U.S. decided that quadripartite occupational control of the defeated Germany with the Soviet Union was no longer feasible. Accordingly the U.S. and the other western nations occupying Germany (Great Britain and France), as well as the BENELUX nations, embarked on a series of discussions held in London from February to June of 1948 known collectively as the London Conferences. This came at a strategic time because the other occupying powers of Germany were also realizing that cooperation with the Soviets was increasingly difficult, and all three nations were beginning to reexamine their policies as such.

The result of these discussions was the London Program. The main goal of the London Program was to establish a West German government, with the means to achieving this goal being the combination of the three western zones of occupation and a reform of the currency. The western Allies wanted to combine their zones so that they could be administered as a single economic unit, and so that the currency exchange would be uniform throughout the western sectors of Germany.

While it was a combination of the three events that led the Soviets to blockade Berlin, the London Program seemed to be the predominant factor in the decision. On March 6th the communiquй regarding the London Program was issued, and in April the Soviets responded by constraining the military supplies entering Berlin via the Soviet zone from the west. This left the western nations with the choice of either being politically pressured out of West Berlin (which would diminish their prestige in the rest of Europe), or staying to institute the currency reform and ultimately establish a separate West German nation.

The western allies decided to stay. In mid-June the west issued a new currency in their zone (but not in western Berlin), and the Soviet Union issued a new currency in their zone. On June 23, the west introduced the new currency into Berlin. The next day the Soviets imposed a complete blockade on Berlin. Railways and highways were restricted so that no surface traffic between the western zones and Berlin could occur. The Soviets were able to do this without breaking any international laws on a technicality; the west and the Soviet Union never made a written pact in regards to the right of western ground access to Berlin. It must be noted that at the time of the blockade Stalin did not give any ultimatums, and while the blockade was in place the Soviets did keep the door open to negotiations on the matter. As a matter of fact, Stalin curiously quipped to a western diplomat during the blockade, “We are still allies.”

But the western powers would not give in. To demonstrate their resolve, the Americans orchestrated a monumental airlift which flew necessities such as coal and food into the western sectors of Berlin. This airlift lasted for 324 days, and approximately 13,000 tons of supplies a day were delivered.

In the spring of 1949 it was increasingly clear that the objectives Stalin had in mind when ordering the blockade were not going to be met. The U.S. was still continuing its counter blockade measures, the separate western government in Germany was about to be established, and the North Atlantic Treaty was being signed in Washington. Stalin had the choice of either continuing with the disastrous blockade, or admitting defeat and lifting the blockade. Stalin chose the latter, and in May 1949, at the final meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the blockade was ended.

For additional information click here.

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Sorry, No Work for American Teens this Summer….It’s Obamatime Economy

More than 7 in 10 U.S. Teens Jobless This Summer

from the National Center for Policy Analysis:

A silent victim of the last two recessions, teen unemployment has hit record levels since 2001. This trend is especially noticeable during the summer months, which are a traditional time of the year when teens head to work in droves, enabled by freedom from school and openings in seasonal employment. Recent labor statistics, however, suggest that this pattern has been largely disrupted, says the Sacramento Bee.

Older workers, immigrants and debt-laden college graduates are taking away lower-skill work as they struggle to find their own jobs in the weak economy. Add to this that the economic recovery is still fragile, and it is no surprise that a substantial majority of teens are jobless.

• In 1978, the share of 16- to 19-year-olds with summer employment reached a peak of nearly 60 percent before waves of immigration brought in new low-skill workers.
• Teen employment remained generally above 50 percent until 2001, dropping sharply to fresh lows after each of the past two recessions.
• During the most recent recession, this figure fell dramatically: last summer, only 29.6 percent of that same age group was employed.
• Overall, more than 44 percent of teens who want summer jobs don’t get them or work fewer hours than they prefer.

Certainly, there is something to be said for losses in work motivation among teenagers. John A. Challenger, CEO of the national job-placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, argues that parents no longer push their children to seek jobs as they did in previous generations. However, surveys show that millions of teenagers languished in the job market during recent years.

• Out of more than 3.5 million underutilized teens who remained in limbo in the job market last summer, 1.7 million were unemployed.
• Another 700,000 worked fewer hours than desired, and 1.1 million wanted jobs but had given up looking.
• These figures amount to a teen underutilization rate of 44 percent, up from roughly 25 percent in 2000.

Source: Hope Yen, “More than 7 in 10 U.S. Teens Jobless in Summer,” Sacramento Bee, June 12, 2012.

For text:

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/12/4556238/more-than-seven-in-10-us-teens.html

For more on Economic Issues:

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=17

Obama Government Sabotages Arizona’s Attempts to Cause Peace and Order for its Citizens

Why Republicans should say “hell no”

to this lawless president

by Paul Mirengoff    at   PowerLine:

There’s been much speculation about whether the Obama administration has a Plan B ready in case the Supreme Court strikes down all or some of Obamacare. But it’s clear that the White House was ready today when the Court rejected its challenge to the constitutionality of an Arizona law requiring local law enforcement officers, during routine stops, to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect is in the country illegally.

The White House promptly reacted to the decision, which also struck down three important provisions through which Arizona attempted to counteract the federal government’s unwillingness to do anything much about the flood of illegal aliens into the State. First, and predictably, Obama renewed his call for comprehensive immigration reform. Sen. Harry Reid quickly echoed the White House, tweeting that “[Republicans] must join [Democrats] to forge fair, tough, practical solutions.”

Next, the administration announced measures designed to undermine the portion of the Arizona law that was upheld, unanimously, by the Supreme Court. The Department of Homeland Security said it would exclude Arizona from a program known as 287(g), which allows the feds to deputize local officials to make immigration-based arrests. A Homeland Security official explained that the administration finds such agreements “not useful” in states that have Arizona-style laws. I guess the program is “useful” only in states that aren’t taking meaningful measures to identify illegal aliens.

Accordingly, local police in Arizona will have to rely on federal officials to arrest illegal aliens. But federal officials have made it clear that the feds will not respond to calls from Arizona law enforcement unless the person detained meets certain criteria, such as being wanted for a felony. Being an illegal alien is not enough. As Obama showed with his unilateral mini-DREAM act, this administration is no longer interested in enforcing the immigration laws except perhaps against illegal aliens who are shown to have engaged in felonious conduct.

In addition, the Justice Department set up a hotline through which people can complain about having their immigration status checked by Arizona law enforcement officials. Obama thus hopes to drum up complaints against Arizona law enforcement agents. He wants to make the federal government a party to the harassment of those trying to do what Obama won’t – enforce the law. Obama hopes to intimidate them into not using their authority to address the severe problem of illegal immigration — authority granted by the state legislature and upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court.

Given all of this, it’s quite clear that the Republicans should say “hell no” to Obama’s call for comprehensive immigration reform. Republicans must not permit themselves to be coerced into writing a new immigration law by Obama’s refusal to enforce the law we have.

Moreover, what is the point of legislating with a lawless administration? Legislation on an issue like immigration requires compromise, and that’s fine – I have no objection in principle to compromising. But suppose a compromise is reached. This president has demonstrated that his response would likely be to ignore the provisions the Republicans insisted upon – because ignoring them is “the right thing to do.”

Immigration reform, if it is to occur, must await the election of a president who, unlike Obama, is willing to enforce the law as written, not just the portions of the law he finds palatable. Indeed, I’m tempted to say that the passage of compromise legislation on any important issue should await the election of such a president.

Welcome, Dennis Prager, …to Organized Gay America, …..Profanity is Its Word; Vulgarity is Its Deed

Middle Fingers at the White House

 

ShareThis                                    by Dennis Prager, conservative radio show host…..an “Evangelical” American:

 

 

“Imagine this: A future Republican president invites Tea Party leaders to the White House. Some of them have themselves photographed standing in front of a portrait of President Barack Obama with their middle fingers extended. They then posted these photos on Facebook with the caption “F–k Obama.” (Needless to say, the F-word was spelled out.)Some questions:1. How much coverage do you think the national press would give to this?2. How would Democratic — and Republican — leaders react?3. How would Tea Party activists react?The answers:

1. The mainstream media across America would widely report what had happened and repeatedly show these photos. “The New York Times” would editorialize about the racism of the Tea Party. Liberal columnists would be relentless in their condemnations of the Tea Party as a low life movement of yahoos.

2. Democrats and Republicans alike would condemn these leaders and demand their resignation.

3. Tea Party activists would feel embarrassed by these people who represented them, and they would be deeply concerned that their movement’s good name had been permanently tarnished.

Now let’s explore a real-life situation from this past week.

President Barack Obama invited activists to the White House’s 2012 LGBT pride reception. Two of them, Matthew “Marty” Hart, a director of the leftist organization, Solutions for Progress, and an activist photographer, Zoe Strauss, posed for a photo in front of a portrait of President Ronald Reagan with both their middle fingers extended. They then posted the photo on Facebook with the caption “F–k Reagan” (the F-word is spelled out).

Now let’s answer our questions:

First, the liberal, or “mainstream,” media never mentioned the incident. Not a word about it appeared in “The New York Times,” “The Washington Post,” the “Los Angeles Times” or on NPR (which had given Zoe Strauss extensive and laudatory attention just a few weeks earlier). There was no coverage on ABC News, NBC News, or CBS News. “The Huffington Post” reported the incident in this way: “If several raised fingers are any indication, some LGBT activists who visited the White House last week are fully evolved on what they think of President Ronald Reagan.”

It was reported by Fox News, on conservative talk radio shows, by the “The Weekly Standard,” “National Review” and other conservative journals and websites.

Second, aside from one tepid rebuke from a man named Shin Inouye, the “Director of Specialty Media in the White House Office of Communications,” the Democratic Party and other left-wing organizations said nothing.

And, of course, not a word of condemnation from the world of gay activism, other than the conservative gay organization, Log Cabin Republicans.

What are the lessons?

One is that without Fox News, talk radio and conservative journals and websites, one gets an utterly skewed view of the world. If you want to know how the left wins so many elections despite the fact that many more Americans consider themselves conservative rather than liberal, the filtered news they receive is a major reason — in America and even more so around the world. (I cover this is in detail in my just-published book ” Still the Best Hope.”)

The other lesson may be even more important: Contempt for norms of decency — a form of nihilism — permeates the left generally and leftist activism (among gays and straights) on behalf of gays specifically. Compare, for example, the behavior of the Occupy movement with that of the Tea Party. Both are equally angry at what they deem injurious to society — economic inequality for the Occupy movement, ever-expanding government and debt for the Tea Party — but the latter acts so much more civilly and maturely than the former.

Whether it is the notorious art work “Piss Christ” (a crucifix submerged in “artist” Andres Serrano’s urine), the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s recent “graffiti art” exhibition, the ubiquitous public use of expletives, the defense of public nudity (the highest court in New York State ruled that there is no difference between women’s and men’s breasts, therefore women, like men, can go topless in public), the abolition of dress codes in schools, the left revels in giving the finger to religious and civil norms.

Why did these activists for gay causes feel they could act this way in the White House, the most prestigious and revered building in America? Aside from contempt for social norms, the reason is that those who see themselves as victims have impaired consciences. Nothing dulls the conscience quite like regarding oneself and/or one’s group as victims. The vast majority of violent criminals believe they are victims of society, poverty, racism, etc.; Islamic terrorists see themselves as victims of the West’s alleged “war on Islam;” Germans in the 1930s saw themselves as victims of the Versailles Treaty; and in America today, no one sees themselves as victims as much as gay rights activists do.

What are they victims of? Society’s desire to maintain the man-woman definition of marriage, and in Ronald Reagan’s case, his alleged ignoring of the AIDS crisis. That explains why gay groups label everyone who supports retaining the man-woman definition of marriage as people filled with hate, and why these activist groups try to destroy the reputations and, where applicable, the businesses of such people. Along with the nihilism — and immaturity — that characterizes the activist left, a sense of victimization also explains this defamation of the White House. And it doesn’t hurt to know that America’s news media will not call you on it.”

Comment:   I am wondering if anyone new to the gay community or even an old timer, remembers the vile National Gay Actions of the bubbling gay movement  during the 1980s and 90s called  ACT UP?      Liberated lesbians would disrupt a ballet or theater act in the name of act up.   Lefty gays organized to sneak around and entrap not-yet-’outted’ gays, insisting the unoutted were traitors to the gay cause.    Ten per cent of the male population, they insisted were “gay”, but they hadn’t found that out yet, and so needed help from the initiated.

Public female and gay gay elementary school teachers in today’s version of gay hunting, are sharpening up their antennae to ‘observe’ who ’appears’  gay  from kindergarden on……in hopes of blending these innocents smoothly into their sexual communities so they can be programmed to  vote for Barack Obama for the next  five  or six presidential elections.

Here in the Twin Cities these gay activists outted a local well known rabbi who was married with a family.   He was set up for arrest at a gay video booth downtown.    He was driven from his temple, his residence  and the city, here in nice, friendly Minneapolis when the Act-up victim made  the headlines in the ’public interested’,  Mpls. Star- Tribune.

It was a nationally organized movement, however, with enthusiastic energetic, Republican-hating Lefty gay leaders merely organizing their troops to spread the gay messages.

Has everyone, even conservatives forgotten the ORGANIZED GAY ASSAULTS ON THE MORMON CHURCHES DURING THE VOTING IN CALIFORNIA TO  DEFINE MARRIAGE AS A LEGAL BOND BETWEEN HUMAN MALE AND HUMAN FEMALE?