Archive for the 'Obama Administration' Category

David Codrea has been at the forefront of Fast and Furious, along with Mike Vanderboegh, and one recent article on the Office of Inspector General’s report on Fast and Furious supplies ample evidence of his accuracy.

Spending a considerable portion of its analysis on the Operation Wide Receiver Bush-era firearms trafficking surveillance program, the Office of Inspector General’s massive report on Fast and Furious gunwalking released Wednesday corroborates much information presented to Gun Rights Examiner readers almost a full year ago.

“Operation Wide Receiver illustrated the failure of management in ATF’s Phoenix Field Division to alert ATF Headquarters to the use of these tactics,” the report documents, validating a claim made by Mike Detty, the confidential informant at the heart of the case, that “It had nothing to do with Bush or even DOJ.” This is significant, because House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Democrats and sympathetic media allies have made great hay conflating Wide Receiver with Fast and Furious and spreading a blame-transferring “Bush did it too” meme, with no less than Attorney General Eric Holder making a (since withdrawn with minimal fanfare) claim that a predecessor AG, Michael B. Mukasey, knew about the program and kept things quiet. Also of significance, Holder’s boss and executive privilege benefactor, President Obama, is still publicly conflating the operations, falsely telling Univision that Fast and Furious had “begun under the previous administration.”

Other Detty claims, published in this column in October, 2011, are also corroborated by the OIG report, including his account of the US Attorney telling him he refused to prosecute the case because of ATF lies. Another report filed later that month told of failed cooperation attempts with the Mexican government, also referred to by the IG. Other stories filed by Gun Rights Examiner, including one in November, 2011, relayed Detty’s account for phase known as Wide Receiver I and Wide Receiver II, also subjects of the OIG report, as well as attempts to smuggle receivers to Tijuana through San Diego.

The point being, these are but a few examples of innumerable reports filed in this column and at citizen journalist Mike Vanderboegh’s Sipsey Street Irregulars blog that have since been proven through “official” sources, albeit, there is often a significant lag time between sourced claims and validation. It’s important to keep that in mind, particularly when reading claims from media sources that have done practically no original reporting on Fast and Furious except to weigh in on occasion with administration talking points, and absurd, wholly unjustified claims that the OIG report vindicates or exonerates anyone with the admission it has found no evidence.

Read the rest of Codrea’s report and his update.  I want to focus on something a little more pedestrian concerning this report.  I have not read the IG’s report and do not intend to.  David can be relied upon for the “inside baseball” of this scandal.

But there are two things that keep floating their way to the top for me like so much flotsam and jetsam from the shipwreck of what we now know as Fast and Furious.  We continually hear about the “failed” operation, the “flawed” program, and the lack of oversight when the main stream media report on the scandal.

I’m not convinced that anything was flawed or that the operation failed.  I still believe that it accomplished the precise goal for which it was intended.  They just got caught.  Unlike previous operations such as “Wide Receiver,” there was never any plan to interdict weapons.  More importantly, there couldn’t have been.  Once they crossed the border there was no means to track them, no power to confiscate them, and not even a sure means to trace them back to point of origin (although publication of the point of origin was the intended purpose if I am right about the program).

I have previously discussed Project Gunrunner (yes, I understand that this isn’t precisely the same thing as Fast and Furious, predates it, and Fast and Furious is still a subset of Gunrunner if I’m correct), where the U.S. government allegedly provided the means and training for the electronic tracing of firearms for Mexican authorities.

Not enough of them were trained.  There weren’t enough assets to accomplish the mission.  There was no way to pull it off, and this wasn’t even on the front end of firearms usage – it was on the back end after they had already been used in crimes.

What I’m saying is that the assertion that Fast and Furious is simply a “botched” operation doesn’t comport with the facts on the ground.  There was never any possibility that it would yield any fruit, and its handlers knew this if they have only slightly higher ability to perform syllogistic reasoning than, say, my dog.

Second, and just as important, is to observe what’s happening as part of the political cycle.  Note that Codrea links an article by Jake Tapper where Jake explains that Obama made false assertions about Fast and Furious beginning under previous administrations.

Of course this is false, and the IG’s report is a failure in that it spent even one second discussion Wide Receiver (for me, that it discusses Wide Receiver is more evidence that it would be a waste of time to read it, and it only further exonerates my view that I can ignore it).  Let’s rehearse for a moment what we learned in November of 2011.

It was left to Republican Senators Charles Grassley and John Cornyn to lay bare some crucial distinctions between to two ATF operations. Wide Receiver actually involved not gun-walking but controlled delivery. Unlike gun-walking, which seems (for good reason) to have been unheard of until Fast & Furious, controlled delivery is a very common law enforcement tactic. Basically, the agents know the bad guys have negotiated a deal to acquire some commodity that is either illegal itself (e.g., heroin, child porn) or illegal for them to have/use (e.g., guns, corporate secrets). The agents allow the transfer to happen under circumstances where they are in control — i.e., they are on the scene conducting surveillance of the transfer, and sometimes even participating undercover in the transfer. As soon as the transfer takes place, they can descend on the suspects, make arrests, and seize the commodity in question — all of which makes for powerful evidence of guilt.

Senator Schumer’s drawing of an equivalence between “tracing” in a controlled-delivery situation and “tracing” in Fast & Furious is laughable. In a controlled delivery firearms case, guns are traced in the sense that agents closely and physically follow them — they don’t just note the serial numbers or other identifying markers. The agents are thus able to trace the precise path of the guns from, say, American dealers to straw purchasers to Mexican buyers.
To the contrary, Fast & Furious involved uncontrolled deliveries — of thousands of weapons. It was an utterly heedless program in which the feds allowed these guns to be sold to straw purchasers — often leaning on reluctant gun dealers to make the sales. The straw purchasers were not followed by close physical surveillance; they were freely permitted to bulk transfer the guns to, among others, Mexican drug gangs and other violent criminals — with no agents on hand to swoop in, make arrests, and grab the firearms. The inevitable result of this was that the guns have been used (and will continue to be used) in many crimes, including the murder of Brian Terry, a U.S. border patrol agent.

In sum, the Fast & Furious idea of “trace” is that, after violent crimes occur in Mexico, we can trace any guns the Mexican police are lucky enough to seize back to the sales to U.S. straw purchasers … who should never have been allowed to transfer them (or even buy them) in the first place. That is not law enforcement; that is abetting a criminal rampage.

As Sen. Cornyn pointed out, there is another major distinction between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious. The former was actually a coordinated effort between American and Mexican authorities. Law enforcement agents in both countries kept each other apprised about suspected transactions and tried to work together to apprehend law-breakers. To the contrary, Fast & Furious was a unilateral, half-baked scheme cooked up by an agency of the Obama Justice Department — an agency that was coordinating with the Justice Department on the operation and that turned to Main Justice in order to get wiretapping authority.

By the time Cornyn was done drawing this stark contrast between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious, Holder was reduced to conceding, “I’m not trying to equate the two.”

But Obama trotted this out as if most people have not heard of Wide Receiver, and if they have, they don’t know anything about the differences between it and Fast and Furious.

In fact, I fear that most people in America are watching sitcoms at night before bed.  Obama may be right, and he may pull off yet another misdirect on the American people, at least, the ones who don’t care.

From WSJ.

As Evan Perez reported in the WSJ last month, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been thinking about turning its unwieldy seven-word name into something a little snappier. At the time, he wrote that Violent Crime Bureau was a candidate.

Now, quietly, the name change has happened—at least a little bit. For a few days now, the bureau has featured the new name at the top of its home page (atf.gov), just below the old name. The site’s top banner reads, “Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Explosives / The Violent Crime Bureau.”

The new name doesn’t have any legal status yet. Asked about changing names Wednesday, ATF acting director B. Todd Jones said, “That’s a concept that we batted around.” He added that the agency was focused on returning to its fundamental mission and said, “How it’s labeled is less important than what it does.”

The Violent Crime Bureau moniker reflects the agency’s ambition to take the lead in tackling violent-crime outbreaks in big cities such as Philadelphia that have seen an increase in murders and drug-related shootings. The agency’s current name is something of an anachronism because it brings fewer than a hundred alcohol and tobacco cases a year. And its reputation as a firearms regulator took a hit because of the Fast and Furious scandal …

So a name change has been “batted around” within the DOJ/ATF in order to save their battered reputation?  That’s how the new head is spending his time and energy?  My idea is somewhat different.  Leave firearms regulation entirely to the states, and hand ATF employess their pink slips.  All of them.  It would save money, and my bet is that it wouldn’t cause one iota of difference in crimes.

It would more closely comport with the doctrine of federalism so important to our founders, it would help to protect our constitutional rights, it would decrease federal meddling in the lives of U.S. citizens, and it would sweep yet another bloated and wasteful federal bureaucracy out of the way as we press towards streamlining of the system.  What’s not to like about it?

TCJ readers, listen up.   We have had a major, strategic breakthrough in the War against Islamofascism.

It is so unexpected and so unconventional, so inadvertent that it can only be considered something of a Divine intervention.

America has stumbled upon the Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction against the Islamist foe:  cheezy, low-budget films with horrible production and grade-school dialogue launched via that irresistible weapons delivery system known as “YouTube.”

Yes, I am referring to that military masterpiece unleashed upon the unsuspecting Islamists called, The Innocence of Muslims.

Consider just this one example in al Jazeera of its destructive power:

At least one person has died as demonstrations against an anti-Islam video erupt across Pakistan, a day after protesters tried to storm the US embassy in the capital, Islamabad.

Angry demonstrators set fire to two cinemas in the northwestern city of Peshawar, police and witnesses said on Friday, as the country began a day of protests.

One protester was wounded when a cinema guard opened fire as crowds armed with clubs and bamboo poles converged on the Firdaus picture house, “smashing it up and setting furniture ablaze”, according to Gohar Ali, a police officer.

Witnesses said a separate rampaging crowd stormed the Shama cinema, notorious locally for showing films considered to be pornographic.

Tens of thousands of Pakistanis were expected to take to the streets across the country after the government called an impromptu public holiday to let people protest.

****

Friday was designated a “day of expression of love for the prophet” by the government, which called for peaceful protests against the Innocence of Muslims video produced in the US.

All the major political parties and religious groups announced protests, as did many trade and transport organisations.

Large crowds were expected to turn out after Friday prayers.

The previous day, the US embassy became the latest target of protesters angry at the YouTube video. The total number of protesters touched 5,000 with the arrival of protesters carrying the flags of anti-American Islamist groups.

At least 50 people were injured as police fired tear gas and live rounds towards the crowds.

This New Secret Weapon, according to the article, has the mysterious ability to induce widespread madness in the Islamist population, compelling them to irrational behaviors like attacking porno theaters and embassies that are merely obscene for their obsequious behavior.

What’s more, the U.S. government is augmenting the frightful power of this new weapon with a psychological campaign of such cruel calculation that it is almost a crime against humanity.   It’s true.  The Islamist will soon be begging for the merciful Drone Strikes before too long.  Consider this diabolical game of deception and denial waged by the Administration as quoted in the al Jazeera article:

Against this tense backdrop, the US has bought time on Pakistani television stations to run a series of ads in an effort to assuage Muslim feelings of hurt.

The US hopes the ad would show that the country had no involvement with the controversial internet video.

The US embassy in Islamabad spent about $70,000 to run the announcement, which features clips of Barack Obama, the US president, and Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, underscoring US respect for religion and declaring the US government had nothing to do with the video.

Obama is shown saying: “Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”

Clinton then says: “Let me state very clearly, the United States has absolutely nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its contents. America’s commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation.”

“In order to ensure we reached the largest number of Pakistanis, some 90 million as I understand it in this case with
these spots, it was the judgment that this was the best way to do it.”

Addressing a media briefing on the ad campaign, Victoria Nuland, state department spokeswoman, said the aim was “to make sure that the Pakistani people hear the president’s messages and the secretary’s messages”.

The announcement aired as the US asked its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Pakistan.

Oh the savagery!  Oh the mental ruin this will visit upon the poor, helpless Islamists!

Imagine the Islamists, weary from the YouTube Bomb-induced fury against porn theaters and embassies, seeking some solace in their television re-runs of “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” only to be bombarded– yes! bombarded!– with relentless messages from Barack Hussein Obama that the U.S. loves and respects all faiths, especially ones that do not have a crucifix that can be plunged into urine or a virgin mother that can be smeared with elephant feces.

This, my friends, is the ultimate in psychological whiplash!  A veritable jiu-jitsu of mental pain!  Surely, the Islamists will think, the President of the United States has the power to stop this horrible YouTube Bomb if he chooses.  But he does not!  Instead he claims respect for Islam while insulting its Prophet!  And, to add injury to insult, he allows the horrible Clinton woman– a woman of all things— to deliver the one-two punch:  the U.S. had nothing to do with the video (when it clearly did) and America believes in “religious tolerance” (when those very words are a red-hot poker in the Islamist soul).

But you may well be asking, How can we be sure that the normally spineless suck-ups in the Obama Administration and the Pentagon will find the courage to continue using a weapon of such fearsome, destructive power?  There is evidence of more bombs in the making.

The U.S. government cleverly brought in the filmmaker for “questioning” based upon “parole violations.” Uh huh.   Wink, wink.  Nudge, nudge.   That ought to throw the Islamists off the scent, eh?  No one suspects (but we know better) that this was a clever ruse for the government to plan and coordinate the next series of YouTube Bombs that will continue to drive the Islamists over the cliff.

Victory is at hand, friends!  All the U.S. need do now is just let the YouTube Bombs wreak their radioactive havoc upon the Islamists until their societies are so riven with mad self-destruction that they collapse in upon themselves like a laptop computer placed upon a wet, cardboard box.  Yes, we here in the U.S. may be called upon to make sacrifices: exposure to these YouTube Bombs has been known to cause fits of derisive laughter and mild nausea in infidels, but we must not shrink back from even these sufferings.

Instead, let us console ourselves with the magnificence of this new Wonder Weapon.   This is the evil genius of the United States of America at its finest.  Stand in awe and fearful amaze.

Well, well… here is a nice little report from The Financial Times on the economics of global oil production and pricing:

Saudi Arabia has offered its main customers in the US, Europe and Asia extra oil supplies through the end of the year, a sign the world’s largest exporter is worried about the impact of rising prices on the global economy.

The Group of Seven finance ministers last month called on oil exporters to expand production. Saudi Arabia initially reacted coolly to the request, saying that global supply and demand were balanced. But the kingdom has recently taken steps to bring down prices, consulting with large refiners and offering them extra oil.

“The current price is too high,” a senior Gulf-based oil official told the Financial Times. “We would like to see oil prices back to $100 a barrel.”

The price of Brent, the global oil benchmark, has risen 33 per cent from mid-June to a peak of $117.95 a barrel on Friday. On Monday it plunged almost $4 in just four minutes, but later recovered.

Saudi Arabia last launched a similar round of consultations with major oil refiners in March, weeks before it boosted its production to a 30-year high of 10m barrels a day. Riyadh is now evaluating the response from refiners.

The nation last month produced 9.9m b/d, but the senior official said that Riyadh was now again pumping around 10m b/d. “We are consulting our clients about their oil needs and telling them we are ready to supply more,” the senior official said.

Opec delegates said Riyadh was trying to bring prices down. “The Saudis are actively managing the market,” added another senior oil official from an African Opec nation. “They supplied a little less when prices dropped to $90 over the summer and they will supply more now that prices are above $115.”

The signal from Riyadh comes as rising energy prices emerge as a contentious political issue in the US presidential race. Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, has accused President Barack Obama of not doing enough to bring gasoline prices down.

The cost of regular gasoline surged in the US last week to $3.878 per gallon, the highest level ever for this period of the year. US retail gasoline prices reached an all-time high of $4.114 per gallon in early July 2008.

The White House last month dusted off plans to use the strategic petroleum reserve to bring prices down. But so far Mr Obama has not authorised a release, in part because opposition from allies such as Germany and, to a lesser extent, Italy, Japan and South Korea.

Hmmmm….I seem to remember that El Presidente said something to the effect that higher production of oil will not affect gas prices.  Oh yes, here are his remarks from March 2012:

The recent spike in gas prices has been another painful reminder of why we have to invest in this technology.   As usual, politicians have been rolling out their three-point plans for two-dollar gas: drill, drill, and drill some more.  Well, my response is, we have been drilling.  Under my Administration, oil production in America is at an eight-year high.  We’ve quadrupled the number of operating oil rigs, and opened up millions of acres for drilling.

But you and I both know that with only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices – not when consume 20 percent of the world’s oil. We need an all-of-the-above strategy that relies less on foreign oil and more on American-made energy – solar, wind, natural gas, biofuels, and more.

That’s right.  We “can’t drill our way to lower gas prices…”   Because, El Presidente says, the United States only has “2% of the world’s oil reserves.”   But we all know this is an outdated deception aimed at the gullible.  In fact, the Congressional Research Service reported several years ago that the U.S. has more oil and gas reserves (as that term is generally understood in the world oil industry) than any, other country on earth.   In fact, the U.S. has more oil and gas than Saudia Arabia, Venezuela and Candada combined.

According to this Investor’s Business Daily report based on a Congressional testimony by the Government Accounting Office:

Energy: The Government Accountability Office tells Congress the Green River Formation out West contains an “amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.” So why are we keeping it locked up on federal lands?

Exploding the Big Lie pushed by President Obama that we can’t drill our way out of high gas prices because we have but 2% of the world’s proven oil reserves, Anu Mittal, GAO director of natural resources and environment, testified before Congress last week that just one small part of the U.S. is capable of outproducing the rest of the planet.

That small part is known as the Green River Formation, the world’s largest oil shale deposit, and is located in a largely vacant region of mostly federal land on the western edge of the Rocky Mountains that includes portions of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado.

As we have written in our “Oil And Gas/Fact And Fiction” series, the Green River Formation has been dubbed our Persia on the Plains, an area with technically recoverable oil in an amount estimated at four times the proven resources of Saudi Arabia.

Given that current U.S. daily oil consumption is running at 19.5 million barrels, the staggering amount of Green River reserves would by itself supply domestic oil consumption for more than 200 years. That sure blows the heck out of the “peak oil” theory that the world is running out of oil.

According to Mittal’s testimony before the House science subcommittee on energy and the environment, the U.S. Geological Survey “estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions.”

According to the president’s bizarre formulation, this oil does not count as a “proven” reserve because little drilling has been done. There is a reason for that. As Mittal testified: “The federal government is in a unique position to influence the development of oil shale because 72% of the oil shale within the Green River Formation lies beneath federal lands managed by BLM (Bureau of Land Management).”

(Emphasis Added)

In any event, Obama does not believe what he says, as usual.   While he pontificates about not being able to “drill our way out” of our energy problems, the Financial Times article reports that he has “dusted off plans to use the strategic petroleum reserve to bring prices down.”   If more drilling won’t solve the problem of high prices, then tapping the strategic reserve is useless.  Just one more example of El Presidente’s contempt for the American people.

Furthermore, even if it was true that the U.S. has “only” 2% of the world’s oil reserves, pricing is not determined by how much oil is in the ground.   Pricing is determined by how much is pumped out of the ground.   According to the CIA world fact book, as of 2010, the U.S. was producing an average of 9.688 million barrels of oil per day.   This already exceeds the production of Saudi Arabia when it wants to maintain stable pricing.    As the Financial Times article shows, however, when Saudi Arabia wants to bring down the price of oil, it ramps up its production to something around 10 million barrels per day.   If Saudi Arabia can affect world oil prices by simply putting an extra million or so barrels of oil per day onto the oil market, it is axiomatic that the U.S. can similarly affect the price of oil by getting production to over 10 million barrels or more per day.  In fact, some experts have said that the U.S. has the resources and capability to be producing over 15 million barrels of oil per day if we so choose.

One, other aspect of this subject that needs to be touched upon is the effect of Ben Bernanke’s federal monetary policy on oil prices.  Since Bernanke has decided to unleash another round of printing money and since oil prices are denominated in U.S. dollars, we will see the price of oil rise concomitant with the increase in the U.S. money supply.   In effect, then, the Saudis are underwriting our money printing by increasing oil production to offset to some degree the rise of oil prices that will naturally ensue because of the rising volume of dollars.

Take this one step further:  if the U.S. wants to recover from the Federal Reserve’s monetary inflation policy, producing increasing amounts of domestic oil is one effective way to do it.   Oil is real wealth.  Just like gold is real wealth (or, for that matter, all those incredibly valuable rare earth minerals the U.S. is sitting on but cannot develop due to ridiculous bureaucratic obstacles).  When the U.S. produces lots of oil, the wealth of the world comes to the U.S. rather than flowing to Saudi Arabia or Venezuela or Russia.   Oil, in a sense, is perhaps our greatest strategic weapon because it is one resource that the world cannot do without and it changes the balance of power globally.    In a crude sense, he who has the most oil wins.  We have it.  It’s time to start using it.

It’s time to renew that popular phrase:  Drill Baby, Drill.

From Anthony Martin writing for the Examiner:

A retired agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has revealed all of the clandestine facts concerning the agency’s operation known as Fast and Furious, the illegal scheme that placed thousands of firearms in the hands of Mexican drug criminals.

On Friday, GunMag, a publication of the Second Amendment Foundation, reported that the former agent revealed all to one its national correspondents in an informal talk at the firing range. The agent revealed that Fast and Furious was only one of a three pronged approach by the ATF to place draconian restrictions on the gun rights of American citizens.

The first line of attack was to discredit U.S. firearms dealers by blaming them for the fact that nearly 2,000 guns were somehow walked across the border where they wound up being used by Mexican drug cartels to commit crimes, including the murders of over 300 Mexican citizens and at least two U.S. federal agents. The plan was to withhold from the public vital information that ATF agents set up straw purchasers to buy the guns illegally and that the ATF had already solicited the “help” of the firearms dealers, insuring their cooperation by telling them they would be part of a federal sting operation.

But the scheme never had a chance due to the fact that a few conscientious ATF agents blew the whistle on the illegal activity, placing the agency under heavy fire from Republicans in Congress. Had the agents not come forward with the truth, then the scheme may have worked, and the public would have been treated to a nightly barrage of news reports describing in great detail how gun stores along the southern border are rife with corruption.

The second part of the ATF’s systematic effort to hamstring the gun rights of Americans was to place undue pressure on gun and ammo manufacturers and importers to the extent that they would be driven out of business. This they would do by arbitrarily applying rules and regulations in a manner in which they had never been used in the past.

Just a quick editorial note to point out that this is not a new tactic with the Obama administration. The nomination of Andrew Traver to head the ATF, considering his work with the Joyce Foundation, points to a very restrictive regulatory scheme envisioned by this administration if the nomination have been approved.  Furthermore, Obama’s nomination of Caitlin J. Halligan to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals argues for the same sort of vision.  Halligan, in her tenure as Solicitor General of the State of New York, attempted to hold firearms manufacturers and retailers responsible for crimes committed with guns.  In 2006, Halligan also filed a brief arguing that handgun manufacturers were guilty of creating a public nuisance.  This tactic is still alive and kicking in spite of federal law prohibiting such suits.

Apparently this is precisely what the ATF was doing earlier in the year when numerous reports were filed from the state of Alaska indicating that gun stores had been contacted by ATF agents instructing them to turn over their “bound books” containing the names and information of customers who had made purchases in their stores.

Agents told one dealer that the book was the property of the ATF and that the agency had the right to take it.

But the law states otherwise. The bound book is required by law to be kept on the premises of each gun dealer, available for inspection by the ATF but never removed unless the dealer goes out of business.

The ATF is further prohibited by law from accessing all of the information in the book. Only that information that is pertinent to an ongoing investigation is to be made available to agents.

Due to the public outcry against the ATF in this case, local Alaska congressmen and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, contacted the agency and requested an official review of the law and the practices of agents operating out of the Seattle Field Division, which has oversight of Alaska.

The result was that the ATF received a slap on the wrist.

A third prong of the overarching scheme of the ATF to mount a direct assault on the gun rights of citizens was a new concerted effort at what was described as “examination and testing.” Agents would place seized firearms under strict and thorough testing to determine whether or not they were in compliance with all federal laws. And if even a minor infraction were discovered, the gun owner in question would be arrested and prosecuted for possessing a firearm that did not meet federal standards.

All of this surpasses believability; it dovetails with reality as we currently know it.  Message to Darrell Issa.  Faster please!

We’re all painfully aware of the impotence of the curent administration in the area of foreign policy.  The world simply doesn’t listen to us – or, they do, but it’s only to gauge the timing of their next move.

But this recent signal from an administration representative is about as clear a statement of withdrawn interests and intentions as one can imagine.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of U.S. armed forces, said he does not wish to be “complicit” in a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran.

Dempsey said Thursday that such an attack would “clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran’s nuclear program,” the London Guardian reported. He added, “I don’t want to be complicit if they choose to do it.”

This statement does three things.  First, it demonstrates the administration to be liars when they have claimed that they will not allow Iran to go nuclear.  Second, it clearly shows that if Israel launches an attack on Iran, she will go it alone.  Essentially, Israel is thrown under the bus.  The additional assertion in the report that we do not know Iran’s nuclear intentions, “as intelligence did not clearly reveal them,” is code for saying that we will never know because our intelligence community will never go on record saying that Iran has designs on a nuclear weapons program.  Timing isn’t germane to this conversation according to the statement.  The context is whether we know Iran’s “intentions,” a precondition that always supplies plausible deniability and makes everything else irrelevant.

Third, and most important, it explicitly acquiesces to a nuclear Iran.  Read again:  ” … such an attack would “clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran’s nuclear program.”  This also makes everything else about intentions an irrelevant obfuscation.  The balance of the communication from Dempsey is just a smoke screen.  This administration believes that they cannot stop an Iranian nuclear program.

The signals to the Iranian Mullahs couldn’t be clearer.  Proceed apace with your nuclear weapons program, we don’t think you can be stopped anyway.  There are others within the U.S. military community who foolishly believe that the U.S. can live with a nuclear Iran, John Abizaid for one ( I suspect that there are many more).  But here, Dempsey is speaking for more than just himself.  Despite what the administration has claimed, they do not believe they can know the intentions of the Iranian program, they do not intend to assist Israel for fear of appearing complicit, and they don’t even think they can stop Iran if they tried.  Case closed.

Upon inauguration, Mitt Romney’s second duty should be the dismissal of the joint chiefs of staff, including the chairman, and replacement of them with men who have some backbone.  That includes flag officers who work for them and make excuses for green on blue violence in Afghanistan by asserting that the pressures of the Ramadan fast made them do it.

But the 50,000 foot view is one of wreck.  The Obama foreign policy has collapsed, and it is obscene and unseemly.  It’s as if I am passing by some awful, bloody crash on the highway, and want to look away but can’t.  It should shame every American to witness what our country has wrought.

Todd Jones, the acting director of the ATF, says trying to manage the organization is testing all of his skills.

Jones has replaced six out of his eight top assistant directors at Washington headquarters. And he says he’s tried to promote a new generation of leaders all over the country, including ground zero for the Fast and Furious scandal, along the Southwest border.

“Sixteen out of our 25 field divisions have new special agents in charge,” he said. “It’s really been a historic transformation, and it’s really been an opportunity for us to … cherry pick our best and brightest.”

But five ATF managers in Washington and Arizona, who were blasted by House Republicans in their report on Fast and Furious, still work in the federal government.

That seemed to rankle Fox News host Megyn Kelly and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

“Of these five guys who you point to who are responsible for this at ATF, no one’s been fired,” Kelly said on her program this week. “They’re still on the federal taxpayer dime. And the head guy, Ken Melson, he’s working for DOJ right now. Are the taxpayers still paying all these folks and why?”

Issa replied: “They are still paying all these folks. We are concerned that there has been no real repercussions.”

To which Jones says, just wait.

“On this issue of folks who are identified in the House report that are still with ATF, well there’s this little concept called due process,” Jones told NPR. “And until we get a factual report and a complete record from the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General, which is our normal process, and make the referral to our internal affairs division, then there are rights that employees have.”

He even wants to change the name of the ATF to the Violent Crime Bureau.  Sounds as if Mr. Jones really wants to get to the bottom of this whole scandal, no?  But not so fast or furious.

Acting Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Director B. Todd Jones has failed to acknowledge overtures by the confidential informant at the heart of Operation Wide Receiver to give him detailed information about the failed gun smuggling investigation, Gun Rights Examiner learned over the weekend. Firearms dealer Mike Detty, who sold about 450 guns to straw purchasers under the assurances of his ATF handlers that they would be under surveillance, attempted to give Jones operational information both in person and by letter earlier this year, only to be ignored.

“I met him in the Sig booth at SHOT this year,” Detty told this correspondent. “I asked one of his people if he had time to say hello to another former Marine. He came over with a big smile and shook hands. I handed him a business card and told him, ‘If you’re serious about getting to the bottom of the gunwalking scandal you’ll need to start at the beginning–that’s me and Operation Wide Receiver.’

“He nodded and said he’d be in touch,” Detty continued. “Several weeks later I sent him a letter with my contact info and offer to help. Nothing.”

Gun Rights Examiner has obtained a copy of that letter, written on February 27, as well as the certified domestic mail return receipt, providing proof of delivery on March 5.

“There are currently something like 30 people serving prison sentences because of my involvement to help end illegal gun trafficking to Mexico,” Detty informed Jones, giving him a means of validating his credibility with an easily verifiable claim. “Not one case has gone to trial because of the overwhelming and indisputable documentation of these transactions–often videotaped in the living room of my home.”

“Operation Wide Receiver accounted for 450 guns being lost across the border but there were two other major cases that I brought to ATF that accounted for at least another 200 guns that are now in cartel hands,” Detty related. “As a CI it was not my place to question ATF’s motives or demand a detailed plan of action. I had assumed that my efforts would truly be used to help take down a powerful cartel.”

“If you’re sincere in wanting to get to the bottom of the gunwalking scandal then you’ll need to start at the beginning and that is me and Operation Wide Receiver,” Detty advised Jones. “Throughout my time as a CI, I kept meticulous notes–some 600 pages worth. In fact, it was my journal that raised the ire of SAC Newell. Once he learned of my documentation he ordered the field agents not to accept any new cases from me. He knew immediately that my records, irrefutable and unimpeachable, would prove troublesome for him at some point in the future.”

[ … ]

“Whoever said he was a placeholder is correct,” Detty has sadly concluded in a private correspondence to Gun Rights Examiner. “He doesn’t care a bit about changing anything at ATF.” 

Meet the new boss … same as the old boss.  Don’t rename it, just get to the bottom of the illegalities and then get rid of the damn organization.

Hat Tip Instapundit

This opinion piece by Keith Hennessey in The Wall Street Journal is full of good sense and seemingly sound strategy:

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled ObamaCare’s individual mandate constitutional, the direction of American health policy is in the hands of voters. So how do we get from here to “repeal and replace”?

Step one is electing Mitt Romney as president, along with Republican House and Senate majorities. Without a Republican sweep, the law will remain in place.

But a President Romney does not need 60 Republican senators to repeal core elements of ObamaCare. Democrats lost their 60th senate vote in early 2010 after Scott Brown took Edward Kennedy’s seat. To bypass a Senate GOP filibuster and enact portions of ObamaCare, they used a special legislative procedure called reconciliation.

Hennessey goes on to outline how reconciliation can be used in the Senate to avoid the filibuster.   More importantly, he goes on to advocate for implementing changes to the way in which Americans purchase health care, moving from an employer-sponsored plan to a marketplace where consumers purchase and own their own policies like car insurance.

Reform should start by replacing the tax exclusion for employer-provided health insurance with a flat tax deduction or credit. This should be combined with insurance reforms that allow consumers to buy portable health insurance sold anywhere in the nation, through their employer or on their own. That means you’ll be able to take your health insurance with you from one job to the next. Tax policy will no longer push Americans toward lower wages in favor of more expensive health insurance.

Top it all off with expanded contribution limits for health savings accounts, aggressive national medical liability reform, and structural Medicare and Medicaid reforms that dramatically slow the growth of government and deficits.

In 2009 and 2010 the nation took huge steps down a path toward more government control of health care. A shift to the consumer-based reform path is still available—if voters want it.

The difficulty with this free market approach is that… well, the market must actually be “free.”   Hennessey’s piece leaves out at least two, crucial elements for a free market in health care to function properly:  readily flexible supply and freedom for innovation.

Health care costs will never decline, no matter how many tax deductions and national health care plans are implemented, so long as the supply of doctors and nurses is kept artificially low.   In the current system, there are a relatively small number of spots available for those wishing to enter the medical profession.   Becoming a doctor is more like joining a medieval guild than any, other occupation (with the exception, perhaps, of the Delaware bar).   With all guilds, there is an inherent financial interest in preventing too many people from entering the field.   The guild decides how many new members it wants, irrespective of the actual, public need.  A key part of any health reform, then, must be a reform to the various controls that the Medical Guild has imposed to keep out new doctors.   This would include, by the way, the active recruitment of the world’s most talented doctors by liberally handing out work visas.

Increasing the supply of doctors, however, will not work without reforms which allow for drastic innovations in the supply of medical services.   Laws need to be loosened which would encourage doctors and nurses to form profitable practices that provide quality care at affordable prices.   The provision of medical services has changed very little over the last 70 years due in large part to restrictive laws that impede competition among doctors.   Similar reforms need to be implemented in the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

As just one example, the Federal Drug Administration should be transformed from a licensing agency with police powers to an advisory role.   Rather than prohibiting new drugs, procedures and devices from reaching the market until the F.D.A. has given its final approval, these products and procedures should be allowed quick entry with appropriate F.D.A. evaluations.   So, in the case of a new treatment for diabetes, the F.D.A. provides merely an evaluative opinion on its safety and efficacy.   It is left to doctors and, more importantly, to patients to decide whether they want to risk a new treatment that has, for example, a “red flag” of sorts from the F.D.A.    As time goes by, the F.D.A. may change the flag to yellow or even green.

Public perceptions play into the debate as well.  For better or worse, public attitudes about health care have shifted dramatically over the last 70 years.   Prior to World War II, the average person viewed doctors as specialists who were consulted only when a medical issue was too severe for the family to care for itself.   Doctor visits were far less frequent than they are today and no one much thought of having access to the most sophisticated and cutting-edge technologies to extend life.  Professional medical care today is seen as a right and access to expensive, marginal treatments, even for cosmetic or non-life-threatening conditions (sex change operations?  Really?) is considered essential.

In short, the problem with health care in the U.S. is not one that the Federal government needs to solve.   It is a problem largely created by the Federal government as a result of incessant meddling, regulation, taxation, over-hyping expectations of care, and anti-competitive policies.   The single, best thing that can be done to improve the health of our nation is to make the provision of health care more like the provision of automotive care— giving consumers a wealth of choices.

We may observe that in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, for those searching for scholarly and learned legal analyses of the Affordable Health Care Act (“Obamacare”), the ruling by Judge Roger Vinson remains to this day the best there is.  A careful study of his opinion is all you need to know about the unconstitutional power grab by Congress we call Obamacare.  And practically speaking, the acceptance of the Congressional act and the associated SCOTUS ruling on the grounds that the American health care system is broken and in dire need of repair is ill informed.  The American health care system, while not perfect, is the greatest on the planet, which is why people come to America for health care from around the world.

Justice Roberts, who is now known to have changed his opinion during deliberations with his colleagues, was apparently concerned about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court if it struck down the act in part or in whole.  Professor Randy Barnett, who I respect a great deal, sees a silver lining in the cloud.  But the problem with all of this talk about recalibrating the Supreme Court of the future with a more federalist vision only goes so far as other (liberal) justices respect the doctrine of stare decisis.  With Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for example, this isn’t very far.  She sees reversal of D.C. versus Heller on the horizon with a “future, wiser court.”  So I see no silver lining in the cloud.  As one of my sons put it, Roberts was breaking a horse, and instead of bucking the horse out, he simply got off.  He gave up on his job.

Hopefully the monstrosity of Obamacare will be repealed in Congress, or at least, defunded by “future, wiser” Congressmen than the ones who voted in favor of it.  I suspect that the financial straits from which America suffers will make the decision for us all.  The entitlement system cannot long exist in its present state, and that which cannot continue, doesn’t.  But regardless of what the future holds for this monstrosity, it is important to understand more about it than the political machinations that brought it into being.

My own seminary professor, Dr. C. Gregg Singer, made the following observations on the social gospel (“A Theological Interpretation of American History,” pages 148 – 149):

The roots of the social gospel were theological in nature; it was essentially a new revolt against Calvinism and the evangelical position.  Its roots can ultimately be traced back to those developments which took place in European theology as a result of the rise of Hegelian Idealism, to the theologies of Ritschl and Schleiermacher in Germany which attempted to refashion Christian thought according to the prevailing philosophical currents and the attacks of German Higher Criticism on the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures.  The more immediate background for the new theology is to be found in Transcendentalism, the New England theology and writings of Nathaniel Taylor and Horace Bushnell, and the Oberlin theology popularized by Charles G. Finey …

These theologies not only seriously modified the doctrine of total depravity, but they presented a plan of redemption which was, in varying degrees, synergistic.  This synergism, giving to man some merit and some ability to accomplish his own eternal salvation, almost inevitably led to a view than man also has both the power and the mandate to make a heaven out of this earth and to transform it into a kind of Garden of Eden …

Regeneration was all too often regarded as little more than a willingness to join in a crusade for the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth … for the introduction of some kind of socialism into American society.

And this sort of thinking was prevalent among its adherents, especially Mr. Obama.  Do you doubt it?  Consider Mr. Obama’s own words in 2006 prior to his election.

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting “preachy” may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.

After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness – in the imperfections of man.

Solving these problems will require changes in government policy …

Mr. Obama goes on to say that he believes in keeping guns out of inner cities (foretelling the Supreme Court dissent in Heller v. D.C. and McDonald v. Chicago, and the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court), and appears to blame the “gun manufacturers’ lobby” for the moral failings of inner city violence.  Thus does Mr. Obama’s policy decisions have a theological basis in the social gospel, but more specifically, liberation theology of the brand that was popularized in Central and South America in the mid-twentieth century.

On this view, religious commitment and the correction of the fallen state of mankind lies in the state and changes to laws regulations and policy.  Make sure to read again Obama’s view: the problems of poverty and lack of insurance are rooted in “individual callousness,” in the “imperfections of man,” and require “changes in government policy.”  Salvation and regeneration are corporate, or applicable to groups of people, not to be seen as a forensic phenomenon between God and individual men.

But health care should be seen as a commodity as much as, say, transportation, housing and food are commodities.  A person cannot survive (very well) without all of the above.  At one point in time these commodities were administered by Church deacons, with responsibility and accountability ensured so as not to encourage sloth and irresponsibility.  And giving was voluntary, not enforced by the power of a badge and gun.

But if health care is a commodity, then there is no prima facie reason to dissect it and severe it from the other commodities.  Any argument for forced provision of health care to other families by one with more means is disingenuous and hypocritical if it doesn’t include the same justification for the forced, shared provision of transportation, housing and food between families.  And such an argument should consider the history of socialism across the globe and the necessary questions it poses.  Does it share wealth or simply destroy it?  What role do families and the church play in such a schema if the state is responsible for cradle to grave security, and does this sort of thing usurp the authority of families and church?

In the end, regardless of the answers to the questions above, there is no question that there are theological underpinnings to Obamacare.  These underpinnings are to be found in liberation theology, the social gospel and ultimately in Hegelianism and Marxism.  The charge is reflexively leveled at conservatives and traditionalists that we mix church state.  But it’s just as easy to dismiss this charge on the grounds that one doesn’t have to be a member of any church to vote his or her conscience in the voting booth.  All laws are legislated morality.

But while this charge against conservatives is common, it isn’t nearly as common to admit or even see the religious foundations for progressivism.  It’s there nonetheless.  And as the savior said, and to the progressives I repeat, extract the log in your own eye before you go on any scavenger hunt for the spec in my eye.  Seriously study the religious foundations for your own views before we embark on a discussion of my own.  That includes Mr. Obama’s social gospel, Mill’s utilitarianism, or any other -ism or world view that presumes to inform me what I should be doing.

So Eric Holder has been held in contempt of Congress.  Good.  And the Congress should continue the quest for the truth in its examination of the depths of lawlessness in Fast and Furious – and its coverup.

Representative Trey Gowdy tells us why this is necessary.  Honestly, I’m jealous.  The South Carolina upstate area, Greenville-Spartanburg, has some great people.  Representative Gowdy is one of them, and we need more like him.  If the entire Congress consisted of men like this we wouldn’t be in such a mess on so many levels.  This is worth the time – please ignore the glitch at about 3:28 into the video.