Posts: 5,506
Threads: 1,443
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: May 2009
Gunwalker: President Obama's Un-Plausible Deniability
Is it rational to believe the president and his closest advisers had nothing to do with this murderous plot?
I first ran into the concept of plausible deniability during my freshman year of college. A definition:
The term most often refers to the denial of blame in (formal or informal) chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible, meaning confirming responsibility for the action is nearly impossible. In the case that illegal or otherwise disreputable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any awareness of such act or any connection to the agents used to carry out such acts.
I was reading Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger at the time, a novel that hinged on a fictional president deciding to change the war on drugs by descending into illegal covert activity.
Twenty-two years later, we are contemplating whether a sitting and all-too-real American president can claim plausible deniability for Operation Fast and Furious, Operation Castaway, and two unnamed but alleged operations in Texas that make up the Gunwalker scandal, which threatens to bring down the administration of Barack Obama.
The public scandal began when ATF whistleblowers disclosed that a multi-agency federal law enforcement operation in Arizona Operation Fast and Furious supplied weapons found at the crime scene of murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
It was quickly revealed that federal law enforcement officers, supervisors, and administration appointees ensured that straw purchasers would be able to purchase weapons intended for the Sinaloa drug cartel without the threat of arrest. As federal agents watched essentially acting as cartel security 2,020 firearms were purchased, and the majority of them were "walked" by straw purchasers into the hands of the violent drug gang.
Mexican authorities claim that an estimated 150 Mexican law enforcement officers and soldiers, plus an unknown number of civilians have been murdered with weapons "walked" under the eyes of the federal task force. Three U.S. federal agents have also been shot in crimes using Fast and Furious weapons. Two died.
Initially, the Obama administration attempted to scapegoat acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson. When that failed, they colluded with the Washington Post and later possibly the New York Times on attempted character assassinations of Congressman Darrell Issa. Issa, along with Senator Charles Grassley, is leading the charge to investigate the scandal.
A month following Melson's testimony to Issa's committee, the Gunwalker landscape has changed considerably. Emails have been unearthed, additional figures with inside knowledge of the operation are testifying, and more congressmen and senators have joined the probe of the Department of Justice to see just how wide and high the administration's knowledge of and participation in the gunwalking program or programs truly went.
All of these evolving disclosures are increasing the pressure on administration officials such as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, both of whom simply must have known of the operations considering the high-level collaboration between multiple agencies under their control.
Which leads to President Obama: how is it possible that the White House was not aware of Fast and Furious while it was occurring? We now know the following:
The #2 man in the ATF, Acting Deputy Director William Hoover, tried to shut Operation Fast and Furious down in March of 2010 but was rebuffed.
Officials with the Justice Department and ATF tried to evade Senator Grassley's attempts to discover where the guns came from.
A National Security Council (NSC) operative in the White House named Kevin O'Reilly was in direct contact with Bill Newell, the agent in charge of the operation. (Are we to believe that the benign emails released between the two men were their only Gunwalker conversations, and that O'Reilly wasn't briefing the National Security Council or the president?)
The U.S. attorney involved in Fast And Furious, Dennis Burke, is a long-time Napolitano ally and was her chief of staff while she was governor from 2003-2008. Burke is also on the attorney general's Advisory Committee border and immigration law enforcement subcommittee. He recently opposed a routine filing by murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's family, in a move that appears designed to protect him in criminal and civil trials regarding Gunwalker.
Emails reveal that every law enforcement director in DOJ was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious. All have been silent on the allegations except the scapegoated Melson and the DEA administrator, who surfaced long enough to deny that her agency was involved in the criminal actions.
The Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Treasury were involved (State and CIA have allegedly had roles in the operation, but these allegations have not been confirmed by evidence).
With this level of cooperation across at least three (Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury) departments and among at least eight directors, with long-term personal contacts between friends and political allies that have been fingered as key players in this scandal, and with the president's own words and deeds regarding his radical views towards gun rights in this country, is it rational to believe the president and his closest advisers had nothing to do with this murderous plot?
When we see a cover-up being orchestrated, we should rationally assume that the cover-up exists to hide criminal culpability. When we see corruption spread across the highest and most connected levels of government, we should rationally assume that the person at the top, President Obama, likely was involved.
With the latest evidence, Barack Obama and his co-conspirators no longer have plausible deniability. It remains to see how they will fare with criminal culpability, as more whistleblowers come forward from Justice and DHS to avoid prison time themselves.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/gunwalker-p...niability/
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
Posts: 5,506
Threads: 1,443
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: May 2009
Multiple White House Officials Knew About Fast and Furious Arms Trafficking Operation
September 4th, 2011
Via: CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20...91695.html
CBS News has obtained a series of emails that show the White House had more information on ATF's controversial Fast and Furious operation than previously disclosed. But administration officials insists nobody at the White House knew specifically that ATF was allowing guns to "walk" into the hands of suspected gun traffickers for Mexican drug cartels.
ATF allegedly allowed more than two thousand assault rifles and other weapons to fall into the hands of suspects from late fall of 2009 through 2010.
The emails indicate three White House officials were briefed on gun trafficking efforts that included Fast and Furious. The officials are Kevin O'Reilly, then-director of North American Affairs, now assigned to the State Department; Dan Restrepo, senior Latin American advisory; and Greg Gatjanis, a national security official.
Posted in Assassination, Atrocities, Covert Operations, Economy, Elite
http://cryptogon.com/?p=24693
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
Posts: 5,506
Threads: 1,443
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: May 2009
SEPTEMBER 7, 2011
7
Another Embarrassment for Washington's Drug Warriors
The Sweet Deal With El Narco'
by PAUL IMISON
Mexico City
The plea filed in a US federal court by Mexican drug-trafficker Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla one of the top members of the Sinaloa Cartel that he was protected by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in exchange for information on the organization's rivals should come as no surprise, even if it threatens to be another embarrassment for Washington's "drug warriors".
Zambada, who was extradited to the US in 2010 and is currently awaiting trial in Chicago, says a deal was made as far back as 1998 by which the Sinaloa Cartel was given carte-blanche to traffic drugs, and its bosses including Mexico's biggest drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman granted immunity from prosecution. Zambada was arrested by Mexican authorities hours after he alleges a sneaky meeting took place between him, the cartel's attorney and DEA agents in Mexico City in 2009.
Zambada also claims that the DEA tipped off cartel leaders about anti-narcotics operations so they could evade arrest and suggests that "Operation Fast and Furious" whereby the US government illegally smuggled weapons to Mexico in a failed "sting operation" was designed to arm the Sinaloa Cartel and its allies.
Zambada (aka "El Mayito") is the son of Ismael Zambada Garcia ("the Big Mayo"), second-in-command to "El Chapo" in the Sinaloa hierarchy. Zambada, Jr. was allegedly the organization's "logistical coordinator", importing to the US "multi-ton quantities of cocaine … using various means, including but not limited to, Boeing 747 cargo aircraft, private aircraft … buses, rail cars, tractor-trailers, and automobiles." The US government has until Sep. 9 to file a public response.
Narco-Royalty'
In Mexico, the suspicion that the National Action Party (PAN) administrations of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon were in cahoots with the Sinaloa Cartel has been rife for years, but Washington's apparent role in protecting the organization only heightens the farce of their funding President Calderon's crusade against the drug gangs.
There are actually two "Drug Wars" taking place in Mexico: one by the government against the so-called cartels, and another waged by the cartels against each other. Since Calderon militarized the "war" in 2006, the Sinaloa Cartel has been hoovering up territory, markets and smuggling routes like fat lines of cocaine. Its current major adversary, the Zetas gang, is fighting back hard, but Mexican security forces continue to pummel it while the Sinaloa the biggest drug-trafficking organization in the country, maybe the world reaps the rewards.
A recent study by Mexican newspaper "El Universal" showed that 80 per cent of "Drug War" slayings have taken place in just 162 of the country's municipalities. Most of the violence is a result of the Sinaloa Cartel trying to take rivals' territory, which means that in supporting "El Chapo", authorities on both sides of the border have actually escalated the bloodshed, not reduced it.
The way to think of the Sinaloa Cartel is almost as "narco-royalty". The organization's leadership descends from Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo's original Mexican drug-trafficking empire, which ran cocaine for Pablo Escobar in the 1980s. Those were the days when the country's drug lords were rarely seen or heard, gave a nice cut of their profits to the ruling Institutional Party of the Revolution (PRI), and didn't spill blood in public view.
A former PRI governor of Nuevo Leon, one of Mexico's most violence-wracked states, recently told a university audience that in the 1980s and '90s his party had "formalized, written agreements" with the cartels to turn a blind eye to their activities in exchange for "societal peace". It sort of worked, but that peace was broken when the PAN began backing the Sinaloa Cartel's bid for supremacy.
The potential Zambada scandal comes hot on the heels of the "Operation Fast and Furious" fiasco, whereby the Obama administration via the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) shopped as many as 2,500 illegal firearms to Mexican gangs during 2009-10. ATF border agents were told to allow arsenals purchased in the US and headed for Mexico to pass through. A Congressional Committee investigation reports that far from "stinging" the cartels, many of these weapons were simply recovered at grisly murder scenes.
According to one whistleblower: "hand guns, AK-47 variants, and .50 caliber rifles [were purchased] almost daily" by known or suspected straw buyers. ATF agents who opposed the operation on ethical grounds were told to "get with the program" or face dismissal.
Weapons involved in the racket have been traced to various incidents in Mexico including the shooting down of a military helicopter and the high-profile kidnapping of an attorney, as well as the murder of a US Border Patrol Agent in Arizona, whose family are considering a wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government.
President Calderon lashed out at the op, but timidly, just as when he blames the illegal drug trade on US consumer demand. Washington backed its man during the civil unrest that followed his fraud-marred election in 2006 and likely struck a deal with him to fight for the privatization of Mexico's oil industry, a move blocked by the PRI-majority Congress.
Calderon also approves of the US utilizing Mexico as its "southern security perimeter", which means it keeping a tighter rein on Central America as a whole. In the late 1940s, Washington nicknamed Mexican president Miguel Aleman "Mr. Amigo" for his willingness to cater to US interests, and Calderon is his 21st century heir.
Yet for historical reasons, Mexican presidents mustn't appear to be too close to Washington. Unlike Colombia, the presence of foreign (read "gringo") troops and bases on Mexican soil is strictly forbidden by the constitution. Many Americans would be surprised to discover just how seriously this is taken by ordinary Mexicans who, for the most part, view the US as an arrogant imperial power.
This is a thorn in the side of Washington planners, who as Hillary Clinton admitted last year, would love a "Plan Colombia"-style deal in Mexico. So to bypass that pesky national sovereignty thing, there are now retired US military personnel "retired" technically makes them "civilians" working alongside CIA operatives at "intelligence outposts" on Mexican bases. Unarmed Predator drones circle the skies for surveillance, and Calderon is reportedly considering the use of private US security contractors. As one Mexican politician put it, "What are we? Afghanistan?"
The goal, as it was pretty much laid out in US embassy cables, is control of Mexico's national security apparatus. This not only means fighting (some of) the drug gangs, but a greater ability to intervene in regional affairs. For Washington, a leftist, nationalistic, anti-NAFTA government south of the border is unthinkable; better to get your CIA operatives and (non-military) military personnel on the ground quick while "Mr. Amigo" is holding the door open.
The most recent horror show in Mexico was a vicious arson attack by the Zetas on a casino in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, the country's third largest city and host to a turf war between the gang and its former employer, the Gulf Cartel. The government recently admitted that the Zetas are now the number one focus of its anti-narcotics strategy. They are, naturally, enemies of the Sinaloa Cartel.
52 people died in the attack, prompting President Calderon to label it an "act of terrorism" in a bid to justify his military-led campaign. The Zetas are certainly terroristic, but such rhetoric is a fear tactic designed to whip up support among a public who have long lost faith in the zero-tolerance approach. With an election looming in July 2012 (Calderon can't run for a second term), expect to hear much more of this.
Many Mexicans are boycotting the Independence Day celebrations on Sep. 16 precisely because the traditional cry of "Viva Mexico!" rings hollow with so many Mexicans dead. Yet criticism has also come from the unlikeliest of places. Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox who used to while away weekends on the Bushes' ranch in Crawford, Texas, and was a feisty "drug warrior" in his own right used the occasion of the atrocity in Monterrey to call for a "truce" with the cartels.
Fox, along with another former president, Ernesto Zedillo, has clearly had a change of heart since his days in office. A few months back he memorably described Washington's financing of the "Drug War" as "nothing more than a tip' given to us, paid in blood, death and violence the task is theirs, to stop drugs from circulating in the United States."
Yet Edgardo Buscaglia, one of the leading experts on "Drug War" economics, claims that less than 50 per cent of the Zetas' income is actually derived from drug-trafficking. The rest comes from a variety of criminal activity including kidnapping, extortion, people-trafficking, illegal logging, and even pipeline-tapping. Increasingly then, the crisis in Mexico is not about drugs, but rather how easy it is for violent gangs to recruit members, arm themselves, and buy off officials regardless of whether they smuggle cocaine or petroleum.
Next year's presidential election is already being seen as a referendum on Calderon's "Drug War" policy. Once again, and after a crippling knock-on recession, the country is ripe for a victory by the Left, but almost cartoonish levels of in-fighting within the main progressive party, the Democratic Party of the Revolution (PRD), and a possible alliance between one half of that party and the PAN, means that the PRI is favorite to take power.
At this stage, all three major parties claim that a "truce" with the cartels is out of the question, but when even former "drug warriors" like Fox and Zedillo are decrying the violence, something may just have to give. Meanwhile, the "War on Drugs", if there were such a thing, rolls on.
Paul Imison is a journalist. He can be reached at paulimison@hotmail.com 

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/07/t...el-narco'/
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
Posts: 5,506
Threads: 1,443
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: May 2009
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
Posts: 17,304
Threads: 3,464
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 2
Joined: Sep 2008
I sent your thread to Tosh Ed and this is his response.
Quote:Thanks.... one point I would like to make. The following was released to ATF over a year before the Gunwalker, Fast and Furious, operation was exposed... the place (Columbus New Mexico) was named by me, the US Border Patrol, and the Task Force, before the fact... the guns were marked and photographed by me and the BP in 2009... all agencies were notified at that time by the Border Patrol Intel El Paso Texas and the US Task Force... seems nobody wants to bring this FACT to the surface. The US Military Joint Task Force 7 Special Forces, myself, and the US Border Patrol were all present overlooking Columbus New Mexico, in the Spring of 2009, watching the transfer of these, 'Fast and Furious', weapons as reordered. I released the facts with photos to, Salem- News.com, and Narco News, Bill Conroy, covered the story at my request in order to establish the facts of this illegal operation and to also protect the US Task Force and its Mexican counterparts from retaliation from the US Federal Government.... This was information before the fact and the State Department and Justice has done their best to cover this up as this article by Salem- News confirms...( as well as other documented articles now on the internet)... you can post this if you like, or not... its a Fact and its the truth... ... the info was released to U.S.Federal and local law enforcement over a year before the Fast and Furious Ops was brought down. ... and this was before the fact. ATF, STATE DEPARTMENT AND JUSTICE REFUSED TO INVESTIGATE IN THE SPRING OF 2009, long before Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was gunned down.
It was only after the Columbus New Mexico Police Department, its town manager, and the whole town council of Columbus were busted (March 03, 2011) for weapons trafficking to the Zetas Cartel in Palomas Mexico. Now I just gave you the inside view of a Congressional Investigation... before the fact. I do not expect much to be done from any of this... there is to much money and corruption involved on both sides of this border.
take care... I know I said I would never do this again, but to me this is important information that should be in the public domain for all serious researchers to investigate. Its the information that should be investigated and NOT the source of the information.... it's been confirmed from five separate credible law enforcement sources, as well as WikiLeaks. Check It Out.
T
http://salem-news.com/articles/march252011/colombus.php
March 25, 2011 17:28
The Columbus Indictment "... Tosh Plumlee is a former CIA asset and contract pilot who flew numerous missions delivering arms to Latin America and returning drugs to the United States as part of the covert Iran/Contra operations in the 1980s, according to public records.
Plumlee helped to blow the whistle on the covert Iran/Contra arms-for-drugs shipments and has, in his mind, earned the lasting ire of some powerful forces engaged in America's drug-war pretense. However, he also has earned respect among other players and still has deep contacts in the spook world, including within the Mexican intelligence world. Over the past several years, Plumlee has focused much of his attention on New Mexico's border region.
Plumlee points to a small U.S. border community of some 2,000 people that has developed into a real hot spot in the drug war. Columbus, N.M., is located in southern Luna County, about 70 miles west of El Paso, Texas; some 32 miles south of Deming, N.M.; and just across the border from Palomas, Mexico.![[Image: Palomas.jpg]](http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/70/Palomas.jpg)
According to Plumlee this high-desert border town has become a haven for narco-traffickers, specifically the Zetas.
Way back in May 2009, more than two years prior to the recent indictments involving Columbus' town leaders, Narco News reported the following:
Plumlee says he spent some time in Columbus, on a hill overlooking the small town with the Task Force and a group of Border Patrol agents who had set up surveillance cameras from afar to keep an eye on two adjoining houses in the community.Plumlee claims the homes were purchased by narco-traffickers, who paid cash. He adds that as he looked on with the undercover team, a group of men at the homes were unloading cargo from two trucks parked near the abodes.
Plumlee said the Task Force and Border Patrol agents identified the cargo as a shipment of weapons.
"How do you know," Plumlee says he asked the special agent.
"Because we have it on tape," one of the Task Force agents responded, according to Plumlee.
Plumlee says the Border Patrol agents have reported the incident to ATF….
So it is clear that ATF was made aware of potential significant arms trafficking in Columbus as early as May of 2009, yet it did not, according to a recent ATF press release, launch the investigation that led to the recent indictments until January of 2010.
In addition, a recent Associate Press story claims the ATF investigation that led to the indictment of the Columbus town leaders and their co-conspirators was prompted by the U.S. Border Patrol. ...".
From the AP story:
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Posts: 5,506
Threads: 1,443
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: May 2009
Give Tosh my thanks and warmest regards. Up here, I am a distant observer through the mediated lens of multiple interests. Down there, he is the boots on the ground and at close quarters. Vaya con Dios.
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
Posts: 5,506
Threads: 1,443
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: May 2009
September 12th, 2011Via Los Angeles Times:
In the fall of 2009, ATF agents installed a secret phone line and hidden cameras in a ceiling panel and wall at Andre Howard's Lone Wolf gun store. They gave him one basic instruction: Sell guns to every illegal purchaser who walks through the door.
For 15 months, Howard did as he was told. To customers with phony IDs or wads of cash he normally would have turned away, he sold pistols, rifles and semiautomatics. He was assured by the ATF that they would follow the guns, and that the surveillance would lead the agents to the violent Mexican drug cartels on the Southwest border.
When Howard heard nothing about any arrests, he questioned the agents. Keep selling, they told him. So hundreds of thousands of dollars more in weapons, including .50-caliber sniper rifles, walked out of the front door of his store in a Glendale, Ariz., strip mall.
Posted in Assassination, Atrocities, Covert Operations, Economy
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
Posts: 5,506
Threads: 1,443
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: May 2009
September 13th, 2011Via: Narco News:
The fingerprints of the CIA have surfaced in a controversial federal criminal case pending in Chicago against Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, an alleged kingpin in the Sinaloa "drug cartel."
US government prosecutors filed pleadings in the case late last week seeking to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), a measure designed to assure national security information does not surface in public court proceedings.
"The government hereby requests that the Court conduct a pretrial conference … pursuant to CIPA … at which time, the government will be prepared to report to the Court and defendant [Zambada Niebla] regarding the approximate size of the universe of classified material that may possibly be implicated in the discovery and trial of this case," states a motion filed on Friday, Sept. 9, by US prosecutors in the Zambada Niebla case.
CIPA, enacted some 30 years ago, is designed to keep a lid on the public disclosure in criminal cases of classified materials, such as those associated with CIA operations. The rule requires that notice be given to the judge in advance of any move to introduce classified evidence in a case so that the judge can determine if it is admissible, or if another suitable substitution can be arranged that preserves the defendants right to a fair trial.
"That is a very reasonable conclusion [that the CIA is likely involved in this case in some way]," says a former federal agent familiar with national security procedures. "Seeking CIPA protection, yup, there is hot stuff to hide."
Zambada Niebla, extradited to the US in February 2010 and now facing narco-trafficking charges in federal court in Chicago, claims in pleadings in his case that the US government entered into a pact with the leadership of the Mexican Sinaloa narco-trafficking organization that supposedly provide its chief narcos with immunity in exchange for them providing US authorities with information that could be used to target other narco-trafficking organizations.
…
Interestingly, there also is a Guantanamo Bay connection in the Zambada Niebla case that might lead to some classified information surfacing in his case.
Zambada Niebla, as the US government-described "logistics coordinator" for the Sinaloa organization, is linked to alleged Sinaloa organization money-launderer Pedro Alfonso Alatorre Damy via a Gulfstream II jet (tail number N987SA) that crashed in Mexico in late 2007 with some four tons of cocaine onboard.
That aircraft was allegedly purchased with Sinaloa organization drug money laundered through Alatorre Damy's casa de cambio business and a U.S. bank. And that same aircraft was reportedly suspected of being used previously as part of the CIA's "terrorist" rendition program and allegedly made a number of trips to Guantanamo Bay between 2003 and 2005, according to media reports and an investigation spearheaded by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
In addition, the Gulfstream II was purchased less than two weeks before it crashed in Mexico by a duo that included a U.S. government operative who allegedly had done past contract work for a variety of US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, according to a known CIA asset (Baruch Vega) who is identified as such in public court records. The four tons of cocaine onboard of the Gulfstream II at the time of its crash landing, according Vega, was purchased in Colombia via a syndicate that included a Colombian narco-trafficker named Nelson Urrego, who, according to Panamanian press reports and Vega, is a U.S. government (CIA) asset.
Posted in Covert Operations, Economy
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
Posts: 5,506
Threads: 1,443
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: May 2009
By QUIN HILLYER on 9.15.11 @ 6:08AM
Americans should get furious, and fast, about the abuses.
Start rattling the chains. Start ratcheting up the hue and cry. Fire up the masses. It's long past time to force mass resignations at, and possible prosecutions of members of, the Obama Justice Department -- and, more broadly, of the West Wing itself.
Forgive all the links, but the scope of the corruption is so large as to defy adequate descriptions, in a single column, of each abomination. The reality is that these Obama/Holder minions at DoJ are dangerous to the very heart of constitutional, republican (small 'r') government. Last fall in the Spectator's print edition I did a broad overview of the problems. In the September issue of The New Criterion, Andy McCarthy does a wonderful job outlining the problems with the Holder department and with other examples of Obamite executive overreach. Of course the Black Panther case, the dismissal of which I (on the Washington Times editorial page) and the Times' ace reporter Jerry Seper on the news side were the first toreport in print (I later discovered that the fabulous Michelle Malkin wrote on it online a day or two earlier), still hasn't been adequatelyhandled. And the outrageous DoJ blocking of non-partisan elections in Kinston, N.C., solely to benefit the Democratic Party , is now being examined in the courts, with the administration having lost, big, in the latest round.
More recently, the burgeoning scandal of the "Fast and Furious" gun-running blow-up, already a huge embarrassment for the Justice Department, keeps moving closer to the White House. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, for her part, denieddirect knowledge of this dangerous idiocy but as Dexter Duggan reports at the Wanderer (sign-in required), the U.S. Attorney who ran the moronic program, Dennis Burke, has been sponsored throughout his entire career by Napolitano. First he worked for her when she was a prosecutor; then (quoting Duggan), "After Napolitano ascended to the governorship in 2003, her chief of staff was none other than Dennis Burke, who went on to be a senior adviser to Napolitano when Obama made her his secretary of Homeland Security in 2009. Obama, however, soon put Burke into Napolitano's old U.S. attorney job in Phoenix. Like Napolitano, Burke got the post as a political plum. It was expected the plum would ripen into bigger fruit, as it had for Napolitano."
This week, meanwhile, Christian Adams continued Pajamas Media's mind-boggling series of stories on blatantly illegal hiring practices at DoJ. Please read that linked story, and all the previous stories linked therein. This is amazingly disturbing stuff. Of 106 supposedly apolitical hires by the Obama/Holder Civil Rights Division, all 106 are demonstrably, irrefutably leftist activists. Again, these are for "career" slots for which no political bias is supposed to be used to hire them. Simple random distribution would assure than in a center-right country, at least a couple of dozen of these hires would be either right of center or at least apolitical -- but not a single one has been anything but a hard-left radical. Look in particular at the summary of the background of Nicole Ndumele, who in addition to a host of other left-wing causes managed "to find time to co-author a wacky 'shadow report' for the United Nations blasting the United States' efforts to combat race discrimination. The report -- titled 'Unequal Opportunity: A Critical Assessment of the U.S. Commitment to the Elimination of Racial Discrimination' -- reads like exactly what it is: a product of the professional racial grievance culture."
As I noted a few weeks ago when writing about this scandal, "These people were members of groups like 'Queer Resistance Front,' 'Intersex Society of North America,' and of course People for the American Way. Their published essays focused on issues such as 'Genital Normalizing Surgery on Intersexed Infants' and on arguing that providing material support for terrorism isn't a war crime. They, or those promoted, have histories of extracurricular activities that include getting arrested at a World Bank protest, going on a hunger strike while chaining oneself to an oak tree and doing advocacy work for 'the rights of incarcerated native Hawaiians to dance the hula and perform Hawaiian chants and rituals in privately owned prisons in Arizona.' A large number of them have donated significant campaign funds to Barack Obama, and some to other liberal candidates."
Buried in Christian Adams' latest story on this scandal comes what should be an incredibly explosive allegation: "Worse, Loretta King, while serving as the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights at the outset of the Obama administration, ordered the resumes of highly qualified applicants to be rejected only because they didn't have political or left-wing civil rights experience. Multiple DOJ sources with direct knowledge of hiring committee practices have confirmed this to me."
Where, oh where are the New York Times and the Washington Post? This is a direct violation of the law that these "news" organizations are deliberately ignoring.
Then there is the continuing failure of systems that are supposed to ensure that military personnel abroad can get ballots cast and counted, which is part of a seemingly deliberate pattern of obstruction by the Obama/Holder Justice Department.
The Obamites at Justice (and elsewhere in the administration)stonewall and prevaricate repeatedly (with spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler also known for one of the most unprofessional and witchy tempers, along with ongoing lack of truthfulness, that some of us have ever seen in decades of dealing with government public relations officials), and they (again illegally) don't even comply withlegitimate Freedom of Information requests.
And, of course, their ranks have been filled with an unusually high number of lawyers who considered it pro bono (literally, for the public good!) to represent terrorist detainees held in Guantanamo. When a lawyer or two take up a constitutional issue, it's one thing; but when a whole department is lousy with such lawyers, one starts to see an ideological identification with detainees as supposed "victims" of the very system of justice and ordered liberty that the terrorists have dedicated their lives to destroying.
In the weeks before Eric Holder was confirmed as Attorney General,Jennifer Rubin kept up a steady drumbeat of blog posts warning us all what a dishonest, radically leftist problem he would turn out to be. Rubin was absolutely right. Somehow, though, Holder's dastardliness has outstripped even the stern warnings Rubin issued. Under Richard Nixon, John Mitchell was as corrupt as they come. But that was all for protecting political power. The Holder Justice Department is equally as corrupt, but in worse ways even than Mitchell. Holder's team is out for raw political power unmoored from the law, of course -- but also for hard-leftist ideological ends that undermine the entire tradition of American jurisprudence and legal practice. They are a menace, and they must be stopped.
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/09/15...he-obama-j
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
Posts: 5,506
Threads: 1,443
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: May 2009
September 14, 2011 4:57 PM
By[URL="http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-31727_162-10391695.html?contributor=41919"]Sharyl Attkisson
[/URL]
![[Image: en_full_0830_244x183.jpg]](http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/08/30/en_full_0830_244x183.jpg)
Weapons linked to ATF's controversial "Fast and Furious" operation have been tied to at least eight violent crimes in Mexico including three murders, four kidnappings and an attempted homicide.According to a letter from U.S. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the disclosed incidents may be only a partial list of violent crimes linked to Fast and Furious weapons because "ATF has not conducted a comprehensive independent investigation."When added to the guns found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in the U.S., the newly-revealed murders in Mexico bring the total number of deaths linked to Fast and Furious to four.According to the Justice Department letter:One AK-47 type assault rifle purchased by a Fast and Furious suspect was recovered Nov. 14, 2009 in Atoyac de Alvarez, Mexico after the Mexican military rescued a kidnap victim.On July 1, 2010, two AK-47 type assault rifles purchased by Fast and Furious suspects were recovered in Sonora, Mexico after a shootout between cartels. Two murders were reported in the incident using the weapons.On July 26, 2010, a giant .50 caliber Barrett rifle purchased by a Fast and Furious suspect was recovered in Durango, Mexico after apparently having been fired. No further details of the incident were given.On Aug. 13, 2010, two AK-47 type assault rifles purchased by a Fast and Furious target were recovered in Durango, Mexico after a confrontation between the Mexican military and an "armed group."On Nov. 14, 2010, two AK-47 type assault rifles purchased by Fast and Furious targets were recovered in Chihuahua, Mexico after "the kidnapping of two individuals and the murder of a family member of a Mexican public official." Sources tell CBS News they believe this is a reference to a case we previously reported on: the terrorist kidnapping, torture and murder of Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez. Rodriguez was the brother of then-attorney general Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez. The terrorists released video of Rodriguez before his death, in handcuffs surrounded by hooded gunmen.On May 27, 2011, three AK-47 type assault rifles purchased by Fast and Furious targets were recovered in Jalisco, Mexico after having been fired. No other details of the incident were provided, but the date and location match with another incident previously reported by CBS News. On May 27 near Jalisto, cartel members fired upon a Mexican government helicopter, forcing it to make an emergency landing. According to one law enforcement source, 29 suspected cartel members were killed in the attack.
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
|
