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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on January 28, 2012, 07:11:21 AM
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http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/documents-say-doj-knew-of-fast-and-furious-connection-day-after-terry-murder
Disgusting.
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Lol, well good, fuck Holder, thats Karma for all his bullshit excuses and pulling the race card.
Its obvious the WH is just wrapping this around his neck and letting him take the fall because they dont want it traced back up into the Oval Office (which we all know it would have, nothing like that happens without approval from someone up high)
Sucks the people in charge wont get caught, but they never do, at least they decided to cut Holder loose, probably smart enough to see that Holder was self-destructing with all the horseshit that came out of his mouth, and saw that the Senate was going to chase this as far up as they could, and said fuck it, cut the fucker loose.
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Latest Friday night documentdump shows Holder was informedof Fast and Furiousconnection to
Daily Caller ^ | 1/28/12 | Matthew Boyle
Posted on January 28, 2012 10:13:42 PM EST by Nachum
Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice dumped documents related to Operation Fast and Furious on congressional officials late Friday night. Central to this document dump is a series of emails showing Holder was informed of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder on the day it happened – December 15, 2010 – and that he was informed the weapons used to kill Terry were from Fast and Furious on the same day. An email from one official, whose name has been redacted from the document, to now-former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke reads: “On December 14, 2010,
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
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Emails Show How 'Fast and Furious' Ambush News Unfolded At Justice Dept.
Georgia Public Broadcasting ^ | January 27, 2012 8:59pm (EST) | Carrie Johnson
Posted on January 28, 2012 1:26:26 PM EST by Texas Fossil
For the first time, the Justice Department has made public a series of sensitive messages that passed to the highest levels of the agency within hours of an ambush that killed a U.S. border patrol agent along the Southwest border in December 2010, igniting a national scandal over a gun trafficking investigation gone wrong.
Justice officials sent the documents to Congress late Friday evening, only a few days before Attorney General Eric Holder is set to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
The email messages show the former top federal prosecutor in Arizona, Dennis Burke, notifying an aide to Holder via email on Dec. 15, 2010 that agent Brian Terry had been wounded and died. "Tragic," responds the aide, Monty Wilkinson. "I've alerted the AG, the acting Deputy Attorney General..."
Only a few minutes later, Wilkinson emailed again, saying, "Please provide any additional details as they become available to you."
Burke then delivered another piece of bad news: "The guns found in the desert near the murder [sic] ... officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store."
(Excerpt) Read more at gpb.org ...
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I hope Barry keeps staying loyal to Holder. That way, the Republican nominee can use it to bash Barry over the head again and again and again.
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I hope Barry keeps staying loyal to Holder. That way, the Republican nominee can use it to bash Barry over the head again and again and again.
Romney has not mentioned Fast n Furious once on the trail. and he wont say shit because Mittens is being set up as the fall guy or an obama second term.
It is so obvious what a clown show is going on.
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Romney has not mentioned Fast n Furious once on the trail. and he wont say shit because Mittens is being set up as the fall guy or an obama second term.
It is so obvious what a clown show is going on.
your new CT is that the 2012 election is fixed and Romney is playing along with it?
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:(
your new CT is that the 2012 election is fixed and Romney is playing along with it?
Mcain redux.
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A Fast & Furious fib
By MICHAEL A. WALSH
Last Updated: 1:46 AM, January 30, 2012
Posted: 10:03 PM, January 29, 2012
It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup, goes the old Washington cliché. In the case of the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal, it’s both.
As Attorney General Eric Holder gets ready to face more congressional grilling Thursday, something’s clearly rotten at the Justice Department. The stench goes all the way to the top — to Holder.
Friday, the feds disclosed documents that show that despite Holder’s claim during congressional testimony that he’d only learned of F&F “a few weeks” earlier (a claim later amended to “a couple of months”), he has known (or should have known) about it all along.
That information came in a series of e-mails in which the former US attorney in Arizona, Dennis Burke, discussed the F&F’s first fatality, agent Brian Terry, with a Holder deputy. The e-mails were sent in the early hours of Dec. 15, 2010, the day Terry died of wounds received the day before in a shootout 18 miles inside the US border, near Nogales.
The deputy, Monty Wilkinson, responded: “Tragic. I’ve alerted the AG.”
Burke, an anti-gun fanatic whose appointment as US attorney in 2009 roughly coincided with the start of F&F, goes on to tell Wilkinson later that day: “The guns found in the desert near the murder of the BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store.”
That’s right. The government’s top law-enforcement officer has been turning a blind eye to a cancer in his department for more than a year.
Yet he’s repeatedly played the innocent in his various appearances before Rep. Darrell Issa’s House Oversight Committee. Watch for Issa (R.-Calif.) to hit him hard on what appears to be close to perjury.
The nearly 500 e-mails and other documents, released by Justice at the direction of the White House, also show that Holder’s deputy, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, suggested in a meeting with Mexican officials in February 2011 — two months after the operation had come to light — that some so-called straw purchasers be allowed to transport weapons illegally across the US border, where they could be arrested and convicted because “it may send a strong message to arms traffickers.”
So, even after Terry’s death, the administration was still pushing the lie that the primary source of Mexico’s gun violence was American arms dealers — and covering its own rear end.
How much worse can this get?
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, under the supervision of the US Attorney’s Office in Phoenix — and over the vehement objections of field agents — encouraged some 2,000 guns purchased in Arizona gun shops to “walk” across the border to Mexico, ostensibly for tracking purposes.
In reality, the guns promptly disappeared, only to turn up later at murder scenes in both countries. Yet Justice has refused to come clean about its part in the killing spree, offering an ever-shifting array of “the dog ate my homework” excuses and bureaucratic shuffling, instead of providing Issa and the public with answers.
Asked to provide a deposition to Issa’s investigators, the head of the criminal division of the US Attorney’s Office in Arizona, Patrick Cunningham, on Friday pleaded the Fifth and abruptly resigned his government post to take a private-sector job. Cunningham’s actions, says Issa, “suggests possible criminal culpability on the part of a high-ranking Justice Department official.”
Issa has requested that Cunningham’s deputy, Assistant US Attorney Michael Morrissey, provide testimony, instead.
It’s long past time for heads to roll — and not just the couple of small-fry straw buyers who pleaded guilty in federal court last week.
Frustrated with the feds’ stonewalling, Arizona lawmakers have formed their own bipartisan investigative committee.
“We just don’t have cooperation from federal officials,” says one local sheriff.
Still, more is needed.
With a tough re-election fight, President Obama doesn’t need F&F to become a campaign issue. But surely even he realizes that the nation has had enough of Holder’s polarizing tenure at Justice. Given a choice between himself and Holder . . . well, there’s always room for one more under the Obama bus.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/fast_furious_fib_4HFAWyPTMmafzVRyE486rN#ixzz1kxuW1396
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New Emails Suggest Eric Holder Perjured Himself
PJ Media ^ | January 30, 2012 | Bob Owens
The attorney general's claim regarding when he knew about Operation Fast and Furious conflicts with the released communications.
The Department of Justice released hundreds of documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious late Friday afternoon, including a series of emails that strongly suggests that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder perjured himself in congressional testimony.
The crucial email exchange began at 2:31 a.m. on December 15, 2010, with a message from an unidentified DOJ source to “OIOC SIT” and “SITROOM”:
On December 14, 2010, BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol Operations 18 miles north of the International boundary when he encountered [redacted] unidentified subjects. Shots were exchanged resulting in the agent being shot. At this time, the agent is being transported to an area where he can be airlifted to an emergency medical center. [Redacted].
Updates to follow.
At 3:31 a.m., an email was issued from someone in “HQ” to U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke:
Our agent has passed away.
At 9:09 a.m., Burke gave a one word reply: “Horrible.” At 9:41 a.m., Burke issued an email to Holder’s Deputy Chief of Staff Monty Wilkinson: “Not good.” The shooting had occurred “18 miles w/in” the U.S. border. At 10:04 a.m., Wilkinson responded to Burke:
I’ve alerted the AG, the acting DAG, Lisa, etc.
Late that afternoon, Burke received an email saying two guns recovered at the scene were tied to an “on-going Phoenix ATF inv[estigation]” and informing him he would be getting a call from ATF’s Bill Newell. Burke forwarded the information that the guns recovered at the scene of Agent Terry’s death were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store as part of “the investigation we were going to talk about.”
Wilkinson, Holder’s deputy chief of staff, informs Burke that he would “call tomorrow,”December 16, to discuss the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent apparently murdered with the very guns the Department of Justice “walked” to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.
The email exchange strongly suggests that Wilkinson was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious, and how the weapons supplied by our government ended up in the hands of the FBI informant-led rip crew that engaged the BORTAC team in Peck Canyon, killing Brian Terry.
It is reasonable to assume that December 16 or 17, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed by his deputy chief of staff that Terry was killed with a walked gun from Operation Fast and Furious. Considering the potential damage the brewing scandal could cause, Wilkinson would have been grossly negligent if he did not make informing the attorney general a priority.
Holder testifies in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee later this week.
In testimony in front of Congress on May 3, 2011, Holder insisted he’d only heard of Operation Fast and Furious “a few weeks” before he testified; a story he later change to “a few months.” These emails strongly suggest that Holder was aware of Operation Fast and Furious within 48 hours of Brian Terry’s death, if he did not know already about the operation well before then from the memos he began receiving in July of 2010, six months before the firefight that ended Agent Terry’s life.
Holder’s expected appearance before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday, February 2, is further complicated by the actions of Patrick Cunningham, the chief of the Phoenix office’s criminal division within the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona. Cunningham invoked his Fifth Amendment rights in an effort to avoid testifying in front of the Oversight Committee — you can only invoke the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination. The invocation makes it even less plausible for the Holder to claim that DOJ was acting lawfully with the Operation. Cunningham resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s Office on Friday, January 27.
Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa reserved the right to call Cunningham before the committee, and also indicated that he has informed Holder that he will seek a new witness to testify, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Morrissey. Morrissey directly reported to Cunningham.
Previously, the Department of Justice had refused to allow Morrissey or Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley (who reported to Morrissey) to testify.
Oversight’s renewed focus on the staff of the U.S. Attorney for Arizona’s office indicates that these officials may be the “weak links” in the cover-up. Oversight will apparently continue to focus on Cunningham, Morrissey, and Hurley, even as they grill Holder later this week.
Their former boss, Dennis Burke, is also undergoing renewed scrutiny. Burke’s 23-year career as the architect of anti-gun legislation lends credence to theories that Operation Fast and Furious and other alleged gun-walking operations were imposed by the Obama administration to help support the 90 percent lie. The 90 percent lie was a manipulation of gun trace data restated on numerous occasions by President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and other administration officials as they argued for more restrictions on gun sales. The claims seem particularly vicious and deceptive at this time, as we now know that the ATF was forcing gun dealers to supply cartel straw purchases with weapons.
Attorney General Holder’s stated intent to reimpose the “assault weapon ban” Burke authored during the Clinton presidency makes the connection between Burke’s past, the gun-walking plot, and Holder’s hopes of reinstating the ban even more suspect.
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DOJ dodges, won’t say when Holder knew of border guard’s death
Daily Caller ^ | 1/30/12 | Matthew Boyle
Posted on January 30, 2012 2:34:13 AM EST by Nachum
A document the Department of Justice sent to Congress Friday shows that Eric Holder’s deputy chief of staff was made aware on the day of U.S. border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder that a weapon traced back to Operation Fast and Furious killed him. But when asked Sunday, a Justice spokesperson would not would not answer The Daily Caller’s question about whether Attorney General Eric Holder himself was informed of the connection.
The documents sent from the DOJ to congressional officials Friday night included a series of emails between former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke and Holder’s then-deputy chief of staff Monty Wilkinson. Those emails show Wilkinson, a senior Holder aide, knew on December 15, 2010 – the day Terry was killed — that the weapons used to murder him were provided to a Mexican gang by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
On that day, records show, Burke wrote to Wilkinson that “[t]he guns found in the desert near the murder[ed] BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store.”
The emails also show that Wilkinson “alerted” Holder of Terry’s death on that day. They do not, however, show whether he told Holder that Operation Fast and Furious had provided Terry’s killer with the means to murder him.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
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IRS regulation dump: Obamacare’s job-killing medical device tax
Michelle Malkin ^ | 2/3/12 | Michelle Malkin
Posted on Friday, February 03, 2012 5:47:42 PM by Nachum
Your Friday IRS regulation dump: Obamacare’s job-killing medical device tax Share By Michelle Malkin • February 3, 2012 04:21 PM
If it’s Friday, it’s another White House dump day. Cue the dump truck horn: Doot! Doot! Doot!
While Obama sycophants are busy trumpeting deceptive jobs numbers, the administration is quietly moving forward with job-killing Obamacare regs and taxes. The IRS today released rules to impose the $20 billion Obamacare medical device tax scheduled to take effect next year.
At a time when the White House is touting its government initiatives to champion “innovation,” the Obamacare innovation tax on medical device/diagnostic manufacturers will kill an estimated 43,000 jobs.
The very job creators President Obama purports to support are balking at the tax regs and have called for repeal. The Advanced Medical Technology Association, America’s leading association for med tech manufacturers, blasts the new rules:
“[The proposed IRS regulations] highlights the need for prompt action by Congress and the Administration to repeal this anti-competitive, job-killing tax,” Stephen J. Ubl, AdvaMed president and CEO said in a statement.
“Failure to repeal the device tax flies in the face of the President’s comments during the State of the Union about the need to reform our tax system to make our nation more competitive in the world market, a view shared by members of Congress from both parties,” Ubl went on to explain, adding that “the tax will create a number of complex administrative and technical burdens that must be addressed.”
(Excerpt) Read more at michellemalkin.com ...
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Government Asks Supreme Court for More Time to Defend ObamaCare
New American ^ | 2/6/12 | Joe Wolverton, II
Posted on February 6, 2012 1:03:58 PM EST by Mikey_1962
On Friday attorneys for the Obama administration filed a motion with the Supreme Court requesting more time in which to make its oral arguments in defense of ObamaCare.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590) obligates every American to purchase a qualifying health insurance policy by 2014 or be subject to a tax penalty, with failure to pay possibly resulting in imprisonment.
The constitutionality of that requirement — known as the individual mandate — is being challenged in court by the National Federation of Independent Business and the State of Florida, among others. As the identical issues have been raised in more than one complaint, the court has consolidated the cases of National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius and Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services. The third case that will be under review is that of the Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida, et al.
In November, the court granted certiorari (a petition submitted requesting that the court hear an appeal from a lower appeals court) in these three of the several cases currently filed against the U.S. government.
In its motion, the federal government is asking the court for an additional 30 minutes, increasing the total time allotted for oral arguments to six hours from the five and a half originally set aside by the court.
The court divided the allotted time into the following partitions: First, the justices will hear two hours of argument on the issue of whether in enacting the individual mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Congress exceeded the authority granted to it by Article I of the Constitution. Next, the court will hear one hour of argument on the issue of whether the suits challenging ObamaCare should be barred by the Anti-Injunction Act.
The third issue to be heard by the court is whether the individual mandate provision can be severed from the rest of the law. This is a critical issue as it is that particular provision in the act that has attracted the most attention and has generated the most controversy — including the controversies that will soon be heard by the highest court in the land.
The final aspect of ObamaCare to be decided by the Supreme Court is the expansion of the Medicaid program. The court has designated one hour of oral argument on the following question: "Does Congress exceed its enumerated powers and violate basic principles of federalism when it coerces States into accepting onerous conditions that it could not impose directly by threatening to withhold all federal funding under the single largest grant-in-aid program?"
Each of these cases comes to the Supreme Court on appeal from a decision handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit (based in Atlanta, Georgia), which held in August that the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate does not affect the rest of the law. That is to say, the individual mandate may be removed, leaving the other provisions of ObamaCare intact.
Several complaints against ObamaCare will not be heard by the court. Those include the challenge brought by the Thomas More Law Center. The center has appealed a decision of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals wherein that court held that the individual mandate was constitutional.
As reported by The New American, in a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate.
While it is the individual mandate that has drawn the most fire in this fight to define the boundaries of the powers of the federal government, many of those filing briefs in support of the challenge filed by the plaintiffs listed above have argued that the forced purchase of an insurance policy is so noxious and so inextricably interwoven with the rest of the over-2,000-page law’s provisions as to prevent its severability.
“The Act was a grand bargain, with nearly every provision crucial to its success,” claimed one of the briefs.
One “senior government official” was quoted, however, as saying that the brief filed by the federal government was “designed to keep the Court’s focus on the mandate as part of an overall reform to change the economic marketplace for health insurance, not to inaugurate a new system of socialized, government-controlled medicine.”
In support of this notion, the government’s brief points to “the history of attempts to reform health care, going back to Theodore Roosevelt’s time exactly a century ago, showed that it had become virtually routine for would-be reformers to work for “a system of social insurance” to protect against health hazards.”
The states that filed suit against the act see an attempt by the federal authority to create “near-universal health insurance coverage…, something it believed could be achieved only if each of the Act’s central provisions works in unison so that near-universal supply can meet the mandated near-universal demand.”
Upon learning of the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the appeal of one of the President’s pet programs, the White House released the following statement: “We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”
Constitutionalists greet with gladness the opportunity foreseen that the Supreme Court’s eventual rulings on these cases “could establish new boundaries for federal power under the Constitution’s commerce clause.” In the battle to restore the constitutional balance between the states and the federal government, misinterpreting the Commerce Clause has been one of the principal weapons employed by those advocating a stronger federal authority.
Section 1, Article 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the authority to “regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states.” The fact that Congress passed and President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law demonstrates that neither the legislative nor executive branch of the national government is bothered by constitutional restrictions on their power. As a matter of fact, it is imprecise to say that the Constitution restricts the power of the national government. The truth is that the Constitution empowers the national government with very specific, limited, and enumerated powers, leaving all others to the “states, respectively, or to the people.”
For nearly 80 years, the Commerce Clause has been wrested by a national government determined to appear to justify its unlawful behavior by donning a cloak of constitutionality. That cloak is tattered and worn, and fortunately, there are a few who refuse to be fooled by the disguise. In recent years, the Supreme Court has heard challenges to the unlimited scope of this authority, and exercising its proper role as a check on the other branches of the government, it has imposed limits on the federal power to regulate commerce.
This latest expression of legislative madness denigrates the very principle of personal liberty that is at the core of our constitutional Republic. If Congress is permitted to envelope the iron fist of absolutism within the velvet glove of the Commerce Clause, then there is nothing that will not fall within that purview.
Oral arguments in the case against ObamaCare are scheduled to be heard by the justices of the Supreme Court on March 26-28, 2012.
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Former DEA chief says 3 other federal agencies knew about Operation Fast and Furious
foxnews ^ | 2/10/12 | William La Jeunesse
While criticism surrounding Operation Fast and Furious has so far focused on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, three other federal agencies knew about the operation and some of their agents tried to stop it, according to the former chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Tucson.
Tony Coulson, the DEA’s agent in charge of Southern Arizona during Fast and Furious, says many federal field agents knew the ATF was walking guns to Mexico, but supervisors told them to back off when they objected.
“Clearly, we went too far,” Coulson said. “The question we had among rank and file law enforcement was, ‘When is someone going to call ATF on this, when is someone going to tell them to stop?’”
Coulson’s remarks jibe with what is already known about the operation. The DEA, the FBI and ICE, also known as Immigration Customs and Enforcement, all played roles in the investigation.
Coulson said those agencies share the blame since top officials knew, but did little to stop, the gunrunning effort. Coulson is among the first senior public officials, current or former, who admit knowing about the botched operation.
Coulson claims he raised objections to then-DEA chief Elizabeth Kempshall
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
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Issa just biding his time, huh?
WTF? Clinton was impeached in 11 months, for a far less serious charge.
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/16/executive-order-national-defense-resources-preparedness
what the hell is this? No wonder they released this yesterday.
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http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/16/executive-order-national-defense-resources-preparedness
what the hell is this? No wonder they released this yesterday.
Just read through it..
What the hell is this for?
Seems like more preparation for something looming on the horizon...
Heres just a snipet, preparing for dollar collapse?
Seems to focus on preparing to have enough of critical items in a shortfall, question is what are they worried is going to cause the shortfall?
PART III - EXPANSION OF PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY AND SUPPLY
Sec. 301. Loan Guarantees. (a) To reduce current or projected shortfalls of resources, critical technology items, or materials essential for the national defense, the head of each agency engaged in procurement for the national defense, as defined in section 801(h) of this order, is authorized pursuant to section 301 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2091, to guarantee loans by private institutions.
(b) Each guaranteeing agency is designated and authorized to: (1) act as fiscal agent in the making of its own guarantee contracts and in otherwise carrying out the purposes of section 301 of the Act; and (2) contract with any Federal Reserve Bank to assist the agency in serving as fiscal agent.
(c) Terms and conditions of guarantees under this authority shall be determined in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The guaranteeing agency is authorized, following such consultation, to prescribe: (1) either specifically or by maximum limits or otherwise, rates of interest, guarantee and commitment fees, and other charges which may be made in connection with such guarantee contracts; and (2) regulations governing the forms and procedures (which shall be uniform to the extent practicable) to be utilized in connection therewith.
Sec. 302. Loans. To reduce current or projected shortfalls of resources, critical technology items, or materials essential for the national defense, the head of each agency engaged in procurement for the national defense is delegated the authority of the President under section 302 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2092, to make loans thereunder. Terms and conditions of loans under this authority shall be determined in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Director of OMB.
Sec. 303. Additional Authorities. (a) To create, maintain, protect, expand, or restore domestic industrial base capabilities essential for the national defense, the head of each agency engaged in procurement for the national defense is delegated the authority of the President under section 303 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2093, to make provision for purchases of, or commitments to purchase, an industrial resource or a critical technology item for Government use or resale, and to make provision for the development of production capabilities, and for the increased use of emerging technologies in security program applications, and to enable rapid transition of emerging technologies.
(b) Materials acquired under section 303 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2093, that exceed the needs of the programs under the Act may be transferred to the National Defense Stockpile, if, in the judgment of the Secretary of Defense as the National Defense Stockpile Manager, such transfers are in the public interest.
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Bump for Team Kenya!
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Friday night news dump: Administration to move forward with and expand contraception mandate
Hot Air ^ | 3-16-12 | Tina Korbe
Posted on March 16, 2012 11:35:09 PM EDT by STARWISE
The administration this afternoon released its “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on preventive services policy.”
Translation: President Barack Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are moving forward with their controversial contraception mandate, which requires even religiously affiliated employers to provide their employees with insurance that covers contraception — even if those employers object to contraception on religious grounds.
But don’t worry: Secretary Sebelius says your religious liberty is assured, so it is assured.
“The President’s policy respects religious liberty and makes free preventive services available to women,” she said. ”Today’s announcement is the next step toward fulfilling that commitment.”
Never mind that, by drawing a distinction between actual churches and church-operated businesses like hospitals and schools, the administration effectively appropriated for itself the power to determine what constitutes ministry. Also, last I checked, there was no such thing as “free preventive services.”
Sandra Fluke should be happy, though. The administration made a final decision about whether it will require colleges to provide students with insurance that covers contraception, as well. Take one wild guess as to what their decision was. Yep, that’s right:
*** Administration officials also released a final rule governing student health plans. Under the final rule, students will gain the same consumer protections other people with individual market insurance have, like a prohibition on lifetime limits and coverage of preventive services without cost sharing.
In the same way that religious colleges and universities will not have to pay, arrange or refer for contraceptive coverage for their employees, they will not have to do so for their students who will get such coverage directly and separately from their insurer. ***
Note that the administration still pretends the mandate isn’t a mandate on religious employers if the insurers have to provide contraception coverage “directly and separately” to employees and students.
Actually, it’s still a conscience-violating mandate, as Ed explained when the administration first announced its “accommodation”:
*** So these employers will still have to provide the health insurance, and the health insurance must cover the contraception and abortifacients. The White House apparently wants to pretend that the funds for these outlays will come off of the Unobtanium Tree, where insurers find money to cover all mandates.
This exposes once again a stunning ignorance of risk pools and how costs are passed along to consumers.
Let’s just take this one step at a time. Where do insurers get money to pay claims? They collect premiums and co-pays from the insured group or risk pool.
No matter what the Obama administration wants to say now, the money that will cover those contraception costs will come from the religious organizations that must now by law buy that insurance and pay those premiums.
Their religious doctrines have long-standing prohibitions against participating in contraception and abortion, and nothing in this “accommodation” changes the fact that the government is now forcing them to both fund and facilitate access to products and services that offend their practice of religion.
Basically, the Obama administration told religious organizations to stop complaining and get in line. This “accommodation” only attempts to accommodate Obama’s political standing and nothing more. ***
Consider also that many religious employers are self-insured and have no insurer onto whom they can push the cost of contraception insurance.
The timing of this announcement just couldn’t have been better. As The Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke put it, “The announcement came late Friday afternoon, on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, as the second day of March Madness basketball games were under way.” People skip work to watch March Madness.
Think they’re going to turn off the TV to dig up a dry statement from Her Consistency Kathleen Sebelius? Not likely.
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Friday document dump: Holder’s DOJ releases more on ‘Fast and Furious
Daily Caller ^ | March 17, 2012 | Matthew Boyle
Posted on March 17, 2012 7:47:13 PM EDT by opentalk
In what has become a pattern, Attorney General Eric Holder dumped more documents related to Operation Fast and Furious on congressional investigators late Friday.
Terry Frieden of CNN reported that Holder coughed up “hundred of pages” of documents. Assuming that means Holder did not produce more than 1,000 documents, the Justice Department is still far from compliance with lawful congressional subpoenas. Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has subpoenaed 80,000 pages of documents concerning Fast and Furious. Holder has only provided about
7,000 pages. He has, however, given all 80,000 to his internal investigator —DOJ’s Office of Inspector General.
Issa has laid the groundwork to hold Holder in contempt of Congress in the near future if he doesn’t comply with the subpoenas.
Frieden also reported that few of the documents Holder dumped on Congress are actually related to Fast and Furious.
“Most of the documents deal with a 2007 operation..
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
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Documents: White House was all-hands-on-deck as Solyndra collapse neared
The Hill ^ | 3/23/12 | Ben Geman and Andrew Restuccia
Posted on March 23, 2012 8:29:01 PM EDT by Nachum
Several key White House offices were involved with the Obama administration’s messaging plans and other preparations as the collapse of the taxpayer-backed solar company Solyndra was imminent, newly released documents show.
The latest White House documents delivered to House Republicans on Friday again highlight the extent to which senior administration officials braced for the fallout as Solyndra – a company President Obama had personally visited – was about to go under.
A White House memo that noted the danger of “imminent bankruptcy” at the end of August 2011 says, “OMB, DPC and NEC have been working with press and OLA to be prepared for this news to break.”
Acronym translation: OMB is the Office of Management and Budget, DPC is the Domestic Policy Council, NEC is the National Economic Council and OLA is the Office of Legal Affairs.
The document, an update on Solyndra’s $535 million Energy Department (DOE) loan guarantee, notes that $527 million had been disbursed and that DOE believed no more funds should be alloted.
The White House document notes that the Treasury Department, OMB and other White House offices agreed that no more money should be provided because there was a “near-zero chance" that the company could survive.
The company collapsed at the end of August 2011 and filed for bankruptcy in early September. The Hill has reported previously on the administration decision not to attempt a last-ditch financial rescue.
White House internal communications during the company's final days include an email about a planned meeting to discuss Solyndra on August 29, 2011. Heather Zichal, a senior energy policy aide, and Deputy OMB Director Jeffrey Zients were slated to brief other officials.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/top-doj-official-refuses-fast-and-furious-subpoena
Disgusting.
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33,
what do you think of politicians or organizations that use times like friday afternoons, holidays, and other HUGE events to lessen the media impact of their own shitty announcements?
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Obama Kills Atlantic Offshore Drilling For Five Years
Breitbart ^ | 3/30/12 | John Sexton
Yesterday the Obama administration announced a delaying tactic which will put off the possibility of new offshore oil drilling on the Atlantic coast for at least five years:
The announcement by the Interior Department sets into motion what will be at least a five year environmental survey to determine whether and where oil production might occur.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell notes that a planned lease sale, which the administration cancelled last year, will now be put off until at least 2018. As you might expect, Republicans were not impressed with the decision:
"The president's actions have closed an entire new area to drilling on his watch and cheats Virginians out of thousands of jobs," said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee. The announcement "continues the president's election-year political ploy of giving speeches and talking about drilling after having spent the first three years in office blocking, delaying and driving up the cost of producing energy in America," he said.
Finally, given that this is the Obama administration, you won't be surprised to learn that oil and gas exploration is not the only aim of the survey:
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!!!!
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Obama Kills Atlantic Offshore Drilling For Five Years
Breitbart ^ | 3/30/12 | John Sexton
Yesterday the Obama administration announced a delaying tactic which will put off the possibility of new offshore oil drilling on the Atlantic coast for at least five years:
The announcement by the Interior Department sets into motion what will be at least a five year environmental survey to determine whether and where oil production might occur.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell notes that a planned lease sale, which the administration cancelled last year, will now be put off until at least 2018. As you might expect, Republicans were not impressed with the decision:
"The president's actions have closed an entire new area to drilling on his watch and cheats Virginians out of thousands of jobs," said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee. The announcement "continues the president's election-year political ploy of giving speeches and talking about drilling after having spent the first three years in office blocking, delaying and driving up the cost of producing energy in America," he said.
Finally, given that this is the Obama administration, you won't be surprised to learn that oil and gas exploration is not the only aim of the survey:
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!!!!
i'm really starting to believe you about the whole media conspiracy to bury really important stories like this and scotus/obamacare, under things like trayvon shooting.
i give foxnews.com credit, the top story on their home page isn't about trayvon.
http://www.foxnews.com/
it's about the #@&##^#@% LOTTERY lol.
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i'm really starting to believe you about the whole media conspiracy to bury really important stories like this and scotus/obamacare, under things like trayvon shooting.
i give foxnews.com credit, the top story on their home page isn't about trayvon.
http://www.foxnews.com/
it's about the #@&##^#@% LOTTERY lol.
You've really done your part, sheep. The 500 lies posts you've made about the shooting and the 1 asinine comment about Obamacare really show that you're different from the rest of them. lol.
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You've really done your part, sheep. The 500 lies posts you've made about the shooting and the 1 asinine comment about Obamacare really show that you're different from the rest of them. lol.
1) I oppose obamacare. i think it should have been 20 smaller bills, voted on 1 by 1 to help fix thigns but keep the garbage out.
2) i agree with you the media is about ratings, emotions, and divisive issues - not the shit that actually affects us. Abortion, trayvon, and lottery are all shit that doesn't affect 99% of us.
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Way to go Obama, banning drilling is really go to help your image with the voters, better go have someone shoot another kid so people wont pay attention.
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Obama's Message To Iran: Civilian Nukes Okay
ibtimes.com ^ | April 6, 2012 | Daniel Tovrov
President Barack Obama sent a verbal message to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei by way of Turkey, stating for the first time that the United States would accept a civilian nuclear program in the Islamic Republic if there is a guarantee it will never be used militarily, the Washington Post reported.
Obama, in a statement relayed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week, said that if Iran proved it was not building a nuclear weapon, then Washington would let Iran develop a peaceful nuclear program.
"It's a strange message to send," a critical Bret Stephens, the Wall Street Journal columnist, said on Fox News on Friday. "What's worrisome is that almost every country that has acquired nuclear weapons capability has done so through the ruse of a civilian nuclear program."
(Excerpt) Read more at ibtimes.com ...
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DOL forcing media to use government computers
by Mark Tapscott Editorial Page Editor
Unrest is simmering in some quarters of the Washington news universe regarding changes in the way the Department of Labor (DOL) manages its pre-release media “lockups” on sensitive data like weekly jobless benefits and unemployment.
For years, journalists participating in the lockups have shown up at DOL at the appointed time, then entered a limited-access area to receive the new data and prepare news stories for release as soon as official embargoes end.
The system insures that major news organizations get the data as soon as possible and allows journalists covering the release get a jump on providing analyses and opinion about the data.
But Carl Fillichio, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis’ top communications advisor, circulated a memo earlier this week to interested media informing them that everybody is being required to re-submit their credentials requests.
Fillichio reminded participants that there are only 20-30 seats available for the lockups and that priority will be given by DOL in selecting participants to those that “are primarily journalistic enterprises.”
He also offered a one-sentence assurance that “the department will not consider editorial or political viewpoints in making credentialing decisions.”
Whatever grumbling might be occasioned by being forced to go through the credentialing process again, the element of the Fillichio memo that has journalists worried is this paragraph:
“Second, as a measure toward enhancing security in its main lockup facility (the DOL news room), the department will supply and maintain standardized equipment with a standard configuration for all participants. This change means that privately owned computer and telephone equipment, including hardware, software, cabling, wiring and Internet and telephone lines will be replaced with equipment owned by the department.”
In other words, journalists will no longer be allowed to bring their laptops or other equipment to the lockups, they will have to use government-supplied equipment, described by Fillichio as including “a virtualized desktop running a Windows operation system, a web browser, word-processing software, an Adobe Reader application and secure file transfer capability. Equipment provided will not have wireless networking capability. Provisions will be in place for news organizations to transmit their stories over the Internet.”
The changes evidently are in response at least in part to worries that some of the non-traditional news organizations allowed in recent years to participate in the lockups may not be using their access simply for journalistic purposes.
Since the stock market can rise or fall by hundreds of points as a result of such a data release, making sure nobody gets an advance peek at the data is critical to insuring the integrity of the process.
But some news organizations worry about having to use government equipment that could compromise their editors and reporters in preparing publishable charts, consulting previous stories and charts for comparison purposes, and reviewing prior stories for context and analyses.
They are also concerned that the whole process will slow down delivery of the news at a time when unemployment is high, the economy is in the doldrums and public concerns about future job prospects are unusually high.
Delays will make it more difficult for independent analysts to understand the new data and could give White House and DOL political appointees more time to blunt the impact of the negative news resulting from the data.
In addition, Fillichio’s promise not to consider editorial or political viewpoints is somewhat less than reassuring in view of his boss’s recent appearance in a poster distributed throughout DOL show Solis arm-in-arm with Rev. Al Sharpton, solidarity-style.
There are also rumblings about transferring control of the whole process from political appointees in DOL to career employees within the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The BLS has a spotless record of maintaining data integrity and insulation from political pressures to manipulate data content or release timing. Solis and Fillichio are said to be quietly resisting efforts in Congress to shift control of the lockups to BLS.
Fillichio has scheduled a conference call for Monday with interested media to discuss the memo and implementation of the new system.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/dol-forcing-media-use-government-computers/479421
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Skip to comments.
Ousted Maldives President Claims Obama Approved Islamist Coup
breitbart ^ | 4/20/12 | Breitbart News
Posted on April 20, 2012 8:43:11 PM EDT by Nachum
The Washington Post reports that Mohamed Nasheed, the former president of Maldives, claims the United States has given legitimacy to the Islamist coup which deposed him.
Mohamed Nasheed won the presidency in Maldives’s first multiparty elections in 2008, after a lifetime advocating democracy and human rights and several long stints in jail.
Less than three years later, he was forced to resign by an angry mob of police officers and soldiers, in what he says was a coup engineered by his autocratic predecessor.
“We have to have an election,” he said in an interview while visiting the Indian capital, New Delhi. “In the absence of that, Islamic radicals are gaining strength in the Maldives.”
Nasheed, whose multiple instances of torture and imprisonment prevented him from witnessing the birth of his daughters, removed various Islamic prohibitions that created legal inequality for Maldives citizens.
He noted that he also restored diplomatic relations with Israel that had been suspended for three decades under Gayoom, advocated closer ties with the United States and Maldives’s giant neighbor India, introduced benefits for single mothers and tried to protect women forced by Islamic radicals to wear burqas and veils.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Wow.
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Skip to comments.
New details in Fast & Furious
Tucson News Now ^ | Apr 20, 2012 | NA
Posted on April 21, 2012 2:44:21 AM EDT by neverdem
Congress has learned the most wanted man in the Fast and Furious investigation, Manuel Acosta, was allowed to traffic thousands of guns to Mexico.
Only after the death of Border Agent Brian Terry south of Tucson was Acosta's operation shut down.
He was arrested and released at least three times during the operation.
That's why congressional investigators suspect the justice department is unwilling to talk about Acosta's possible role as an informant.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz said, "We could have taken him in and prosecuted him anything. It's either total incompetence or maybe it's something a bit more coordinated that the Department of Justice is not willing yet to talk about."
"Somebody back in Washington was making terrible disastrous calls on this…and it's lead to the death of a lot of people," Chaffetz said.
Guns used by Acosta in two of these deadly incidents were both traced to Fast and Furious.
Copyright 2012 Fox Los Angeles. All rights reserved.
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Triple Play; Obama blows off Congress..
thejerusalemconnection.u s ^ | ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
Posted on Friday, May 04, 2012
Triple Play; Obama Blows Off Congress, funds Palestinians, lies about PA stance on Israel
Friday night news dump: President Obama has decided to provide $192 million to the Palestinian Authority despite Congress’s freeze on PA funding after its president, Mahmoud Abbas, attempted to declare statehood unilaterally last September, in violation of the PA’s treaty commitments.
Obama’s “waiver” of the restrictions on Congress’s Palestinian Accountability Act was first reported in the foreign press (AFP), which is where Americans generally need to go to get news about what the U.S. administration is up to. A report from the Times of Israel is here. [Hat tip, creeping Sharia]. The New York Times, evidently too busy reporting on how much Israel sucks, did not find this story fit to print.
White House spinmeister Tommy Vietor stated that President Obama made the decision to pour American taxpayer dollars into Palestinian coffers in order to ensure “the continued viability of the moderate PA government.” He added the claim that, as the report puts it, “the PA had fulfilled all its major obligations, such as recognizing Israel’s right to exist, renouncing violence and accepting the Road Map for Peace.”
In the real world, the very immoderate PA has reneged on all its commitments. In addition to violating its obligations by unilaterally declaring statehood, the PA has also agreed to form a unity government with Hamas, a terrorist organization that is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The PA continues to endorse terrorism against Israel as “resistance.” Moreover, the PA most certainly does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Back in November, for example, Adil Sadeq, a PA official writing in the official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, declared that Israelis
have a common mistake, or misconception by which they fool themselves, assuming that Fatah accepts them and recognizes the right of their state to exist, and that it is Hamas alone that loathes them and does not recognize the right of this state to exist. They ignore the fact that this state, based on a fabricated [Zionist] enterprise, never had any shred of a right to exist…
In sum, everything Obama is saying about Palestinian compliance is a lie. Even if we were not broke, we should not be giving the PA a dime. To borrow money so we can give it to them is truly nuts.
Will Congress do anything about it? There is a very simple answer to this: slash the executive branch’s budget. That is the weapon the framers gave Congress to rein in a corrupt, spendaholic executive branch. You could start with a treble damages rule: Obama gives $192 million to the PA against Congress’s directive, Congress responds by slashing $600 million out of the State Department’s budget. That would be start — though State would still have $51 billion left over to fund the Muslim Brotherhood and its other favorite Islamic supremacists.
FFFFFUUUCCCCKKKKK
OOOOBBBBAAAMMMMAAAAA
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Friday night news dump: White House salaries edition
politico.com ^ | 6/29/12 | DONOVAN SLACK
Posted on June 30, 2012 1:44:03 PM EDT by ColdOne
The White House released its annual report to Congress on staff salaries. At 4:39 p.m. on Friday.
A quick review found the White House payroll appears to have grown since last year, going from $37.1 million in 2011 to $37.8 million in 2012. The number of employees listed also grew -- from 454 last year to 468 in 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...