What were the two biggest stories in America on March 1, 2012? One was the shocking and devastating news that Andrew Breitbart was dead, and the other was – (or should have been) Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s press conference on the results of his investigation into Barack Obama’s eligibility, because he found that the thing posted on the White House website, last April was a complete and utter forgery, as document experts have been saying since the beginning. Unfortunately, story #1 sucked the oxygen out of story #2.
I’m gonna keep talking about story #2. I think Andrew would approve, since he was apparently interested in the story, too. It came out during Thursday’s press conference that Andrew Breitbart’s last interview may well have been with Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
With the announcement of Andrew’s passing overnight we could not help recalling our conversation just 3 weeks ago in Washington, DC. Andrew said on Feb 9, 2012 in Washington, DC “wait til they see what happens March first.”
He’s talking about the Thursday night CPAC blog bash – I shared a cab ride back to the hotel with the blogger who wrote those words. He was a jovial bon-vivant, “out and proud”, laughing and joking in the back seat of the cab. I asked him who he was, and he said, Larry Sinclair.
Over the Fourth of July weekend, last year, Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson was interviewed by staff members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about Fast and Furious. He brought his own lawyer. It was reported by nearly everyone that he was cooperating with House investigators, telling them everything he knew about Fast and Furious, which he only found out about after it hit the news.
According to Mr. Melson, it was not until after the public controversy that he personally reviewed hundreds of documents relating to the case, including wiretap applications and Reports of Investigation (ROIs). By his account, he was sick to his stomach when he obtained those documents and learned the full story. Mr. Melson said that he told the Office of the Deputy Attorney General (ODAG) at the end of March that the Department needed to reexamine how it was responding to the requests for information from Congress.
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The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice
Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars
from othe r agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities. While this is
preliminary information, we must find out i f there is any truth to it. According to
Acting Director Melson, he became aware of this startling possibility only after the
murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the indictments of the straw purchasers,
which we now know were substantially delayed by the u.s. Attorney’s Office and Main
Justice. Mr. Melson provided documents months ago supporting his concerns to the
official in the ODAG responsible for document production to the Committees, but those
documents have not be en provided to us.
Last month, an email surfaced that showed Melson thanking Dennis Burke for his hardliner approach to the DOJ on the response letter to Senator Grassleythat has since been “withdrawn.”
From: Melson, Kenneth E.
To: Burke, Dennis (USAAZ)
Sent: 2/3/2011 7:51:58 PM
Subject: Grassley
Dennis: I just got back from the Interpol meeting and wanted to thank you for your help on the Grassley response and for your work on Fast and Furious. Ken
That alone didn’t prove to me that he knew, but it certainly increased suspicion.
This latest email not only proves that he did know about Fast and Furious as early as Dec 2010, but he was actively trying to contain chatter about it on the Clean-up ATF Message board.
Discovery of a January 2011 e-mail exchange between then Acting ATF Director Ken Melson and the Bureau’s chief council Steve Rubenstein has put the kibosh on Obama administration elites’ latest “we didn’t know about it” defense concerning the regime’s involvement in Operation Fast and Furious.
On December 22, 2010, a contributor identifying himself as “1desertrat” posted the following to the “CLEANUP ATF” website:
Word is that curious George Gillett the Phoenix ASAC stepped on it again. Allegedly he has approved more than 500 AR-15 type rifles from Tucson and Phoenix cases to be “walked” to Mexico. Appears that ATF may be one of the largest suppliers of assault rifles to the Mexican cartels! One of these rifles is rumored to have been linked to the recent killing of a Border Patrol Officer in Nogales, AZ. Can anyone confirm this information? [1]
Well, Director Melson read this “CLEANUP ATF” post and didn’t appreciate the fact that ATF business had been so willfully shared with the general public. Especially, this business. So, he contacted ATF Chief Council Steve Rubenstein for advice. And the e-mail reply he received from Rubenstein is a beauty. Rubenstein wrote:
The disclosure of this information has a potential deleterious effect on ATF’s undercover operations. In that regard, suspects may alter their behavior if they know that law enforcement is allowing certain firearms to “walk” into Mexico. (my bold text) In addition, public knowledge of this type of operation potentially places informants and undercover agents in jeopardy.
If “1desertrat” is an ATF employee, then he/she is subject to our Orders and Standards of Conduct….[2]
Rubentsein goes on to quote the ATF Code of Conduct for employees, making it clear to Melson that the individual responsible for the post could be dealt with rather severely if indeed an ATF agent.
And Melson’s response: “Thanks Steve. I’m going to forward this to IA.” That is, Internal Affairs, which had by this time earned the reputation of being little more than a tool for the intimidation of agents who did not adequately adhere to ATF policy, regardless of how corrupt or nefarious.
Is it possible that Melson knew about the highly illegal gun-walking operation, but kept his superiors in the Department of Justice in the dark? Doug Book at WCFJ answers that question:
As an attorney, Ken Melson knew the consequences, both of such a crime and its cover up. One can wager, if only to protect his own hide, he made sure his Department of Justice and executive branch bosses knew it as well.
The name Steven Rubenstein may ring a bell, since he was recently seen here,treading water fast and furiously after he jumped off the sinking Fast and Furious ship:
ATF Chief Counsel Steve Rubenstein is retiring affective Jan 31.
No other details have been confirmed at this time, but it is certain that Rubenstein was hip deep in any number of ATF scandals, including the Gunwalker conspiracy and cover-up. My sources, who have had a belly-full of Rubenstein’s anti-gun agenda over the years, say he will not be missed.
MORE:
I should have mentioned that after many had speculated, last Spring, that Kenneth Melson would be thrown under the bus, he was finally moved last August, from his position as acting ATF Director to the position of senior adviser on forensic science at the Office of Legal Programs. It was considered by the DOJ to be a “lateral move”.
“Acting” directors or not, how does Melson explain his January, 2011 email exchange with Rubenstein? Melson was informed of gunwalking in December of 2010, right here on CleanUp ATF! His only concern appeared to be the severity of the punishment he would be able to inflict on 1desertrat, if an Agent. Apparently the brass believe the lowly agents to be capable of any sort of misdeed due to congressional failure to approve a presidential nominee!
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Posted Yesterday, 09:13 PM
So is Melson claiming to be the dumbest damned human being on the face of the planet?
I mean….assuming I was in his position …working for the BATFE….ie enforcing GUN laws…and for some strange reason Im sitting at my desk watching GUN SALES…..am I so damned dense that I cant make ANY connection that I might be watching them for a REASON ?
Did Melson not like the Golf Channel or CNN at all…and so much so that instead of watching some entertaining show on TV to pass the long work day that he instead decided to watch gun sales down at the local mom and pop firearm shop ?
Something seriously isnt adding up if he’s claiming ignorance unless there is some extreme situation here where Melsons office is similar to the Matrix movies “Architect” that has a few hundred TV screens all going at once and he just happens to watch whichever one his chair and donuts are currently pointed at….ie he had so many options that he didnt know what he was actually watching….which for me and a lot of the voting public just isnt going to fly. It was his damned job to know what he was dealing with. And if he couldnt then whomever put him in that position seemingly wanted a warm, brainless body to sit in that chair but not think about what he was actually doing….in that case it would seem that the one who appointed Melson would be complicit in F/F themselves and trying to make sure that they placed a complete lackwit who wouldnt figure it all out in that position.
I remember when his name first came into this, and I’ll have to check my own notes, but it seems to me if he’s playing the stupid card now that his story has changed in some way. Something seriously amiss here. Its no wonder decent, honorable BATFE agents have brought this all to light.
Five days ago, it was widely reported that Mark Harwood, the financee of Sharon Bialek, one of the Cain accusers who went public, was gallantly coming to his beloved’s defense. An interview that was picked up by scores of media outlets, lent credibility to her story, even as damaging reports about her personal history was struggling for media attention. A few days ago, it was revealed that new lie detector technology had indicated that her story was a lie.
Now, Harwood wants to “clear the air”, Fox Nationreports:
For starters, Sharon Bialek isn’t his fiancee, said Mark Harwood in an exclusive interview on Wednesday night.
“We were engaged last year in June but I think there have been some assumptions that Sharon still lives here in Mundelein with me” Harwood told the I-Team. “Sharon and her son moved out in February of this year and now live in their own home … so effectively we’re no longer engaged.”
RS McCainnotes that the MSM made a point of mentioning Harwood was financially secure, living very comfortably in an affluent neighborhood. Ben Smith, for instance, reported in the Politico:
In fact, per the Tribune, she’s living with her fiance, described as an executive in the medical equipment industry, in “a large, five-bedroom home… in north suburban Mundelein.”
Although McCain isn’t sure this has any particular significance, it does make one go “hmmmmm”.
It was Thursday before WLS-TV got this interview, so that little bit of misinformation got corrected by the local ABC station in Chicago, three crucial days after it had been widely reported and woven into the media narrative as evidence of Bialek’s credibility.
Herman Cain categorically denied all the sexual harassment charges made against him, including the latest allegations of sexual misconduct and is having a press conference this afternoon in Phoenixto specifically address Bialek’s charges. (UPDATE:Live stream, here.)
One person – either Cain or Bialek is clearly lying, so now it unfortunately becomes necessary to look into the character of the person making the charges because she has the potential of derailing the campaign of the frontrunner in the Republican Presidential primary. If these allegations against Cain are false, a monumental injustice has been done not only to an innocent man, but to the entire country denied the opportunity to vote for him. If they are true, well - I don’t want to see a serial lecher and liar become the Republican standard bearer.
Who is Sharon Bialek? How credible is this woman? How credible is her story? What little we know of her is not terribly flattering.
According to this Daily Mail report, she’s a “gold digger” who’s filed for bankruptcy twice, has not held a job for more than two years, always lived above her station, and will do anything to never have to work again. She has accused an ex-boyfriend of harassment, and her own father only heard her shocking story about Cain for the first time, yesterday. Her live-in fiance heard about it for the first time, last Friday.
Does it seem a little odd to you that she wouldn’t have told her fiance about such a noteworthy thing? The frontrunner in the Republican party had once made a pass at her? Not worthy of comment? Seems weird.
Meanwhile, a friend of Ms Bialek, from Chicago, told the New York Post: ‘She has a very infectious personality. It’s easy to see how she won [Cain] over. But the reality of her situation is — she’s a complete gold digger. It’s all about the money.’
Adding that she was from a middle-income family but lives in a posh house while running from bill collectors, the source said: ‘Most of her jobs ended in termination. It’s always the employer’s fault, not hers.
‘This is a lady who lives off the system. She is hellbent on finding a way of never having to work and living the lifestyle she wants to live, a very affluent lifestyle.’
That’s some “friend”.
Details of a number of legal and financial difficulties belonging to Ms Bialek also emerged today, with the Chicago Tribune listing a long history with tax evasion and late or missed credit card payments.
The paper reported that Ms Bialek has filed for personal bankruptcy twice, first in 1991 and then again in 2001.
In 2001, she claimed $5,700 in assets and more than $36,000 in liabilities. Among the creditors seeking payment was a management firm demanding back rent of $4,500, four credit card companies and a lawyer asking for his legal fees.
She is also said to have accused a former boyfriend of harassing her for money he had loaned her after she borrowed $4,500 from him.
The IRS filed a tax lien against her in 2009 for nearly $5,200. In August, the Illinois Department of Revenue claimed Ms Bialek owed the state more than $4,300, including penalties and interest, relating to income taxes from 2004, according to county records.
Court records also show creditors took legal action against her during the past decade, including at least one lawsuit filed in Cook County.
***
Gloria Allred described her client as a ‘registered Republican’, but the 50-year-old does not have an active voter card in Illinois, election officials said. The state does not allow voters to register by party, but records show she pulled a GOP ballot in the 2008 primary.
There’s also this:
A Fox News reporter confronted Ms Bialek during an interview today about living in the same building as Obama top aid David Axelrod.
She was asked: ‘One of the things is that you lived at a 505 North Lake Shore Drive apartment, right? This is the same building, it happens to be the same building David Axelrod lives in. Do you know David Axelrod? Ever have any interaction with him at all?’
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The 50-year-old replied: ‘I saw him in the gym. I mean — everybody nods to each other. It is friendly building but I never had any interaction with him.’
Hmmmm.
RCP video of that interview with Fox’s Martha MacCallum, here.
Here’s Cain’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, last night:
The Accuser is an attractive woman and we may assume that she has been the object of many “unwanted advances” over the years, all but one of which she considered unworthy of a Manhattan press conference.
A New York Times headline characterizes the accusation against Cain as “lewd behavior,” but such behavior goes on all the time — yea, verily, even in New York! — without meriting a headline in the Times.
Gloria Allred described her client as a ‘registered Republican’, but the 50-year-old does not have an active voter card in Illinois, election officials said. The state does not allow voters to register by party, but records show she pulled a GOP ballot in the 2008 primary.
Ace of Spades HQ still thinking where there’s smoke, there’s fire, links to Bill Bennet in his Great Big Cain Roundup:
Four women are not an insignificant number. One or two anonymous charges, perhaps. Three anonymous charges (where, as I understand the story, Cain knows of at least two of the women) plus one woman who went very public and opened herself up to all manner of investigation are a lot. It is no longer insignificant. Neither is it insignificant that the Cain campaign discounted the charges in the initial stories, saying they were based on anonymous sources, only to make a mockery by blaming other campaigns with less substantiation than the original stories.If Herman Cain wants to be taken seriously as a public advocate for anything, never mind running for the chief executive and commander in chief of the most powerful and important and blessed country in the world, he needs to give a full press conference dedicated exclusively to this issue and these allegations.
I have watched long enough and held my tongue long enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, but can no longer say this is a witch hunt, “a lynching” to use his word, or any other euphemism. There are allegations out there that matter and they have stacked up. For we who led the charge against Bill Clinton on a number of related issues to continue to blame the media or other campaigns or say it simply doesn’t matter makes us the hypocrites as well.
I received a press statement from Ms. O’Grady’s office last week after a blog post of mine on the water cooler regarding a source close to the Cain camp believed Mayor Rahm Emanuel had something to do with the exchange of information regarding sexual harassment charges against Mr. Cain. Mayor Emanuel has denied any involvement.
Below is Ms. O’Grady’s statement:
The Illinois Restaurant Association is an entity independently managed and operated apart from the National Restaurant Association. Sheila O’Grady was appointed President of the Illinois Restaurant Association in 2007. She does not have a prior connection to Mr. Cain (whose time at the National Restaurant Association pre-dated her appointment by more than a decade), nor does she have any knowledge of the current allegations stemming from his tenure at the organization. Any reports suggesting otherwise are baseless.
O’Grady served as Mayor Daley’s chief of staff for a number of years until 2007. Daley, no stranger to controversy himself, was recently slapped with a lawsuit last spring by John Brooks, Chicago’s former fire Commissioner. Brooks claimed that Daley threatened to smear him over what Brooks said were false sexual harassment allegations if Brooks did not retire on his own.
I made no mention of O’Grady in any previous blog post. One Chicago radio host, however, did mention her name following my post on Emanuel. Other than that, why is O’Grady speaking up now?
The wheels of justice turn slowly, especially when it comes to to the nation’s top Scofflaw, Eric Holder, but it appears justice may finally be served:
House Republicans are calling for a special counsel to determine whether Attorney General Holder perjured himself during his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious, Fox News has learned.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, was sending a letter to President Obama on Tuesday arguing that Holder cannot investigate himself, and requesting the president instruct the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel.
FILE: Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill May 3 before a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing.
The question is whether Holder committed perjury during a Judiciary Committee hearing on May 3. At the time, Holder indicated he was not familiar with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program known as Fast and Furious until about April 2011.
“I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks,” Holder testified.
However, a newly discovered memo dated July 2010 shows Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, told Holder that straw buyers in the Fast and Furious operation “are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to the Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”
Other documents also indicate that Holder began receiving weekly briefings on the program from the National Drug Intelligence Center “beginning, at the latest, on July 5, 2010,” Smith wrote.
“These updates mentioned, not only the name of the operation, but also specific details about guns being trafficked to Mexico,” Smith wrote in the letter to Obama.
“Allegations that senior Justice Department officials may have intentionally misled members of Congress are extremely troubling and must be addressed by an independent and objective special counsel. I urge you to appoint a special counsel who will investigate these allegations as soon as possible,” Smith wrote.
One question. Why does the Department get to appoint it’s own Special Counsel? I think (hope!) Fox News got that wrong.
“Allegations that senior Justice Department officials may have intentionally misled Members of Congress are extremely troubling and must be addressed by an independent and objective special counsel,” said Smith in his letter to Obama.
“I urge you to appoint a special counsel who will investigate these allegations as soon as possible.”
A special prosecutor generally is a lawyer from outside the government appointed by an attorney general or, in the United States, by Congress to investigate a government official for misconduct while in office. A reasoning for such an appointment is that the governmental branch or agency may have political connections to those it might be asked to investigate. Inherently, this creates a conflict of interest and a solution is to have someone from outside the department lead the investigation. The term “special prosecutor” may have a variety of meanings from one country to the next, from one government branch to the next within the same country, and within different agencies within each government branch. Critics of the use of special prosecutors argue that these investigators act as a “4th branch” to the government because they are not subject to limitations in spending or have deadlines to meet.
Can someone explain this to me?
We’re not going to get an honest broker from Obama.
UPDATE:
Legal Eagle, gabrielmalortells me on Twitter: The AG appoints a Special Counsel, but that’d be difficult in this case.
That would be why they asked for the President to appoint the Special Counsel. Because obviously, the Justice Dept. can’t investigate itself.
Hopefully, Gabe will explain more in a post at AoSHQ, soon.
“Now Obama has to decide whether to defy Congress and create a precedent for protecting appointees who willfully mislead Congress, or submit to a special prosecutor that could run wild on his administration. I’m going to guess that Obama will defy the House, but that may not last very long, especially with Darrell Issa probing Solyndra and other potential scandals”
What’s stopping him from appointing someone who is thoroughly corrupt and in the tank for the administration? Isn’t that the Chicago way? The fix is always in?
This is exactly why Issa wanted to have his investigation wrapped up before a Special Prosecutor was appointed.
Republicans are still concerned that the current field is weak, and both Rick Perry and Romney leaves them with doubts; Romney, because he’s a technocrat who doesn’t have firm convictions, and Perry, because people are not sure of his ability to articulate his views.
See Breitbart T.V.for a serious discussion of a possible Christie Run on Fox News Sunday, where Wall Street Journal editor, Paul Gigot shares some insider info on the situation. He claims that there have enough people who have gone to him now and said, “look this field is weak, and none of them may be able to beat the president, we need a republican president, we think you can do it. Now is your moment….”
He says he’s thinking about it now, very carefully.
I’ve noted the fact that Christie has repeatedly and forcefully denied that he has any interest in running in 2012 is a problem. After all, Obama did the very same thing after he was elected to the US Senate in 2004. In his case it always looked like the White House was the ultimate goal, and the denials were less than sincere. In Christie’s case, I have no doubt that when he was elected Governor of New Jersey, he had no greater aspirations than fixing the financial mess in that state. But now he can say , with the country’s bleak economic forecast, he’s been pulled into this thing almost against his will. We need someone who can fix the financial mess we’re in, and he’s the man to do it.
And here’s the thing about that speech at AEI: He didn’t use a teleprompter. Sitting in the audience about five or six rows back, I didn’t see a written speech. On either side of me were mainstream reporters who were entirely transfixed. His humor is dry, he treats the audience like adults and he’s refusing to parrot the usual blather that pols dole out to a cynical press corps. That room had wonks and Tea Party advocates. It had conservative and mainstream media. And to a person, the reaction to that performance was “Wow.”
Let’s consider for a moment Christie in the GOP debate. Can you imagine what he’d say about Perry’s backpedaling on Social Security? Could you imagine him letting Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) get away with nonsense about America bringing 9/11 on itself? Ooof. I imagine he’d brush off Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) with a shake of the head and a sly remark. (“Michele, that’s cuckoo land stuff. Mental retardation isn’t caused by a vaccination.”) And as for Romney, Christie would have a solid case to make that you really can govern as a full-throated conservative in a blue state.
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Perhaps the best aspect to a Christie governance is his inclination to challenge conservatives, to aspire beyond rhetoric. At AEI he concluded:
[S]ome people say I’m too combative, some people say I’m too much of a fighter. Well, I’ll tell you, I’m fighting now because now is the time that matters most for New Jersey’s future and in America’s future. We are teetering on the edge of disaster. And I love when people talk about American exceptionalism but American exceptionalism has to include the courage to do the right thing. It cannot just be a belief that because we are exceptional, everything will work okay. Part of truly being exceptional is being willing to do the difficult things, is to stop playing the political games , stop looking at the bumper pool of politics and to step up and start doing the right thing. . . . See it seems to me, that what America is really all about is about a group of people who came from every corner of this earth because they wanted a chance for greatness. That’s what has made us the greatest country on Earth. Our calling for greatness at this time is to confront these issues, to say them out loud, and to stop playing around and to not waste another minute. . . .
Rubin includes more of the text from Christie’s speech in her post, which you should read to understand why people are so impressed.
One of the reasons why I was so behind a Paul Ryan run, is because people who have the gift of being able to speak brilliantly extemporaneously, are a rare commodity. We need such a person to run against Obama to clean his clock in a debate. Obama’s slick propaganda would be reduced to the weak pablum that it is, matched against the superior rhetorical skills of a Paul Ryan or Chris Christie.
Do we really need another affable Texan stammering into the microphone about “compassionate conservatism” or some such.?
The buzz has finally reached New Media Animation. Stand by for some seriously silly speculations:
NMA touches on some of the issues in which Chris Christie differs from the base, not including his recent, almost disqualifying comments on global warming. Hopefully, he’ll look further into the issue and his position will “evolve”….
You can check his positions on major issues, here.
It appears that he is extremely weak on environmental issues:
Jersey shore for tourism instead of offshore drilling. (Aug 2011)
$157 million for Green Acres open-space acquisition. (Aug 2011)
ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office, Bill Newell was squirming on the hot seat in Tuesday’s Fast and Furious hearing on Capitol Hill. As CBS News’ Sharyl Attkisson reports, Newell admitted to corresponding with White House National Security Director, Kevin O’Reilly about the ATF’s gunrunning operations:
At a lengthy hearing on ATF’s controversial gunwalking operation today, a key ATF manager told Congress he discussed the case with a White House National Security staffer as early as September 2010. The communications were between ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office, Bill Newell, and White House National Security Director for North America Kevin O’Reilly. Newell said the two are longtime friends. The content of what Newell shared with O’Reilly is unclear and wasn’t fully explored at the hearing. It’s the first time anyone has publicly stated that a White House official had any familiarity with ATF’s operation Fast and Furious, which allowed thousands of weapons to fall into the hands of suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels in an attempt to gain intelligence.
It’s unknown as to whether O’Reilly shared information with anybody else at the White House. Congressional investigators obtained an email from Newell to O’Reilly in September of last year in which Newell began with the words: “you didn’t get this from me.” “What does that mean,” one member of Congress asked Newell, ” ‘you didn’t get this from me?’ ” “Obviously he was a friend of mine,” Newell replied, “and I shouldn’t have been sending that to him.”
Issa tried to get Newell to admit that he allowed thousands of guns to walk.
One of the whistleblowers, Special Agent Canino, whom Newell claimed knew about the operation, testified that “at no time EVER did he know that ATF agents were following known suspected gun traffickers (one of which bought 700 guns)…..never, ever would I imagine that we would let that happen…..I had no clue that we were allowing these guys to operate like this……there was no interdiction to start any case…” At the end of this video, Newell was asked about his correspondence with White House National Security Director for North America, Kevin O’Reilly, who has been described by Sipsey Street Irregular’s sources as “a ghost,” “sheep-dipped,” “a doctrinaire liberal”, a “snake in a suit,” and a “sociopath” with the nickname, “The Scorpion,” (as in the story of The Frog and the Scorpion). Sounds like just the sort of charmer who belongs in this White House:
Rep. Chaffetz demanded to know when Newell finally realized he was allowing guns to walk. He couldn’t get a straight answer because Newell claims he didn’t see it that way…
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who has had direct and indirect experience with the ATF for 10 years, focused on why it was conducting the operation in the jacked-up manner it did, “Why do it this way? It was never going to work!”
Charles Krauthammer was absolutely correct about that, and he went back to the Clinton/Gingrich budget showdown in 1995 to help make his point. Krauthammer’s segment starts at approx. 1:40.
“People have to remember that with divided government, Gingrich attempted to govern when the Republicans had two houses of congress, in the absence of the Presidency, and were defeated. And now the idea is that the Republicans are going to govern and impose all these cuts holding only the House? It’s impossible. And if they lose the public relations battle here, it will be like 1996, all over again…and they’ll lose the Presidency…If they want real change they’re going to have to elect a Republican, and that is what McConnell has in the back of his mind…”
Brit Hume’s plan to get a debt ceiling agreement with massive cuts and a Balanced Budget Amendment sounds good, but Mitch McConnell’s statement on the Senate floor, today is landing like a lead balloon in the right-wing blogosphere:
Here’s Rich Lowry: “It’s beginning to get out on the Hill. It’s complicated, but here is the gist as I understand it: Congress authorizes in legislation the president to submit a request for an increase in the debt limit in three tranches over the next year or so, with corresponding proposals for spending cuts; when the president submits his request, Congress immediately considers a resolution of disapproval; if the resolution passes, the president can veto it and–assuming his veto is subsequently upheld–he gets the increase in the debt limit. Got it? More later…”
Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich even took to Twitter to voice his disapproval, saying, “McConnell’s plan is an irresponsible surrender to big government, big deficits and continued overspending. I oppose it.”
Is that the same Newt Gingrich who got his ass handed to him in ’95/96?
Here’s what’s got conservatives so up in arms: We Will Not Pretend That a Bad Deal Is a Good One:
It wasn’t a bad speech, and given the predicament Republicans are in, (which Krauthammer crystallized, above), you can have some sympathy for his way of thinking.
McConnell is not known for his fiery rhetoric. But plainly, the White House shenanigans have aggravated, if not angered, him. He does a service to his own side and to the national debate by refusing to fuzz up the issues: “We will not pretend that a bad deal is a good one.” He laid out the options: “If you think that the federal government isn’t big enough, then the only responsible thing to do is to support higher taxes. For those who are honest about that, I appreciate their candor. But for those of us who don’t think the federal government should be in charge of banks, the auto industry, the housing business, the student loan business, health care and regulating everything else under the sun, we’re not about to further enable that model of government by shaking down the American people for more money at a time when they can least afford it.”
McConnell’s plan is the ultimate backstop. If Obama doesn’t get off his tax hikes, McConnell has a plan ready for a vote. Democrats could try to filibuster it, but default would then result. It is time to change the rules of the game, McConnell has decided. Let’s see what happens.
The old, fat Klein makes the point that no one cares about the debt ceiling hike. At least, not the broad voting population.
I mentioned in a comment that McConnell had a similar scheme back in December 2009 as we were voting on ObamaCare. We could have forced the Democrats to remain in session through the holidays; instead, McConnell agreed to let them recess and come back, in exchange for a supposedly prominent vote on the 2010 debt ceiling hike.
Yeah, that wasn’t as prominent as planned, was it? No one reported on it and it resulted in zero political benefit.
Here’s the sort of shameless demagoguery Republicans are having to deal with:
He could have said something like “If a deal isn’t made there will of course be a problem paying for Social Security in the long term, but in the short term I have many options as far as shuffling dollars around to fund high priorities, so I can say with confidence that Americans who depend on Social Security will still get their checks for the foreseeable future while we sort this out.” But Obama didn’t say that.
Presidential leadership is about making difficult choices and assigning rational priorities. Because Mr. Obama is virtually incapable of making difficult choices, he is content to “lead from behind,” as he does with the budget. The debt ceiling–which is in place to keep irresponsible politicians whose only skill is wasting other people’s money from literally spending America into oblivion–need not be raised. The alternative is to get spending immediately under control, but this is not a possibility for Mr. Obama. If the kitty is a bit short, his only solution is to rob pensioners? What brilliant, inspired leadership. No doubt our Treasure Secretary, Mr. Geithner, came up with that one. May I suggest a few additional alternatives?
Mr. Obama could–and should–have said:
(1) I can’t guarantee that the EPA will be able to continue regulating American business out of existence while destroying jobs.
(2) I can’t guarantee that the Department of Education will be able to continue wasting huge amounts of money while over-regulating school districts everywhere.
(3) I can’t guarantee that the ATF will be able to continue allowing weapons to flow into the hands of domestic and foreign criminals.
(4) I can’t guarantee that all of my unelected, unaccountable czars will be able to continue to subvert American democracy.
He ain’t finished – read all 15 of his ideas. Not that Bam would take them up. It’s fun to dream, anyway. The point is – there are any number of programs and bureaucracies that could be cut and no one would miss them (in fact the country would be better off without them). This is why Obama is such a cheap Chicago thug for trying to scare granny with his vicious SS threat..
How dangerous this delusional man might be is moot. What seems no longer at issue is Obama’s “superior intelligence.” Obama’s belief system is dominated by the dismissed exploitation theories of Karl Marx and the 60′s style radicals he grew up around. The Reverend Wright, preached to him for twenty years about exploitation in terms of Black Liberation Theology. An unrepentant terrorist, Bill Ayers was a close friend and arguably author of one of Obama’s autobiographies. His personally selected “Czars” are the sorriest collection of Presidential advisors ever, at least in terms of reflecting American values and beliefs.
Many went on the same intellectual voyage that Obama did. Most of us outgrew this nonsense, usually by our mid-twenties. Obama never did. He is still a child, intellectually undeveloped and locked into the ideas from the 60′s — both the 1960s and the Marxist 1860s. In that sense he is an intellectual dwarf, frozen in the equivalent of a state of intellectual puberty. His “knowledge” is based on nothing but the discredited ideologies of Socialism.
The claim that Obama is the smartest man to ever hold presidential office is absurd and a reflection on the state of our media who insist on propping up this man-child. Obama’s obsession with keeping his college records and personal past secret is prima facie evidence that the claim is untrue. His knowledge base and dismal performance on the world stage is even more damning.
Instead of having a superior intellect, we likely have the most ignorant, ideological, brainwashed dupe this country has ever elected to high office. The man’s intellectual development never progressed beyond the stage of all-night freshman bull sessions where all the world’s problems were solved (with help from adequate amounts of beer of course).
This intellectual pygmy must be removed from office by whatever possible peaceful means. Impeachment is in order, but will not happen. Thus the 2012 election is critical.
The Democrat Party knows what happened in 2010. They also know that they have an albatross at the top of their ticket. It is likely they will turn on this poseur before the election. If so, this act will be their most significant public service in years.
Read the full article at the site. It’s all that good.
Kenneth Melson was expected to testify before Congress at some point in July, as part of a deal between Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy and the committee’s top Republican, Iowa’s Charles Grassley.
According to John Solomon reporting for The Daily Beast, that deposition took place on the 4th of July:Gun Sting Surprise:
While many Americans celebrated over barbecues and fireworks, acting ATF director Kenneth Melson arrived Monday with a private attorney on Capitol Hill for the interview, the sources said, speaking only on the condition of anonymity.
During hours of questioning, Melson told investigators for the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he has recently learned that other federal agencies may have withheld crucial information about possible drug cartel connections to the gun trafficking ring that his agency had tried to crack during a 15-month operation that used controversial tactics, the sources said.
***
In his interview, Melson said most of the operational decisions for the Fast and Furious operation were approved by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix, which was leading a special strike force on gun trafficking, and that even he didn’t know about the specific orders to let straw buyers walk off with guns until after the controversy erupted, according to the sources.
He told the investigators he has subsequently learned that ATF agents during the operation did observe straw buyers transferring guns they had purchased to third parties, a possible legal violation, but did not interdict the weapons at the instructions of their immediate supervisors, the sources added.
Under questioning, Melson confirmed information the congressional investigators had received elsewhere that DEA and FBI had information about possible cartel connections to the gun trafficking ring under investigation but did not share it with ATF at the time. He expressed his own concerns about the flow of information from other agencies during a critical time in the war against Mexican border violence, the sources said.
Congressional investigators now want to know whether any of the players belatedly disclosed to the ATF had been working as assets or informants for other federal agencies, the sources said.
Melson also disclosed the existence of documents about the ATF case that have not yet been turned over to congressional investigators, the sources added.
It sounds to me like they might be going for the “communication breakdown” defense – the lack of information sharing between agencies is supposed to explain how more than 1,700 weapons were allowed to walk across the border straight into the hands of criminals.
Hmmm. It still doesn’t make sense. It’s like they want to make the fall guy, the ‘communication breakdown’. But there has to be someone who knew what was going on, and was giving the orders.
This morning, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley released a copy of a letter they sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on July 5 about Melson’s testimony. Melson’s revelations raise even more serious issues not only about the operation itself, but about apparent attempts by the Justice Department to mislead Congress on the details of the operation.
Contrary to the Justice Department’s denials, according to Melson, ATF agents specifically witnessed transfers of weapons from straw purchasers to third parties without taking any further action. Melson claimed that it was not until the public disclosure of the operation that he personally reviewed the “hundreds of documents” related to the case. He said he became “sick to his stomach” when he learned the full story. Even more shocking is that some of the “gun trafficking ‘higher-ups’ that the ATF sought to identify were already known to other agencies and may even have been paid as informants” by agencies such as the FBI and the DEA.
I was afraid some sort of fix was in, but no – this looks very bad for the Justice Dept. I didn’t realize that he was meeting with investigators behind their back…
The details of Operation Fast & Furious just keep getting worse from the standpoint of prosecutorial ineptitude and incompetence. But with Melson’s testimony, it is also appears that the Justice Department and specifically Deputy Attorney General James Cole have been obstructing Congress and engaging in a cover-up to prevent Congress and the public from finding out just how much the leadership of the Justice Department was involved in this expanding scandal.
Tongues are wagging in London over the absence of the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Louis B Susman, at the dinner celebrating Ronald Reagan’s centenary. Some are seeing it as a blatant snub.
It was one of the most glittering events of the year, attracting some of the greatest names in American and British politics.
But as the British roasted lamb and the sunny Californian chardonnay were cleared away, one notable absence was the hottest topic among guests at the Guildhall dinner in honour of Ronald Reagan‘s centenary.
He had, it soon transpired, been invited. But despite a guest list that boasted four British Cabinet ministers, ex-Prime Minister, nine US congressmen and a senator and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, there was no sign of President Obama‘s representative in London.
And in a warm atmosphere evoking the closest days of the special Anglo-US relationship of the Eighties, the surprise at Mr Susman’s absence turned to annoyance.
“Our ambassador should be here,” said Lynn de Rothschild, the American entrepreneur who is married to Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and was one of Hillary Clinton‘s key fundraisers in 2008 as well as a supporter of several Republican presidential candidates. “This was an historic dinner to mark Reagan’s centenary and to celebrate him as the man who ended the Cold War. What could not be more important?
“Why is our ambassador not here on Independence Day? No excuse. How is it that America is not represented in this room by our ambassador? It is appalling that no representative of our government is in this room. This has the feel of petty partisanship.”
Susman had attended other grand centenary events, but according to the US embassy spokesman: “Ambassador Susman was pleased to be invited to the dinner but was unable to attend.”
Thus far, that has been the only explanation for his absence.
You may remember only a few months ago, Susman’s boss, Obama was being compared to Reagan after a State of the Union speech that media sycophants labeled, “Reaganesque”.
You can hear him talking about it on Blog Talk radio.I was listening to it earlier, today, but fell asleep before it finished. Not because it’s boring. It’s not at all. I was just tired from staying up too late, last night. What I found out before I fell asleep is that Stranahan is 99.9% sure that the sock-puppet for Nikki Reid, one of the underage Weiner Twitter-fans, and Starchild(?), and possibly PatriotUSA76 is the same person, a troubled liberal, woman named Jenny who goes to UCLA, and has a very tenuous relationship with the truth.
But I’m still listening to find what the heck her motive could possibly be. A spurned ex-sexter perhaps? That would be conjecture. He has been able to confirm her identity.
This post will reveal the first batch of alleged direct messages and e-mails from Gennette Cordova to Nikki Reid.
There is much more coming. This is just the initial batch. Perhaps the most interesting line I see is Gennette telling Nikki on June 6:
Hey. I’m not supposed to talk over messages anymore. If you want my number/you’re able to call, let me know.
In another bizarre turn of events in the WeinerGate saga, a person who claims to be a “janitor”, ( political operative who is hired to clean up messes) has threatened both Aceand Patterico in emails.
With the nightmare of unemployment haunting President Obama’s 2 1/2 year old presidency, and with no light at the end of the tunnel….out comes Former President Clinton (“Dad?”) to tell him how to fix the jobs problem. The link below is to the Newsweek article (picture above from the article) in which President Clinton tells President Obama what to do.
You have to wonder why President Clinton took to Newsweek to tell President Obama (“Junior?”) how to do it. This could not be more public …or more curious.
The very idea that any administration in this country, even the Obama administration could be this reckless – this corrupt- this cold blooded in its drive to further an unpopular agenda is almost unthinkable. I finally dared hint last week that something dark and nefarious must be behind this insane, irrational operation – nobody can be this incompetent: Video: Issa’s Opening Statement at Today’s Operation Fast and Furious Hearing + More
This whole debacle begs the question: How could top officials at the DOJ have been this criminally, insanely, impossibly incompetent?
In the past,the Obama Administration and the Department of Homeland Security had implied that the violence in Mexico was the fault of the Second Amendment — law abiding gun shop owners who sold to cartel members.
This whole thing stinks to high heaven and heads should roll.
The higher up – the better.
It is increasingly looking like the Obama administration decided that in pursuit of its omelet – anti-gun legislation, it would have to “break a few eggs”, like border patrol agent, Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata .
Thank God for whistleblowers like ATF agent John Dodson because had he not blown the whistle on this travesty, the American people, would never have learned of it. Heads are beginning to roll, as Andy from AoSHQreports:
The Justice Department is expected to oust the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to people familiar with the matter, amid a troubled federal antitrafficking operation that has grown into the agency’s biggest scandal in nearly two decades.Moves toward the replacement of Kenneth Melson, acting ATF director since April 2009, could begin next week, although the precise sequence of events remains to be decided, these people said.
Andy at AoSHQ created a helpful timeline of relevant events throughout this scandal:
January 20, 2009: A hard-core, idealogical leftist becomes President. Gun control is right up there with high taxes and abortion-on-demand as a sacrament of the left, but the prospects for enacting gun control legislation look bleak due to a shift in public mood and the 2008 Heller decision along with a pesky lack of carnage from widespread adoption of shall-issue concealed carry laws and the 2004 expiration of the assault weapons ban.
March 26, 2009: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claims on a flight to Mexico City that 90% of the firearms used by drug cartels in Mexico come from the U.S. After layers of rigorous fact-checking, the MBM repeated the claim. For example, USA Today:
On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano visit Mexico to discuss ways to stop the smuggling of American weapons, which Mexico says account for 90% of confiscated arms here. The meeting is part of an urgent American effort to aid Mexico as it fights a bloody war against drug cartels.
April 2009: The 90% claim is almost immediately debunked
And lest some liberal scream Faux News!!11!, the 90% stat has been so widely debunked that even the liberal FactCheck.org can’t spin it.*
Fall 2009: Operation Fast and Furious begins.
November 2010: The body of kidnapped Mexican attorney Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez is discovered in a shallow grave. It is now reported that he was killed with guns allowed to be smuggled under Operation Fast and Furious.
December 14, 2010: Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is shot with an AK-47 allowed to be smuggled to Mexico under this operation. He died the following day.
The ATF Head’s ouster should only be the beginning. Issa says “Holder absolutely knew” about this operation earlier than he testified:
Nice Deb is sometimes too timid to say what she really thinks. Especially in a situation as delicate as this one.
But Andrew Breitbart has paved the way for other doubting Thomases by saying (in his opinion), the news of Huma’s pregnancy is *probably* a PR attempt and a ploy to make people not want to report on the Weinergate scandal.
Andrew doesn’t come right out and say that he doubts that she’s even pregnant, but I have to admit that I’m suspicious.
And I will also say this about the Weiner marriage, and then I won’t say anything more about it, again. There is something about the beautiful and dignified Huma Abedin I don’t quite get.
Amid building scandal, Weiner, who is Jewish, said Thursday his beautiful wife doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. “She’s seen an awful lot,” Weiner said in a television interview. “But I won’t mind telling you that even for someone that went through the Clinton years, this has been a befuddling experience.”
***
Abedin, known as ‘body woman’ for Mrs Clinton, returned to work Thursday as usual.
The New York Post reported Friday that Mrs Abedin has shown incredible grace under fire, and not displayed any signs of embarrassment or anger over her husband’s public roasting. “She has been doing her job like nothing has happened. It has nothing to do with her job. This is her personal life,” a source told the Post.
She’s adamant that her husband does not resign, and is optimistic that he can continue his career as an elected official.
“I think people have weathered worse,” said the source.
“They are still talking all the time about what to do [to survive the scandal],” the source said, adding that they plotted his political comeback while at the hotel.
“Adamant that her husband not resign”?, “Doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about?” Does she understand English? Has she not seen the sexting FB messages, (that took place right after they were married.) Has she seen the pictures he sent to numerous young women on Twitter? The XXX one that was leaked, today????? The whole damn country is mortified for her….
“Doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about?”
Hasn’t “displayed any signs of embarrassment or anger”?
Something doesn’t add up, here.
…I’m just going to leave it at that.
Meanwhile,over at AoSHQ, Ace is agonizing about the human toll this is taking on all the players involved in this scandal – Is it about sex, is it about lies, is it both, why do I care?:
I don’t know. I don’t know.
I know that when the pictures were actually released Monday, I had a queasy feeling. And while I had previously been keenly interested in vindication, motivated by intellectual vanity, now I sort of began to have empathy and kept thinking, and writing, “Call the fight. Make it stop.”
I wanted him to resign less to have a scalp than to just get it all behind us.
I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell happened here, really, now, looking back.
Great to “win” and be “right” and all that but today’s revelation of a pregnancy really just makes this all seem less like partisan sport and more like simple cruelty.
I don’t know. I’m just thinking. Or my gut is thinking, and I’m typing out the words my brain is giving me in translation.
Ace, damnit. Ya done nothin’ wrong. Your blogging on Weinergate was stellar, and you have nothing to feel guilty about. Period.
Ace’s reaction to Huma’s pregnancy sort of makes Breitbart’s point, doesn’t it?
Linked by AoSHQin the Headlines, and POWIP, thanks!
I agree with O’Reilly’s analysis of Trump’s “bombastic” entrance into Republican politics. The reason why he’s “catching on” couldn’t be more obvious:
Trump isn’t tip-toeing around issues like Obama’s birth certificate, and school records, he’s hitting them with a sledge-hammer. People are fed up with the praetorian guard (AKA the MSM) protecting this man. Frustratingly, even most in the “respectable” conservative media have been too timid to broach the subject, even though Obama’s professed personal narrative has gaping holes, or doesn’t add up. Finally, someone is willing to go out there and ask the questions a lot of us want answers to. I don’t know what it is that’s on his birth certificate that he doesn’t want seen, but his refusal to produce it speaks for itself. And make no mistake. Despite the Democrat Media complex’s best efforts, the issue is no longer toxic to Republicans. It’s toxic to Obama.
CNNdid an investigative report which fairly conclusively establishes that Obama was born in Hawaii, but this jumped out at me:
Obama could file a Freedom of Information Act request to view his original birth certificate and make copies. But at this point, the White House maintains, nothing will satisfy the doubters.
Don’t you think that if he had done this a long time ago, it would have satisfied the vast majority of doubters? An Army doctor whorefused to deploy again to Afghanistan because he questioned Obama legitimacy, has been serving a six-month term at Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas. Wouldn’t you think that the Commander in Chief would feel obligated to do everything in his power to prove to our men and women in uniform, that he’s a natural born citizen?
“Well I’ve been told very recently, Anderson, that the birth certificate is missing,” Trump told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Monday. “I’ve been told that it’s not there or it doesn’t exist. And if that’s the case it’s a big problem.”
The former Hawaii elections official who maintains there’s no long-form birth certificate for Barack Obama in the Aloha State is now saying the president and his aides have been “caught fibbing” about Obama’s background, and the “embarrassing” situation is making it difficult to fess up to the truth.
Tim Adams, who was senior elections clerk for the city and county of Honolulu during the 2008 campaign, made the statements in a two-hour interview with a group looking to disprove claims made by so-called birthers, those challenging Obama’s legal qualification to be president.
“I think people believe there’s been some kind of cover-up. And I don’t think it’s some big nefarious conspiracy. I think it’s politics as usual,” Adams said March 31 on Reality Check Radio, an Internet program on BlogTalkRadio.
“Barack Obama’s official autobiography was put out to the public for the public’s consumption and we all know politicians – they have a public persona, it’s created for consumption by the electorate – and I think that they’ve been caught fibbing, and it’s embarrassing.”
Manhattan real estate mogul Donald Trump suggested in an interview Monday that President Barack Obama had been a poor student who did not deserve to be admitted to the Ivy League universities he attended. Trump, who is mulling a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, offered no proof for his claim but said he would continue to press the matter as he has the legitimacy of the president’s birth certificate.
“I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?” Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.”
Drew: Yeah, my sense is because of affirmative action, guys like me were going to Occidental instead of even better schools and guys like Obama were going to Occidental instead of, uh, less challenging schools. A lot of very successful people were there, were part of Obama’s social circle at the time.
Kengor:: Now, was Occidental known for radical left politics? Would that have been an attraction for Obama?
Drew:: Yeah, I’m certain that it was. It was considered sort of the “Moscow” of southern California. There were a lot of Marxist professors, many of whom I got to know pretty well, not just there but also at Williams College in Massachusetts. Two of the same Marxist-Socialist professors were on the staff with me at Williams.
Kengor: So, that might have been an attraction for him? I’m trying to think, what would have made him go to Hawaii to Occidental? Do you think Frank Marshall Davis could somehow have been an influence in having him choose Occidental?
Drew: I don’t have any evidence of that…
Kengor: Because they won’t release his records, I called them –
Drew: Yeah, I think that’s odd. I don’t know, I got straight A’s my first year, it sounds weird, but I don’t talk about it, Paul, you’d think that if Obama did well he’d release those transcripts.
Is it possible that Donald Trump has decided that the best way to make the media cover these issues is by bringing them up as a candidate for President?
And Howard Stern recently said: “Look! Ahhh…I know Donald Trump. He’s not running for President. He’s not going to run…It is, as you said… a joke. He’s doing it because it’s fun, and he’s out there doing his thing, and he’s having a good time with it, but he’s not running for president.”
Maybe Trump’s “thing” is – he can’t stand Obama, thinks he’s a fraud who’s hellbent on transforming the nation from the “Shining City on a Hill” into a third-world Socialist sh** hole., and is putting his foot down by doing everything in his power to get these issues out in the mainstream media where they can damage Obama going into the 2012 election.
