I am wandering well out of my playpen but here goes.
I am not a Constitutional expert, so I am having a bit of difficulty wading through the arguments about whether Roberts' reasoning was or was not flawed. All I can see is that the Obamistas argued that their health care monstrosity did not involve taxing us, and Roberts has said it does, but Congress has the authority to do it under a clause of the Constitution which the Obamistas were not using to support their argument, so Obama can go ahead and ruin us. Apparently it is not unconstitutional to be a disaster of a president and for Nancy Pelosi to be in Congress.
I guess that's the argument. People a lot smarter than I am will tell me if I am wrong.
I love the line being put forward by some of my liberal friends, to wit, the Court has spoken, time to move on to another issue. I guess abolitionists should have left the slavery issue where it was after the Court's Dred Scott decision . . . .
Anyhow, for me the point is the whole matter is now in the hands of the people. Yet another reason to get Obama out. The list is long and getting longer.
Donate to the Romney campaign. Get your friends to vote Obama out.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
The Immigration Mess
Nobody knows exactly the impact of the Supreme Court ruling on Arizona's immigration law (let's hope the ruling on Obamacare is clearer.) The spinners are spinning. The pundits and journalists are declaring "winners" and "losers." In the end, however, all we really know is that our current immigration mess will only get worse. Obama's "Rose Garden Pardon" has added to the confusion as it makes one thing clear: the President has no intention of enforcing the laws he is sworn to enforce. This despite that he had previously gone about boasting of the 1.4 million people his administration has deported. Now he has decided for political reasons not to seek to change a law he does not like, but merely not to enforce it. Imagine if Governor Romney became president and announced he would not prosecute any Wall Street businessmen accused of insider trading or of running Ponzi schemes. Just imagine . . . sigh.
In sum, it's the silly season; it's an election year, and immigration is an issue nobody has wanted to confront for some 40-plus years. Neither the right nor the left has come up with solutions that respect three basic principles of our history: we are nation of immigrants; we are a nation of compassion; we are a nation of laws.
On one extreme end of the debate, we have what I will call the "Rawhide" or the "round'em-up-n-move'em-out" school. Folks, that will not happen. Our society would not, could not and should not tolerate mass raids and arrests of millions of persons; the instantly transmitted images of uniformed, armed, stony-faced bureaucrats breaking into homes and places of work, forcing millions of human beings onto planes, trains, trucks and buses, terrified women and children clutching cheap suitcases, crying and beseeching, would and should tear us apart. At least not since the despicable Andrew Jackson, we are not that kind of country; we should not be that kind of country. That will not happen. Forget about it, and, furthermore, despite the MSNBC-type caricatures, this is not something that most Americans, including conservatives, would support.
Those few who want to "throw them all out," must acknowledge the vital role played by immigrants in our history and in today's economy. We need immigrants; we should welcome immigrants; they are a vital part of what makes America unique. Cuban immigrants, for example, turned Miami into the exciting and vibrant city it has become. Immigrants, mostly Eastern European Jews, built Hollywood and the world-dominating American entertainment industry. And on and on. The examples of immigrant contributions to America's culture, economy, science, and politics are too numerous to list.
On the other extreme end, we have what I will call the "all ye, all ye outs in free" or the "let'em-all-in" school. That cannot be either. We are already the most generous nation on earth when it comes to immigration; we take in over one million legal immigrants every year. No other country comes close to that. We, however, have the right as a sovereign nation to control the number and type of people we allow in; we have the right to defend our borders, laws, institutions, culture, and traditions. We owe no explanations to anybody. Our first loyalty as a nation must be to our citizens, their rights, and their interests. We have a long tradition of defending our sovereignty, and that tradition should not be cavalierly ignored. Those who advocate open immigration have to acknowledge the high levels of crime associated with illegal immigrants and the stress they place on taxpayer funded services, e.g., schools, emergency rooms, prisons, as well as the disregard for our laws and sovereignty that they represent.
There are powerful economic and political interests that lean towards the "let'em-in" philosophy. We, of course, have the agro, food, maintenance, and retail industries that need cheap, unskilled labor. We also have in this corner well-organized interest groups such as teachers' unions, who want more students to keep schools open, and the Democratic Party which, frankly, relies on non-citizens voting in key districts, and needs them to justify massive social programs (illegal aliens, for example, exaggerate the demographic and political importance and poverty level of Hispanics). We also have Hollywood and the mainstream media always eager to put out those Janet Cooke-style heart-tugging stories of noble and abused aliens in America, e.g., "Blind Lesbian Single Mother College Valedictorian War Hero Faces Deportation to a Land She has Never Known."
When dealing with the immigration question we need to look at the horrendous thicket of laws and procedures we have that allegedly govern our policy. They don't, of course. Almost every law and procedure has an escape clause that essentially invalidates the law or procedure. In my days on the visa line, the governing wisdom was, "ninety percent of the time, you can't get in trouble if you issue." Denial of a visa almost always meant Congressional letters, calls, dealing with lawyers, and having to justify yourself to the bureaucrats in the visa office back home as they dealt with outraged Congressmen and relatives. It was that philosophy, of course, exemplified by the late and disastrous Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Mary Ryan, that let in the 9/11 terrorists.
This is not an impossible problem to solve.
The laws on immigration need to be completely rewritten in plain English. There is no point in having laws that you either cannot or will not enforce. There is no point in having these laws if you have a gaping hole in the system that encourages people to violate them. Illegal entry into the United States should not be rewarded. We do not need to make our immigration laws as draconian and inhumane as they are in, say, Mexico, Nicaragua, or Venezuela, but it should be clear that you cannot derive benefits by violating them. Those who play by the rules will be rewarded, those who don't, won't. Not hard to understand.
I remember having to represent the United States at hearings of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on our border fence. I was outraged that I had to sit there and defend something no other country has to defend: the right to protect its borders. Mexico, for example, was not called to task for its horrendous treatment of illegal Central Americans; Argentina did not have to defend its treatment of Bolivians. We need to secure our borders. Period. As noted above, we have that right and do not have to justify ourselves to anybody. To do this will require money. Protecting our long borders does not come cheap. Entering a foreign country via an unofficial entry point, without a visa, is a crime punishable by jail everywhere but in our country. That has to change.
Here I will get in trouble with my libertarian friends. As I have written before, I think we have ceded too much control to cops and prosecutors and regulators of all sorts. We need a burst of freedom in this country that will drastically reduce the laws and regulations on the books; way too much is illegal and that gives ambitious and overly eager cops and prosecutors way too much power. That said, many of the problems posed by illegal aliens here could be solved with a national identification card. There, I said it. Let the abuse begin. Such a card is opposed by many on the right as it would give too much information to the feds about us. I doubt that. The info is already there, and we are constantly asked for id to board a plane, get into a government building, cash a check, make a large purchase, open a bank account, visit our kids at school, etc. We might as well have a uniform id card that clearly lays out that we are legal residents of the United States. Re children brought here as infants, yes, we could make an exception for those brought in say several years before the kick-in of the new id scheme.
The left opposes the national id because it would inhibit or even stop completely voting by illegal aliens, their collecting of a slew of public benefits, and would lead to many if not most illegal aliens packing up and leaving. That would, as noted above, have an adverse impact on the need to have ever more social programs and the highly paid bureaucrats to run them.
None of this is possible with the current crew in the White House.
In sum, it's the silly season; it's an election year, and immigration is an issue nobody has wanted to confront for some 40-plus years. Neither the right nor the left has come up with solutions that respect three basic principles of our history: we are nation of immigrants; we are a nation of compassion; we are a nation of laws.
On one extreme end of the debate, we have what I will call the "Rawhide" or the "round'em-up-n-move'em-out" school. Folks, that will not happen. Our society would not, could not and should not tolerate mass raids and arrests of millions of persons; the instantly transmitted images of uniformed, armed, stony-faced bureaucrats breaking into homes and places of work, forcing millions of human beings onto planes, trains, trucks and buses, terrified women and children clutching cheap suitcases, crying and beseeching, would and should tear us apart. At least not since the despicable Andrew Jackson, we are not that kind of country; we should not be that kind of country. That will not happen. Forget about it, and, furthermore, despite the MSNBC-type caricatures, this is not something that most Americans, including conservatives, would support.
Those few who want to "throw them all out," must acknowledge the vital role played by immigrants in our history and in today's economy. We need immigrants; we should welcome immigrants; they are a vital part of what makes America unique. Cuban immigrants, for example, turned Miami into the exciting and vibrant city it has become. Immigrants, mostly Eastern European Jews, built Hollywood and the world-dominating American entertainment industry. And on and on. The examples of immigrant contributions to America's culture, economy, science, and politics are too numerous to list.
On the other extreme end, we have what I will call the "all ye, all ye outs in free" or the "let'em-all-in" school. That cannot be either. We are already the most generous nation on earth when it comes to immigration; we take in over one million legal immigrants every year. No other country comes close to that. We, however, have the right as a sovereign nation to control the number and type of people we allow in; we have the right to defend our borders, laws, institutions, culture, and traditions. We owe no explanations to anybody. Our first loyalty as a nation must be to our citizens, their rights, and their interests. We have a long tradition of defending our sovereignty, and that tradition should not be cavalierly ignored. Those who advocate open immigration have to acknowledge the high levels of crime associated with illegal immigrants and the stress they place on taxpayer funded services, e.g., schools, emergency rooms, prisons, as well as the disregard for our laws and sovereignty that they represent.
There are powerful economic and political interests that lean towards the "let'em-in" philosophy. We, of course, have the agro, food, maintenance, and retail industries that need cheap, unskilled labor. We also have in this corner well-organized interest groups such as teachers' unions, who want more students to keep schools open, and the Democratic Party which, frankly, relies on non-citizens voting in key districts, and needs them to justify massive social programs (illegal aliens, for example, exaggerate the demographic and political importance and poverty level of Hispanics). We also have Hollywood and the mainstream media always eager to put out those Janet Cooke-style heart-tugging stories of noble and abused aliens in America, e.g., "Blind Lesbian Single Mother College Valedictorian War Hero Faces Deportation to a Land She has Never Known."
When dealing with the immigration question we need to look at the horrendous thicket of laws and procedures we have that allegedly govern our policy. They don't, of course. Almost every law and procedure has an escape clause that essentially invalidates the law or procedure. In my days on the visa line, the governing wisdom was, "ninety percent of the time, you can't get in trouble if you issue." Denial of a visa almost always meant Congressional letters, calls, dealing with lawyers, and having to justify yourself to the bureaucrats in the visa office back home as they dealt with outraged Congressmen and relatives. It was that philosophy, of course, exemplified by the late and disastrous Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Mary Ryan, that let in the 9/11 terrorists.
This is not an impossible problem to solve.
The laws on immigration need to be completely rewritten in plain English. There is no point in having laws that you either cannot or will not enforce. There is no point in having these laws if you have a gaping hole in the system that encourages people to violate them. Illegal entry into the United States should not be rewarded. We do not need to make our immigration laws as draconian and inhumane as they are in, say, Mexico, Nicaragua, or Venezuela, but it should be clear that you cannot derive benefits by violating them. Those who play by the rules will be rewarded, those who don't, won't. Not hard to understand.
I remember having to represent the United States at hearings of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on our border fence. I was outraged that I had to sit there and defend something no other country has to defend: the right to protect its borders. Mexico, for example, was not called to task for its horrendous treatment of illegal Central Americans; Argentina did not have to defend its treatment of Bolivians. We need to secure our borders. Period. As noted above, we have that right and do not have to justify ourselves to anybody. To do this will require money. Protecting our long borders does not come cheap. Entering a foreign country via an unofficial entry point, without a visa, is a crime punishable by jail everywhere but in our country. That has to change.
Here I will get in trouble with my libertarian friends. As I have written before, I think we have ceded too much control to cops and prosecutors and regulators of all sorts. We need a burst of freedom in this country that will drastically reduce the laws and regulations on the books; way too much is illegal and that gives ambitious and overly eager cops and prosecutors way too much power. That said, many of the problems posed by illegal aliens here could be solved with a national identification card. There, I said it. Let the abuse begin. Such a card is opposed by many on the right as it would give too much information to the feds about us. I doubt that. The info is already there, and we are constantly asked for id to board a plane, get into a government building, cash a check, make a large purchase, open a bank account, visit our kids at school, etc. We might as well have a uniform id card that clearly lays out that we are legal residents of the United States. Re children brought here as infants, yes, we could make an exception for those brought in say several years before the kick-in of the new id scheme.
The left opposes the national id because it would inhibit or even stop completely voting by illegal aliens, their collecting of a slew of public benefits, and would lead to many if not most illegal aliens packing up and leaving. That would, as noted above, have an adverse impact on the need to have ever more social programs and the highly paid bureaucrats to run them.
None of this is possible with the current crew in the White House.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Saturday Rant: Postcard from Paraguay
Some of my former colleagues at State and nearly all of the Presidents of Latin America are in a twitter over the ouster yesterday of Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo. While this is not going to be a major issue in our elections (bold prediction that!) it does show something about the prevailing mindset both among those who handle relations with Latin America and among Latin American heads-of-state.
First, Paraguay. I have been to Paraguay twice. It is a wonderful country with some of the nicest people you will ever meet. It is bilingual (Guarani and Spanish) with a colorful history, and a thriving literature, music, and art environment. Asuncion is a delightful city with beautiful colonial era churches and monuments, and first-rate museums. It also has some of the best steaks I have ever eaten, and, in fact, is a major beef exporter. It also, until just a few years ago, was an isolated and remote country that lived under dictatorship for most of its existence. Only relatively recently has it had a functioning democracy. It is also a place where people believe all sorts of wild conspiracy theories. My personal favorite, one pushed by the left, was that the US had built a secret military base there to steal Paraguay's water. I heard even very senior Paraguayan politicians talk about this base, absolutely convinced that it existed somewhere out in the vast Chaco.
Me: "Can you take me to the base? Or show me its location on a map?"
Paraguayan Interlocutor: "Nobody knows where it is. It is a secret."
Me: "How do you know it exists?"
P.I.: "Everybody knows it exists."
Me: "What does the base do?"
P.I.: "It is here to steal our water."
Me: "How do you know the US wants to steal your water?"
P.I: "Why else would the Americans build a secret base?"
Me: "But, uh . . . oh, never mind . . . I'll have that one. Rare, please, with chimichurri."
Ah, the wonderful loop of lefty loopy loopiness. How endearing that they would think that the country that can't keep a secret would be able to build a base in Paraguay so hush-hush that absolutely, positively nobody knows where.
Second, Lugo. I have met him on three occasions, once in Paraguay and twice in Washington. How do I put this diplomatically and delicately? He is certifiably insane. He is the stuff of novels and comedy movies. A Catholic bishop gone mad who promotes a weird blend of populism, sixteenth century anti-Protestant dogma, a dash of Marxism, some anti-US rhetoric, and some other odds and ends. He had become a follower of Venezuela's ailing Hugo Chavez and Ecuador's increasingly unstable Rafael Correa, and at the OAS and the UN, Paraguay took on the anti-US rhetoric of his ALBA masters. As a priest, he had several children, some of whom he officially acknowledged as his. Paraguayans frequently referred to Lugo as "the father of our country."
Lugo used his office to promote land seizures and, frankly, violence against landowners by the poor. For him, the law was a flexible, plastic, pliable material which could be bent, pulled, and twisted into whatever form he saw fit. He encouraged violence, and he got it; dead cops and dead poor people. The Paraguayan congress had enough of the violence and wackiness, impeached and convicted him in rapid fire order, and swore in Vice President Federico Franco. President Franco will hold the office until national elections in 2013. The new chief executive has run into a firestorm of criticism from around the region, especially the Chavez controlled ALBA nations, but others as well. Lots of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the supposed lack of due process, with some alleging the Congressional action is tantamount to a coup a la Honduras.
Third, I am no Paraguayan constitutional expert, but any process that involves open voting by elected officials, and does not involve firing squads or electrodes to the genitals, is a dramatic improvement over what has happened before in Latin America and Paraguay. To have your process criticized as undemocratic by the likes of Castro and Chavez is no shame.
Fourth, this is an opportunity for the US to begin to undermine ALBA influence and shore up a rocky democratic regime. The worst thing we can do is criticize, criticize, criticize, and do what we did in Honduras--i.e., let Venezuela take the lead. The US should act like a democratic superpower and not let ourselves get steamrolled by loud Latin American executives who do not like to see fellow chief executives removed, even by democratic means.
In other words we need to act as though Obama were not our President . . .
First, Paraguay. I have been to Paraguay twice. It is a wonderful country with some of the nicest people you will ever meet. It is bilingual (Guarani and Spanish) with a colorful history, and a thriving literature, music, and art environment. Asuncion is a delightful city with beautiful colonial era churches and monuments, and first-rate museums. It also has some of the best steaks I have ever eaten, and, in fact, is a major beef exporter. It also, until just a few years ago, was an isolated and remote country that lived under dictatorship for most of its existence. Only relatively recently has it had a functioning democracy. It is also a place where people believe all sorts of wild conspiracy theories. My personal favorite, one pushed by the left, was that the US had built a secret military base there to steal Paraguay's water. I heard even very senior Paraguayan politicians talk about this base, absolutely convinced that it existed somewhere out in the vast Chaco.
Me: "Can you take me to the base? Or show me its location on a map?"
Paraguayan Interlocutor: "Nobody knows where it is. It is a secret."
Me: "How do you know it exists?"
P.I.: "Everybody knows it exists."
Me: "What does the base do?"
P.I.: "It is here to steal our water."
Me: "How do you know the US wants to steal your water?"
P.I: "Why else would the Americans build a secret base?"
Me: "But, uh . . . oh, never mind . . . I'll have that one. Rare, please, with chimichurri."
Ah, the wonderful loop of lefty loopy loopiness. How endearing that they would think that the country that can't keep a secret would be able to build a base in Paraguay so hush-hush that absolutely, positively nobody knows where.
Second, Lugo. I have met him on three occasions, once in Paraguay and twice in Washington. How do I put this diplomatically and delicately? He is certifiably insane. He is the stuff of novels and comedy movies. A Catholic bishop gone mad who promotes a weird blend of populism, sixteenth century anti-Protestant dogma, a dash of Marxism, some anti-US rhetoric, and some other odds and ends. He had become a follower of Venezuela's ailing Hugo Chavez and Ecuador's increasingly unstable Rafael Correa, and at the OAS and the UN, Paraguay took on the anti-US rhetoric of his ALBA masters. As a priest, he had several children, some of whom he officially acknowledged as his. Paraguayans frequently referred to Lugo as "the father of our country."
Lugo used his office to promote land seizures and, frankly, violence against landowners by the poor. For him, the law was a flexible, plastic, pliable material which could be bent, pulled, and twisted into whatever form he saw fit. He encouraged violence, and he got it; dead cops and dead poor people. The Paraguayan congress had enough of the violence and wackiness, impeached and convicted him in rapid fire order, and swore in Vice President Federico Franco. President Franco will hold the office until national elections in 2013. The new chief executive has run into a firestorm of criticism from around the region, especially the Chavez controlled ALBA nations, but others as well. Lots of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the supposed lack of due process, with some alleging the Congressional action is tantamount to a coup a la Honduras.
Third, I am no Paraguayan constitutional expert, but any process that involves open voting by elected officials, and does not involve firing squads or electrodes to the genitals, is a dramatic improvement over what has happened before in Latin America and Paraguay. To have your process criticized as undemocratic by the likes of Castro and Chavez is no shame.
Fourth, this is an opportunity for the US to begin to undermine ALBA influence and shore up a rocky democratic regime. The worst thing we can do is criticize, criticize, criticize, and do what we did in Honduras--i.e., let Venezuela take the lead. The US should act like a democratic superpower and not let ourselves get steamrolled by loud Latin American executives who do not like to see fellow chief executives removed, even by democratic means.
In other words we need to act as though Obama were not our President . . .
Friday, June 22, 2012
Where is Hillary Clinton on Fast and Furious?
Under Attorney General Eric Holder, the Department of Justice declared war on the people of Mexico.
Using the ATF, the Justice Department carried out a covert operation that violated the laws of the United States, supplied thousands of weapons to the enemies of the government and people Mexico and killed hundreds of Mexican citizens. The operation also produced the collateral damage of one or possibly two murdered US federal agents, and put at risk the lives of other US citizens on this side of the border. In other words, Obama and Holder have lied, and hundreds have died in a war against our southern neighbor.
Never mind Teapot Dome, Checkers, Chappaquiddick, Watergate, or Iran-Contra: "Fast and Furious" is arguably the greatest scandal in American political history. It most certainly is the greatest scandal never reported by the main media outlets. Obama's misadministration sought to launch an attack on the second amendment by "proving" that lax US gun laws led to Mexico's drug-fueled violence. It decided to "prove" that by providing the guns. It was the ultimate in cop weapon throw-down or evidence planting.
Imagine if the situation were the reverse. Imagine that the Attorney General of Mexico, in order to argue for stronger anti-drug laws in Mexico, decided as a matter of policy to provide drugs to the most powerful US criminal gangs. How would we react? Drone strikes on Chapultepec Castle, anybody? I must say that the Mexican reaction has been surprisingly muted to Obama's declaration of war against Mexico.
So where is our Secretary of State on all of this? During my time at State, I worked a great deal on Latin American issues. The line about "drugs flow north and guns flow south" was a constant theme. Those of us in the field, actually in the field, in the places where the dope and violence are, knew that was false. I ran into a lot of guns, violence, and dope dealers. I never saw evidence that the dopers were getting guns from the US. Stolen cars, yes, but weapons, no. I raised my doubts about this as I have reported before. I was not the only one. Lots of us doubted the line we were being handed and forced to repeat. So now it turns out that we were wrong. The guns were coming from the US, well, that is, once we elected Obama and his misadministration's deliberate policy of sending guns to the dopers.
So, then, what did Hillary Clinton know and when did she know it? She herself went about saying that 60-90% of the weapons in the hands of Mexican drug gangs came from the US, which, of course, meant we needed stronger gun laws in the US. All of us worker bees in the State Department got "mea culpa" talking points to use that said the same thing.
So was Secretary Clinton in on the DOJ/ATF fraud or was she a victim of it? What is her position? If she was bamboozled by Holder, has she taken the matter up with the President? Does she have a position on the fact that our government was waging a covert war against Mexico? Shouldn't the Secretary of State have a position on this matter? Shouldn't she be demanding the AG's resignation or offering up her own in disgust?
Why no questions for the Secretary of State?
Using the ATF, the Justice Department carried out a covert operation that violated the laws of the United States, supplied thousands of weapons to the enemies of the government and people Mexico and killed hundreds of Mexican citizens. The operation also produced the collateral damage of one or possibly two murdered US federal agents, and put at risk the lives of other US citizens on this side of the border. In other words, Obama and Holder have lied, and hundreds have died in a war against our southern neighbor.
Never mind Teapot Dome, Checkers, Chappaquiddick, Watergate, or Iran-Contra: "Fast and Furious" is arguably the greatest scandal in American political history. It most certainly is the greatest scandal never reported by the main media outlets. Obama's misadministration sought to launch an attack on the second amendment by "proving" that lax US gun laws led to Mexico's drug-fueled violence. It decided to "prove" that by providing the guns. It was the ultimate in cop weapon throw-down or evidence planting.
Imagine if the situation were the reverse. Imagine that the Attorney General of Mexico, in order to argue for stronger anti-drug laws in Mexico, decided as a matter of policy to provide drugs to the most powerful US criminal gangs. How would we react? Drone strikes on Chapultepec Castle, anybody? I must say that the Mexican reaction has been surprisingly muted to Obama's declaration of war against Mexico.
So where is our Secretary of State on all of this? During my time at State, I worked a great deal on Latin American issues. The line about "drugs flow north and guns flow south" was a constant theme. Those of us in the field, actually in the field, in the places where the dope and violence are, knew that was false. I ran into a lot of guns, violence, and dope dealers. I never saw evidence that the dopers were getting guns from the US. Stolen cars, yes, but weapons, no. I raised my doubts about this as I have reported before. I was not the only one. Lots of us doubted the line we were being handed and forced to repeat. So now it turns out that we were wrong. The guns were coming from the US, well, that is, once we elected Obama and his misadministration's deliberate policy of sending guns to the dopers.
So, then, what did Hillary Clinton know and when did she know it? She herself went about saying that 60-90% of the weapons in the hands of Mexican drug gangs came from the US, which, of course, meant we needed stronger gun laws in the US. All of us worker bees in the State Department got "mea culpa" talking points to use that said the same thing.
So was Secretary Clinton in on the DOJ/ATF fraud or was she a victim of it? What is her position? If she was bamboozled by Holder, has she taken the matter up with the President? Does she have a position on the fact that our government was waging a covert war against Mexico? Shouldn't the Secretary of State have a position on this matter? Shouldn't she be demanding the AG's resignation or offering up her own in disgust?
Why no questions for the Secretary of State?
Thursday, June 21, 2012
The Emerging Lie about Fast and Furious: George Bush Did It.
As the mainstream media has reluctantly, ever so reluctantly, begun to "discover" the Fast and Furious scandal, we can detect a lie that is growing and growing in the frequency with which it is told and one which Republicans are not swatting down. The lie was just repeated by White House spokesman Carney who asserted that F&F began under the Bush administration and that it was AG Holder who put an end to it.
F&F, however, was not merely a continuation of the Bush administration's "Wide Receiver" Operation. WR used a time-tested law enforcement tactic of "controlled deliveries" of a relatively small amount of weapons, some 300 or so, to known criminals, followed the guns, and then arrested the culprits. No weapons were allowed across the border; no weapons were "lost."
Holder's F&F was something completely different. It was an attempt to "prove" a long-held liberal and media assertion that US gun stores and gun shows supplied most of the weapons to the Mexican drug gangs, and the only way to clamp down on drug-related violence was to enact ever-stricter gun control legislation in the US. One problem: The evidence to support this hypothesis did not exist. The geniuses at DOJ and ATF, therefore, decided to create the evidence. It was evidence planting on a massive scale. The ATF and prosecutors forced legitimate gun store owners to sell weapons, often over the written objections of those owners, to "straw purchasers" who then provided the guns to Mexican criminals. The ATF encouraged thousands of these sales, followed the transport of the weapons, and watched as they crossed into Mexico where all control was lost. We know what happened then: hundreds of Mexicans were killed along with one and possibly two US federal agents (BrianTerry and, possibly, Jaime Zapata).
This is not Watergate. How many people died in Watergate? This is criminal behavior of the rankest sort. People on both sides of the border have died because of F&F. The Obama misadministration's deliberate assault on the second amendment has produced a bloody disaster. This is one of the greatest stories ever ignored by the media. Now that the media can no longer ignore it, it behooves all of us who believe in preserving our fundamental freedoms, including those in the second amendment, not to let the media and the Obama misadministration twist, distort, and lie when dealing with this scandal.
F&F, however, was not merely a continuation of the Bush administration's "Wide Receiver" Operation. WR used a time-tested law enforcement tactic of "controlled deliveries" of a relatively small amount of weapons, some 300 or so, to known criminals, followed the guns, and then arrested the culprits. No weapons were allowed across the border; no weapons were "lost."
Holder's F&F was something completely different. It was an attempt to "prove" a long-held liberal and media assertion that US gun stores and gun shows supplied most of the weapons to the Mexican drug gangs, and the only way to clamp down on drug-related violence was to enact ever-stricter gun control legislation in the US. One problem: The evidence to support this hypothesis did not exist. The geniuses at DOJ and ATF, therefore, decided to create the evidence. It was evidence planting on a massive scale. The ATF and prosecutors forced legitimate gun store owners to sell weapons, often over the written objections of those owners, to "straw purchasers" who then provided the guns to Mexican criminals. The ATF encouraged thousands of these sales, followed the transport of the weapons, and watched as they crossed into Mexico where all control was lost. We know what happened then: hundreds of Mexicans were killed along with one and possibly two US federal agents (BrianTerry and, possibly, Jaime Zapata).
This is not Watergate. How many people died in Watergate? This is criminal behavior of the rankest sort. People on both sides of the border have died because of F&F. The Obama misadministration's deliberate assault on the second amendment has produced a bloody disaster. This is one of the greatest stories ever ignored by the media. Now that the media can no longer ignore it, it behooves all of us who believe in preserving our fundamental freedoms, including those in the second amendment, not to let the media and the Obama misadministration twist, distort, and lie when dealing with this scandal.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
President Barack "Flying Wallenda" Obama: Another "Fast and Furious" Death Defying Stunt
One day in the pavilion at Karakorum, Genghis Kahn asked an officer of the Mongol guard what, in all the world, could bring the greatest happiness.
"The open steppe, a clear day, and a swift horse under you," responded the officer after a little thought, "and a falcon on your wrist to start up hares."
"Nay," responded the Kahn, "to crush your enemies, to see them fall at your feet -- to take their horses and goods and hear the lamentation of their women. That is best."
Harold Lamb, GENGHIS KAHN: EMPEROR OF ALL MEN
***
I open today's blog with the cheerful quote above, one often falsely attributed to "Conan, The Barbarian," but rightly belonging to the Great Kahn. The memory of this exchange came to me as I watched the ongoing debate over "Fast and Furious," and the White House's latest "Death Defying Flying Wallenda" stunt, the invoking of executive privilege to prevent us from seeing what happened in that criminally botched ATF operation. Clearly the Democrats are seeing themselves as the crushed enemies of the GOP hordes, and responding to "the lamentations of their women" they are engaging in ever more crazed acts of desperation.
Obama's "executive privilege" claim comes at the twelfth hour, just before a vote by Issa's committee on whether to hold AG Holder in contempt of Congress. It is an outrageous stunt designed to do two things: (1) obviously to prevent us from seeing prior to the elections what the thinking and decision-making was that lead to "F & F"; and (2) to distract attention from the parlous state of the economy by having a giant Washington DC political food fight dominate the airwaves and have voters just shrug and say "a pox on both houses." The mainstream media which has almost completely ignored the scandal until now, will tune into it in the middle and soon rule it just Republicans and Democrats doing their thing in an election year, and nothing to worry about.
F&F is one of the most serious scandals to emerge from Washington in decades (see a good summary here). This is the stuff of countless Hollywood conspiracy movies. The media, however, has largely ignored it or tried to dismiss it. It is, after all, a conspiracy not by evil white male bankers, redneck Southern Senators, deranged Army Generals, the CIA, the KKK, or a combination of all those. No. This is a conspiracy by leftist political bureaucrats and politicians to undermine and destroy the second amendment, one of the fundamental pillars upon which our freedom rests. The fact that the conspiracy put thousands of guns into the hands of drug cartels, resulted in the murders of hundreds of Mexicans, and, of course, in the death of Border Patrol Officer Brian Terry is of no consequence. It was for a good cause . . . can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.
As I have noted many times before, liberals see what they believe. For years they have been telling us that, yes, the drugs flow north from Mexico, but the guns flow south from the USA. The evidence on the ground, however, did not support that assertion. I served for years in Central and South America, and was bombarded with that line about the guns flowing south. It was not true. Those of us in the field knew that. The guns were coming from Asia, Eastern Europe, and corrupt police and army personnel in Latin America, not from gun shows in Texas, stores in Arizona, or biker gangs in California. The liberals so wanted to believe that evil redneck gun store owners and the NRA were the culprits, that they concocted a scheme to make it so! Using DOJ prosecutors and pliant ATF bureaucrats, they forced gun store owners to sell guns to "straw purchasers" who were then allowed to walk the guns across the border to the drug cartels. One of the casualties was a Border Patrolman by the name of Brian Terry--so much for the Democrats' love of public sector employees.
Yet another reason to vote this crew out in November . . .
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Europe's "President" Blames the USA . . .
It's painful, but do read up on the nonsense underway at the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico.
The world's major nations, with one or two exceptions, are in the hands of confused dopes with no idea of what they are doing. One of the biggest dopes is none other than European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. He is the classic Eurocrat: able to be arrogant, pompous, stupid, anti-American, and wrong in several languages. In other words, he is a bit like a mad maitre'd at a five star restaurant. In response to a perfectly good question from a Canadian reporter who asked why North Americans should be expected to help bail out Europe, Barroso, who makes about $30,000/month plus housing and other benefits, quickly let his inner anti-American take over, blaming Europe's crisis on the United States. He is an ideological fool. Europe has been living well-beyond its means for years, for decades, in fact. It relied on a free-ride provided by the United States on defense, and almost unfettered access to the US market. The beginning of the end for Europe came with the Euro, the magical amulet that would make Europe a superpower and shake off the global economic domination of the United States.
What the Euro did, of course, was something quite different. As we have discussed before, the Euro made unproductive Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece as expensive as productive Germany. Thanks to German productivity, shoddy bookkeeping of the Al Capone variety, and willful blindness and chicanery by European politicians and electorates, for a time it seemed the Euro was, indeed, a magical potion that would restore the grandeur that was Europe's. Alas, however, reality came knocking, and the brutal mathematics of the market place finally caught up with the Europeans. The whole EU house of cards is now in danger of collapse. The solution? Let the blame game begin! It wasn't wild spending (such as on Barroso's salary), or a vast entitlement culture, or anything else the Europeans did that caused the crisis. NO! It is the fault of the United States . . . when times are good, however, I don't hear the Eurocrats thank the USA.
Dog bites man . . . nothing to see here, move along . . .
The world's major nations, with one or two exceptions, are in the hands of confused dopes with no idea of what they are doing. One of the biggest dopes is none other than European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. He is the classic Eurocrat: able to be arrogant, pompous, stupid, anti-American, and wrong in several languages. In other words, he is a bit like a mad maitre'd at a five star restaurant. In response to a perfectly good question from a Canadian reporter who asked why North Americans should be expected to help bail out Europe, Barroso, who makes about $30,000/month plus housing and other benefits, quickly let his inner anti-American take over, blaming Europe's crisis on the United States. He is an ideological fool. Europe has been living well-beyond its means for years, for decades, in fact. It relied on a free-ride provided by the United States on defense, and almost unfettered access to the US market. The beginning of the end for Europe came with the Euro, the magical amulet that would make Europe a superpower and shake off the global economic domination of the United States.
What the Euro did, of course, was something quite different. As we have discussed before, the Euro made unproductive Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece as expensive as productive Germany. Thanks to German productivity, shoddy bookkeeping of the Al Capone variety, and willful blindness and chicanery by European politicians and electorates, for a time it seemed the Euro was, indeed, a magical potion that would restore the grandeur that was Europe's. Alas, however, reality came knocking, and the brutal mathematics of the market place finally caught up with the Europeans. The whole EU house of cards is now in danger of collapse. The solution? Let the blame game begin! It wasn't wild spending (such as on Barroso's salary), or a vast entitlement culture, or anything else the Europeans did that caused the crisis. NO! It is the fault of the United States . . . when times are good, however, I don't hear the Eurocrats thank the USA.
Dog bites man . . . nothing to see here, move along . . .
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