Suspending Elections: A Joke? I Think Not...

Benedict Arnold
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North Carolina governor (Democrat) Beverly Perdue has stated "it was only a joke" when she proposed suspending congressional elections for two years until Congress can get the country economically back on track.

Uhh, I don't think so.

What do you think?  Does this sound like a joke?  Here's the quote from Governor Perdue:

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Maybe Governor Perdue wants to extend the moratorium on elections to North Carolina, seeing as how her campaign is under criminal investigation, hmmm?

She sounds a lot like President Obama's former director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, who wrote an article on "Why We Need Less Democracy":

To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.

More on "Fast and Furious"

Okay, let's look a bit more at "Fast and Furious", the more than 1,400 2,000 2,500 guns that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Department of Justice, allowed to "walk" across the border to Mexico.

The guns included "dozens of .50 caliber sniper rifles".

The operation is responsible for at least 200 deaths, including two federal agents.

The operation whose budget has exploded (pun intended) and is partially funded by Stimulus money.

The operation that everyone in the Obama Administration forgot to mention to Mexico.

So, who knew about Fast and Furious?  Who's responsible?  Who let this get so out-of-control?

"Not me," said President Obama.

"Not me," said Attorney General Holder.

"Not me," said Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano.

Let's start with some of the latest information about "Fast and Furious".  As you know, it was started to track guns illegally taken across the Mexican border.  Well, it seems that BATF (which is part of the Department of the Treasury) and the DOJ merely needed to question their fellow compatriots over at the DEA and the FBI---both of which are part of the Department of Justice. 

You see, it was an FBI informant that was taking the guns across the border to the Mexican drug cartels.

Basically, "Fast and Furious" could have been closed long ago.

But it should have been closed down long ago.  Even a year-and-a-half ago (January 2010), "Fast and Furious" guns had been found at the sites of at least 6 serious crimes. That was before the death of Agent Brian Terry. 

Yet Attorney General Holder continues to deny any culpability, despite a slew of recent resignations and transfers of people involved in this scandal.  These include the Obama appointee U.S. Attorney in Arizona (Dennis Burke), the Assistant U.S. Attorney General (Emory Hurley), the Acting Director of the ATF (Kenneth Melson) and two more ATF administrators. 

Holder has also thus far refused to provide information to the Congressional investigation headed by Representative Issa and Senator Grassley.  Holder denies that the DOJ underlings consulted with him or his office in this internationally-sensitive gun-running operation.

Acting Director of the BATF Melson, BTW, was transferred to the Washington D.C. DOJ office as the "senior adviser on forensic science" (whatever that is) ---- but AFTER he had moved all the folks involved in "Fast and Furious" on to other assignments on orders from his superiors in the DOJ, who ALSO ordered him not to mention "Fast and Furious" to Congress as the reason for the shuffling.

On a further note, emails have surfaced revealing that officials in the White House knew about "Fast and Furious".  Emails concerning the gun-running operation went to Kevin M. O'Reilly (director of North American Affairs for White House national security); Dan Restrepo (the president's senior Latin American advisor), and Greg Gatjanis (a White House national security official).  According to the White House, no one else in the White House knew of these emails.

Two more items I'd suggest you look at:

#1 The letter from the Congressional investigation team to the DOJ--very interesting reading.  It's here.

#2  How this is affecting the family of Agent Brian Terry--very sad reading.  It's here.

AND, congrats to Issa and Grassley for continuing to check out this fiasco.

Back into Blogging: Furiouser and Furiouser



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It's time to get into blogging again, so let's start with something close to home--my home, Texas.

Such as the so-called "Fast and Furious" federal initiative, which has greatly affected border states.

A brief review:

Brian Terry, a U.S. Border Patrol agent, was shot in 2010 by rifles found to have been sold to Mexican thugs in an operation (run by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives and the Department of Justice) called Project Gunrunner, or "Fast and Furious".

"Fast and Furious" guns have also been implicated in the death of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata.

"Fast and Furious" consisted of selling assault guns to known intermediates who would in turn sell these weapons to Mexican drug cartels.  In fact, these guns were sold over the objection of Americans who ran legally-operated gun shops.  (You SHOULD read this article here.)

The purpose? Well, this operations was begun in 2005 under President Bush as a BATFE endeavor to stop illegal gun trafficking across the Mexican border.  It was to work with the Mexican government by monitoring undercover gun sales.

Under President Obama's administration, the gunwalking operation (then known as "Project Gunrunner") continued to expand rapidly, despite warnings that the tracking methods just weren't working well.  Guns were finding their way into the hands of Mexican narco-terrorists without being tracked OR intercepted.

The BATFE has lost track of over 1,400 assault weapons in Project Gunrunner, if you're interested in exactly how negligent they've been.

The Obama administration also greatly increased Project Gunrunner's (aka Fast and Furious) budget, giving it $10 million dollars in Stimulus Money.  Hard to believe, but true.

So how is Mexico reacting to all this?  Not well.  Especially since Mexico hadn't been informed of the project.

And even more especially since the lost guns are turning up in crimes committed in Mexico, including murders and kidnappings. 

Some Mexican officials are not at all happy; some are now demanding the extradition of BAFTE and DOJ officials who are involved in Fast and Furious.

So, exactly who in the BATFE and DOJ ARE involved?  Tune in next time.........

Job Growth: A Big, Fat Zero

As in "None", "Nada", "Zip".

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President Obama's policies have now shown their full effects.