Conservative Blogs Central: Fast and Furious

Showing posts with label Fast and Furious. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 24

President Obama’s Smashed Hopes, Broken Dreams, and Broken Promises (Part II)

President Obama promised to eliminate earmarks and go “line by line” in every bill to eliminate them. Meanwhile, he remained aloof and detached from all legislation. He told us that here would be no lobbyists in his administration and said, “They will not fund my party; they will not run our White House...” But just look at how his failed stimulus favored Obama campaign donors like Solyndra, regardless of the wisdom of such special favors.

This president said he’d return the White House to the people, but instead instructed his staff to play its Secret Service security, ‘loosey-goosey,’ so the Salahi’s, who didn’t appear on his guest list – or anyone else - could enter the White House unquestioned. He said he wouldn’t take money from PACs, then turned around and did it.

Obama supporters insist that Mitt Romney bear the responsibility for what happened after he left Bain Capital in 1999. Yet, the president (who refused to release his college transcripts for some reason) and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, find hiding behind executive privilege acceptable, and refuse to turn over thousands of requested documents to Congress. The mainstream media and their allies take the president and Mr. Holder at their word when they claimed that neither one of them knew anything about the disastrous and failed gun-running program, Fast and Furious – in which the U.S. government sold guns to the Mexican cartels. (How many liberals have told me they hated when Reagan armed Saddam Hussein? Yet, F+F is okay with them – because this president gets a pass on everything.) Their response is eerily similar to responses they themselves give regarding moral questions - and right and wrong. They say that President Bush did the very same thing under a similar program (but here are the differences between F+F and Operation Wide Receiver:

1. No one died under WR.
2. WR traced those guns, F+F did not.
3. WR = 300 guns, F+F = 2,000 guns, and lost 1,400 of them.
4. WR shut down in 2007 after it was unveiled as a failure by President Bush’s admin., F+F shut down under President Obama – but only after pressure from Congress and after hundreds of Mexicans and one U.S. Border patrol agent died).

President Obama’s speech on July 16 contained his most disappointing statement to date. He said, “…If you built a business – you didn’t build that.” He suggested that business people didn’t succeed alone! They relied on the Internet, road builders, teachers who taught them in grade school, and public transportation systems. In other words, they owe their success to government programs. This is not only foolish and insulting, but it’s also a socialist idea: Ask me how I know. Let me pose a question. To paraphrase Red Eye’s Greg Gutfeld, “If government claims the credit for entrepreneurs’ successes because they used roads, doesn’t it bear the blame for every evil act committed by all the criminals who used the very same roads?

We Americans succeed because we innovate and start businesses when government is non-intrusive and refrains from imposing punishing taxes upon them. These companies flourish when a comfortable climate exists for the people who run them and for their investors. Hopefully the people will throw out this radical president and replace him with one who understands successful people. Perhaps then, we can get back to work, rebuilding the America which President Obama, up to now, has worked so very hard to destroy.

Tuesday, July 17

President Obama’s Smashed Hopes, Broken Dreams, and Broken Promises (Part I)

by Mark A. Cohen

Candidate Obama said that he wouldn’t add a dime to the federal deficit (he assured us he would cut it in half). Yet, he added more to it in 4 years as President Bush did in 8. He promised that his administration would be the most transparent in history – and then hid hundreds of pages of documents from Congress, all detailing the Mexican gun operation entitled, “Fast and Furious.” After assuring he’d televise the entire health care debate so the American public could understand the issues, one found almost none of it on TV, the Democrats blocked the Republicans from the debate, created the bill by themselves, and said they had to pass it so the rest of us could see what was in it!

After convincing us of his administration’s honesty and fairness, his bill’s passage was tied to back room deals and old-fashioned arm-twisting, reminiscent of the smoked-filled rooms the Democrats used to participate in, but complain about. Mr. Obama told us that the health care penalty for those who didn’t buy a policy was absolutely not a tax, but the Supreme Court decided that the only way the entire health care bill could be upheld as constitutional was by calling it a tax. Jack Rafferty, of CNN (part of the mainstream media’s rooting-for-the-president crowd), said of the unaffordable health care bill, “It was all just another lie that was told in order to get elected.”

President Obama said that if he didn’t fix the economy his presidency would be a one-term proposition. He didn’t improve it, but stubbornly runs his campaign for a second term anyway. He has the nerve to whine about his opponent, Mitt Romney’s outsourcing of jobs, while this president booted a good deal of the space program over to Eastern Europe. (His rationale must be that it doesn’t directly help the middle class and the poor.) Sadly, the Russians now launch our astronauts into space, and NASA does not. This president’s also okay with outsourcing our oil drilling to Brazil, and promised the Brazilians that America would be their best customer!

President Obama, after promising hope and change, now blames hurricanes, tsunamis, the Arab spring, and, of course, President Bush for his failures. Looks like it didn’t turn out the way this inexperienced, not-even-one-term Senator and former community organizer planned. He rolled his dice and failed. Aside from creating an enormous federal bureaucracy, doubling the national debt, knocking business people, creating a poor environment for businesses to flourish by increasing taxes and regulations, and pushing socialist policies such as government dependency, his supporters claim President Obama did a lot for us! I wonder what that is? Let’s replace him in November with an experienced person, Governor Mitt Romney, who works well with others, and knows a thing or two about running large operations, and creating jobs.

Tuesday, November 8

Eric Holder has to Go

After today's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am convinced that Attorney General Eric Holder needs to resign or be fired.

Holder refused to offer an apology to the family of Brian Terry, a Border Patrol agent who was killed last December. Weapons that were part of the Fast and Furious operation were found at the scene of his death.

Instead, Holder said that he "regrets" what happened and that it is "not fair to assume" that mistakes in the operation "directly led" to Terry's death.

This kind of behavior is unbecoming of an Attorney General, or any high-level government official.

At no point during the investigation into Fast and Furious has Holder accepted any amount of responsibility for the failure of the operation.

That seems to be the theme of this administration. The President has created a culture of finding others to take the fall and not being accountable.

Holder and Obama forget that they are accountable to the American people.

Congressman Paul Broun (R-GA) on Fox News today called on the President to fire Holder and said that the Attorney General should be prosecuted for lying under oath. According to Rep. Broun, "no one is above the law, not even the Attorney General."

I agree. We need to hold our leaders to the same, or even higher, standards than we do ourselves.
Unfortunately, this administration is only concerned with who gets the blame and not with solving the problems.

Fast and Furious is not going away. I expect the Republican candidate to use this next year during the campaign.

The failure of Eric Holder to properly administer his department is a great representation of the lack of leadership we have experienced over the past 34 months.

Eric Holder should be on his way out the door, followed closely by Barack Obama.

Wednesday, October 26

FAST AND FURIOUS, SOLYNDRA AND ALL THAT JAZZ

“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president."

Presidential candidate Barack Obama, Des Moines, IA, November 10, 2007

Be wary of holier than thou campaign decrees. As the left’s messiah was paying tribute to himself in Iowa, George Kaiser, key Obama political bundler and investor in Solyndra, was most likely collecting his thoughts on how to wrangle some payola from his candidate, if elected. To wit paybacks are a bitch, especially for the American taxpayer.

The Obama regime has been busy lately triaging a number “what did you know and when did you know it” scandals, which are a hodgepodge of incompetence, cronyism and partisan bullying. The conventional wisdom is how they appear to be very Watergate-like. But the aroma of these scandals reeks more of “plead the fifth” Chicago- style gangsterism, the President's hometown, than the inside the beltway cloak and dagger trappings of Watergate.

Number one on the hit list resulted in the tragic death of an American border agent. “Fast and Furious" was an ATF gunrunning operation where 2,000 weapons were sold to small-time gun buyers in the hopes of tracing them to Mexican drug lords trafficking in weapons along the southwestern border and into Mexico. This botched sting operation has been connected to at least 11 violent crimes in the United States, including the killing of border patrol agent Brian Terry in Arizona with one of the ATF Fast and Furious weapons, and approximately 200 violent crimes in Mexico.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is busy investigating Fast and Furious and the Solyndra scandals. Rep. Issa also sits on the House Judiciary Committee and AG Eric Holder, America’s “crack” chief law enforcement officer, testified to that committee on May 3 claiming “sin conocimiento” in the whole Fast and Furious mess up until just a few weeks before the hearing.

But evidence surfaced that Holder was in cover up mode and he knew of Fast and Furious as of July 2010. In fact he had a conversation on the operation with Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) in the Senator’s office in January, 2011 and also told Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) on March 10, 2011 that he had learned of "concerns" about the program. So obviously Mr. Holder lied under oath to Congress as to his knowledge of this fiasco. In the wake of Mr. Holder’s congressional canards he threw under the bus and fired a number of ATF and U.S. attorney officials.

The looming question is why was this feckless operation initiated in the first place. Be careful if you’re planning on posing this question to an Obama spokesperson lest you have your head handed to you, just ask CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson. ATF Special Agent Peter Forcelli testified to Rep. Issa’s committee’s that the entire operation was a grand waste by saying, “The thought that the techniques used in the “Fast and Furious” investigation would result in “taking down a cartel” given the toothless nature of the “straw purchasing law” and the lack of a strong “firearms trafficking statute” is, in my opinion, delusional.”

Was Fast and Furious simply more incompetence emanating from the Obama regime, a la its economic policies, or was there something more insidious at play? Some claim that Fast and Furious was an elaborate attempt to further the Obama regime’s efforts to satisfy second amendment restrictions for its special interest lobbyists. Rep. Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Grassley (R-IA) have even posited that the Obama administration actually initiated the program as an advance attempt at furthering gun control in the U.S. In fact, ATF and Explosives agent, John Dodson told Rep. Issa’s House Oversight Committee that David Voth, supervisor of Fast and Furious was “jovial, if not, not giddy but just delighted about" marked guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico.”

Rep. Issa’s committee has subpoenaed communications from top Justice dept. officials. But regardless of the committee’s findings as to whether Fast and Furious was due to ineptness or treachery, AG Holder's self-serving cover up adds a disrespectful insult to the tragic deaths of agent Brian Terry and others.

From Fast and Furious’ sinister cover-up we turn to Solyndra’s crony capitalism. Solyndra is the poster child for Obama’s socialist utopia, where “omnipotent and brilliant” central planners such as he select society’s winners and losers,at the expense of the taxpayers; and you’re definitely a winner if you contributed heavily to the central planner’s campaign. It’s sordid details include George Kaiser, key Solyndra investor with a 35.7% stock ownership through his Foundations, billionaire oilman, a major Obama donor and frequent guest at the White House who openly indicated that the President was fast and loose with the taxpayer’s dollars saying, “There’s never been more money shoved out of the government’s door in world history, and probably never will be again, than in the last few months and in the next 18 months.” Kaiser’s Solyndra received $535 million loan federal guarantee and that’s a lot of shoving.

Solyndra was a solar panel manufacturing company that received its $535 million federal loan guarantee via Obama's failed Stimulus package. The President has a green jobs spending “slush” fund of approximately $30 billion which was rolled into the Stimulus plan which is devoted to playing Russian roulette with taxpayer’s money. The Solyndra plant cost $733 million, $535 million funded by taxpayers, and was replete with robots that whistled Disney tunes, spa-like showers with liquid-crystal displays of the water temperature, and glass-walled conference rooms. “The new building is like the Taj Mahal” said John Pierce who worked as a facilities manager at Solyndra. It’s comforting to know the Solyndra folks were enjoying state of the art comfort at taxpayer’s expense.

In April 2010 President Obama touted Solyndra as “leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future”. But according to financial reports Solyndra didn’t have much of a future itself. A month before the President’s laudatory comments the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers issued a warning about Solyndra’s going concern status by stating the company wasn't making money, never had, and this raised "substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern."

Solyndra violated it’s government loan terms in December 2010 and admitted to the Obama regime it was running out of money. But the Obama regime continued to fund it despite it’s projected bankruptcy, continuing the process of throwing precious taxpayer money after a bad investment, and Solyndra subsequently filed for bankruptcy in September 2011. Solyndra isn’t the only failed green energy company to be selected by the Obama regime's scratch card venture capital lottery. It's one of 42 other projects in the Energy department’s taxpayer funded governmental venture capitalist lottery totaling $30 billion. At least four other “Solyndras” have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy.

So the Solyndra story ends with taxpayer’s losing $535 million in some bankrupt green company orchestrated by the Obama regime’s desire to play loan shark to one of his crony capitalist donors. But not to worry because there is a happy ending for the Obama cronies. Mr. Kaiser, the President’s favorite bundler, is fine since his Solyndra investment has preferential treatment in the bankruptcy proceedings, and the Solyndra executives have invoked the Fifth Amendment refusing to testify before Congress. So the old payola is alive and well in the Obama regime and his cronies, who in Chicago gangland fashion “copped the fifth”, would make Al Capone proud.

Fast and Furious and Solyndra-- the equivalent of Chicago’s Capone era St. Valentines’ Day massacre and gangster graft. The song lyrics to “My Kind Of Town”, the famous homage to President Obama's hometown, say Chicago “has all that jazz”. It appears that the President has taken some of that jazz to the White House.

Saturday, September 17

Mail Call for September 17, 2011

Mail’s in!

Dear GOP: This is what is known as infiltration. It is a process in which individuals (or small groups) penetrate an area (especially the military penetration of enemy positions without detection). This is something islam has been doing for centuries. It is a means of gaining control. No you do realize this don’t you? You really aren’t that stupid are you? (Source) OMG! You are! You really are that stupid!

Dear New York Times: Have you ever heard the term “Sleeping with the Enemy”? (Source)

Dear World: Welcome to Islam. (Source)

Dear Congress: Can you please explain why Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama have not yet been brought up on charges of accessory to murder? (Source)

Dear President Obama: Can you please explain why your administration wants our military to use a product that is known to interfere with their GPS systems? Wouldn’t using this product prevent them from effectively sending GPS guided missiles against our enemies? Just wondering. By the way, your kufi is showing again. (Source)

Dear President Obama: Is this a portent of things to come? Huh, Barry? Got something against Christians, do you? You good little muzzie you! (Source)

Dear Mayor Bloomberg: I assume you were leading the march? And wearing your new cute little kufi too I suppose. (Source)

Dear Johnny: You know that whole debt ceiling limit thing? Well, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours! *wink, wink*. Love ya, Barry (Source)

Dear U.N.: And you want to give these cockroaches their own state, why? (Source)

Wednesday, September 14

Mail Call for September 13, 2011

This was supposed to be for yesterday, but hey, you know how it goes sometimes!

Dear President Obama: How nice of you to give your blessing to the Taliban to open up political offices in Qatar. (Source). I see that your little buddy’s have responded by attacking our embassy in Afghanistan. How nice. I assume this is all part of your “job’s plan,” but we all thought you meant you were giving jobs to Americans, not helping a terrorist organization to expand its operations. (Source). Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, well … see ya at the polls.

P.S.: So why is it necessary for the Taliban to receive your blessing anyway?

Dear Mayor Bloomberg: Glad to see that cultural diversity training isn’t going to waste. (Source)

Dear Aviation Institute Of Maintenance of Northeast Philadelphia: My, my, my, aren’t we the understanding type! Welcome to the Anthony Weiner Fan Club. Your official membership card and t-shirt will be arriving soon. (Source)

Dear Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Just wanted to let you know that this is not a “unilateral humanitarian gesture” nor is it a “unilateral pardon.” This is what is commonly known as kidnapping and extortion. Just so ya know. By the way, you do realize that you are the son of a cur dog, because, well, you are you crazy megalomaniacal whack job. (Source)

Dear Rep. John Mica: I would like to recommend Blackwater, DynCorp, or Beni Tal as acceptable alternatives. They not only have the experience, but actually do understand what to look for, as opposed to, say, the TSA. (Source)

Dear Columbia University: I do not believe any cultural exchange program should include terrorists. Just so you know. Unless of course, you are hoping your students will be kidnapped and held for ransom. (Source)

Dear MSNBC: Thank you so much for extending the helping hand of understanding, and employing the mentally challenged, the criminally deranged, as well as certifiable whackadoodles. I expect we will soon see Muammar Gaddafi and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosting political commentary programs right alongside Ed Schultz, Rachael Maddow, Chrissy Matthews, Dylan Ratigan, Al Sharpton and other asylum escapee’s right alongside your token terrorist lover, Touré. (Source)

Dear Ann Curry: Nice hijab! Does he get to beat you as well? Are you part of his harem now? Or is this just another MSM “pandering to terrorists” piece? Just asking. (Source)

Dear Eric Holder: Business as usual I see. I assume this was a joint effort between yourself, Barry Obama, and Janet Napolitano since you apparently have not been able to stop the gunwalker investigation. By choosing this tactic, I can only assume that Issa and Grassley are actually close to nailing you. (Source)

Dear American Journal of Preventive Medicine: “Oh! What big eyes you have!” “The better to see you with my dear!” “What big ears you have!” “The better to hear you with my dear!” “And what big hands you have!” “The better to grab you with my dear!!!” (Source)

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Tuesday, July 24

President Obama’s Smashed Hopes, Broken Dreams, and Broken Promises (Part II)

Tuesday, July 17

President Obama’s Smashed Hopes, Broken Dreams, and Broken Promises (Part I)

Tuesday, November 8

Eric Holder has to Go

Wednesday, October 26

FAST AND FURIOUS, SOLYNDRA AND ALL THAT JAZZ

Saturday, September 17

Mail Call for September 17, 2011

Wednesday, September 14

Mail Call for September 13, 2011

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