Saturday, July 9, 2011

Obama stimulus funded 'guns-to-drug-lords' plan

BELTWAY GUNRUNNERS

Spending bill gave $10 million of taxpayers' funding to effort
By Michael Carl

© 2011 WND



Just a day after U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., called for Attorney General Eric Holder's removal, alleging a White House connection to the "Project Gunrunner" that allowed weapons to be delivered to Mexican drug lords, confirmation has come that the program originated at the highest levels of the Obama administration.

The link is the $10 million in taxpayer dollars designated to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for Project Gunrunner in Obama's 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, otherwise known as the Stimulus Bill.

Section 5, Division A, Title II, under the heading of "Office of Justice Programs," says the money is set aside for border regions.

For an additional amount for 'State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance,' $90,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2014, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to 'Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses' for the ATF Project Gunrunner.

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Gun Owners of America President Larry Pratt believes stimulus money was given to a drug dealer to buy guns.

"Ten million dollars, and one of the ways they were spending it was a paid FBI informant who was a drug dealer they had flipped. So he was buying lots of guns with that stimulus money," Pratt said.

Pratt said that the stimulus bill enhanced one industry in particular.

"We can say there's one thing that was stimulated by the stimulus bill and that was the Mexican undertaker business," Pratt said. "Mexican authorities say that 150 people were murdered using these guns."

Listen to an interview with Pratt:

Pratt said that the gun buyer involved was the subject of what he calls an "aspect of tragic comedy."

"This FBI informant was being surveilled by the ATF that was running the Fast and Furious Operation and they had no idea that he was an FBI informant," Pratt observed.

"But obviously they didn't need to be informed because they didn't care. They just wanted the guns to walk," he stated.

Today, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said he would support the call for a special prosecutor if members of Congress investigating the issue believe that is the best solution.

Appearing on the Steve Gill show, he said, "The point of our inquiry is to find out who really signed off on this operation. Who is the one who said 'yeah, this is a good thing to do.' It might have sounded like a good idea, but it ended up with the murder of Mr. Terry, a border control agent, and two of the guns were found at the scene of that murder."

A report in the San Francisco Chronicle says that FBI informants were connected to the ATF's Project Gunrunner.

Firearms law analyst and writer David Codrea believes that even if there is evidence to prove that known criminals used taxpayer money to get guns to take to Mexico, nothing is likely to be done with the evidence.

"If left to Holder's Justice Department, nothing, because it shows this had to be top-level DoJ-authorized," Codrea explained.

Reports say other federal agencies have also been drawn into the operation. The DEA, FBI and upper-level DOJ officers, including the U. S. Attorney's office in Phoenix, have been named.

Attorney General Holder's office has not responded to WND's request for comment.

Codrea believes that it's possible that ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson's office was bypassed in decision-making about the operation.

"It's absolutely possible and may even be probable that they bypassed Melson in the operation. However, that does not excuse him from having no control of his agency," Codrea said.

"But this kind of thing cannot take place in your agency unless you have unless you have people ... who are absolutely flat-out lying to you," he said.

Pratt also believes that some of the guns were purchased by the Mexican cartels directly from federal agents.

"One of the founders of the cartel, one of their top 14 directors if you will, a guy whose nickname is El Mamito, has said that he was buying guns directly from the federal government," Pratt explained.

Jesus Rejon Aguilar, nicknamed El Mamito or "Pretty Boy," the third highest ranking member of the drug gang Los Zetas, was captured Monday by Mexican authorities.

Pratt said he believes for the guns to go across at a designated location, there had to be coordination between several federal law enforcement agencies.

"There had to be some kind of a deal with the Border Patrol. ... We know that in that '09 meeting that set-up Fast and Furious, those four or five agencies were all part of the deal," Pratt said.

Pratt said that it's not likely that many of the representatives who voted for the stimulus package were aware that money was allocated for Project Gunrunner.

"Anyone who voted for the stimulus bill has another reason to regret their vote. Obviously they didn't read the bill," Pratt asserted. "They don't read most of the bills up there at all."

Pratt illustrated his comment by citing former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comment about the health care bill: "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy."

Several border state representatives contacted about the stimulus package and its allocation of $10 million for Project Gunrunner have not returned WND's calls.

Pratt also said that he's supportive of West's call for the removal of Holder and for a special prosecutor to be appointed.

"This is something that is very appropriate. While Rep. Issa was very correct in his choice of words, he said he didn't think Attorney General Eric Holder told the truth," Pratt said. "He could have said it more sharply, that he thinks Eric Holder is a liar, but it comes out the same in the wash."

Codrea believes that the pressure felt by the administration may be the leverage needed for the Justice Department or the White House to force Melson to resign.

"I think they were hoping they could have him quietly transferred out but he saw what was going on and he has to understand which way the wind blows and he has things on higher ups and they want him to keep quiet," Codrea commented.

"It looks like [Melson] decided that going quietly is not in his best interest. What was in his best interest is to lawyer up and to go and talk to the congressional oversight committee," he said.

Listen in an interview with Codrea:

Codrea and Pratt believe that the issue is going to get bigger as more details become public. Pratt believes that if Issa's committee continues its work, the entire scenario may rise to the level of Watergate.

"Just like Watergate became the only thing the Richard Nixon administration could think about, I think 'Fast and Furious' is coming to the point where it's going to be an all consuming issue," Pratt said.

"It's going to take the Obama regime off their stride and they're going to have to be playing defense."


Read more: Obama stimulus funded 'guns-to-drug-lords' plan http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=320221#ixzz1RcQTHHqx

Obama plan: 'Spike' energy costs, kill 1.4 million jobs

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER

Industry group blasts White House decision to raise electricity bills now
By Drew Zahn

© 2011 WND



EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson

Even before he was elected president, Barack Obama warned he would "bankrupt" the coal industry if necessary and purposefully spike Americans' utility bills in order to force the nation into using less and cleaner forms of energy.


Read more: Obama plan: 'Spike' energy costs, kill 1.4 million jobs http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=320209#ixzz1RcLuMKIe

Now, industry partners warn, the White House is making good on that promise by issuing a new rule that will raise some Midwesterners' electricity bills over 23 percent by 2016 and cost an estimated 1.44 million jobs by 2020.

Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its new Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which requires coal companies to dramatically cut sulfur dioxide and nitrogen emissions – which the EPA says travel across state lines and contribute to ozone pollution – by 2014.

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The EPA claims the new rule will prevent 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 heart attacks and 400,000 cases of asthma starting in 2014, which would amount to $280 billion a year in health benefits.

But according to the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, the White House plans, in combination with other new EPA rules, would be "among the most expensive ever imposed by the agency" and deal a devastating blow to both family budgets and the job market.

"The EPA is ignoring the cumulative economic damage new regulations will cause," said Steve Miller, president and CEO of ACCCE, in a statement. "Our industry needs adequate time to install clean coal technologies to comply with new regulations. Unfortunately, EPA doesn't seem to care."

He continued, "We urge EPA to take a realistic look at the enormous impact of all the regulations they are considering and how those regulations affect families and businesses. In a time of high unemployment, we should be pursuing sensible policies that create jobs, not eliminate jobs."

Miller's assertions are based on a study conducted for the ACCCE by National Economic Research Associates.

The study details a dramatic leap in the number of coal plants that would need to be retired almost immediately to meet the EPA regulations, a consequent surge in natural gas prices to meet electricity demand, a loss of jobs at four times the pace of new energy job creation and a region-by-region projection of electricity costs through the year 2025.

The projections show the national average retail electricity price jumping 11.5 percent by 2016, with some states, like Kentucky and Tennessee, suffering a 23.5-percent spike.

The chart below details the projected increase:

The EPA contends the rules are needed for health purposes.

"No community should have to bear the burden of another community's polluters or be powerless to prevent air pollution that leads to asthma, heart attacks and other harmful illnesses," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said earlier this week. "These Clean Air Act safeguards will help protect the health of millions of Americans and save lives by preventing smog and soot pollution from traveling hundreds of miles and contaminating the air they breathe."

But Republicans in Congress are among those blasting what they claim are overly burdensome government regulations.

"This Administration proves time and time again that they [sic] just don't understand how its actions crush jobs across the country," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said in a statement. "Today's economically devastating rule is just the latest strike in the Administration's ongoing war against traditional sources of American energy."

All according to plan?

As WND reported, then-Sen. Barack Obama said in the Democratic primaries that the government should intentionally drive energy bills up through "price signals" in order to force Americans into more environmentally friendly choices.

In a Nov. 9, 2007, interview on Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press," Obama said, "I think it is important for us to send some price signals to change behavior. You know, if electricity goes up, people start becoming more mindful of their electricity bill."

Perhaps predictive of the EPA's most recent ruling, Obama then clarified how the government could implement the kind price signals that change consumer habits:

"We're going to have to cap the emission of greenhouse gases," Obama said. "That means that power plants are going to have to adjust how they generate power. They will pass on those costs to consumers. … A lot of us who can afford it are going to have to pay more per unit of electricity, and that means we're going to have to change our light bulbs, we're going to have to shut the lights off in our houses."

In a speech two months later, Obama further detailed a long-term, cap-and-trade energy plan that would target coal plants in America.

"Whatever power plants are being built, they would have to meet the rigors of that [carbon-exchange] market and the ratcheted-down caps that are imposed every year," he explained. "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them, because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."


Read more: Obama plan: 'Spike' energy costs, kill 1.4 million jobs http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=320209#ixzz1RcMOOhpI

Thursday, July 7, 2011

'Nazi' police 'kidnap' woman at town hall

ARMED AND DANGEROUS

Outraged mayor: 'I'm not going to quit until I see them in jail'


By Joe Kovacs

© 2011 WND


A small town in Arizona is suddenly a YouTube sensation after a town-hall meeting devolved into a physical clash as a woman was forcibly removed from speaking during the public portion of the event.

Jennifer "Jade" Jones, 45, of Quartzsite, Ariz., was taken into custody by local police at the behest of Quartzsite councilmembers, over the objections of the mayor, who pleaded with officers not to remove the woman.

The incident took place June 28 during the "call to the public" section of the meeting, as Jones, a pet groomer who also publishes the Desert Freedom Press, was addressing matters of taxation and meeting protocol.

Some councilmembers interrupted Jones as she was addressing the council and audience, ordering her to relinquish the microphone.


Councilman Joe Winslow of Quartzsite, Ariz., led the charge to have Jennifer Jones removed from speaking.

"You may leave, or you may be escorted out," Councilman Joe Winslow warned Jones.

Jones immediately told Winslow, "You can leave or be escorted out as well. You are out of order."

Then, as police Sgt. Fabiola Garcia attempted to take the microphone away from Jones, Mayor Ed Foster came to the Jones' defense and interjected, "Officer, that woman has the floor. You're violating my rules of order here. Sergeant, I have control of the meeting."

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Jones was able to speak for a few moments more, but councilmembers insisted police move in and subdue her.

"Do not resist the officer!" Police Chief Jeff Gilbert instructed Jones, who responded, "I am not resisting!"

When Jones refused to give up the microphone, officers forcibly removed her from the premises, and cited her for disorderly conduct. Jones suffered a torn ligament in her elbow during the scuffle, and was transported to La Paz Regional Hospital.

In an interview with WND, Jones said she was never informed she was "under arrest," and so she'll seek charges of kidnapping and aggravated assault against the officers.

"That's what I'll ask for. It'll be up to the state attorney general," she said. "I've never seen in my entire life such a group of people with such contempt for the law."

Jones, who claims she's been previously harassed by police, says recently some officers – including Chief Jeff Gilbert – have been acting more erratically and dangerously, and says he even gave a speech comparing outspoken citizens like herself to Jared Loughner, the gunman who shot Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson on Jan. 8.

Just three days after the shooting that killed six people and left 14 others injured including the congresswoman, Gilbert quoted a comment published in Jones' paper that read in part: "So Jeff and Q.P.D., the next time you piss off a patriot, think maybe, just maybe they won't be as calm as I am. You think nothing bad will ever happen to you because you are a cop with a 10-cent badge and a gun? Don't be so sure. ... As this economy gets worse and the people get more desperate, remember that desperate people do desperate things. And as people start to lose it, they simply lose it."

Gilbert then explained, "These words are warning signs. The propaganda that's being spread about the local government – these are warning signs. The behavior, the outbursts, the actions that have been taking place in some of these council meetings, they are warning signs."

"'He's setting up to shoot us!' That's what we thought. He's coming up with a pretense to pull a gun," Jones said. "Police are to protect and serve, not to harass and intimidate. It has to stop. Someone's going to get really hurt, not just a torn ligament."

When asked about the actions of the non-partisan town council, Jones said, "I liken them to monkeys in the zoo. They make a lot of noise and throw a lot of feces around, but at the end of the day they're just primates and don't deserve to be writing checks for [a town of] about 3,800 people. They don't deserve to be managing money. They don't act like they're at the top of the food chain. It's embarrassing."


Mayor Ed Foster of Quartzsite, Ariz., says his town is filled with massive corruption among government officials.

Mayor Foster, a retired Marine and former engineer for Wrigley Chewing Gum, is standing by Jones' account, and says the town council and police department are filled with corruption.

"He's just an insane person, that chief of police," the mayor said of Gilbert. "He's a Nazi ... he's completely out of control. He thinks he's running the town."

WND sought comment from Gilbert, but a 9-1-1 dispatcher said the town was dealing with a massive power outage this afternoon, and the chief could not be reached.

Mayor Foster said it's not just the police chief, but also the town manager and tax collector who are creating a terrifying atmosphere.

"People in town are scared to death of them," he said. "It's just a clear pattern of harassment and intimidation by this government. These people have run this town like they owned it. It's got to be fixed and I'm not going to quit until I see them in jail."

The mayor says the council has even precluded him from examining the payroll. He believes he's uncovered some possible financial wrongdoing involving checks being paid to unknown personnel, and he speculates the recipients could be councilmembers themselves.

"They're playing a sleight-of-hand with federal money," Foster said. "I've tried to get the FBI, the governor and attorney general involved, and no one has paid attention. But since this video, people are asking, 'What's going on in Quartzsite?'"

The town of Quartzsite is located some two hours by car west of Phoenix, at the intersection of Interstate 10 and U.S. Highway 95.

"There's nothing but jack-rabbits and coyotes here," noted the mayor. "We're in the middle of nowhere, 40 miles from the nearest Walmart."

Foster calls the councilmembers "idiots depriving people of their First Amendment rights," and thinks a reckoning could soon be forthcoming for them.

"I got 1,200 emails yesterday," he said, as the YouTube video has soared to nearly 40,000 views. "All of a sudden, everyone's commenting. If I were them, I'd be scared to death."

One of those emails was from Robert Bright, stating, "I hope to dear God Jennifer Jones sues your city for every penny she can get! Your type of thuggish governing is why our Founding Fathers of the American colonies decided to throw off the tyrannical rule of King George of England in 1776."

Town officials are also being verbally scorched in online messageboards.

Byron Brunskill commented, "Liberty does not exist in the United States under the rule of people like this council. We need the right of recall of all elected politicians including the Congress and the president of the United States."

Dave Kawasaki said, "People seem to have forgotten just how to control their local governments. I hope the arrestee sues everyone involved, in both personal and professional/elected capacity. I hope she wins enough to bankrupt them all, and I hope she runs for office on the proceeds."

The next council meeting is slated for Tuesday night.

"It promises to be just as dynamic as they've been," Mayor Foster said.


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Read more: 'Nazi' police 'kidnap' woman at town hall http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=319501#ixzz1RRg1IE7x

Monday, July 4, 2011

American Constitution faces 'progressive' threat

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

Look what Obama's buddies plan for founding document


By Aaron Klein

© 2011 WND



Attorney General Eric Holder
Still more White House officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, have ties to an effort funded by billionaire George Soros to push for a new, "progressive" U.S. Constitution.

WND previously reported how President Obama's regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, maintained extensive ties to Soros' funding, particularly with regard to a movement that openly seeks to create a "progressive" consensus on what the U.S. Constitution should provide by the year 2020.

Now, it has emerged that Lisa Brown, Obama's staff secretary, served as executive director of the Soros-funded American Constitution Society, ACS, a progressive legal organization that was behind the Constitution scheme.

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Brown's White House responsibilities include managing the flow of information, advice and decision-making between staff members and Obama.

Also, Holder has been closely tied to the ACS, serving on the group's board of directors and even keynoting their 10th anniversary national convention earlier this month.

In 2008, Holder also keynoted their convention. At that event, he reportedly urged young lawyers to get involved in the liberal legal network, saying America would soon be "run by progressives."

"The pendulum is starting to swing. America run by progressives. Really. It's about to happen. So we're going to be looking for people who share our values," he stated, as captured in a YouTube video.

In April 2005, Sunstein opened up a conference at Yale Law School entitled "The Constitution in 2020," which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.

The event was sponsored by Soros' Open Society Institute and the Center for American Progress, which is led by John Podesta, who served as co-chair of Obama's presidential transition team. Podesta's center is said to be highly influential in helping to craft White House policy.

The Yale event on the Constitution was also sponsored by the ACS, which has been described as a group meant to counter the work of the Federalist Society, which has been at the forefront of the push for a more conservative judiciary since its launch in 1982.

The ACS is the main organization behind the movement to ensure a more "progressive" Constitution. It has received more that $2.2 million from Soros' Open Society since 2002.

Brown, Obama's staff secretary, wrote an entry on the blog for the "Constitution 2020" conference at Yale Law School in which she decried conservative interpretations of the Constitution.

She wrote: "Conservatives have captured the intellectual initiative in popular and even much elite discourse. Their success in framing and communicating fundamental conservative principles has contributed to real legal and political change over the last two decades. Will we allow narrow and sterile conservative interpretations of our Constitution's vital principles and protections to reshape our national character and control our daily lives? Our answer, on this weekend and on every day of the coming years, is a resounding No."

Like Holder, Sunstein, meanwhile, has spoken at numerous ACS events. For example, he was a speaker at a November 2003 symposium by the American Constitution Society of the University of Chicago School of Law, where Sunstein was a professor.

But it was the 2005 Yale event led in part by Sunstein that has been described as jumpstarting the movement for a "progressive" constitution.

Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, wrote in a 2009 New York Times Magazine piece about so-called liberal justice: "If this new understanding of legal liberalism can be traced back to a single moment, it was in April 2005, when the American Constitution Society and other progressive groups sponsored a conference at Yale Law School called 'The Constitution in 2020.'"

New 'Bill of Rights'

The Constitution 2020 movement has plotted a strategy for how liberal lawyers and judges might bring such a constitutional regime into being.

Just before his appearance at the Yale conference, Sunstein wrote a blog entry in which he explained he "will be urging that it is important to resist, on democratic grounds, the idea that the document should be interpreted to reflect the view of the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party."

Sunstein has also been pushing for a new socialist-style U.S. bill of rights that, among other things, would constitutionally require the government to offer each citizen a "useful" job in the farms or industries of the nation.

According to Sunstein's new bill of rights, the U.S. government can also intercede to ensure every farmer can sell his product for a good return while the government is granted power to act against "unfair competition" and monopolies in business.

All this and more is contained in Sunstein's 2004 book, "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR'S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever."

In the work, Sunstein advanced the radical notion that welfare rights, including some controversial inceptions, be granted by the state. His inspiration for a new bill of rights came from President Roosevelt's 1944 proposal of a different, new set of rights.

In his book, Sunstein laid out what he wants to become the new bill of rights, which he calls the Second Bill of Rights:

His mandates include the following:

  • The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

  • The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

  • The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return that will give him and his family a decent living;

  • The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

  • The right of every family to a decent home;

  • The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

  • The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment;

  • The right to a good education.

On one page in his book, Sunstein claims he is "not seriously arguing" his bill of rights be "encompassed by anything in the Constitution," but on the next page he states that "if the nation becomes committed to certain rights, they may migrate into the Constitution itself."

Later in the book, Sunstein argues that "at a minimum, the second bill should be seen as part and parcel of America's constitutive commitments."

With research by Brenda J. Elliott