The irrepressible Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball tries to make sense of the recent revelations that suggest that Issa’s oversight committee findings are not true…
Daily Archives: June 27, 2012
The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal
Reports are that the Fortune Magazine investigation on the so-called Fast and Furious brouhaha investigated the issue for more than six months before coming out with this report today.
CNN Money
A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust.
FORTUNE–In the annals of impossible assignments, Dave Voth’s ranked high. In 2009 the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives promoted Voth to lead Phoenix Group VII, one of seven new ATF groups along the Southwest border tasked with stopping guns from being trafficked into Mexico’s vicious drug war.
Some call it the “parade of ants”; others the “river of iron.” The Mexican government has estimated that 2,000 weapons are smuggled daily from the U.S. into Mexico. The ATF is hobbled in its effort to stop this flow. No federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking, so agents must build cases using a patchwork of often toothless laws. For six years, due to Beltway politics, the bureau has gone without permanent leadership, neutered in its fight for funding and authority. The National Rifle Association has so successfully opposed a comprehensive electronic database of gun sales that the ATF’s congressional appropriation explicitly prohibits establishing one.
Voth, 39, was a good choice for a Sisyphean task. Strapping and sandy-haired, the former Marine is cool-headed and punctilious to a fault. In 2009 the ATF named him outstanding law-enforcement employee of the year for dismantling two violent street gangs in Minneapolis. He was the “hardest working federal agent I’ve come across,” says John Biederman, a sergeant with the Minneapolis Police Department. But as Voth left to become the group supervisor of Phoenix Group VII, a friend warned him: “You’re destined to fail.”
Voth’s mandate was to stop gun traffickers in Arizona, the state ranked by the gun-control advocacy group Legal Community Against Violence as having the nation’s “weakest gun violence prevention laws.” Just 200 miles from Mexico, which prohibits gun sales, the Phoenix area is home to 853 federally licensed firearms dealers. Billboards advertise volume discounts for multiple purchases.
Customers can legally buy as many weapons as they want in Arizona as long as they’re 18 or older and pass a criminal background check. There are no waiting periods and no need for permits, and buyers are allowed to resell the guns. “In Arizona,” says Voth, “someone buying three guns is like someone buying a sandwich.”
By 2009 the Sinaloa drug cartel had made Phoenix its gun supermarket and recruited young Americans as its designated shoppers or straw purchasers. Voth and his agents began investigating a group of buyers, some not even old enough to buy beer, whose members were plunking down as much as $20,000 in cash to purchase up to 20 semiautomatics at a time, and then delivering the weapons to others.
Related articles
- The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal (heloise8.wordpress.com)
- Five Signs You May Be A Fast & Furious Conspiracy Theorist (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
- “Fast & Furious” For “Dummies” (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
- What really happened in Fast and Furious? (features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com)
- House Democrats: Fast and Furious probe ‘based on a series of unfounded claims’ (rawstory.com)
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Filed under Rep. Darrell Issa
Health insurance lobby throws over $100m at defeating Obamacare
They really want this President and his policies out…
America Blog
It’s really hard to imagine what part of “here are millions of new customers for you” they don’t like, but that’s where we are today. Most of us on the left wanted the public option, which the private health insurers hated, but giving in to their needs wasn’t enough.
But no, heaven forbid the health insurance industry is asked to give a little with the windfall. Millions of new customers and no competition from the public option wasn’t enough money for the bloated and spoiled industry that keeps setting record profits.
So who is more spoiled and thankless between the bankers and the health insurance brats?
According to the National Journal’s Influence Alley, at the very same time the American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)—the health insurance industry super lobby—was cutting a deal with the White House leading to its stated support of the proposed Obamacare legislation, they were secretly funneling huge amounts money to the Chamber of Commerce to be spent on advertising designed to convince the public that the legislation should be defeated.
How much money?
A stunning $102.4 million spent over just 15 months.
The brilliant Rahm Emanuel sure did a great job of bargaining, didn’t he? If there is a next time with health care reform, he needs to stay far away from it and the public option has to be there so that consumers get some competition. If that industry can’t show any appreciation, there’s no reason to show mercy in the future.
Related articles
- Health Care Insurers Spent $100 Million To Combat The Affordable Care Act (thinkprogress.org)
- Us Will See a Hiring Boom If Obamacare Falls (itmakessenseblog.com)
- Robert Reich: A Back Door to the Public Option (huffingtonpost.com)
- The Return of the Public Option (thehealthcareblog.com)
- 10 Things You Would Miss About Obamacare (thinkprogress.org)
Filed under Health Insurance Lobby
Democratic Underground: John King Pops Jan Brewer’s “Win” Balloon To her Lying Face….
CNN’s John King interviewed Arizona Governor Jan Brewer just hours after the Supreme Court ruled on Arizona’s SB1070 law which targeted “illegal” immigrants in that state.
Brewer takes a page from Mitt Romney’s book and blames President Obama for just about everything except the decision. John King has to burst her bubble a couple of times to bring her back to reality, but she doesn’t take the bait. She concludes the interview as loony as when she started.
Democratic Underground
Humorous comment from the DU site:
1. she doesn’t even seem to make sense
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Poor thing, what a horrid woman.
 How miserable her life must be. Persecution/abandonment, whenever she talks.
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Related articles
- C&L on The Young Turks: Jan Brewer’s Victory Dance on SB1070 and Romney’s Trouble with Latino Voters (crooksandliars.com)
- Jan Brewer Hammered In Press Conference For Claiming Victory After SCOTUS Ruling (mediaite.com)
- Jan Brewer: The Obama administration basically just told Arizona to drop dead (hotair.com)
- Brewer: Obama admin launched ‘assault’ on Arizona (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
- Arizona Governor: Obama ‘Doesn’t Think We’re Part Of The Country Anymore’ (thinkprogress.org)
- Arizona Governor Jan Brewer responds to SCOTUS ruling on immigration reform. (mississippipep.wordpress.com)
- Arizona Governor Jan Brewer: Scotus Ruling a Victory! (thegatewaypundit.com)
Filed under Immigration
