The housing speech Obama gave in Phoenix
[8/6/113] is prime Obama doublespeak. Delivered with earnest sincerity
and a sense of purpose and even urgency. And it is not even on the
emotionally charged issues of immigration reform or health care
reform or saving the middle class. It's about Fannie and Freddie
(yawn). But all the better. The doublespeak is there to be seen without
all the emotionally charged overlay.
On the one hand...
He
encouraged the private market to take a bigger role in home lending,
and even suggested the government's role should be limited. As in his
February 2011 speech he vowed to "wind down" the toxic twins in favor of a private market solution.
On the other...
He argued the government still has a vital role in the mortgage market by guaranteeing "affordable housing" for lower-income Americans.
And how is that to be done?
By ordering the Federal Housing Administration to back high-risk loans. In other words Obama wants to kick-start another housing bubble by having Fannie and Freddie to back high risk loans so that those who "want a home can actually afford one."
Those who want a home can actually afford one? Think about that for a minute.
He jumped on his horse and rode off in several directions.
The Other Targeting Scandal
Democrats lobbied the SEC to limit business political donations.
The IRS targeting scandal is best understood as part of a larger effort to limit the political speech of conservatives and business groups. That became clearer last week regarding the Federal Election Commission, and now evidence is spreading to the Securities and Exchange Commission.Senior Republicans on the House Oversight Committee recently wrote to new SEC Chairman Mary Jo White to report on disturbing events that occurred under her predecessor, and to request agency documents. As at the IRS, there's an emerging pattern at the SEC of senior officials rolling over career staff to politicize the work of a powerful federal agency.
Reps. Darrell Issa, Jim Jordan and Patrick McHenry say that documents they already have "indicate that the SEC has been under immense pressure from elected officials and special interest groups as part of a government-wide effort to stifle political speech." They further note that the pressure has largely succeeded in "moving the Commission closer to using its authority to regulate public securities markets as a backdoor way to limit the political speech of the same types of groups targeted by the IRS."
One way to discourage groups critical of the government is for the IRS to sit on their applications for tax-exempt status while applying the normal review process to groups friendly to the White House.
Another way is to have the SEC discourage public companies from supporting independent organizations, while applying no such regulation to labor unions. Corporations tend to support groups on both the left and the right, whereas unions are more reliably liberal. If businesses are limited in the public debate, it's a big win for Democrats.
Last year politicians like then-Rep. Barney Frank and liberal tax-exempt groups like Public Citizen were encouraging the SEC to demand more disclosure from public companies about the organizations they support. Staff for Mr. Frank specifically told the SEC that, "There is particular interest in what the authority is for disclosure of 501(c)(4) contributions (political contributions)." Mr. Frank's staff also noted that the interest was coming from the House Democratic leadership.
A former Democratic Congressman gave the political motive away while lobbying the SEC's then-chairman Mary Schapiro. The former lawmaker, unnamed in a memorandum accompanying the Issa letter, was asked by Ms. Schapiro why this wasn't a job for the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The former pol responded, "because the FEC is even more broken than you," according to a May 2012 email sent by the deputy director of the SEC's division of corporation finance. Democrats couldn't get what they wanted out of the Congress or the FEC. So they went to the SEC.
The SEC staff pushed back, pointing out that it's not their job to regulate political speech. An SEC official cautioned in one email about "how well it goes when the securities laws are used for social and political causes." Staff also noted the difficulty of taking on a new discretionary campaign given all the mandated but still unfinished rules they were required to write under Dodd-Frank and the JOBS Act.
But Democratic SEC commissioners Luis Aguilar and Elisse Walter continued to advocate new rules on political activity. By the end of last year they had persuaded Ms. Schapiro to include the issue on the SEC's regulatory agenda. Ms. White, the current chairman, can go a long way toward restoring the reputation of the SEC as a serious and apolitical regulator by deep-sixing this political assault masquerading as transparency.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324783204578624014097139822.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Cracking the Czars
As
expected, Obama's second term has deteriorated into a welter of
scandals unmatched by any previous administration, including those of
Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Watergate was a minor scandal that
simply grew amid the hothouse of D.C. politics and media, while most of
the Clinton scandals involved either skirt or money grabbing. The Obama
scandals uniquely strike at the heart of American democracy, based as
they are on Obama's attempt to transform the nation to reflect his
Augustan image of himself.
The scandals have not yet had the impact they should, due largely to media manipulation, public inertia, and serious fumbling among Republicans and conservatives -- for instance, Darryl Issa allowing the odious Lois Lerner 5th Amendment protection she was not entitled to.
The only solution is to continue the pressure. Watergate required nearly eighteen months of simmering before it boiled over. The same is likely to be true here. This leads us to the question as to why one of the most potentially fertile fields for administration scandal, the Obama czars, has been so far overlooked.
As with everything else, the concept of the czar -- extra-constitutional public officials hired by the Executive branch to spearhead particular efforts on an emergency basis -- has been abused by Obama. Czars go back to FDR's "dollar-a-year" men appointed to oversee various aspects of the war effort. The concept was revived in the 1960s to attack drug abuse, presented as a crisis situation not amenable to ordinary solutions.
In truth, the "drug czars" were no more than a PR gimmick. Drug smuggling could have been (and still could be) shut down utilizing already existing resources. This has not been done for a number of reasons, including relations with Mexico, criminal infiltration of law enforcement and politics, and the fact that many leading political families - the Kennedys and Gores, for example -- have drug addicts in their ranks. It would be going too far to assert that thousands have died, a criminal class has been nurtured, and American cities crippled to assure that David Kennedy had a steady supply of heroin and cocaine, but that factor can't be overlooked either.
The drug czars were a method of making it appear that something was being done without actually going to any real effort. This remained true as the concept was expanded to include other "intractable problems" such as race relations, health care, and housing. By Bill Clinton's term, their number had expanded to eight, not a single one of whom is on record as having accomplished anything.
In his genius for sleaze, Obama saw something else in the position of "czar": a means of overcoming the limitations of the system of checks and balances that would enable him to carry out programs under the radar and without oversight by Congress -- or anyone else either. The czars were tailor-made for Obama's cards-in-sleeve method of government. A more fitting example of the perils of monkeying with the constitutional order could not be devised.
Obama has applied the concept of czar with alacrity unknown to previous administrations. He began with 32, shortly expanded to 39, and thereafter to the mid-40s. The numbers have shifted but have always remained within that range.
How many are there now? That's difficult to say. So opaque is the cloak of bureaucratic secrecy surrounding these positions that there is no complete, accurate, and up-to-date list of Obama czars active in 2013. The administration has played a consistent game of three-card monte all down the line, abolishing some positions only to reestablish them under other names, consolidating some into a single position while spinning off others, and every other conceivable bureaucratic trick.
What have the Obama czars accomplished? We don't know. They don't report to anybody (except perhaps the Chicago Augustus himself). They don't testify before Congress. They don't publish. We don't know how many personnel are involved, or who they might be. We don't know how much has been spent by them, and on what. We don't know, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, what we don't know.
We do know the names (well, some of them). While a few are well-known figures of weight and achievement such as Paul Volcker and Ashton Carter, most are political and academic hacks of the progressive type who share in Obama's vaporous ideals and, much like him, have never directed or managed anything in their lives.
And like their master, a number of them have been involved in scandals.
● Vivek Kundra - Obama's first "infotech czar" (excuse me -- Federal Chief Information Officer) was appointed in 2009. In between leaving his previous job as chief tech consultant for D.C. and taking up his new federal post, his business was raided by the FBI and two of his staffers, including his right-hand man Yusuf Acar, were arrested. Acar had been steadily promoted by Kundra to positions of increasing responsibility. Along with Sushil Bansal, he had formulated a scheme combining bribery and kickbacks utilizing ghost employees and forged time sheets. Kundra went on leave for five days before it was confirmed that he was not under suspicion, whereupon he ascended to czarhood. For the next two years, American infotech was given to the oversight of a man who had no idea that a vast fraud was being run out of his own office.
● Nancy-Ann DeParle, erstwhile health policy czar, could serve as a revolving-door poster girl. After a stint as Medicare chief for Bill Clinton, she departed government for the health-care industry, where she earned something on the order of six million dollars from various directorships and boards. Unfortunately, many of those companies wound up under investigation or worse. Several were involved in kickback and related billing schemes, others violated federal quality standards, (including one that "neglected" to issue warnings about a flawed implanted heart defibrillator responsible for 12 deaths), while still others were hit with whistleblower lawsuits. One company, Boston Scientific Corp., received no less than five state or federal subpoenas during a single year. While it can be argued that as a director DeParle was not directly responsible for operations, we could also paraphrase Oscar Wilde to note that while sitting on the board of one corrupt company might be a misfortune, sitting on the boards of six seems a little... careless.
● Adolfo Carrion was Obama's original "housing czar", or "Head of the White House Office of Urban Affairs." While serving as Bronx borough president, Carrion benefited from tens of thousands of dollars in donations from development companies that coincidentally received borough contracts worth hundreds of millions shortly afterward. An architect who renovated Carrion's City Island home magically ended up working on three Bronx housing projects, though he didn't actually get paid for the work he did for Carrion until questions arose surrounding Carrion's nomination. Funny how New York politics looks so much like Chicago politics, isn't it?
● Steven Rattner, Obama's car czar, was actually nudged out of office due to scandal. His previous investment firm, the Quandrangle Group, came under SEC scrutiny so intense that not even an offhand word from the Chicago messiah could avert it. The company wound up paying $12 million in fines due to a kickback scheme involving a New York State pension fund -- a scheme in which Rattner, it seems, had personally arranged the payments.
● Then there's Carol Browner who... well, we actually have no idea what Carol might have done. You see, when selected as Obama's climate czar, the first thing she did was order all electronic records of her previous government service as EPA chief, including hard drives, to be destroyed. She also refused to use email under any circumstances. It seems that an email involving a department she once worked for had been subject to some kind of "misinterpretation." All perfectly understandable -- if somebody working for the government didn't want to use phones, or writing, who would ever object?
And the others? See Rumsfeld, Donald. We don't know, and nobody -- in the Congress, the media, or anywhere else -- has bothered to ask. (And I'm not overlooking Van Jones -- being a communist is an abomination, not a scandal.) But nobody is going to tell me that among several dozen handpicked Obama goofs, operating in complete secrecy and under Chicago rules, there is no mischief going on.
The czars represent rich pickings for any congressman with a spine of titanium and a suitable committee seat. Staffers and investigators need to be dispatched like Bolshies storming the Winter Palace. Obama will doubtlessly squeal "executive privilege," but it would be worthwhile in and itself to establish once and for all just how far that extends. If necessary, the courts can be utilized, with subpoenas aimed at where the funding for these positions came from, who got how much, and where it all went. I guarantee you that rocks will start to flip over, with all kinds of interesting specimens wriggling out. Those with the power of speech will start to talk. Who knows -- one of them may even have an old hard drive of Carole B. in its mandibles.
Hitting the czars would open a valuable second (or third, or maybe fourth, if anyone's counting) front in the scandal campaigns against Barack Obama. Increase the weight and pressure and eventually something will give.
The scandals have not yet had the impact they should, due largely to media manipulation, public inertia, and serious fumbling among Republicans and conservatives -- for instance, Darryl Issa allowing the odious Lois Lerner 5th Amendment protection she was not entitled to.
The only solution is to continue the pressure. Watergate required nearly eighteen months of simmering before it boiled over. The same is likely to be true here. This leads us to the question as to why one of the most potentially fertile fields for administration scandal, the Obama czars, has been so far overlooked.
As with everything else, the concept of the czar -- extra-constitutional public officials hired by the Executive branch to spearhead particular efforts on an emergency basis -- has been abused by Obama. Czars go back to FDR's "dollar-a-year" men appointed to oversee various aspects of the war effort. The concept was revived in the 1960s to attack drug abuse, presented as a crisis situation not amenable to ordinary solutions.
In truth, the "drug czars" were no more than a PR gimmick. Drug smuggling could have been (and still could be) shut down utilizing already existing resources. This has not been done for a number of reasons, including relations with Mexico, criminal infiltration of law enforcement and politics, and the fact that many leading political families - the Kennedys and Gores, for example -- have drug addicts in their ranks. It would be going too far to assert that thousands have died, a criminal class has been nurtured, and American cities crippled to assure that David Kennedy had a steady supply of heroin and cocaine, but that factor can't be overlooked either.
The drug czars were a method of making it appear that something was being done without actually going to any real effort. This remained true as the concept was expanded to include other "intractable problems" such as race relations, health care, and housing. By Bill Clinton's term, their number had expanded to eight, not a single one of whom is on record as having accomplished anything.
In his genius for sleaze, Obama saw something else in the position of "czar": a means of overcoming the limitations of the system of checks and balances that would enable him to carry out programs under the radar and without oversight by Congress -- or anyone else either. The czars were tailor-made for Obama's cards-in-sleeve method of government. A more fitting example of the perils of monkeying with the constitutional order could not be devised.
Obama has applied the concept of czar with alacrity unknown to previous administrations. He began with 32, shortly expanded to 39, and thereafter to the mid-40s. The numbers have shifted but have always remained within that range.
How many are there now? That's difficult to say. So opaque is the cloak of bureaucratic secrecy surrounding these positions that there is no complete, accurate, and up-to-date list of Obama czars active in 2013. The administration has played a consistent game of three-card monte all down the line, abolishing some positions only to reestablish them under other names, consolidating some into a single position while spinning off others, and every other conceivable bureaucratic trick.
What have the Obama czars accomplished? We don't know. They don't report to anybody (except perhaps the Chicago Augustus himself). They don't testify before Congress. They don't publish. We don't know how many personnel are involved, or who they might be. We don't know how much has been spent by them, and on what. We don't know, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, what we don't know.
We do know the names (well, some of them). While a few are well-known figures of weight and achievement such as Paul Volcker and Ashton Carter, most are political and academic hacks of the progressive type who share in Obama's vaporous ideals and, much like him, have never directed or managed anything in their lives.
And like their master, a number of them have been involved in scandals.
● Vivek Kundra - Obama's first "infotech czar" (excuse me -- Federal Chief Information Officer) was appointed in 2009. In between leaving his previous job as chief tech consultant for D.C. and taking up his new federal post, his business was raided by the FBI and two of his staffers, including his right-hand man Yusuf Acar, were arrested. Acar had been steadily promoted by Kundra to positions of increasing responsibility. Along with Sushil Bansal, he had formulated a scheme combining bribery and kickbacks utilizing ghost employees and forged time sheets. Kundra went on leave for five days before it was confirmed that he was not under suspicion, whereupon he ascended to czarhood. For the next two years, American infotech was given to the oversight of a man who had no idea that a vast fraud was being run out of his own office.
● Nancy-Ann DeParle, erstwhile health policy czar, could serve as a revolving-door poster girl. After a stint as Medicare chief for Bill Clinton, she departed government for the health-care industry, where she earned something on the order of six million dollars from various directorships and boards. Unfortunately, many of those companies wound up under investigation or worse. Several were involved in kickback and related billing schemes, others violated federal quality standards, (including one that "neglected" to issue warnings about a flawed implanted heart defibrillator responsible for 12 deaths), while still others were hit with whistleblower lawsuits. One company, Boston Scientific Corp., received no less than five state or federal subpoenas during a single year. While it can be argued that as a director DeParle was not directly responsible for operations, we could also paraphrase Oscar Wilde to note that while sitting on the board of one corrupt company might be a misfortune, sitting on the boards of six seems a little... careless.
● Adolfo Carrion was Obama's original "housing czar", or "Head of the White House Office of Urban Affairs." While serving as Bronx borough president, Carrion benefited from tens of thousands of dollars in donations from development companies that coincidentally received borough contracts worth hundreds of millions shortly afterward. An architect who renovated Carrion's City Island home magically ended up working on three Bronx housing projects, though he didn't actually get paid for the work he did for Carrion until questions arose surrounding Carrion's nomination. Funny how New York politics looks so much like Chicago politics, isn't it?
● Steven Rattner, Obama's car czar, was actually nudged out of office due to scandal. His previous investment firm, the Quandrangle Group, came under SEC scrutiny so intense that not even an offhand word from the Chicago messiah could avert it. The company wound up paying $12 million in fines due to a kickback scheme involving a New York State pension fund -- a scheme in which Rattner, it seems, had personally arranged the payments.
● Then there's Carol Browner who... well, we actually have no idea what Carol might have done. You see, when selected as Obama's climate czar, the first thing she did was order all electronic records of her previous government service as EPA chief, including hard drives, to be destroyed. She also refused to use email under any circumstances. It seems that an email involving a department she once worked for had been subject to some kind of "misinterpretation." All perfectly understandable -- if somebody working for the government didn't want to use phones, or writing, who would ever object?
And the others? See Rumsfeld, Donald. We don't know, and nobody -- in the Congress, the media, or anywhere else -- has bothered to ask. (And I'm not overlooking Van Jones -- being a communist is an abomination, not a scandal.) But nobody is going to tell me that among several dozen handpicked Obama goofs, operating in complete secrecy and under Chicago rules, there is no mischief going on.
The czars represent rich pickings for any congressman with a spine of titanium and a suitable committee seat. Staffers and investigators need to be dispatched like Bolshies storming the Winter Palace. Obama will doubtlessly squeal "executive privilege," but it would be worthwhile in and itself to establish once and for all just how far that extends. If necessary, the courts can be utilized, with subpoenas aimed at where the funding for these positions came from, who got how much, and where it all went. I guarantee you that rocks will start to flip over, with all kinds of interesting specimens wriggling out. Those with the power of speech will start to talk. Who knows -- one of them may even have an old hard drive of Carole B. in its mandibles.
Hitting the czars would open a valuable second (or third, or maybe fourth, if anyone's counting) front in the scandal campaigns against Barack Obama. Increase the weight and pressure and eventually something will give.
Three Forgotten Facts About the Fort Hood Massacre
By Michelle MalkinFinally. Four years after Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan walked into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, Texas, and perpetrated the bloodiest massacre ever on an American military base, the self-confessed jihadist's court martial proceedings began this week. Have you forgotten?
Americans obsessed over the O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony and Jodi Arias trials. Gun-control lobbyists turned Newtown, Aurora and Tucson into national awareness-raising, fundraising and legislation-promoting campaigns. But where are the celebrity lobbyists and high-profile advocates for the victims of bloodthirsty Muslim vigilante Nidal Hasan?
The White House, which downplayed the terrorist mass murder as "workplace violence," exacerbated national apathy for his evil acts. Our soldiers deserve better. Here are three facts you've probably forgotten -- or never knew -- about the Fort Hood terror spree.
--Fourteen victims fell on Nov. 5, 2009, not 13. Thirteen of our U.S. military personnel died in cold blood at the deployment center. But the death toll was actually 14. Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, was pregnant when Hasan shot her during the first round of gunfire. At a military Article 32 hearing in 2010 (analogous to a civilian grand jury hearing), a survivor of the Fort Hood shootings testified that Velez cried out, "My baby! My baby!"
In his opening statement on Tuesday, Hasan (acting as his own lawyer) apologized to his fellow jihadists for not destroying more innocent life.
--The victims were all unarmed. Soldiers inside the deployment center were and are forbidden from carrying weapons -- either issued weapons or personal arms -- on base. When Hasan commenced his shooting spree by shouting, "Allahu Akbar," several brave men and women in uniform used chairs, tables and their own bodies to try to stop him. But it wasn't until a courageous, armed civilian police officer, Sgt. Kimberley Munley, arrived on the scene with her 9mm Beretta that Hasan's rampage was interrupted.
In a gunfight outside the deployment center, Munley wounded Hasan -- who was able to return fire and shot her in the hand, thigh and knee. While she lay on the ground, Hasan kicked away her weapon. Another armed civilian police officer, Mark Todd, was able to fire at Hasan five times and brought him down.
Gun-control zealots led by the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence exploited Fort Hood to argue for even tighter gun restrictions. But it was a 1993 Clinton administration gun-control directive banning most military personnel from carrying their arms for personal protection that facilitated Hasan's massacre except under very limited circumstances. Despite the death of 13 soldiers and the wounding of more than 30 at Fort Hood by a jihadist who warned his superiors that Muslim soldiers posed a specific threat, gun-free military base policies remain in place.
--Hasan's military colleagues were more concerned with being accused of discrimination than with ridding our military of this known, deranged Islamic radical. In 2007, two years before he carried out his homicidal plan, Hasan laid out his murderous means, motives and Koranic inspiration for all to see.
His PowerPoint slide presentation to fellow Army doctors was titled: "The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military." Hasan warned: "It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims." And: "We love death more then (sic) you love life!" As first reported by Pamela Geller, Hasan carried an official calling card with the designation "SoA (SWT)" -- for "Soldier of Allah" and "Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala" (Islamic for "Glory to Him, the Exalted").
Hasan told his superiors he was not alone among Muslim soldiers who believed they "should not serve in any capacity that renders them at risk to hurting/killing believers unjustly."
He reminded the Army of the fatal 2003 fragging attack on American soldiers in Kuwait by Sgt. Hasan Akbar (who was sentenced to death but remains alive while his case drags on in appeal) and the desertion case of Lebanon-born Muslim Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun.
A Joint Terrorism Task Force had been monitoring Hasan's communications with jihad spiritual leader Anwar al-Awlaki all along. But the military was not notified. Even without that information, military officers expressed concerns privately that Hasan might leak classified information to terror groups if he were deployed and that he was capable of committing a fragging.
Yet, they were prepared to deploy him anyway and did nothing to remove him from his job. One email from an Army investigator before the Fort Hood massacre fretted: "Had we launched an investigation of Hasan we'd have been crucified."
Instead, 13 soldiers and one unborn child were slaughtered and paid with their lives for our country's reckless political correctness and bureaucratic fecklessness.
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/08/07/three-forgotten-facts-about-the-fort-hood-massacre-n1658033/page/full
Holder discussed gun-running with Mexico in 2009
Later denied knowing about Operation Fast and Furious
Attorney General Eric Holder has denied under oath that he had any involvement in Operation Fast & Furious and claims he only became aware of the scandal in 2011 – but newly obtained Department of Justice documents reveal Holder traveled to an April 2009 “US/Mexico Arms Trafficking Strategy Meeting” concerning gun-running between the U.S. and Mexico.In June 2012, the Obama administration invoked executive privilege to stop disclosure of documentation to Congress following Operation Fast and Furious, a gun-walking scheme that resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people, including U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and Luis Lucio Rosales Astorga, the police chief in Hostotipaquillo, Mexico.
During the botched operation, the Justice Department’s subdivision of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms lost approximately 2,000 weapons, allowing many of them to flow freely across the U.S.-Mexico border and into the hands of members of Mexican drug cartels.
Judicial Watch obtained the latest information in a response to an August 2012 Freedom of Information Act request. According to the documents, Holder traveled to Cuernavaca and Mexico City from April 1 through April 3, 2009.
“I wanted to come to Mexico to deliver a single message: We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you in this fight against the narcotics cartels,” Holder said in his April 2 speech to the conference. “The United States shares responsibility for this problem and we will take responsibility by joining our Mexican counterparts in every step of this fight.”
Holder said the issue of “development of an arms trafficking prosecution and enforcement strategy on both sides of the border” could not be more important.
He added, “I would like to thank the Mexican and U.S. experts who have worked so hard on this issue. On our side, Secretary Napolitano and I are committed to putting the resources in place to increase our attack on arms trafficking into Mexico.”
Holder also announced that at the end of March 2009, the Obama administration “launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels.
“My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion. DHS is making similar commitments, as Secretary Napolitano will detail.”
But Holder warned that “the problem of arms trafficking will not be stopped at the border alone.”
“[T]his is a problem that must be met as part of a comprehensive attack against the cartels – an attack in depth, on both sides of the border, that focuses on the leadership and assets of the cartel,” he said. ”This is the type of full-bore, prosecution-driven approach that the U.S. Department of Justice took to dismantle La Cosa Nostra – once the most powerful organized crime group operating in the United States.”
Also, the Los Angeles Times reported 2010 memos showed senior Justice Department officials discussed the Fast and Furious gun-trafficking surveillance operation in Phoenix, Ariz., in October 2009.
On March 10, 2011, Holder told a Senate subcommittee he only recently learned about the Fast and Furious gun-walking and asked for the inspector general’s investigation.
“We cannot have a situation where guns are allowed to walk,” he said.
Also in a March 2011 Univision interview, Obama claimed neither he nor knew about the operation.
And on May 3, 2011, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asked Holder when he first learned about the operation.
“I’m not sure of the exact date,” Holder said. “But I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”
ATF Agent John Dodson told Rep. Issa’s House Oversight Committee, “Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals – this was the plan. It was so mandated.”
ATF Agent Olindo James Casa said, “[O]n several occasions I personally requested to interdict or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the firearms.”
As WND reported, a panel of three high-profile constitutional attorneys agreed that the scandal could be considered an impeachable offense against Holder or Obama.
http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/holder-discussed-gun-running-with-mexico-in-2009/
PK'S NOTE: I have only one: believe in and actively live the principles of conservatism. Do not falter from them.
73 Rules For Running For President As A Republican
Run To Win in 2016
We do not yet know who the Republican presidential nominee will be in 2016. We do not even know for certain who the candidates will be, although several are visibly positioning themselves to run. We all have our own ideas about who should run and what the substance of their platforms should be. But even leaving those aside, it’s possible to draw some lessons from the past few GOP campaign cycles and offer some advice that any prospective candidate should heed, the sooner the better. Some of these rules are in a little tension with each other; nobody said running for President was easy. But most are simply experience and common sense.
1-Run because you think your ideas are right and you believe you would be the best president. Don’t stay out because your chances are slim, and don’t get in because someone else wants you to. Candidates who don’t have a good reason for running or don’t want to be there are a fraud on their supporters.
2-Ask yourself what you’re willing to sacrifice or compromise on to win. If there’s nothing important you’d sacrifice, don’t run; you will lose. If there’s nothing important you wouldn’t, don’t run; you deserve to lose.
3- If you don’t like Republican voters, don’t run.
4-Don’t start a campaign if you’re not prepared for the possibility that you might become the frontrunner. Stranger things have happened.
5-If you’ve never won an election before, go win one first. This won’t be the first one you win.
6-Winning is what counts. Your primary and general election opponents will go negative, play wedge issues that work for them, and raise money wherever it can be found. If you aren’t willing to do all three enthusiastically, you’re going to be a high minded loser. Nobody who listens to the campaign-trail scolds wins. In the general election, if you don’t convey to voters that you believe in your heart that your opponent is a dangerously misguided choice, you will lose.
7-Pick your battles, or they will be picked for you. You can choose a few unpopular stances on principle, but even the most principled candidates need to spend most of their time holding defensible ground. If you have positions you can’t explain or defend without shooting yourself in the foot, drop them.
8-Don’t be surprised when people who liked you before you run don’t like you anymore. Prepare for it.
9-Be sure before you run that your family is on board with you running. They need to be completely committed, because it will be harder than they can imagine. Related: think of the worst possible thing anyone could say about the woman in your life you care about the most, and understand that it will be said.
10-You will be called a racist, regardless of your actual life history, behavior, beliefs or platform. Any effort to deny that you’re a racist will be taken as proof that you are one. Accept it as the price of admission.
11-Have opposition research done on yourself. Have others you trust review the file. Be prepared to answer for anything that comes up in that research. If there’s anything that you think will sink you, don’t run.
12-Ask yourself if there’s anything people will demand to know about you, and get it out there early. If your tax returns or your business partnerships are too important to disclose, don’t run. (We might call this the Bain Capital Rule).
13-Realize that your record, and all the favors you’ve done, will mean nothing if your primary opponent appears better funded.
14-Run as who you are, not who you think the voters want. There’s no substitute for authenticity.
15-Each morning, before you read the polls or the newspapers, ask yourself what you want to talk about today. Talk about that.
16-If you never give the media new things to talk about, they’ll talk about things you don’t like.
17-Never assume the voters are stupid or foolish, but also don’t assume they are well-informed. Talk to them the way you’d explain something to your boss for the first time.
18-Handwrite the parts of your platform you want voters to remember on a 3×5 index card. If it doesn’t fit, your message is too complicated. If you can’t think of what to start with, don’t run.
19-Voters may be motivated by hope, fear, resentment, greed, altriusm or any number of other emotions, but they want to believe they are voting for something, not against someone. Give them some positive cause to rally around beyond defeating the other guy.
20-Optimism wins. If you are going to be a warrior, be a happy warrior. Anger turns people off, so laugh at yourself and the other side whenever possible, even in a heated argument.
21-Ideas don’t run for President; people do. If people don’t like you, they won’t listen to you.
22-Your biography is the opening act. Your policy proposals and principles are the headliner. Never confuse the two. The voters know the difference.
23-Show, don’t tell. Proclaiming your conservatism is meaningless, and it’s harder to sell to the unconverted than policy proposals and accomplishments that are based on conservative thinking.
24-Being a consistent conservative will help you more than pandering to nuts on the Right. If you can’t tell the difference between the two, don’t run.
25-Winning campaigns attract crazy and stupid people as supporters; you can’t get a majority without them. This does not mean you should have crazy or stupid people as your advisers or spokespeople.
26-Principles inspire; overly complex, specific plans are a pinata that can get picked to death. If you’re tied down defending Point 7 of a 52 point plan that will never survive contact with the Congress anyway you lose. Complex plans need to be able to be boiled down to the principles and incentives they will operate on. The boiling is the key part.
27-Be ready and able to explain how your plans benefit individual voters. Self-interest is a powerful thing in a democracy.
28-If you haven’t worked out the necessary details of a policy, don’t be rushed into releasing it just because Ezra Klein thinks you don’t have a plan. Nobody will care that you didn’t have a new tax plan ready 14 months before Election Day.
29-Don’t say things that are false just because the CBO thinks they’re true.
30-If you don’t have a position on an issue, say that you’re still studying the issue. Nobody needs an opinion on everything at the drop of a hat, and you’ll get in less trouble.
31-When in doubt, go on the attack against the Democratic frontrunner rather than your primary opponents. Never forget that you are auditioning to run the general election against the Democrat, not just trying to be the least-bad Republican.
32-Attacking your opponents from the left, or using left-wing language, is a mistake no matter how tempting the opportunity. It makes Republican voters associate you with people they don’t like. This is how both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry ended up fumbling the Bain Capital attack.
33-Be prepared to defend every attack you make, no matter where your campaign made it. Nobody likes a rabbit puncher. Tim Pawlenty’s attack on Romneycare dissolved the instant he refused to repeat it to Romney’s face, and so did his campaign.
34-If your position has changed, explain why the old one was wrong. People want to know how you learn. If you don’t think the old one was wrong, just inconvenient, the voters will figure that out.
35-If a debate or interview question is biased or ridiculous, point that out. Voters want to know you can smell a trap. This worked for Newt Gingrich every single time he did it. It worked when George H.W. Bush did it to Dan Rather. It will work for you.
36-Cultivate sympathetic media, from explicitly conservative outlets to fair-minded local media. But even in the primaries, you need to engage periodically with hostile mainstream media outlets to stay in practice and prove to primary voters that you can hold your ground outside the bubble.
37-Refuse to answer horserace questions, and never refer to “the base.” Leave polls to the pollsters and punditry to the pundits. Mitt Romney’s 47% remark was a textbook example of why candidates should not play pundit.
38-Hecklers are an opportunity, not a nuisance. If you can’t win an exchange with a heckler, how are you going to win one with a presidential candidate? If you’re not sure how it’s done, go watch some of Chris Christie’s YouTube collection.
39-Everywhere you go, assume a Democrat is recording what you say. This is probably the case.
40-Never whine about negative campaigning. If it’s false, fight back; if not, just keep telling your own story. Candidates who are complaining about negative campaigning smell like losing.
41-”You did too” and “you started it” get old in a hurry. Use them sparingly.
42-If you find yourself explaining how the Senate works, stop talking. If you find yourself doing this regularly, stop running.
43-Never say “the only poll that matters is on Election Day” because only losers say that, and anyway even Election Day starts a month early now. But never forget that polls can and do change.
44-Voters do not like obviously insincere pandering, but you cannot win an election by refusing on principle to meet the voters where they are. That includes, yes, addressing Hispanic and other identity groups with a plan for sustained outreach and an explanation of how they benefit from your agenda. Build your outreach team, including liaisons and advertising in Spanish-language media, early and stay engaged as if this was the only way to reach the voters. For some voters, it is.
45-Post something as close to daily as possible on YouTube featuring yourself – daily message, clips of your best moments campaigning, vignettes from the trail. You can’t visit every voter, but you can visit every voter’s computer or phone.
46-Never suggest that anybody would not make a good vice president. Whatever they may say, everyone wants to believe they could be offered the job.
47-If you’re not making enemies among liberals, you’re doing it wrong.
48- If you don’t have a plausible strategy for winning conservative support, you’re in the wrong party’s primary.
49-The goal is to win the election, not just the primary. Never box yourself in to win a primary in a way that will cause you to lose the election.
50-Don’t bother making friends in the primary who won’t support you in the general. Good press for being the reasonable Republican will evaporate when the choice is between you and a Democrat.
51-Some Republicans can be persuaded to vote for you in the general, but not in the primary. Some will threaten to sit out the general. Ignore them. You can’t make everyone happy. Run a strong general election campaign and enough of them will come your way.
52-Don’t actively work to alienate your base during the primary. Everyone expects you to do it in the general, and you gain nothing for it in the primary.
53-Don’t save cash; it’s easier to raise money after a win than to win with cash you saved while losing. But make sure your organization can run on fumes now and then during dry spells.
54-If you’re not prepared for a debate, don’t go. Nobody ever had their campaign sunk by skipping a primary debate. But looking unprepared for a debate can, as Rick Perry learned, create a bad impression that even a decade-long record can’t overcome.
55-The Iowa Straw Poll is a trap with no upside. Avoid it. Michele Bachmann won the Straw Poll and still finished last in Iowa.
56-Ballot access rules are important. Devote resources early to learning, complying with them in every state. Mitt Romney didn’t have to face Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum in Virginia – even though both of them live in Virginia – because they didn’t do their homework gathering signatures.
57-If you can’t fire, don’t hire. In fact, don’t run.
58-Hire people who are loyal to your message and agenda, and you won’t have to worry about their loyalty to your campaign.
59-Don’t put off doing thorough opposition research on your opponents. By the time you know who they are, the voters may have decided they’re somebody else.
60-You can afford to effectively skip one early primary. You can’t skip more than that. You are running for a nomination that will require you to compete nationally. (Call this the Rudy Giuliani Rule).
61-Use polling properly. Good polling will not tell you what to believe, but will tell you how to sell what you already believe.
62-Data and GOTV are not a secret sauce for victory. But ignoring them is a great way to get blindsided.
63-Don’t plan to match the Democrats’ operations and technology, because then you’re just trying to win the last election. Plan to beat it.
64-Political consultants are like leeches. Small numbers, carefully applied, can be good for you. Large numbers will suck you dry, kill you, and move on to another host without a backward look.
65-Never hire consultants who want to use you to remake the party. They’re not Republicans and you’re not a laboratory rat.
66-This is the 21st century. If you wouldn’t want it in a TV ad, don’t put it in a robocall or a mailer. Nothing’s under the radar anymore.
67-Always thank your friends when they back you up. Gratitude is currency.
68-Every leak from your campaign should help your campaign. Treat staffers who leak unfavorable things to the press the way you would treat staffers who embezzle your money. Money’s easier to replace.
69-Getting distance from your base in the general on ancillary issues won’t hurt you; they’ll suck it up and independents will like it. Attacking your base on core issues will alienate your most loyal voters and confuse independents.
70-If you are convinced that a particular running mate will save you from losing, resign yourself to losing because you’ve already lost.
71-Don’t pick a VP who has never served in Congress or run for president in his or her own right. Even the best Governors have a learning curve with national politics, and even the best foreign policy minds have a learning curve with electoral politics. And never steal from the future to pay for the present. Your running mate should not be a Republican star in the making who isn’t ready for prime time. In retrospect, Sarah Palin’s career was irreparably damaged by being elevated too quickly to the national level.
72-Never, ever, ever take anything for granted. Every election, people lose primary or general elections because they were complacent.
73-Make a few rules of your own. Losing campaigns imitate; winning campaigns innovate.
http://www.redstate.com/2013/08/06/73-rules-for-running-for-president-as-a-republican/
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