Ron Paul: Blood running in the streets

"Give me a M1 Garand [that is loaded] with black tip A.P. and I'll be able to take care of most any problem." (Indeed. Loved them since military school)
-- Clint Smith
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BIAS?

Via A Tangled Web

Gunwalker: Hearing Sending Shockwaves towards White House & Eric Holder

Gun Owners of America
VERBATIM POST
======================

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee conducted another hearing this week on Fast and Furious -- the operation spearheaded by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) which knowingly put thousands of guns into criminals’ hands.

Tuesday’s hearing exposed the anti-gun animus of several people within the Obama Administration, and their answers continued to beg the question: Was Operation Fast and Furious all about drumming up more support for gun control?

Gun Owners of America met with three persons from the House committee prior to the hearing. The meeting was “off the record,” so we can’t report on the details. Only to say, GOA brought up a hard-and-fast link between the White House and “Fast and Furious” -- and encouraged committee members to pursue a line of questioning that would publicly expose this connection.

We were pleased to see that Representatives did just that. Here’s what Tuesday’s hearing revealed for the record:

1. The White House WAS BEING BRIEFED by Fast and Furious manager Bill Newell. In fact, a “smoking gun” email establishing the clandestine link between ATF Agent Newell and the White House begins with Newell saying: “You didn’t get this from me ….”

2. ATF agents DID KNOW that “Fast and Furious” guns were going to Mexico. During much of the hearing, ATF Agent Newell denied this, but intense questioning by Pennsylvania Republican Patrick Meehan revealed Newell’s lie. The fact is, Newell and others DID KNOW that Mexican cartel bosses were expecting to get illegal firearms funneled into Mexico.

3. ATF agents have been deceptive when they claimed that Operation Fast and Furious was going to provide information for Mexican authorities to prosecute drug kingpins south of the border. Cross-examination revealed that Mexican authorities already knew who the drug kingpins are and that ATF did not share any information with Mexico that would help them bring down these cartels.

4. Under oath, ATF agents admitted that Fast and Furious was a TOTAL break with their normal standards and procedures. Normal police work would mean arresting straw buyers and “flipping them” -- in other words, turning them against their superiors and bringing down the higher-ups in the smuggling ring.

But Fast and Furious involved a complete break with this strategy, in that gun smugglers were allowed to “go free” -- even to the point where the guns were smuggled south of the border and permanently “out of sight” of ATF agents (or Mexican authorities, for that matter). Indeed, one straw buyer bought some 720 guns for his bagman.

So the question is: Why would an anti-gun administration knowingly let guns get into the “wrong hands”? They claim the purpose was to help take down drug cartels in Mexico.

But given the fact that ATF was not sharing information with Mexico … and that they were TOTALLY breaking with standard law-enforcement procedures … and that they knew that “Fast and Furious” guns were winding up at crime scenes in Mexico … another more likely explanation is raising its ugly head.

The better explanation is that anti-gun officials in the Administration were trying to bring disrepute upon our Second Amendment freedoms and that this would lead to calls for more gun control.

Remember Rahm Emanuel’s famous line: “Don’t let a crisis go to waste?”

Well, it seems that the Obama Administration was doing whatever it could to create a crisis that would supposedly show that most of the Mexican crime guns were originating in U.S. gun stores.

The Washington Times picked up on this obvious motive earlier this month:

The White House often claimed that 90 percent of the weapons used in Mexican crimes had been traced to the United States, but the number has never been substantiated. By all appearances, Fast and Furious delivered statistics to back up the figure. (“Too fast, Too Furious,” July 13, 2011.)

Apparently, the ATF was not the only organization involved in Fast and Furious. Tuesday’s hearing confirmed that the Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were all involved.

In other words, Fast and Furious was a giant operation being run out of the Justice Department. And that means that all roads are starting to point to Attorney General Eric Holder.

As stated by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa:

How is it that the Number Two, Three, Four at Justice all knew about this Program but the Number One [Attorney General Eric Holder] didn’t? Is it because he said “don’t tell me”? Is it because they knew what they were doing was wrong and they were protecting their boss? Or is it just that Eric Holder was so disconnected ….

Either Holder is lying about the fact he didn’t know early on about Fast and Furious or he is inept. Either way, Eric Holder needs to step down.

We asked you earlier this month to urge your Senators to call for Holder’s forced retirement. It’s now time to communicate this to the House.

ACTION: Ask your Representative to call for Eric Holder’s resignation. And don’t forget to circulate this alert to your pro-gun family and friends.

Click here to send your Representative a prewritten email.

Quartzsite, from the get-go

Owing to my work career as a jewelry designer, I had known about Quartzsite’s famous desert-sprawling mineral show which happens each winter. The American jewelry industry is well aware of Quartzsite’s remarkable mineral and gem show. The show has a good reputation and is attended by large numbers of jewelers from around America. Many swing from the Quartzsite show right into the Tucson show, which is the world’s largest gem, mineral, jewelry and fossil show. Having had businesses in both manufacturing and retail ends of the jewelry industry, I for many years knew people who traded at Quartzsite.

But I did not know about the possibility of some outlaw from Ohio or South Carolina hiding out under an alias while working in the camel stables at Arizona back in the 1850s.

Did I say “camel stables”? In Arizona? Yep. There is a really cute little tidbit of southwest American history waiting for you at this link:

http://www.outwestnewspaper.com/camels.html

Here is a teaser – [quoting] “…in 1855 when Secretary of War Jefferson Davis was told of an innovative plan to import camels to help build and supply a Western wagon route from Texas to California. It was a dry, hot and otherwise hostile region, not unlike the camel’s natural terrain in the Middle East.

“Davis, convinced of the idea, proposed a Camel Military Corps to Congress. “For military purposes, and for reconnaissances, it is believed the dromedary would supply a want now seriously felt in our service,” he explained.

“Congress agreed and appropriated $30,000.

“Major Henry Wayne was sent to the Middle East where he bought 33 of the animals. With much difficulty, they were loaded onto a Navy ship (with part of its deck modified to accommodate the large creatures) and transported to Texas. There Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale took over. Forty-four more camels arrived later.” [end quote]

Camel Monument Quartzsite

But while the camel caravans are now just old history, a new type of caravan musters at Qaurtzsite each winter. An “RV Big Tent” show rolls into tiny Quartzsite well before the mineral show. The camp crowd which shows up each winter in their RVs and Motor-homes and Campers can swell the town’s population from under its customary four thousand citizens to more than a hundred thousand. This annual flock of snowbirds descends upon little Quartzsite and turns the desert into what is sometimes billed as “the world’s largest desert parking lot”.

Quartzsite Big Tent RV Show

So we see that Quartzsite has some interesting color in its desert culture. And now on July 20, 2011, I sit to write about another story in Quartzsite. It had been playing around in my head since mid-June, a month earlier, and today I knew I had to start writing it. I had received a call from a gentleman who lives in Quartzsite, Arizona, who told me quite a desert-styled tale of intrigues and overt corruption.

That call in June was unbelievable, but I would soon become a believer. You probably will too.

That is when this story started for me – when a guy called back in June of 2011. (Let’s call him “Daryl”, which is not his name but will serve to protect his anonymity.)

Daryl was highly concerned, worried. Yet he was composed and coherent. He was obviously accustomed to speaking with people. His voice carried concern without sacrificing his poise as a man of dignity. But there was urgency in his voice, and he could not hide it. He was reaching out for help.

Daryl spoke of ten Quartzsite police officers who had compiled 200 pages of written allegations against various members of local government, including the Chief of Police in Quartzsite and the City Council. He spoke of the Mayor of Quartzsite being arrested by the Chief of Police. The Chief of Police is alleged to be corrupt.

He had previously read coverage of the Oath Keepers ceremony at the Jose Guerena memorial on May 30, Memorial Day 2011, at Tucson, Arizona, and he thought of Oath Keepers in his personal moment of stress. Learn why he would naturally think of Oath Keepers by reading, in case you missed this, here –

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Criminal, Marxist proposed new farm regulations

Via Rich

NEWS CHANNEL 25
VERBATIM POST
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WACO - For many in rural Central Texas, it's one of their most enduring memories of childhood: Their first time behind the wheel of the family tractor.

The time-honored initiation into working the family farm could one day be a thing of the past, with discussions underway in Washington to require operators of farm equipment to have a commercial driver's license, or CDL.

Ned Meister's work in agriculture began similarly at the age of ten. Meeting with News Channel 25 Wednesday at the Texas Farm Bureau, Meister explained the critical role of family on the farm.

"The vast majority of our farms are family farms, operators of equipment are usually family members, and if [those changes] were to take place, that would eliminate some of the family participation in the farm operation."

On his farm just outside the town of McGregor, Rodney Schmalriede grew up helping his father. His son has grown up the same way, and with farmers facing tougher times than ever, Schmalriede is glad for the help.

"Right now I've got my young son, he's 11 years old -- can drive that tractor like a pro -- and my dad who will be 80 this year," explains Schmalriede, "And I've got to have their help."

Concerned with the amount of farm equipment making short hops between fields and down public roadways, U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is considering whether or not to classify agricultural machines like tractors as "commercial vehicles," requiring a CDL to operate.

The requirements would subject farmers to the same rules governing truck drivers, requiring them to keep logs and limit their hours.

Farmers also fear the prospect of replacing family help with expensive professional drivers, something that could end up costing everyone -- if it doesn't break the bank.

"When you consider salaries and benefits and all the other things that go with hiring people that otherwise would have been doing by your family, well it's just a more expensive proposal," says Meister.

As public hearings on the issue are expected to continue, many like Schmalriede see it as more evidence of a meddling government interfering with the lives of rural America.

"I think they're idiots," says Schmalriede. (So, do I, Sir to be polite about it.) "All we see in the news all the time is some idiot decision that they've made again. I think half the problem that this country's in right now is because of all the regulations they're trying to put on everything."

Many others shake their heads at what they see as a bureaucracy that seems out of touch.

"We have lost our understanding of rural life and agriculture," explains Meister. "I'm not saying that anything's malicious at all, but they just don't understand." (I say there is, period.)

Rand Paul on the debt ceiling

Via PUMABydesign

Bill Would Force Intel Chief to Renounce ‘Secret Patriot Act’

For months, two Senators have screamed bloody murder that the government holds a secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act so broad that it amounts to a whole different law giving the feds massive domestic surveillance powers. Now, a measure by Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall would force the U.S. intelligence chief, and by extension the entire intelligence community, to admit that they went too far in their Patriot Act interpretations — if they don’t find a way to wiggle out of it.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence meets Thursday to prepare the annual bill authorizing the U.S. intelligence agency’s operations. During that “mark-up” process, Wyden and Udall will ask their colleagues to include a measure compelling the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to produce a “detailed assessment of the problems posed by the reliance of government agencies” (.pdf) on “interpretations of domestic surveillance authorities that are inconsistent with the understanding of such authorities by the public.” Wyden’s staff provided Danger Room with a copy of the proposed amendment.

Specifically, Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper would have to produce “a plan for addressing such problems” with secret legal interpretations regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Patriot Act, the government’s two most important domestic spying laws.

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Glock full auto explosive ammo

Gunwalker: Investors Business Daily, The White House Knew

Via Sipsey Street Irregulars

Investors.com
VERBATIM POST
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Scandal: A former ATF special agent tells Congress a National Security Council staffer was informed about Operation Fast and Furious before guns allowed into Mexico wound up at the murder scene of a U.S. agent.

The latest evidence that both the White House and attorney general knew and approved of Project Gunrunner and its deadly offshoot, Operation Fast and Furious, came this week in the testimony of William Newell, ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix office, before Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

That the "stench of cover-up," as Fox News analyst Brit Hume described the administration's handling of the matter, may reach even into the Oval Office itself was evidenced by Newell's testimony that he communicated with Kevin O'Reilly, a staffer on President Obama's National Security Council, about Operation Fast and Furious in September 2010.

O'Reilly was national security director for North America tasked with monitoring the activities of Mexican drug cartels. We are asked to believe he inquired about a program that was providing the cartels with guns but kept what he found out to himself.

That date, by the way, is three months before weapons permitted to "walk" into Mexico were found at the scene in Arizona were U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. Newell said O'Reilly had inquired about the status of Project Gunrunner to brief administration officials before a trip to Mexico.

Newell sent O'Reilly the requested information with the caveat, "You didn't get this from me."

Why was a National Security Council staffer asking about an operation that no one in the upper echelons of the administration was supposed to be aware of? We find it hard to believe it was for O'Reilly's personal amusement. Why would Newell request that he not be acknowledged as the source?

Certainly the whole area of drug cartels, cross-border violence and gun trafficking are matters of national security. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made a cause celebre of blaming the easy access to U.S. weapons for Mexican violence.

Are we to believe neither the White House nor the Department of Justice knew about a program that made that access even easier?

Administration officials have taken the Sgt. Schultz "we knew nothing" approach to any inquiries, only to be tripped up by their own words and actions.

Newell's email to O'Reilly is evidence that at least one person in the White House did.

Additional information on IQ of teachers

Via Matthew

The Audacious Epigone

Validating stereotypes since 2005.

=============================
N = Total sample size

Level	IQ	N
College/University	114.6	110
High school	107.4	150
K-8th grade	107.4	369
Special ed.	105.9	18
Other	107.2	95

Level (whites only)	IQ	N
College/university	116.0	101
High school	109.3	133
K-8th grade	109.0	321
Special ed.	109.4	15
Other	108.7	84

Race	IQ	N
White	110.1	653
Black	95.3	49
Other	96.7	40