Truth Eventually Comes Out

                The Obama Administration has given Americans lies and more lies.  I suppose they think they can hide the truth if they lie about it enough times.  They apparently believe as Adolph Hitler:  if you tell a big enough lie, people will be convinced.

                Years after the U.S. Government lost hundreds of guns in the Fast and Furious scandal, information continues to come out.  The first clue that the guns were being used by drug cartels was when one of the guns was found near the body of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was murdered on the U.S.-Mexico border.  Attorney General Eric Holder failed to reveal information about the operation to Congress and was held in contempt of Congress – the first Attorney General to receive this dubious honor.

                Apparently, another gun lost under Fast and Furious was involved in yet another crime.  House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) recently charged that the Justice Department is covering up this crime. 

                Issa and Grassley sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Eric Cole that Judicial Watch obtained public records showing “that law enforcement officials recovered a Fast and Furious gun last summer in connection with a shooting that left two individuals wounded.”  Their letter explained that Sean Steward bought 40 guns under the watchful eye of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  They reported that only eight of the guns were recovered by the ATF.  There seems to be evidence that one of the lost guns was used in the shooting.

                The two Congressmen wrote that they could confirm the assault rifle recovered on July 30, 2013, was purchased by Sean Christopher Steward because they have the serial number from the police report.  They added that the Justice Department did not reveal anything and failed to notify Congress.  Without the documents from Judicial Watch, none of the information would have come to light.

                “Unless the information becomes available some other way, the public would never know…. This lack of transparency about the consequences of Fast and Furious undermines public confidence in law enforcement and gives the impression that the Department is still seeking to suppress information and limit its exposure to public scrutiny.”  

                The Congressmen asked the Justice Department for more information about Fast and Furious even though the DOJ has not presented the information asked for in 2012 and 2013.  They want to know if the rifle has been used in any other crimes as well as how many other weapons from Fast and Furious were used in other violent incidents.  Congress continues to ask questions without getting any answers from the DOJ.  No matter, the truth will eventually come out as long as we have leaders and other Americans who are willing to fight the fight.

                Truth continues to come out about several scandals involving officials from the Obama Administration and the Clinton Administration:  Benghazi, Whitewater, the IRS targeting conservatives, etc.  If we have enough time, we may get to the bottom of all the scandals!

Fast and Furious

                    The investigation into Project Fast and Furious, the failed gun-running program, is still big news, but it is not widely reported except by Internet news sites.  This is a bigger scandal for Obama than Watergate was for Nixon, but the lame stream media is either not reporting it at all or not widely. 

NRANews.com has "covered it and the resulting cover-up by the Obama Justice Department more thoroughly and completely than any other media outlet in the country."  Mark Chesnut, NRA editor, reported that "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" has done the "poorest job covering this misguided program, which potentially put thousands of guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels."  According to Chesnut, "`NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams' has not done a single story on `Fast and Furious' in 2011!

CNN.com did run an article on February 2, 2012, concerning Attorney General Eric Holder and his appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about Operation Fast and Furious.  When Holder was asked about the steps he had taken since the controversy arose 13 months ago, he replied that "he is awaiting the conclusions of an internal investigation. Regarding people found culpable in that inquiry, he said, `I can assure you those people will be removed from federal service.'"  He also said at the hearing that "any possible charges will not be filed until the department has the evidence to get a conviction."

Representative Darrell Issa, R-California, has grown tired of waiting for Holder to be forthcoming about releasing documents.  In fact, he has recently threatened to begin a contempt proceeding against Holder to force him to release the necessary documents.  At least 60 congressmen and two senators have called for Holder to resign his position; 75 representatives have sponsored a House resolution, stating in part that "it is the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress has lost confidence in the Attorney General of the United States."

 Project Fast and Furious is a huge scandal.  It was designed to monitor the flow of weapons - firearms that were purchased illegally - to be taken from United States gun stores to drug cartels in Mexico, but it failed miserably.  The problem is that hundreds of weapons were lost or unaccounted for, and two of those missing weapons were found near the site where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed on December 15, 2010, in Peck Canyon near Rio Rico, Arizona.  He and his unit were patrolling in search of bandits who prey on smugglers when a firefight broke out and Agent Terry was shot in the pelvic area.

Agent Terry's family quickly realized there were problems when they heard that two "Fast and Furious" guns that were allowed to "walk" across the Mexican border were found at the scene of his slaying.  They knew that there was a congressional investigation into "Fast and Furious and that the investigation was met with stonewalling, diversions and lies by the Obama-Holder Department of Justice (DOJ).  This behavior is coupled with refusal by Holder to apologize to the family, an order to seal all records in relation to his slaying, and other odd treatment of the family by the DOJ."

The Terry family finally decided to take some action on its own and filed a $25 million wrongful death claim against the federal government on Wednesday, February 1, 2011.  This claim charges that U.S. investigators allowed murder weapons into the hands of criminals.  "The murder of Agent Terry and other acts of violent crimes were the natural consequence of (the) decision to let dangerous weapons designed to kill human beings `walk' into the hands of violent drug-trafficking gangs."

Democrats and Republicans are at odds about "who knew what about the operation and when" they knew it.  Democrats have even stooped so low as to blame the problem on President George W. Bush.

General Michael V. Hayden, former CIA director under Bush from 2006 until February 2009, wrote an interesting article about Fast and Furious here.  He is currently a principal with the Chertoff Group, which is a security consulting firm, and also serves on the boards of several defense firms.   He is also an adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

Hayden discussed a few of the safeguards that have to be in place before the CIA authorizes any program.  He then wrote, "Now Holder, without such safeguards in place, must defend himself against some very tough accusations, including one by some skeptics that the operation was intended principally to discredit, and thereby justify further regulation of, firearms dealers."

Russ Vaughn in an article on American Thinker quoted the above article and then continued:  "Reading that, from one of the top intelligence minds in the world, has to make one wonder.  Why, while diverting the claim away from himself by attributing the belief to some skeptics, did the former director of the CIA drop that bit of speculation into the mix?  Do you seriously believe that a man of his stature and inside connections would raise the question purely gratuitously?

"Details of Operation Fast & Furious, with the revelations of all the deaths caused by this incredibly stupid federal program, are infuriating enough; but they are nothing compared to the fury that will engulf tens of millions of citizens when they finally learn the truth:  that the Obama Administration secretively and criminally used the Justice Department to further a liberal Democrat agenda to curtail the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.  Trust me, they know and fear that reaction should the truth ever see light.  Not only could that revelation prevent any chance of re-election, it could also result in multiple impeachments and criminal indictments, because hundreds of Mexicans and some American agents died as the result of a foolishly conceived and stupidly implemented liberal political scheme to undermine the constitution."

Vaughn remembered, as did I, that President Obama made a statement approximately ten months ago about working on gun control "under the radar."  I wondered what he meant by his statement, but I believed him.  Like Vaughn, I think it is highly likely that he was talking about Fast and Furious.  If he knew about and/or approved Fast and Furious, he should be impeached!

Obama's Watergate

                    On June 17, 1972, a security guard at the Watergate complex discovered tape on the lock of one of the doors.  A fervent media investigation began, most notably by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post.  President Richard Nixon might not have been involved in the decision to burglarize the headquarters of the Democrat Party, but he was involved in the cover up of the event.  The members of the media wanted to know:  What did Nixon know, and when did he know it?  When associates in Congress advised Nixon that he most likely would be impeached, Nixon chose to resign the office of President in disgrace rather than go through an impeachment trial.

                    President Barack Obama may also be involved in a scandal; the only difference is that Obama's scandal could be three times as bad as Nixon's problem.  If our mainstream media were as fervent in investigating Obama as it was while investigating Nixon, they would be digging furiously into the background of the $535 million loan to Solyndra, the cronyism involved with LightSquared, and the gun-running debacle known as Operation Fast and Furious.

                    Solyndra is a company that made solar-power panels in a factory in California.  President Obama praised the company when he visited the factory in May 2010.  He claimed that the factory subsidized by U.S. taxpayers showed "the promise of clean energy isn't just an article of faith."

                    PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP warned two months earlier that Solyndra had deep financial troubles.  Jim Snyder and Christopher Martin of Bloomberg wrote on September 12, 2011:  "The Obama administration stood by Solyndra through the auditor's warning, the abandonment of a planned initial public offering and a last-ditch refinancing where taxpayers took a back seat to new investors.  That unwavering commitment has come under increasing scrutiny since the company's travails culminated in its filing for

bankruptcy protection on Sept. 6 and a raid on its headquarters by the Federal Bureau of Investigation two days later."

                    The FBI and a committee in the House of Representatives are now investigating the loan to Solyndra.  What did Obama know, and when did he know it?

                    Apparently the Pentagon has been worrying for months about a project that might interfere with the military GPS.  The concerns are about a satellite broadband company in Virginia called LightSquared.  An investment fund run by Democrat donor Philip Falcone is the majority owner of this company.

                    General William Shelton is a four-star Air Force general who oversees Air Force Space Command.  When General Shelton walked into a highly secured room on Capitol Hill a couple of weeks ago to give a classified briefing to members of Congress and their staffs, he dropped a big surprise.  When legislators pressed him, General Shelton told them that he was pressured to change his testimony by the White House who wanted his testimony to be more favorable to the company.

                    The Daily Beast  reported:  "There was an attempt to influence the text of the testimony and to engage LightSquared in the process in order to bias his testimony," Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) said in an interview.  "The only people who were involved in the process in preparation for the hearing included the Department of Defense, the White House, and the Office of Management and Budget."

                    Rep. Turner is the chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee that oversees the space command and GPS issues.  The issues between LightSquared and the Pentagon were explored at a panel hearing on Thursday, September 15, 2011.   General Shelton gave his testimony to Turner's committee and shared the Pentagon's concern that the LightSquared project would cause significant disruptions to the military GPS.

                    The White House confirmed that its Office of Management and Budget had suggested changes to the General's testimony but insisted that the changes were not politically influenced.  LightSquared admitted that its representatives had met with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for guidance in getting their project approved.  They said that their project is consistent with President Obama's goal to expand the access to the broad band wireless nationwide.

                    The DailyBeast reported on September 20, 2011, that a second government official came forward alleging that the White House tried to influence his testimony concerning LightSquared.  Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, told the Daily Beast that he had received "guidance" rather than "pressure" from the White House's Office of Budget and Management concerning his testimony.  He rejected the suggestion for him to testify that the government's concerns with LightSquared could be resolved in 90 days because he thought the testing would take at least six months.

                    Is LightSquared more of a scandal than Solyndra?  What did Obama know, and when did he know it?

                    The Operation Fast and Furious gun running scandal has been in the news since at least the first part of the summer.  According to Wikipedia, Operation Fast and Furious "was the name of a sting run by the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) between 2009 and 2010 as part of Project Gunrunner in its investigations into illegal gun trafficking.  The stated purpose of the operation was to permit otherwise-suspected straw purchasers to complete the weapon's purchase and transit to Mexico, in order to build a bigger case against Mexican criminal organizations suspected of being the ultimate buyer.  The operation started in the fall of 2009 and ended in late 2010 shortly after the death of Brian Terry, a US Border Patrol Agent and has since become the subject of controversy and a U.S. congressional investigation.  During the operation, the sale of at least 2,000 guns was facilitated by ATF knowing most would be trafficked to Mexico.  By June, 2011, the guns have been linked (through eTrace, ATF's electronic tracing program) to some 179 crime scenes in Mexico.  The remaining 1,400 guns have not been recovered."

                    United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down in Rio Rico, Arizona, on December 14, 2010, while trying to apprehend a group of armed suspects.  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jaime Zapata was killed by one of the gun-walker weapons in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi on February 15, 2011.  An investigation revealed that many agents on the U.S./Mexico border intended to apprehend gun smugglers attempting to take weapons across the border but were told to let the smugglers pass.

                    

                   U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, held hearings on the gun running problem in June 2011.  During the hearing an agent from the ATF testified, "I cannot begin to think of how the risk of letting guns fall into the hands of known criminals could possibly advance any legitimate law enforcement interest."

                    Operation Fast and Furious is being investigated jointly by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

                    Former BATF Agent John Dodson testified that he and other agents were ordered to observe the activities of gun smugglers but to not intervene.  He said, "Over the course of the next 10 months that I was involved in this operation, we monitored as they purchased hand guns, AK-47 variants, and .50 caliber rifles almost daily.  Rather than conduct any enforcement actions, we took notes, we recorded observations, we tracked movements of these individuals for a short time after their purchases, but nothing more.  Knowing all the while, just days after these purchases, the guns that we saw these individuals buy would begin turning up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico, we still did nothing."

                    After William G. McMahon, William D. Newell and David Voth, three supervisors of "Fast and Furious," appeared at a Congressional hearing, the Los Angeles Times reported that they were being transferred and promoted by ATF.  ATF denied that the transfers were promotions.

                    Kenneth E. Melson was relieved as the Acting Director of the ATF and moved to the DOJ's Office of Legal Policy as a "forensics" expert.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley was transferred from the criminal division into the civil division.  Dennis K. Burke, the Obama-appointed U.S. Attorney in Phoenix, resigned.

                    We don't know what else will come out of the congressional investigations, but I think we should be asking, What did Obama know, and when did he know it?

                    Since our mainstream media is working with the liberals/progressives, we cannot depend on them to help in the investigations of Solynda, LightSquared, and Operation Fast and Furious.  We can only wait for Congress to work through their investigations. Will the investigations be finished before the 2012 elections?  Will Obama decline a second term as President?  Will he be pressured by the Democrat Party to not seek a second term?  Will all these scandals just blow over and not have any effect on Obama?  Only time will give the answer to the questions:  What did Obama know, and when did he know it?