Sunday, July 31, 2011
Feds Silent on How Convicted Felons Bought Guns in 'Operation Fast and Furious'
By William La Jeunesse & Laura Prabucki
Published July 25, 2011
| FoxNews.com
EXCLUSIVE: In the latest chapter of the gunrunning scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, federal officials won't say how two suspects obtained more than 360 weapons despite criminal records that should have prevented them from buying even one gun.
Under current federal law, people with felony convictions are not permitted to buy weapons, and those with felony arrests are typically flagged while the FBI conducts a thorough background check.
However, according to court records reviewed by Fox News, two of the 20 defendants indicted in the Fast and Furious investigation have felony convictions and criminal backgrounds that experts say, at the very least, should have delayed them buying a single firearm. Instead, the duo bought dozens of guns on multiple occasions while federal officials watched on closed-circuit cameras.
Congressional and law-enforcement sources say the situation suggests the FBI, which operates the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, knowingly allowed the purchases to go forward after consulting with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which initiated Operation Fast and Furious.
Under the failed anti-gun trafficking program, straw buyers -- those who legally purchase guns and illegally sell them to a third party -- were allowed to buy guns, many of which were sold to Mexican drug cartel members and subsequently lost. Related to the case, the U.S. government in May charged Manuel Osorio-Arellanes with killing Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last year using a gun purchased through the program.
Court documents show the breakdown involves suspects Jacob Wayne Chambers, 21, and Sean Christopher Stewart, 28, both of Phoenix. Police arrested Chambers for felony burglary and trafficking stolen property in 2008, a year before he began buying more than 70 guns that ended up in the hands of the Sinaloa cartel. Stewart pled guilty to resisting arrest and criminal damage in 2001 and was arrested on drug charges in 2010. He was also charged with violating an order of protection and a local municipal court issued a warrant for his arrest. Stewart purchased 290 weapons.
"You cannot sanction the violation of federal law by enabling or co-enabling prohibited persons, which includes felony convictions, from purchasing firearms," said Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., a former federal prosecutor and a member of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating the botched ATF operation. Gowdy said he would discuss the apparent violation with committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
When asked about the breakdown, Stephen Fischer, a spokesman for the NICS System, said the FBI had no comment. However, an ATF agent who worked on the Fast and Furious investigation, told Fox News that NICS officials called the ATF in Phoenix whenever their suspects tried to buy a gun. That conversation typically led to a green light for the buyers, when it should have stopped them.
The apparent corruption of the system concerns Gowdy. "It is unconscionable and goes beyond just being a terribly ill-conceived investigation to bordering, if not crossing, into criminal activity," he said.
The investigation into why these men were able to purchase weapons and this sting operation gone wrong continues on Tuesday. The House Oversight Committee will hold a third hearing, focusing on what was happening on the other side of the border in Mexico.
The former and current ATF attachés to Mexico will testify that their agency never informed them of this operation.
Issa and his colleagues will also have their first opportunity to question ATF supervisors who have defended Operation Fast and Furious and the Justice Department's decisions to committee investigators.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Dear Leader is full of shit! (From "The Hill")
Obama: Public is 'sold' on tax increases in a debt-ceiling deal
By Sam Youngman and Alicia M. Cohn - 07/15/11 11:54 AM ET
President Obama on Friday kept up the pressure on Republicans to agree to revenue increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, claiming 80 percent of the public supports Democrats' demand for tax increases.
"The American people are sold," Obama said. "The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically."
Throughout the press conference, Obama blasted Republicans for ignoring what he said is the will of the American people by rejecting tax increases that would balance out spending cuts in a debt package.
"This is not an issue of salesmanship to the American people," Obama said.
"I hope [Republicans are] not just listening to lobbyists and special interests ... I hope they're listening to the American people as well," Obama said, citing "poll after poll" showing Republican voters, as well as Democrats, believe in taking "a balanced approach" — including both increased revenues and spending cuts in a plan to cut the deficit.
Obama repeated his warning that the country is "running out of time" to avert a financial “Armageddon.”
"We should not even be this close on a deadline," Obama said. "This is something we should have accomplished earlier."
The president's press conference came the day after he wrapped up debt-ceiling negotiations at the White House and gave congressional leaders 24 to 36 hours to consult with members on a possible compromise. Obama is pushing for a sweeping package that would save $4 trillion over 10 years.
Obama said he is still pushing for a “big” deal to raise the debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline despite the hardening of positions on Capitol Hill.
"I always have hope," Obama said. "Don't you remember my campaign?"
The president signaled he is opposed to the “Cut, Cap and Balance” proposal that House Republicans coalesced around Friday morning, and he challenged the GOP to "be ambitious" in proposing a package to cut the deficit.
"If they show me a serious plan, I'm ready to move, even if it requires some tough sacrifices on my part," Obama said.
Republicans in the House rallied Friday behind an effort to cut spending, cap spending in future years and pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
“We asked the president to lead, we asked him to put forward a plan, not a speech — a real plan — and he hasn’t. We will,” Speaker John Boehner said (R-Ohio) before Obama’s press conference.
The plan would authorize a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling after Congress passes a balanced-budget amendment.
The president said he had not studied the new Republican proposal, but said it “doesn't sound like a serious plan to me."
Obama also shot down GOP calls for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, saying "we don't need a constitutional amendment to do our jobs."
As he has done since last week, the president challenged Republicans to pursue the biggest plan possible, seizing an "opportunity to stabilize American's finances" for the next 10, 15 or 20 years.
Noting the acknowledgment by Republican leaders that the debt ceiling has to be raised, Obama said that they should not stop at the "routine" decision to increase the government's borrowing authority.
"I'm glad the congressional leaders want to raise the debt ceiling, but I think the American people expect more," Obama said.
The president has repeatedly called for negotiators to put politics aside even as the negotiations have increasingly been framed through the lens of the 2012 election.
Obama said he was hopeful that the leaders would step back from trying to please their base constituencies and move on the debt ceiling, reducing the deficit and other economic agenda items.
"Whatever Sen. [Mitch] McConnell [R-Ky.] says about me on the floor of the Senate is not going to be an impediment to us getting a deal done," Obama said. "You know, the question is going to be whether at any given moment we're willing to set politics aside at least briefly in order to get something done.
He continued: "Surely we can come up with a compromise to solve those problems. So there will be huge differences between now and November 2012 between the parties. And whoever the Republican nominee is, you know, we're going to have a big, serious debate about what we believe is the right way to guide America forward and to win the future. And I'm confident that I will win that debate.”
"And I think increasingly the American people are going to say to themselves, you know what? If a party or a politician is constantly taking the position 'my way or the highway,' constantly being locked into, you know, ideologically rigid positions, that you know, we're going to remember at the polls," Obama said.
Obama didn't rule out the fall-back plan proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that would give the president the power to raise the debt ceiling to avoid a national default.
"It is constructive to say that if Washington operates as usual and can't get anything done, let's at least avert Armageddon," he said. However, Obama said he wanted to address the deeper debt issues.
"I have not seen a credible plan ... that would allow you to get to $2.4 trillion [in savings] without really hurting ordinary folks," he said.
The president said voters are paying attention to "who seems to be trying to get something done” in the high-stakes negotiations over raising the debt ceiling.
“It's going to be in the interests of everybody who wants to serve in this town to make sure they are on the right side of that impression,” he said.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Geithner says hard times to continue for many
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.
He says President Barack Obama rescued the United States from a second Great Depression and will keep working to strengthen the economy. But Geithner says will be some time before many people feel like the country is recovering.
Geithner tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that it's a very tough economy. He says that for a lot of people "it's going to feel very hard, harder than anything they've experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come."
Navy to cut jobs amid recession driven sailor surplus
Fox News
With more sailors staying in the military amid a slumping economic recovery, the U.S. Navy is taking the unprecedented step of firing low-ranking petty officers to help rein in spending.
The Navy plans to let go of 3,000 young sailors after economic uncertainty put the service in the unusual position of having a manpower surplus.
The move comes as a new government report shows that the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent -- marking 29 straight months that number hasbeen over 8 percent and a record streak since the Great Depression.
In August, the Navy will convene a board to review the cases of 16,000 sailors and eliminate 3,000 positions, about 1 percent of the force. Navy officials say the jobs cuts will be based on experience and individual performance records.
It's a complete reversal for the military, which just four years ago at the height of the fighting in Iraq, had a hard time meeting its recruiting goals. At the time there was talk of the Army being spread so thin it would not have enough fighters to conduct its wars. Now with the White House aiming to cut spending and pull troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, the need for more men has diminished.
Rep. Mike Coffman, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee and served in the Marine Corps, says it's not a good situation for those young sailors.
"There's no retirement for them and... there's no severance for them," Coffman said. "So essentially they're with so many other Americans on unemployment."
Coffman told Fox News it's not unusual for the military's retention rates to go up during bad economic times, but he called this particular case "unprecedented."
"It's never gone up to this level where so many people, the vast majority of people want to stay in the United States Navy."
The Air Force retention rates are also up to a 6-year high, causing it to convene a similar reduction-in -force board. The Air Force will review the records of more than 9,000 officers, mostly majors, and roughly 400 are expected to be let go.
Fox News military analyst and retired Maj. Gen. Bob Scales, says it all boils down to pressure on Washington to save money and simple arithmetic.
"The quickest way to reduce the budget for the military is to cut people," Scales said. "They can be pulled out of the ranks immediately and the savings are immediate. Whereas when you try to cut programs often times for new weapons systems it takes years, if not decades, to get all that money back."
The retention rate for sailors with one to six years of service rose 10 percent from 2005 to 2010. And the Navy is overstaffed in 31 different job categories: jet engine mechanics, avionics technicians, electricians.
"What we're seeing in the Navy is just the tip of iceberg for all the services," Scales said. "The Air Force and the Navy have gone down in strength over the last few years and as the troops return from Afghanistan and Iraq and as pressure mounts on the defense budget, we're going to see similar consequences for the ground services."
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced in January that as the wars come to a close in 2015 the Pentagon has plans to cut active-duty soldiers by 27,000 and reduce the Marine Corps by roughly 15,000.
In October, the Army will begin cutting its ranks by 22,000 -- and that means even more job seekers in a market with fewer and fewer good jobs.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/08/navy-to-cut-jobs-amid-recession-driven-sailor-surplus/#ixzz1Rj0qszgz
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
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