What did Obama know and when did he know it?

Evidence Suggests Cover-Up in ATF Scandal, as More Guns Appear at Crime Scenes

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/02/demand-for-more-answers-in-fast-and-furious-scandal/#ixzz1WoY05sch

Just hours after the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, federal officials tried to cover up evidence that the gun that killed Terry was one the government intentionally helped sell to the Mexican cartels in a weapons trafficking program known as Operation Fast and Furious.

The revelation comes just days after a huge shake-up of government officials who oversaw the failed anti-gun trafficking program and Congress renewed its demand for more answers.

Also late Thursday, Sen. Charles Grassley's office revealed that 21 more Fast and Furious guns have been found at violent crime scenes in Mexico. That is up from 11 the agency admitted just last month.

Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Thursday they are expanding their investigation into the scandal. In a strongly worded letter to Anne Scheel, the new U.S. attorney for Arizona, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requested interviews, emails, memos and even hand-written notes from members of the U.S. attorney's office that played key roles in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) program.

Issa and Grassley said they want to speak with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emory Hurley and Michael Morrissey, along with Patrick Cunningham, chief of the office’s Criminal Division.

Not only do congressional investigators want to "make sense" of details of the operation that allowed more than 2,000 guns to "walk" and later turn up at crime scenes on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, but they want to known why Hurley -- who knew almost immediately the guns found at Terry's crime scene belonged to Fast and Furious -- tried to "prevent the connection from being disclosed."

In an internal email the day after the murder, Hurley, and then-U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, decided not to disclose the connection, saying " ... this way we do not divulge our current case (Fast and Furious) or the Border Patrol shooting case."

“The level of involvement of the United States Attorney’s Office … in the genesis and implementation of this case is striking,” wrote Issa and Grassley.

The two claim witnesses have told them that recently reassigned Hurley may have also prevented ATF agents from doing their jobs.

“Many ATF agents working on Operation Fast and Furious were under the impression that even some of the most basic law enforcement techniques typically used to interdict weapons required the explicit approval of your office, specifically that from Hurley,” the letter states.

Grassley also raised concerns about the latest data on Fast and Furious guns found at crime scenes in Mexico.

“The Justice Department has been less than forthcoming since day one, so the revisions here are hardly surprising, and the numbers will likely rise until the more than 1,000 guns that were allowed to fall into the hands of bad guys are recovered -- most likely years down the road," Grassley said in a statement released Thursday.

"What we’re still waiting for are the answers to the other questions the Attorney General failed to answer per our agreement. The cooperation of the Attorney General and his staff is needed if we’re ever going to get to the bottom of this disastrous policy and help the ATF and the department move forward.”

White House received emails about Fast and Furious gun-trafficking operation

Three national security officials were given some details about the operation. But an administration official says the emails do not prove that anyone in the White House was aware of the covert tactics of the program.

Reporting from Washington—

Newly obtained emails show that the White House was better informed about a failed gun-tracking operation on the border with Mexico than was previously known.

Three White House national security officials were given some details about the operation, dubbed Fast and Furious. The operation allowed firearms to be illegally purchased, with the goal of tracking them to Mexican drug cartels. But the effort went out of control after agents lost track of many of the weapons.

The supervisor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation in Phoenix specifically mentioned Fast and Furious in at least one email to a White House national security official, and two other White House colleagues were briefed on reports from the supervisor, according to White House emails and a senior administration official.

But the senior administration official said the emails, obtained Thursday by The Times, did not prove that anyone in the White House was aware of the covert "investigative tactics" of the operation.

"The emails validate what has been said previously, which is no one at the White House knew about the investigative tactics being used in the operation, let alone any decision to let guns walk," said the official, who was not authorized to speak about it publicly. "To the extent that some [national security staff members] were briefed on the top lines of ongoing federal efforts, so were members of Congress."

He identified the three White House officials who were briefed as Kevin M. O'Reilly, director of North American Affairs for the White House national security staff; Dan Restrepo, the president's senior Latin American advisor; and Greg Gatjanis, a White House national security official.

"The emails were not forwarded beyond them, and we are not aware of any [additional] briefings related to that email chain," the official said.

The emails were sent between July 2010 and February of this year before it was disclosed that agents had lost track of hundreds of guns. Many are thought to have fallen into criminal hands, and some have turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States, including at the fatal shooting of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) are trying to determine what theJustice Department and the White House knew about the program.

According to the emails, William D. Newell, then the ATF field supervisor for Arizona and New Mexico, was in close contact with O'Reilly and sought the White House's help to persuade the Mexican government to let ATF agents recover U.S. guns across the border.

After earlier emails from Newell to O'Reilly surfaced, Newell testified to congressional investigators in July that the two were friends and acknowledged that he probably should not have sent them to him. But the new emails indicate that Newell and O'Reilly were in deeper discussions about gun operations on the border.

In July 2010, about nine months after Fast and Furious started, O'Reilly was seeking information about ways to fight gun trafficking in Arizona when he emailed Newell.

"Just an informal 'how's it going?' " he wrote. He titled the email "GRIT Surge Phoenix," an acronym for Gun Runner Impact Teams.

Newell replied that things were "going very well actually."

Though not mentioning Fast and Furious by name, he talked about large numbers of ATF agents being temporarily transferred to Arizona to work on cases, apparently alluding to the Fast and Furious program. He also praised their work on "firearms trafficking investigations with direct links to Mexican" cartels, which was the main goal of Fast and Furious.

"This is great," O'Reilly replied. "Very informative."

O'Reilly asked whether he could share the information with Restrepo and Gatjanis. He added that the information "would not leave NSS, I assure you."

Newell answered, "Sure, just don't want ATF HQ to find out, especially since this is what they should be doing (briefing you)!"

A third email went from Newell to O'Reilly on Feb. 11, two months after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in Arizona and Fast and Furious weapons were found at the scene.

Newell discussed the just-obtained indictments of 20 people, including Jaime Avila, for illegal gun purchasing. It was two of Avila's guns bought under Fast and Furious that ended up at the Terry shooting. This time, Newell specifically mentioned Fast and Furious.

"The Fast and Furious indictment is listed under U.S. v Avila and that's the one in which there's an introduction of the techniques used by firearms traffickers," he told O'Reilly. He suggested "we" should use the indictment to draw attention to the arrests through the media in Mexico.

In another development, the Justice Department said it knew of only one other instance where a Fast and Furious weapon was "recovered in connection with a crime of violence in the U.S." Earlier it had said there were 11 instances.

All the News that Fits Our Lefty Preconceptions We Print

The NYT and Crown Heights from Charles Jacobs

The Ari Goldman scandal is a gift that keeps on giving. Two weeks ago Goldman, formerly a religion writer for The New York Times, publicly confessed to having remained silent for 20 years about his paper's distorted coverage of the Crown Heights riots. For Goldman, it was up close and personal. He was on the phone, right there in Brooklyn, calling in reports from the streets where black mobs were attacking Jews, yelling "Heil Hitler" and "Kill the Jews!" But, he now tells us, his Times editor found this news not fit to print. There was to be no black anti-Semitism, and no anti-Jewish pogrom in the nation's "paper of record."

Instead, Goldman explained, the Times doctored the news by forcing inconvenient facts into story lines it preferred. In Crown Heights, a Hasidic Jewish driver mistakenly killed a black boy, Galvin Cato, in a car accident, and then blacks rampaged and murdered a Jew, Yankel Rosenbaum. The paper, unhappy with these clear and simple facts, instead told a tall tale: "Blacks and Jews clashed," it reported, implying there was blame on both sides, though neither Goldman - nor anyone else - saw any Jew attacking a black. "Clashed" was simply a lie that enabled the Times to treat the accident that killed Cato and the murder of Rosenbaum as morally equivalent tragedies. That's the "news" they wanted to publish.

Commentators explain that Times editors are disciples of post-modernist theory, now spoon fed to every one of our $25,000-a-semester children in their spa-like centers of "higher education." There is no "truth," you see. That's old-fashioned. There are only "narratives," and each side's version of reality must be given equal treatment (unless that side is the Judeo-Christian); otherwise, we'd all remain stuck for life as morally sick, white-skin-privileged xenophobes.

Goldman, now a journalism professor at Columbia University, has an opportunity to do more than set things straight by outing his paper for fabricating "news reports" 20 years ago; he can explore, as a serious student of journalism might, just how and why the mainstream media has become such a fraudulent enterprise, fulminating fibs, especially but not exclusively about Jews, Christians, Muslims and the Middle East. He could use his own experience in Crown Heights to probe the reasons today's editors rush to equate accidents with murders.

The rest here.

Bill Whittle: The Truth is Out There

Barbarians don't understand Beethoven's Ode to Joy

Anti-Israel protests disrupt BBC Proms concert

Not news to me. But, here's the link between leftists and Nazi's

Eva Peron ‘kept Nazi treasure taken from Jews’

Eva Peron, the former Argentine first lady, is believed to have kept Nazi treasures taken from wealthy Jewish families killed in concentration camps, according to a new book.

‘The Politically Incorrect Guide to Latin America’ aims to highlight a series of little known controversies about leading leftist figures in the history of the continent.

It claims that Simon Bolivar, the hero of Latin America’s independence wars, was scared that blacks and indigenous Indians would seize power and that Salvador Allende, the Marxist Chilean president of the 1970s, considered a Nazi-inspired policy of sterilisation.

Its authors, the Brazilian journalists Leandro Narloch and Duda Teixeira, said the book is intended to generate discussion about issues airbrushed from history books.

Eva Peron, known as Evita, was the second wife of President Juan Peron, and remains a national heroine almost 60 years after she died from cancer.

Hospitals, schools and orphanages were built in poor areas through a foundation she established and she was crucial to her husband’s popularity with the masses.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Italian police recover stolen Eva Peron jewels

  23 Jun 2011

However, Mr Peron helped many Nazis fleeing Europe after the Second World War to find a safe haven in Argentina, including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele.

According to the new book: “It is still suspected that among her [Eva Peron’s] possessions, there were pieces of Nazi treasure, that came from rich Jewish families killed in concentration camps.

“Peron himself even spoke of goods of ‘German and Japanese origin’ that the Argentine government had appropriated.” Looking further back in history, the authors write of Bolivar: “His greatest fear was that blacks, Indians and those of mixed race would take power and install a government.” Allende, who killed himself in 1973 during a coup which saw General Augusto Pinochet depose him, is accused of having “stifled the media”.

The book adds that he started “a project of socialist doctrination in schools and almost installed a law of sterilisation, inspired by a Nazi law” aimed at reducing genetic illnesses.

The book has triggered a wave of controversy, winning praise from some historians for stimulating debate but attracting strong criticism from others for a lack of historical context.

“It is not a historical guide. It is politically incorrect. We only show the unpleasant side of history’s heroes,” said Narloch, who is now planning a follow-up work about global historical figures.

Big Brother is your friend, right? Right!

FEMA'S use of term 'federal family' for government expands under Obama

By GEORGE BENNETT

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Don’t think of it as the federal government but as your “federal family.”

In a Category 4 torrent of official communications during the approach and aftermath of Hurricane Irene, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has repeatedly used the phrase “federal family” when describing the Obama administration’s response to the storm.

The Obama administration didn’t invent the phrase but has taken it to new heights.

“Under the direction of President Obama and Secretary Janet Napolitano, the entire federal family is leaning forward to support our state, tribal and territorial partners along the East Coast,” a FEMA news release declared Friday as Irene churned toward landfall.

The G-word — “government” — has been nearly banished, with FEMA instead referring to federal, state and local “partners” as well as “offices” and “personnel.”

“'Government’ is such a dirty word right now,” says Florida State University communication professor Davis Houck. “Part of what the federal government does and any elected official does is change the terms of the language game into terms that are favorable to them.”

“Family” can evoke favorable thoughts of motherhood and security. But it can also conjure images of Big Brother and organized crime.

The phrase “federal family” has been used in connection with FEMA at least as far back as 1999.

Under President George W. Bush, FEMA officials sprinkled the alliterative euphemism into congressional testimony and statements. When former FEMA Director Michael Brown promised help to hurricane-battered Floridians in 2004, he vowed that “the federal family is dedicated to staying for as long as it takes.”

During the Clinton administration, Vice President Al Gore responded to 1999 flooding in Iowa by pledging that “the federal family is committed to providing the necessary resources to comfort every person and family devastated by this disaster and to help them return to their normal way of living as fast as possible.”

A Google search shows the phrase appearing 10 times on FEMA’s website during the Bush years. Since Obama took office, “federal family” has turned up 118 times on fema.gov, including 50 Irene-related references.

Among them: statements that the Obama administration “is committed to bringing all of the resources of the federal family to bear” for storm assistance and that “the entire federal family continues to lean forward to support the states in their ongoing response efforts.”

Houck doubts all the “family” references will give the public a warm and fuzzy view of FEMA and the federal government.

“That one is so blatantly obvious that I think people’s rhetorical radar is going to go off,” Houck says.

On the other hand, Houck says, “If FEMA can come in and really do a great job, maybe that 'federal family’ thing would stick with the people on the ground.”

FEMA did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Outing the Stalinists...remember when she wanted to nationalize the oil industry too.

MAXINE WATERS: ‘GANGSTER’ BANKS MUST MODIFY LOANS OR ‘WE’RE GONNA TAX THEM OUT OF EXISTENCE’

While speaking at a Los Angeles Town Hall event recently, Rep. Maxine Waters introduced an interesting idea when it comes to banks and loan modification. According to her, it’s up to the federal government to make sure people can afford their mortgages. So much so that it’s time the president “bring the gangsters in, put them around the table, and let them know that if they don’t come up with loan modifications and keep people in their homes, that they’ve worked so hard for, we’re gonna tax them out of business.”

Watch the video below:

On radio Thursday, Glenn Beck called the comments “extremely dangerous” and said it could be a setup for ultimate government control. Still, he did speak out against crony capitalism — including banks that exploit loopholes — and special interests.

Government insanity

UPDATE: GIBSON GUITAR CEO SAYS FEDS TOLD HIM PROBLEMS WOULD ‘GO AWAY’ IF LABOR DONE IN MADAGASCAR (UPDATED WITH BECK INTERVIEW)

Given we know the results of this type of activity we must assume this administrations aim is the destruction of theAmerican economy.

Justice's New War Against Lenders

The Obama administration repeats mistakes of the past by intimidating banks into lending to minority borrowers at below-market rates in the name of combatting discrimination.

Talk about not learning from past mistakes: A government department is again intimidating banks into lending to minority borrowers at below-market rates, all in the name of combating "discrimination." Welcome to the next housing mess.

The 1990s may have brought us supercharged politicized lending, but Eric Holder's Department of Justice is taking the game to an entirely new level, and then some. The weapon is a "fair lending" unit created in early 2010, led by special counsel Eric Halperin and overseen by Civil Rights Division head Thomas Perez.

A sampling of Mr. Perez's thinking, from April 2010 congressional testimony: "The foreclosure crisis has touched virtually every community in this country, but it disproportionately touches communities of color, in particular African-Americans and Latinos." And: "[C]ross burnings are the most overt form of discrimination and bigotry. Lending discrimination is some of the most subtle. It's what I call discrimination with a smile."

Even for the Obama administration's antidiscrimination cops, this is a shocker: A political appointee who's supposed to neutrally enforce the law loosely equates bankers with Klu Klux Klan thugs. But let's move from what may be Mr. Perez's personal bias, and focus on the broader brush strokes of the Justice Department—which seem designed to paint bankers into a corner.

Lenders who discriminate on the basis of race and those who make decisions on the basis of credit scores are two entirely different animals. The former our society doesn't permit, for moral reasons; the latter we encourage because it's fundamental to capitalism. A lender will go bust if he can't distinguish between a risky loan and a good loan. Poor people aren't well-served by getting loans they can't afford.

Historically, fair-lending cases have fallen into roughly two categories: "price discrimination" cases, in which lenders are accused of charging minorities higher prices than other clients, and "red-lining" suits, in which they are accused of intentionally failing to serve minority communities. Sounds straightforward for those who seek to obey the law.

View Full Image

AFP/Getty Images

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez testifies before a Senate committee on civil rights, March 29.

But not when Justice revives "disparate impact" theory: the idea that even if lenders don't actively discriminate, they can still be sued if the cumulative effect of their actions implies discrimination. The latter is usually "proved" through statistical analysis (and the old standard—discriminatory intent—is thrown out the window). The Bush administration largely declined to pursue these cases.

And for good reason. Consider two AIG subsidiaries that Justice alleged "failed to supervise or monitor brokers in setting broker fees" between 2003 and 2006, but that Justice didn't pursue aggressively until the Obama administration. The government claimed that, in aggregate, African-Americans were charged more than other ethnic groups. AIG settled in March 2010 while it was under federal ownership, and Mr. Perez gained a big legal stick in price-discrimination cases. Suddenly lenders may be held liable for other people's business practices, even if those business practices aren't individually discriminatory.

Justice is pushing the legal envelope on red-lining, too. In a July 1 letter to Cardinal Financial Corp., Justice contends that after the bank bought George Mason Mortgage in 2004, it "failed to serve predominantly black areas on an equal basis with predominantly white areas" by not opening branches in majority-black areas or engaging in "effective outreach activities." Justice wants the bank to add nine counties to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.-approved geographic area where Cardinal does business.

Related Video

Editorial writer Mary Kissel on Japan's new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.

Never mind that the FDIC in the past gave kudos to Cardinal for its lending practices. Justice is now accusing Cardinal of failing to open branches and achieve racial loan quotas in counties that its federal regulator never before contended should be the focus of its lending. We won't know the full facts of this complaint unless it goes to court. But what Justice is up to sounds like the same government-directed, quota-based lending push that brought us the last housing boom and bust.

Many companies are simply rolling over and paying once they realize the extent of the possible PR horror show. "Banker" is a bad word in today's political environment. Small and midsize banks depend heavily on their reputation and community ties, and they can't afford to be labelled racist. Many can't afford prolonged legal cases either, and the mere prospect of fighting the feds is intimidating. Mr. Perez knows all this.

Justice is employing some unusual tactics, too, including asking banks to sign confidentiality agreements in certain circumstances. Independent Community Bankers of America chief lobbyist Camden Fine complained in a letter to Mr. Holder Monday about this practice and its "troubling lack of transparency," adding that it's hard for banks to "assess and refine" their practices if they don't know Justice's legal arguments.

But Justice is on a roll. In less than two years, the government has settled with AIG ($6.1 million), PrimeLending ($2 million), Midwest BankCentre ($1.5 million) and Citizens Republic Bancorp ($3.5 million), to name a few. More cases are in the hopper, and bigger banks are now in Justice's sights.

All of this may boost the standing of Messrs. Perez and Halperin in the Obama administration. It's less good for the rest of us. These settlements include requirements that banks lend to minorities at below-market rates and, in effect, dish out cash to politically favored "community groups." It's a good bet that many of these loans will eventually go bad.

The Justice Department—or the bank, with the long arm of Justice hanging over it—chooses where that money goes. A Michigan judge even went so far as to call one proposed settlement "extortion." He might be onto something.

We come to bury Keynes yet again.

Elites Are Abandoning Keynesianism for Self-Preservation

Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), the world’s largest manager of bonds, has just released research analysis titled: “Saying No to Keynes and Fiscal Folly”. The report is a dramatic departure for PIMCO; who had fully embraced the Keynesian “pump priming” economics of stimulus spending, bailouts, and corporate interventions. But with the American public now opposed to Keynesian government spending by a stunning two to one margin; PIMCO may just be the first of a coming swarm of powerful elites to abandon Keynesianism for self-preservation.

The PIMCO has made big money on the credit crisis over the last three years. PIMCO’s management stated that their firm’s strategy was to “shake hands with the government” by investing money in areas that would benefit from the government’s rescue efforts. With the stock market in tatters, investors rushed to place huge bets in PIMCO’s bond funds. The U.S. Federal Reserve even hired the company firm to manage $500 billion in distressed mortgages. But a few months ago PIMCO made a disastrous investment decision by selling all of their U.S. Treasury Bond investments, just prior to the United States credit rating was downgraded and value of government bonds rising by up to 20%.

Now that PIMCO is losing money on that handshake with the government, they seem to be turning on their former masters. PIMCO’s recent report offers three key conclusions:

• Taxpayers have been hoodwinked into believing the cost from profligate government spending is low relative to the benefits.
• The Keynesian revolution ignited a decades-long abuse of the core principle of Keynesian economics: for government to increase spending when private sector aggregate demand weakens and stymies job growth.
• The central banker is left to shoulder the burden, seeking all the while to pressure the fiscal authority to amend the abuse of Keynesian economics and decades of fiscal folly.

Most people do not realize that the American Revolution was a revolt against efforts by Great Britain to collect brutally high taxes from the colonists to pay the massive debts Great Britain accumulated in the Seven Years’ War with France.

Due to strong memories of endless colonial taxation to pay for past British war debts; one of the first actions by the founders of the United States of America was to pass the “Sinking Fund Act of 1795”. The law required that taxes should “be levied and collected and appropriated to these objects until the whole debt should be redeemed.” The law essentially prevented the young American government from engaging in deficit spending that would be passed on to their children’s generation.

The system was wildly successful at preventing the buildup of debt until the advent of the Keynesian economics revolution in the 1930s. Since that time, successive American governments have increased spending every time private sector demand has weakened and job growth was stymied. PIMCO argues that Americans have been pacified “by the illusions that lead them to believe that the cost they bear from profligate government spending is low relative to the benefits. The hoodwinkers have been many, in particular politicians in Washington, who lead the American people to believe that the use of debt is without cost. This is the essence of fiscal illusion, whereby the victims are ill informed and are taken advantage of by those who have control of budgetary matters and use debt to hide the true cost of their decisions.”

Italian economist Amilcare Puviani first advanced this notion in 1903 that a politician will best use his powers of the purse to promote their own political projects, rather than what is necessarily best for the public. The goal of these political entrepreneurs is to take credit for all that is perceived as good about public policy in the pursuit of their own self-promotion.

James Buchanan won the 1986 the Nobel Prize in Economics for his efforts to apply Puviani’s theory to “public choice theory” to prove that politicians manipulate the gap between the public’s perception about the benefits of fiscal initiatives and their costs in order to grow the size of government. Buchanan demonstrated how this is accomplished by the use of debt and by applying taxes that are less visible than those taken directly out of paychecks.
Politicians and their elitist crony pals have benefited immensely from the 1560% of inflation over the past 80 years that has resulted from the endless abuse of Keynesian philosophy to justify running up debt for self-aggrandizement. But now that the worst recession since the Great Depression is inflicting severe pain on the generally citizenry; those elites are becoming alarmed that the American public will pull back the curtain on the Keynesian Wizard of Oz happiness machine and discover they are doomed to the herculean task of paying down mountainous debts.

What the elitists fear most is the whiff of rebellion that is now in the air. The good times of relying on politicians to spend “other people’s money” for their benefit is over and those other people are getting mighty angry as they realize how much pain they are going to paying for past spending. Elites are educated enough to understand that elites on the wrong side of revolutions usually get trampled into the dust pan of history. It seems to me that PIMCO is just the first of a coming swarm of elites that will abandon Keynesian economics for self-preservation.

Forward this article to friends or follow our research at: http://www.chrissstreetandcompany.com

Tired of this crap yet?

Wolffe: Opposition To Obama Speech Possibly Based On Skin Color

You tax dollars pissed away...

Solyndra Collapse a 'Waste' of Half a Billion By Obama, GOP Critics Say

Will Holder and Obama be made to pay for Project Fast and Furious?

Issa to DOJ: We’ve been Gamed

By Whitney Ksiazek

The Justice Department's recent staff reshuffling can be seen as a result of the criticism of the botched gun tracking operation known as Fast and Furious, but it is unlikely to get the operation out of Congress' crosshairs anytime soon.

"We know we are being gamed and we think the time for the game should be up," House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa [1] , R-Calif., told Fox News host, Greta Van Susteren [2].

Issa, along with Charles Grassley , R-Iowa, has lead the congressional investigation into the ill fated operation, and both he and Grassley agreed that there are still many unanswered questions.

"We have confidential sources that have shown us why the administration's representatives knew these weapons were going to the cartels. Not mostly, not maybe, but virtually all of ‘em," and that is why Issa says they can't give up on the investigation.

Issa weighed in on the shakeup at the Department of Justice, which involved the demotion of ATF boss Ken Melson, hoping that some new blood might help the investigation move forward. He is hopeful that under a new U.S. attorney it can begin to go after those who were involved in the scheme. While Melson was cooperative and helpful during the investigation according to Issa, there was a need to have someone with independent eyes get to the bottom of Operation Fast and Furious.

But, the Oversight and Government reform committee will make sure that a few individuals aren't sacrificial lambs. "Unfortunately, one of the problems is some of the eyes watching are high up in Eric Holder's office and had a lot to do with this happening."

Issa told Van Susteren that the attorney general reached out to him for a conference call the same day as the staffing shakeup. He declined in order to meet in person next week when he returns to Washington.

"I do think we need to work jointly to get this investigation wrapped up with some satisfactory conclusions that we are not heading toward right now."

We did it to Gibson guitars. Are we trending towards each other and not in a good way?

Armed forces raid BP’s Moscow offices

George Clooney speaks:

“As for running for president, look, there’s a guy in office right now who is smarter than almost anyone you know, who’s nicer and who has more compassion than almost anyone you know. And he’s having an almost impossible time governing. Why would anybody volunteer for that job?”Mr. Clooney told a news conference.

One of the reasons Hollywood loves Obama is they both suffer serious cases of narcissistic syndrome.

You can always count on the State Department to side with Israel's enemies

House bill would cut off funds to UN groups elevating status of Palestinian mission

WASHINGTON — The head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is asking Congress to block U.S. funds for any United Nations entity that supports giving Palestine an elevated status at the U.N.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., in legislation unveiled Tuesday, also would ban U.S. contributions to the U.N. Human Rights Council and an anti-racism conference seen as a platform for anti-Israel rhetoric.

Ros-Lehtinen has long been a critic of the United Nations. Her legislation would withhold a portion of U.S. dues to the international body if it does not change its funding system so that dues are paid on a voluntary rather than assessed basis.

She said the U.N. continues to be plagued by scandal, mismanagement and inaction and “this bill is about making the U.N. work again.”

The bill, with 57 cosponsors, comes forth as the U.N. General Assembly prepares to vote on recognizing Palestinian statehood regardless of the outcome of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. In an op-ed in the Miami Herald on Sunday, Ros-Lehtinen said her bill follows the example of George H.W. Bush, who in 1989 succeeded in stopping the U.N. from recognizing a Palestinian state by threatening to cut off U.S. financial support.

But State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, at a briefing Tuesday, said the department opposed the legislation, saying “it would seriously undermine our international standing and dangerously weaken the U.N. as an instrument to advance U.S. national security goals.”

She said the legislation is being introduced at a time when “the U.N. is now doing more than ever to advance U.S. key interests” in such areas as Iran, North Korea and South Sudan.

Ros-Lehtinen’s proposal would push the U.N. to adopt a voluntary funding system and would withhold 50 percent of the U.S. non-voluntary regular budget contributions if, after two years, 80 percent of the U.N. regular budget is not funded on a voluntary rather than assessed basis.

In the 2010 budget year the U.S. provided $7.7 billion to the U.N. for its regular budget, peacekeeping and other programs, up from $6.1 billion the previous year.

The legislation also bars U.S. contributions to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Goldstone Report that accused Israel of war crimes and the Durban conference against racism scheduled for the U.N. headquarters next month. The Obama administration has already said it will boycott that conference because of concerns about anti-Semitism.