Is Health Care A Fundamental Human Right or a Service?

By Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh 

How many Americans believe that health care is a fundamental human right? How many Americans believe that it is just a service that must be paid for just like any other service? Good doctors and nurses who train a long time and invest a lot of money in their education expect to be paid well for their expertise and unique skills.

Respectable hospitals cannot operate on the basis of a “fundamental human right,” invented by “progressives,” somebody must pay for health care. Life-saving medical equipment and drugs are expensive.

There is a reason why the best medical care, equipment, drugs, and doctors in the world exist in capitalism and not in socialist countries. Individual thinking, creativity, and entrepreneurship rewarded by profit have improved our lives and our health. Collectivism resulted in the death of 100 million individuals. Developing each drug cost at least $950 million and researchers and investors expect to be paid for their financial risks, research, and ideas.

Americans have always supported the development of life-saving expensive drugs which were then sold to other nations for much less than we paid at home or were given away for free. Americans have thus subsidized the medical treatment of citizens of many nations.

Hospitals have charged patients with insurance more to cover expenses for those who did not, could not pay their bills, or had no insurance, such as illegal aliens. Quite a few smaller hospitals have closed their doors for that reason alone.

It is true, some people who get sick and have no health care can die. It is also true that without food people also die. Is food then a “fundamental human right?” Someone must toil so that somebody else eats for free?

If you ask “progressives,” everything should be free and nobody should make a profit because profit is “obscene and socially unjust.” Yet taxation from capitalist profit and from income earned supports able-bodied

Americans and illegal aliens who choose not to work, work undocumented, or cannot find a job thanks to the current depressed economy. At some point the golden goose is going to run out of golden eggs. As Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is that you run out of other people’s money.

Public Citizen, in a recent fund raising memo asking potential donors for $5, says that ObamaCare’s problem is not the broken website (the obscene development cost of $693 million, all the lies and misrepresentations of premium costs, keeping your doctors, keeping your insurance, lower premiums, etc.), the problem is that “we spend more on health care per person, by far, than any other developed country, yet millions and millions of our citizens are left without insurance, leading to 45,000 preventable deaths every year.”

The statement is not exactly accurate. A study of 9,005 individuals who answered questions about race, ethnicity, income, and household size was reported in December 2009 in the American Journal of Public Health. These respondents self-evaluated their health and were examined by doctors. The study “oversampled several groups, including Black persons, Mexican Americans, the very young (aged 2 months to 5 years) and those aged older than 65 years.”

Based on sound scientific research, the study contains numerous biases and is hardly a representative sampling of the uninsured U.S. population.

The study concludes, “Lack of health insurance is associated with as many as 44,789 deaths per year in the United States, more than those caused by kidney disease.” Notice the use of the word “associated with,” it does not say “caused” death. There is a significant difference.

The very idea that medical insurance guarantees prompt, timely, excellent medical care, health, and a good outcome (life), is preposterous.

Socialized medicine does cause severe shortages and forces rationing to reduce costs

The fact that socialized medicine does cause severe shortages and forces rationing to reduce costs, thus causing patient deaths by neglect and denial of services seems to escape those who are so eager to institute socialized medicine in this country.

The CDC does say that 200,000 deaths per year from heart disease and stroke are preventable.

The NIH says that preventable causes of death in the U.S. are associated with diet, lifestyle, and metabolic rate.

ObamaCare has already left millions of formerly insured Americans uninsured because the law mandates many more services that insurance companies cannot cover without raising premiums or dropping those already insured. It is simple economics, something that liberals must have slept through in high school and college. 

At the end of the full implementation of ObamaCare more Americans will be left without insurance coverage or dependent on Medicaid than the initial 15 percent who were uninsured before ObamaCare was passed.

Most Americans were satisfied with their excellent health care, the envy of the rest of the world, and their insurance. About 15 percent were uninsured, young people who chose to play insurance roulette based on age, good health, a sense of immortality, and those unfortunate Americans who could not afford the higher premiums based on their low incomes, pre-existing conditions, and those who were canceled by their insurance.

A cheaper solution would have been to offer federally subsidized insurance to those 15 percent who were uninsured. It would have been much cheaper than ObamaCare.

Public Citizen considers the situation outrageous that capitalism “still permits the for-profit health insurance industry to decide who can or cannot see a doctor and to commodify a fundamental human right.” 
Who should then decide? The federal government, of course, because they do everything else so precisely.

Government care worked really well in Cuba, Venezuela, and Eastern Europe where socialist/communist governments decided who got medical care, what type, how much training doctors had, how much they could earn, where they could practice medicine, how much rationing occurred, who lived and died, and how well the communist elites were treated in their private hospitals.

Public Citizen is telling the low information voters that “Our citizens need – and morality demands – a single-payer, Medicare-for-All system.” Who knew that morality demanded health care? And who decides the definition of morality? Is it the government or the enlightened “progressives”?

ObamaCare was never about insuring the 15 percent uninsured, it was about control over our bodies, about impoverishing and making dependent on government those already insured, bankrupting the insurance companies, and establishing one national single-payer system run by the IRS and HHS. What can possibly go wrong with such a plan?

“Helping people when they are sick or injured should not be an industry, like manufacturing lint rollers or windshields,” says Public Citizen. Yet the national health care system in the U.K. is the largest employer. It seems to me that it is an industry, an industry that is run very badly, in which severe rationing occurs and procedural waiting time for ER admissions, tests, hospitalizations, and surgeries is very long. The survivability rate from all forms of cancer is much lower than in the U.S.

Nationalized health care works well for sniffles but not for serious problems, expensive procedures, and surgery. One-payer system is very expensive and requires much higher taxes than Americans currently pay.

Public Citizen promises its $5 donors that “it will derail attempts to cut Medicare.” That will be interesting to see especially since the Obama administration is cutting $719 billion from Medicare in the next 10 years in order to fund ObamaCare.

Public Citizen is working with Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, and Representative John Conyers to “boost legislative momentum for single-payer reform.” The plan is called “Medicare-for-All.” It will ensure every American’s basic right to health care, saving 45,000 lives every year” and “saving our country $350 billion or more annually.” I am not sure how they arrived at this figure but it does not matter, low information voters are easy to convince.

Unless single-payer Medicare-for-All happens, said the President of Public Citizen, our society cannot “progress out of this dark chapter in our national story where we allow 120 of our fellow citizens to die every day so that for-profit insurance industry can perpetuate its profiteering.”

I wonder how many people will die once the full implementation of ObamaCare happens and the 15-member death panel is in full force. How many people will be denied procedures based on their age, usefulness to society, disability, political affiliation, ethnicity, religion, and race?

According to Heritage Foundation, ObamCare’s new exchanges actually offer very limited choices, premiums are more expensive for Americans in at least 42 states, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that 7 million people with employer-sponsored coverage will lose their insurance due to ObamaCare.

ObamaCare undermines American values by discouraging marriage and work

“ObamaCare undermines American values by discouraging marriage and work.” Worse yet, ObamaCare prioritizes illegal aliens over American citizens and able-bodied adults over the disabled. Legal, non-citizen residents qualify for federally subsidized insurance with more and better coverage options than American citizens. (Morning Bell, The Heritage Foundation, November 27, 2013)

States that expanded Medicaid programs will automatically enroll in Medicaid Americans with incomes under 138 percent of the federal poverty level.  But non-citizens will have better options via federal subsidies to purchase coverage in the ObamaCare exchanges. 

To make matters worse, in some states, when a person who received lengthy medical treatment under Medicaid dies, the state goes after the remaining spouse’s assets in order to reimburse Medicaid.

States that did not expand Medicaid programs will offer non-citizens the option to purchase subsidized insurance in the exchanges, while American citizens below 100 percent of the poverty level will likely not qualify for subsidized coverage. (Morning Bell, The Heritage Foundation, November 27, 2013)
ObamaCare will spend $700 billion on Medicaid expansion in order to cover able-bodied individuals, millions of unemployed and underemployed, threatening coverage for disabled Americans, and creating a permanent class that has no financial incentive to work.

These people will become permanently dependent on government for every need. The sad truth is that what government gives generously, it can certainly take away. All we have to do is look at the sad state of Greece. Many citizens must depend on charities for serious medical treatment or face death.

Canada Free Press

Women of MSNBC Silent on Martin Bashir's Palin Comments

by Frances Martel 20 Nov 2013

 
 It has been a week since MSNBC's Martin Bashir took the network's hatred of Sarah Palin one step further with a sexist rant suggesting someone defecate and urinate into the former Alaska governor's mouth. Having apologized but received no discipline, his female colleagues on the network declined to comment on the network's inaction to Breitbart News today. Breitbart reached out directly to hosts Chris Jansing, Rachel Maddow, Abby Huntsman, Andrea Mitchell, Savannah Guthrie, Mika Brzezinski, Alex Wagner, Krystal Ball, and Alex Witt, as well as reporter Kelly O'Donnell, through a publicist, requesting comment on the continued lack of discipline Martin Bashir has enjoyed since making his comments regarding Palin. As of press time, none of MSNBC's talent has responded to our request, nor have they commented publicly on the matter.

The silence is deafening, especially compared to the backlash against those on the right that have outraged the network's talent in the past with far less obscene statements. MSNBC has been pivotal in forwarding a narrative of the Republican Party and the American right engaging in a "war on women" by expressing moral opposition to abortion and skepticism at the government interfering with women's health.

Those Breitbart News have reached out to, in particular, have not been hesitant in commenting when the offender has been a right-wing pundit rather than someone on the left. At the peak of the Sandra Fluke contraceptive media scandal, Rachel Maddow contended that radio host Rush Limbaugh did not understand birth control; Krystal Ball started an online petition and boycott campaign against Limbaugh; and Andrea Mitchell invited Fluke on her program to discuss her sympathetic phone call with President Obama.
In response to former Missouri Congressman Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comments, Kelly O'Donnell tried to tie the Missouri Congressman to then Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan by arguing that his comments resembled something in a bill Ryan was involved in writing, which included the term of art "forcible rape."

The women of MSNBC have been much quieter for Martin Bashir, despite his monologue distinguishing itself for introducing human waste into the conversation. While Bashir himself took the time to apologize for his "wholly unacceptable" comments, he has so far seen no discipline from the network for his comments. His apology came after widespread backlash from the greater conservative community, coverage by Breitbart News, and a petition on TruthRevolt. While Bashir's network immediately suspended colleague Alec Baldwin for his latest homophobic outburst against a photographer, they have yet to note whether Bashir will face a similar fate for words spoken on air.

While often maligned by the left as a divisive figure, Palin has a track record of reaching across the aisle when women in the public eye have become targets of sexist invective. In a recent interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Palin argued that many of the attacks against Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign, especially those based on appearance, were the product of sexism. Some women on the left, most notably today former White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers, returned the favor, tweeting today that Martin Bashir has "gotta go" for his commentary.

SarahPAC, Palin's political action committee, is also still awaiting response from the network over whether they will discipline Bashir. In a letter written to administrators at MSNBC, they list a number of disciplinary actions by the network (including the firing of Don Imus for inappropriate words about the Rutgers women's basketball  team and the recent Baldwin fiasco) and request an answer as to what Bashir's fate will be. This appears to be the only pressure on the network to react to such wholly unprofessional talk, however, as prominent feminist groups like NOW and the Feminist Majority stand out by their silence on the matter.

Big Journalism

'Racist' President Says Now You can Keep Your 'Substandard Insurance'

November 17, 2013
By Clarice Feldman 

 
 In ancient times were a ruler to have mismanaged everything as badly as has Obama, stonemasons would start gathering near the palace in anticipation of being hired to chisel the ruler's name and visage off all public buildings and temples, funerary garb purveyors would be spreading their wares out in the public square, and the top viziers would be stirring a special concoction for him to drink to bring his disastrous reign to a quick end. 

We don't do things that way, so Obama, his party, and the country if not the world, will watch his power dissolve and the chaos he used to thrive on now overwhelm us all. We have, however, the -- to me -- happy pleasure of watching the arrogant press's favorite party face humiliating and ruinous exposure as know-nothings who lied, covered up, ignored normal legislative procedures, constitutional law, public sentiment, math, technology, and common sense.

Just a few days ago the president's defenders were calling his critics "racists" and claiming ObamaCare was merely allowing us to get rid of our "substandard health insurance" for better plans our betters, the Democrat leadership, thought we should have. Thursday he offered up a purported rollback fix announcing, incredibly "we are discovering that insurance is complicated to buy...."

His right-hand gal, the party's own Norma Desmond, Nancy Pelosi, about whom Joshua Sharf says: "I *am* big. It's my caucus that got small," is standing firm, though her caucus is running for the hills as waves of angry voters strike out.

The purported "fix" to allow voters to keep the insurance that the administration ordered them to cancel is so unworkable, the insurance commissioners of South Carolina and Washington State both turned the proposition down almost as soon as the president made it.

Even Howard Dean questioned whether the president can legally do this, though I don't recall him saying a word when this train wreck started down the track through procedures which ignored decades of Congressional practice and procedure and when the president tossed off waivers to his friends and allowed HHS to draft regulations that were directly in conflict with the promises he was repeatedly making to voters and even the clear language of the Act. (This, as his spokesmen were arguing that ObamaCare was "settled law" which could not be altered or repealed.)

More weighty than Dean's second thoughts, however, were those of legal scholars like Professor Eugene Kontorovich, a real constitutional law professor from Northwestern University (as opposed to Obama, the part-time lecturer at the University of Chicago).

President Obama in his speech on "fixing" the Affordable Care Act today did not specify what statutory authority, if any, he thinks authorizes him to make such dictats. Given the gargantuan length of the ObamaCare statute, he might still be looking. Press reports say the President is claiming a broad "enforcement discretion."

It is true that the Chief Executive has some room to decide how strongly to enforce a law, and the timing of enforcement. But here, Obama is apparently suspending the enforcement of a law for a year -- simply to head off actual legislation not to his liking. Congress is working on legislation quite similar to the president's fix, but with differences he considers objectionable. This further demonstrates the primarily legislative nature of the fix.

Indeed, the fix goes far beyond "non-enforcement" because it requires insurers to certain new action to enjoy the delay. This is thus not simply a delay, but a new law.

The "fix" amounts to new legislation -- but enacted without Congress. The President has no constitutional authority to rewrite statutes, especially in ways that impose new obligations on people, and that is what the fix seems to entail. And of course, this is not the first such extra-statutory suspension of key ObamaCare provisions.

UPDATE: Here is the text of the administration's letter describing the fix.

The legal problems are no bigger than the practical and political problems of Obamacare and the man who viewed this as his signature achievement:

Normally insurance companies take months to set up plans, negotiate with network providers, get state insurance commissioners to sign off on the proposed rates, and then do a bit of marketing. Now they have until December 15 for customers whose plans are cancelled as of Jan 1. But hey, don't blame Obamacare! It has only been the law for three years now; if insurance companies really thought it would go into effect and acted accordingly, well, psych!

Experts indicate even the mechanical issue of the website will not -- cannot -- be fixed by Obama's latest promised date, December 1. See:

The well-documented critiques of the front-end and back-end software on HealthCare.gov beg the question of whether this critical site was properly designed -- or, even worse, designed at all.

It has been reported that the front end was designed with an agile process; unfortunately, most agile processes reject and discourage "big design up front." In a nutshell, many agile processes -- and especially extreme programming -- reject the big design phase as part and parcel of rejecting the waterfall methodology. Agile processes follow more of an "organic" software development, where developers start coding the smallest increment possible and "grow" the working software up, little by little, with constant customer feedback. These agile methodologies call for "user stories" to design each small increment of the system being developed. To be fair, agile can work for some software projects, but I assert that it is the kiss of death for projects with many moving parts, multiple organizations and complex interactions.

And then there are the political issues, Pelosi's continued optimistic predictions aside. Kimberley Strassel lays out the devastating political wreckage facing the Democrats:

The primary purpose of the White House "fix" was to get out ahead of the planned Friday vote on Michigan Republican Fred Upton's "Keep Your Health Plan Act." The stage was set for dozens of Democrats to join with the GOP for passage --potentially creating a veto-proof majority, and putting enormous pressure on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to follow suit.

The White House couldn't risk such a bipartisan rebuke. Moreover, the Upton bill -- while it lacks those GOP joy words of "delay" or "repeal" -- poses a threat, since it would allow insurers to continue providing non-ObamaCare policies to any American who wants one. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's version of the bill would in fact (unconstitutionally) order insurers to offer the plans in perpetuity. Both bills undermine the law's central goal of forcing healthy people into costly ObamaCare exchange plans that subsidize the sick.

The president's "fix" is designed to limit such grandfathering, but that's why it is of dubious political help to Democrats. Within minutes of Mr. Obama's announcement, several Democratic senators, including North Carolina's Kay Hagan -- whose poll numbers have plummeted in advance of her 2014 re-election bid -- announced that they remain in favor of Landrieu-style legislation.

And the White House "fix" doesn't save Democrats from having to take a vote on the Upton bill. A yes vote is a strike at the president and an admission that the law Democrats passed is failing. A no vote is tailor-made for political attack ads and requires a nuanced explanation of why the president's "fix" is better than Upton's. Which it isn't.

There remain some diehard believers in the efficacy of an even larger federal role in our lives and health care even if they lightly acknowledge the president just might have "misspoke" or failed to act as a competent executive. For example, the New York Times, whom Professor Althouse flays here.

But I believe the president's tardy apology for creating chaos in at least one-sixth of the U.S. economy is about as effective as the Syrian Al-Qaeda members who videoed an apology for beheading the wrong guy.

The poor man is dead. The apology is useless, and in that same way, the persons who lost their jobs, whose incomes were reduced, who face periods of time with no health insurance coverage of their choosing, who will face a larger tax burden, or who are committed to pay much higher premiums now, have suffered irretrievable losses. Some may even die as their treatment for serious health issues -- like cancer -- were suspended with the loss of their coverage.

Fouad Ajami compares Obama's rise and fall to those of a number of Middle Eastern rulers. He's seen this play about charismatic but incompetent leaders before:

Five years on, we can still recall how the Obama coalition was formed. There were the African-Americans justifiably proud of one of their own. There were upper-class white professionals who were drawn to the candidate's "cool." There were Latinos swayed by the promise of immigration reform. The white working class in the Rust Belt was the last bloc to embrace Mr. Obama -- he wasn't one of them, but they put their reservations aside during an economic storm and voted for the redistributive state and its protections. There were no economic or cultural bonds among this coalition. There was the new leader, all things to all people.

A nemesis awaited the promise of this new presidency: Mr. Obama would turn out to be among the most polarizing of American leaders. No, it wasn't his race, as Harry Reid would contend, that stirred up the opposition to him. It was his exalted views of himself, and his mission. The sharp lines were sharp between those who raised his banners and those who objected to his policies.

America holds presidential elections, we know. But Mr. Obama took his victory as a plebiscite on his reading of the American social contract. A president who constantly reminded his critics that he had won at the ballot box was bound to deepen the opposition of his critics.

A leader who set out to remake the health-care system in the country, a sixth of the national economy, on a razor-thin majority with no support whatsoever from the opposition party, misunderstood the nature of democratic politics. An election victory is the beginning of things, not the culmination. With Air Force One and the other prerogatives of office come the need for compromise, and for the disputations of democracy. A president who sought consensus would have never left his agenda on Capitol Hill in the hands of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.
[snip]

If Barack Obama seems like a man alone, with nervous Democrats up for re-election next year running for cover, and away from him, this was the world he made. No advisers of stature can question his policies; the price of access in the Obama court is quiescence before the leader's will. The imperial presidency is in full bloom.

There are no stars in the Obama cabinet today, men and women of independent stature and outlook.

I resist amateur psychological analyses but it is hard to ignore the President's narcissistic pathology, and, if this is the case, as he is cornered he is only more dangerous than ever. Iowahawk's nailed it I think:

David Burge ‏@iowahawkblog
"Let's not argue whose idea it was to bring the Jarts and tequila. We need to all work together to fix the hole in this guy's head."

American Thinker

8 Reasons The Republican Party Has A Bright Future

John Hawkins | Nov 16, 2013

 
 Losing to Barack Obama in 2012 shook the confidence of many Republicans and it's easy to understand why. After all, if you lose to the worst President in history, what does that say about you? Combine that with the frustrations so many conservatives have with the GOP and it's easy to write off the Republican Party.

However, it's often darkest before the dawn and many people are missing the fact that the GOP is well positioned to thrive over the next couple of decades.
 
1) We have the most potent grassroots movement in politics: The GOP has the Tea Party Movement, while the Democrats HAD the Occupy Movement. The Tea Party Movement is about small government, cutting spending, and sticking to the Constitution. The Occupy Movement was about demanding free stuff and avoiding taking baths for weeks at a time. The greatest moment for the Tea Party was the GOP's incredible success in the 2010 elections. The greatest moment for the Occupy Movement was when the occupiers were protesting Wall Street and a bunch of traders dumped hundreds of McDonald's job applications on them out of a window. The Tea Party Movement is still alive and kicking. The Occupy crowd eventually gave it up when the rich liberals stopped sending the protesters free food and they ran out of open space to poop in the city parks.
 
2) 2010 was the GOP's best year since 1948: It's funny to hear, "The Republican Party can't win anymore," when the GOP had its best year since 1948 less than three years ago. In the 2010 election, the GOP added 6 Senate seats, 63 House seats, and 680 seats in state legislatures around the country. Does that sound like a party that can't win any more? Does that sound like a party that's dying?
 
3) We should control the House at least until the next census: Not only does the GOP control the House, because of gerrymandering, we're likely to remain firmly in control until the next census. That will give us the capability to slam the brakes on government no matter what happens with the Senate and White House.
 
4) The party is thriving on the state level: The GOP is doing fantastic on the state level. We control 29 governorships and in the state legislatures, we control the upper chamber in 30 states and the lower chamber in another 28 states. That gives us a deep bench and proves the GOP can be not just competitive, but dominant as long as we play our cards right.
 
5) Our numbers with minorities are only going to go up: White Americans tend to vote Republican while black and Hispanic Americans tend to vote Democrat. Because demographically there are going to be more black and Hispanic Americans in the coming years, some people think that means the GOP is in deep trouble. Of course, that sort of thinking assumes the GOP will continue to get the same percentage of the black and Hispanic vote that it has always gotten. In actuality, since the GOP has done no outreach of significance in past years, we have every reason to think that our current numbers with minorities are a floor, not a ceiling. The GOP made its first real attempt to showcase minority Republicans during the last GOP convention and the RNC has just begun to pour serious money and manpower into minority outreach. It won't happen overnight, but our numbers with minorities are going to go up significantly in coming years.
 
6) Short Term: Obamacare means a strong 2014: All the GOP needs to do to have a great 2014 is hammer away relentlessly at Obamacare and highlight scandals like Fast and Furious, the IRS persecution of the Tea Party, and Benghazi next summer while taking care not to aggravate the base. If we do just those three things, we're practically guaranteed to pile on even more seats in the House and we'll have a better than even chance of taking back the Senate.
 
7) Barack Obama gives us a medium term opening: Barack Obama really is the single worst President in American history. The economy has been bad the entire time he's been in the White House; there are 10 million more Americans out of work than when he came into office. He's incredibly divisive, his foreign policy is in chaos, and his signature achievement is the Hindenburg of government policies. Conservatives have seen how bad he was from day one, but many other Americans are just starting to figure it out. After finally concluding that Democrats can't govern, the American people are going to be much more willing to give the GOP a chance to prove Republicans have what it takes over the next few election cycles.
 
8) Long term, the ground is very unfavorable to the Democrats: As Grover Norquist likes to say, the Democrats are made up of competing parasitic interest groups. So, when Democrats get into office, they immediately start doling out taxpayer money to their allies to keep them in line. Margaret Thatcher identified the coming problem with that strategy long ago when she said, "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." Unfortunately for all of us, we have a little too much socialism in this country and we are indeed running out of other people's money. This is bad for the country in general, but it's catastrophic for the Democrats whose entire electoral model is centered around recklessly spending money. The unions, which gulp down an inordinately large slice of the taxpayer pie, are already starting to pay the price. Their membership is down to its lowest level since the thirties and even liberal Meccas like Detroit are slashing their pensions down to nothing because they're out of money and have no other choice.

If we want out children to have the same opportunities and bright future that previous generations of Americans have grown up with, then this country needs a conservative Republican Party to dominate our political process over the next couple of decades. We're going to have the opportunity to save our country and the only question left is whether we're up to the challenge.

Townhall

An Incurious Or Willfully Ignorant President

Derek Hunter | Nov 17, 2013

 
 When President Obama stepped in front of the cameras Thursday to magically waive a wand and arbitrarily change his signature accomplishment, he couldn’t help but lie to the American people…again. But lying about the accomplishments of his administration isn’t a compulsion; it’s a requirement.

Looking back on the last five years, what has the Obama administration accomplished? Anything? Put your partisanship aside and be honest – can you name any?

His trillion-dollar stimulus was such a failure that progressives had to invent a new, unverifiable measure to claim victory –and the pathetic “it stopped things from getting worse” defense was the absolute best his team of spin-doctors could muster.

The economy has not recovered. The unemployment rate has decreased only because people have given up the hope to find work and no longer count. We’re on the verge of acquiring as much debt under this president as under all previous presidents combined. And the Middle East is in shambles. The only growth we’ve seen is in a stock market propped up by the Federal Reserve’s printing presses, taxpayer subsidized “green” company bankruptcies, disability and food stamp rolls and the bottom lines of Canadian web design firms.

Obamacare was the only real hope the president had left. After months of scandals exposing him as either disconnected from his own administration or callous and vindictive, the president put all his chips on the Oct. 1 launch of healthcare.gov. The idea that the American people, who had just re-elected him, would turn on him and his baby was the furthest thing from his mind.

When they did he was ill-prepared to deal with that reality.

The failures of the website were far from his biggest problem. The website is but the portal to a failed concept, and its unveiling – luckily for the president – was drowned out in the news by the government shutdown. But after 16 days, the clouds cleared and the lousy website’s problems would give way to the failed concept taking center stage.

The failed concept is that the government can create a structure in which the private sector can function and flourish. The reality is the government can’t even build the most expensive website ever constructed and make it work.

When the concept started causing people to lose the health insurance they voluntarily purchased, Democrats were relieved to be talking about the failed website because it could be fixed. When the numbers of people losing their health insurance climbed into the hundreds of thousands, that aspect of the problem no longer could be ignored.

When the media switched from website crashes to human stories of people being harmed by the government, even cheerleaders of the law started putting down their pom-poms.

Had the president and scores of congressional Democrats avoided specifics and promised only that lives would be made better by the law, the media would have granted a pass, as usual. But they went out of their way. Period. More than three-dozen times in the case of the president alone. Period. To ensure us that if we liked our plan, we would be able to keep it, no matter what. Period.
Partisans and their friends in the media could not explain this away. The big lie was exposed. The game was up.

President Obama tried to fall back on his personal charm and talk his way out of it. Acting like a person summoning memories of what humility was like from stories heard long ago, he offered something resembling as close to an apology he has in him. The “I’m sorry you didn’t understand what I was saying was the opposite of what I was actually saying, so it’s really your fault” line went over like a brick. But it was all he had.

It was so ineffective that it, and the damage the law was doing to people, left former President Bill Clinton no choice but to attempt to distance and differentiate himself, and more importantly his wife, from this law and this president. Having the first prominent Democrat call for a change to the law be named Clinton without it being Hillary, to still give the illusion of loyalty, was important for their future plans.

When one rat starts to leave a ship, the rest follow…

The chorus rose to the point of legislation being introduced, not only by Republicans but by Democrats as well. Action was coming, one way or another.

Never one to worry much about Constitutional constraints, the president pre-empted his detractors and pretended the law that was set in stone only six weeks earlier was made of clay and he changed it.

When asked about his repeated promise he said, “With respect to the pledge I made that if you like your plan you can keep it, I think -- you know, and I've said in interviews -- that there is no doubt that the way I put that forward unequivocally ended up not being accurate.”

The only way he could not have known it was if he didn’t want to know – if his staff was under orders or chose not to tell him. There’s no reason to believe he’d know on his own. He has no real-world experience in business or the private sector in general, but he does have a staff. The motivation for his lie is either willful deceit or willful ignorance. But neither excuses it.

On the website, what he said was telling. “I was not informed directly that the website would not be working
 as -- the way it was supposed to.”

The key word is “directly.” Either the president was remarkably incurious about the main consumer aspect of his proudest achievement or he was lied to. If he was lied to, the fact that no one has been fired is a disgrace. If he was incurious…

So, either the president of the United States has surrounded himself with people who deliberately keep him in the dark and/or lie to him, or he is an incompetent man in over his head so far that he’s frozen in ignorance, unable to muster the wherewithal to ask even the most basic questions on major issues. Or else he’s lying.

History will judge, but the present, between now and the end of his term, can’t be allowed to forget.

Townhall

Wisconsin City Sells Out of Palin Book After Visit

by Kevin Scholla 15 Nov 2013 

 When former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin went to Wausau, Wisconsin on Thursday, the whole city sold out of her new book, Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas. Palin held a book signing at the local Walmart, where a line snaked around the gigantic store (see video below) for the sold out book. Breitbart News has confirmed the town's Sam's Club and Barnes & Noble also sold out all their copies of her new book as well yesterday. At Walmart, Palin greeted a multitude of well-wishers and signed book after book. Just like her Bethlehem, PA stop, she stayed late because of an abundance of supporters.

She may have stayed later if not for one very relevant detail. According to a Walmart official, the store ran out of books.

Walmart wasn't alone. The entire town of Wausau was cleaned out. A Harper Collins source told Breitbart News that along with Walmart, Wausau's Sam's Club and Barnes & Noble had also sold all of their copies.

The stores have confirmed that all their books were sold.
Among the many that showed up Thursday to greet Palin was Rachel Campos-Duffy, national spokesperson for The LIBRE Initiative and wife of Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), whom Palin endorsed early in 2010 in his upstart bid to unseat Democrat Rep. David Obey (D-WI).

Campos-Duffy found out quickly that Palin had seen her on TV that Thursday morning. "She had watched me on Fox & Friends doing a segment about food stamps, dependency, and Hispanics," Campos-Duffy told Breitbart News. "The LIBRE Initiative is an organization that seeks to empower Hispanics to economically prosper and achieve the American Dream. The governor told me my message was 'right on' and thanked me for my work reaching out to Hispanics with a message of empowerment, self-reliance and entrepreneurship. She's a smart lady."

Campos-Duffy, a mother of six, has been a Palin admirer for some time. "I have always related to her easy maternal style and the way she embraces her femininity," she said. "It's what separates her from old-guard feminist politicians like Hillary Clinton. Can you imagine Hillary bouncing a baby on her hip after accepting the VP nomination? Sarah embraces motherhood and the things that make us different from men with an unapologetic style that gives them their rightful power."

Those feelings toward Palin made a meeting in Wisconsin a must for Campos-Duffy. Plus, it was a chance to express some personal gratitude. "I went to see her because I wanted to welcome her to Wausau," said Campos-Duffy. "I told her how much I admired her strength and grit amid so much vitriol from people who claim to be tolerant. I also thanked her for her endorsement of my husband Sean back in 2010. Sarah Palin chose Sean as the very first congressional candidate she endorsed in the 2010 cycle. It totally put his campaign on the map and folks really started paying attention."

She said, "In many ways, [Palin’s endorsement] was a turning point for us and gave the campaign real momentum. We will always be grateful to the governor for her early support."
Campos-Duffy added that Palin "told me she just couldn't resist the story of a Northwoods Wisconsin lumberjack competitor taking on a 42-year incumbent Democrat."

"It was a bold move on her part, as my husband's victory was very unlikely at the time," she said. "His opponent was the very powerful chairman of appropriations and the man who wrote the stimulus bill and who also held the gavel in the House of Representatives the night Obamacare passed. Sarah's political instincts and independent streak were totally confirmed for me in that decision."

Campos-Duffy also said it was striking to see Palin in person, saying the former Alaska governor was "gorgeous in person" and "has definitely discovered the fountain of youth. I brought some friends of mine and their kids with me to meet her and she was so sweet with them – especially the kids."

"She's a mom first and, as she told me, 'it's the hardest job in the world.' With Sarah, you know it's not just a cliché. She's knows it's true because she lived it," she added. "Her real life experience and down-to-earth style is the reason why hundreds of women lined up at Walmart to meet her and why every one of her books was sold out in Wausau and the surrounding area. She truly is every woman – only hotter!"

Wausau is Palin's only scheduled stop thus far in the Badger State, and the town was not chosen by mistake.

Earlier this fall Palin highlighted a controversy in the town when a local high school tried to "crack down" on Christmas carols. Parents, children, and a spirited music teacher fought back against the Ebenezers. Because of the public outcry, the songs were put back in the school program. On Thursday, Palin was presented with a Wausau West High School Christmas CD at her book signing, and the music played at the Walmart.

Meg Ellefson of the Wausau Tea Party was on hand as well. She told Breitbart News that the alleged demise of Palin, not unlike what is said about the Tea Party, is greatly exaggerated.

"In 2009, this mom who had never before been involved in Wisconsin politics decided to get involved by starting a tea party group because I wanted my children to have the same chance at the American Dream that I had," Ellefson said. "Never did I imagine that I would be called an 'extremist' or vile names like 'teabagger' because I believe in the commonsense principles of limiting the role of government in our lives, expecting fiscal responsibility among our elected representatives and encouraging a culture that is friendly to small business owners. The fact that they're still talking about us, obsessing about us, suggests that we are indeed very relevant in 2013."

As far as the Palin stop in Wausau, Ellefson was thrilled. "Recently our beloved music teacher stood up for Christmas," she told Breitbart News. "He inspired many in our community to come together to speak out and defend Christmas and our children’s right to sing Christmas songs in our public schools."
"Based upon Governor Palin's reception at Walmart, I think it was a brilliant decision to have a book signing here," Ellefson said.

She added that it "means a lot that she is paying attention to even a small community like Wausau in central Wisconsin and cares enough to lend her support to us here" before noting that Christmas cheer was everywhere even in the middle of November.

"The fact that the local media and the angry libs in our community are in a tizzy over Sarah Palin coming to Wausau speaks volumes," Ellefson added. "If she and all of her supporters were irrelevant, they wouldn’t bother with us. The way I see it, the media needs Sarah Palin more than Sarah Palin needs the media."

In the meantime, at least three stores in Wisconsin need more Sarah Palin books.

Palin posted a video of the line at Walmart on her Facebook page on Friday:



Big Government

Barack Obama's Pants are on Fire

November 10, 2013
Jeannie DeAngelis

 
 More than 40 days and 40 nights after it was revealed that what President Obama repeatedly promised wasn't true, at last count 52 million Americans will lose their health insurance, mainly because Barry apparently believes that when it comes to choice, he knows better. 

Based on the millions being unwillingly dropped from health insurance policies they chose and were perfectly happy with, Barack Obama must feel that Americans are incapable of choosing correctly. Not for nothing, but if the president is right, that conclusion casts a whole new perspective on his being elected twice.

Irreparable damage on the national level aside, after hawking the Affordable Care Act like a snake oil salesman, barking "Step right up, if you like your insurance plan you can keep your insurance plan," some gravely ill Americans are finding out that the cure-all the merchant of "Hope and Change" peddled was pure quackery.

Now, after a panicked realization has set in, the president, doing what he does best, decided he should at least make believe that he's sorry and that he's diligently working toward rectifying the catastrophic situation he caused.

Appearing remarkably serene, Obama chose to share his remorse with NBC anchor Chuck Todd.  In an on-air interview the president said that he was sorry about people with cancer who, because they can't afford the Obamacare premium, have decided to "let nature take its course."

Feigning regret, the president acknowledged that people like Edie Littlefield Sundby, a woman with Stage IV gallbladder cancer who was dropped from her insurance, are "finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me."
After talking about how "we didn't do a good enough job" in crafting the law (note the use of "we" instead of "I"), and unable to fall back on his usual scapegoat, G.W. Bush, the president, who modifies everything he says after he says it, first put the onus on evil insurers being responsible for modifying their plans after the law was passed.

Moving the conversation along, the president, who is gaining the reputation for being a liar around the world, said that "we" are doing "everything we can to get it fixed," and that "we" are "looking at a range of options." 
A "range of options" to do what, compensate for the disastrous results of three years' worth of the president's blatant lies?

And although it's too little, too late, Obama's on-camera façade of contrition was, at best, mildly amusing.  
Then, predictably shifting into full-blown victim status, Barack Obama came out with something downright stunning.

Having lost his head for a moment, the Barack Obama we all know and recognize emerged when he bemoaned his having "been burned ...[by] a website."

Whoa! After spending three years actively conning the country into buying a product he knew the whole time was bogus, and after millions of insured Americans laid aside their cynicism only to find themselves without healthcare coverage, blame-meister Barack 'Hey, Don't Look at Me, I Didn't Do It' Obama now dares to say that a poorly-planned healthcare rollout burned him?

Yes! Constitutional arsonist Barack Obama, the man who advocates the saline-scalding of unborn babies, the person who regularly blowtorches the First and Second Amendments, ignites racial unrest, has turned the economy into burnt toast, inflamed relations with America's allies, and set afire just about everything America holds near and dear, actually had the effrontery to utter the words "I've been burned."

The only thing missing from the interview was Barack Obama having to have his smoldering pants be doused with a fire extinguisher.

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com

American Thinker

A Proven Local Method for Conservatives to Take Back the Republican Party

by Daniel J. Schultz 3 Nov 2013

 “We the [Conservative] People” can restore our government by first reclaiming the Republican Party. Not hard. Here’s how. It’s been five years since the American people elected President Obama and we’re almost a year into his disastrous second term. On every issue, President Obama seems to choose the option that is the worst one for Americans.  

Want to do something about it?

If I provided you with a strategy and plan that only took a couple of hours of your time every month and then three or four hours at primary and general election times, and that guaranteed increased voter turnout for the best conservative candidates, would you at least consider investing that amount of time for that desired outcome?  If so, please read on.  

Using this strategy, and investing a couple of hours a month, and three or four at the time of the primary and general  elections, I’ve been able to, in my precinct, with my conservative cohorts, double Republican turnout in a local mayoral race, as compared to the city-wide average turnout for all voters, and achieve an 86+% Republican voter turnout in the 2012 general election.  If conservative Republicans had done what we did in every precinct in America, Mitt Romney would have been handed a landslide victory by conservatives in spite of his campaign’s failure to spend money on a “boots on the ground” Get Out The Vote (GOTV) strategy and plan.  

Additionally, using this strategy, we conservatives have completely changed the Republican Party in terms of who has been elected to the Party local district, county, and state committee officer positions. More on that below, but let’s get back to how to win the elections.
So what’s the key for changing the outcome of elections? And, at the same time, transforming the Republican Party into a conservative election-winning powerhouse? The key is YOU. Where you live. With other conservatives.  

The key is you and your fellow conservatives attending your local Republican Party committee meeting every month (that takes about two hours a month) where you can learn how to become a voting member of the Party--a precinct committeeman. Then, in the weeks leading up to the primary and general elections, you will be in a position, using the GOP Data Center software provided by the Republican National Committee to the state parties, to target the “low information, low propensity” Republican voters and gently nudge them to the polls with a quick, personal phone call followed up by a literature drop consisting of a filled out sample ballot and literature provided by the Republican candidates.

In the 2012 mayoral race in my city, Tempe, Arizona, using this strategy, my fellow conservative precinct committeemen and I, investing just three to four hours of time, doubled Republican turnout in our precinct as compared to the city-wide turnout of all voters. City elections, by statute, in Arizona, are “non-partisan;” that is, candidates cannot inform voters as to which political party they are affiliated. Thus, many “low information” Republican voters do not know which candidates to vote for. That’s where the precinct committeemen can fill the gap. Using the GOP Data Center software, those who vote 50% or less of the time in past elections, can be identified and targeted. That’s about 35% of the Republican voters. We did not bother contacting those who voted 75% or 100% of the time because they were very likely to vote without a “nudge” from us.  

Using this same strategy and plan, in the 2012 general election, as I already mentioned, we achieved a Republican turnout of 86+% in my precinct as compared to a state-wide average of 74% turnout. Again, if we conservatives had organized and united for real political action where we live, “inside” the Republican Party as precinct committeemen, and then carried out our own GOTV efforts, we would have won the election for Mitt Romney in spite of his reluctance to recruit conservatives into the precinct committeeman ranks (as I had advised him and his campaign to do).  

By conservatives becoming Republican Party precinct committeemen, not only will we start down the path to winning elections for our conservative Republican candidates in the all-important, traditionally-very-low-turnout primary elections, and then the general elections, but we’ll also be in a position to elect greater numbers of conservatives to the officer slots of the Party. Currently, it’s estimated about 400,000 Republican Party precinct committeeman slots exist nationwide. Only about 200,000 of these slots are filled. And they’re split, approximately 50-50, between conservatives and moderates. We see that split manifested every two years when the RNC Chairman is elected by the RNC members (consisting of the state chairman and one national committeeman and one national committeewoman from each state).  

Who elects the RNC members? Indirectly, the precinct committeemen elect them. Precinct committeemen ARE the Party.

For example, in Arizona the precinct committeemen in each of the thirty legislative district committees elect, every two years, one state committeeman for every three precinct committeemen in their district (which is an incentive for the conservative precinct committeemen in each district to recruit more conservatives into the vacant precinct committeeman ranks). These state committeemen attend an annual state committee meeting where they elect the state chairman and the other officers. Every four years, the precinct committeemen in each legislative district elect delegates to the state presidential nominating convention. Those delegates elect the national committeeman and the national committeewoman. So, the greater number of elected conservative precinct committeemen the Party has, the greater likelihood the state chairman and the national committeeman and national committeewoman will be conservatives.   

Majority rules. Create a conservative majority of precinct committeeman in your local Party committee, and you’ll be able to elect conservative committee officers.  

Here in Arizona, after the 2008 primary election, less than one-third of the allotted Republican Party precinct committeeman slots were filled and were split about 50-50 between conservatives and moderates. That ideological split was reflected in the elected officer ranks of the legislative district committees, the county committees, and the state committee. Because I and other conservatives began recruiting conservative Republicans at tea party gatherings, 9.12 group meetings, etc., we’ve swelled the PC ranks in Maricopa County to about 55% strength and have almost completely “changed out” the moderates in the Party committee officer ranks. This strategy works.

Here in Arizona, each party gets one precinct  committeeman for each precinct and then an additional one for every 125 registered voters of the party residing in the precinct--or majority portion thereof. My current precinct has twelve precinct committeeman slots, and all twelve are filled with conservatives. We’ve divided the precinct into 12 sectors, and we are each responsible for a sector. Because we only target the 35% of the voters who fall into the “low propensity to vote” category, it only takes us a few hours at the time of the primary and general election to call them and provide them with a sample ballot and candidate literature. Our GOTV strategy works.  It’s just common sense.

And how does one become a precinct committeeman? The requirements vary in each state, but none are onerous. Here in Arizona, the registered voters of each party elect their precinct committeemen in the even-numbered year primary elections. To get on the ballot, a precinct committeeman candidate has to gather just ten signatures or fewer from registered voters of his party or non-affiliated voters. The Party will supply the candidate with the nominating petition and a walking sheet for his precinct identifying those houses containing registered members of his party and the non-affiliated voters. It takes me about 45 minutes to gather the ten signatures. I’ve compiled what I’ve been able to find on the internet regarding each state’s requirements here.  

There’s a reason precinct committeeman has been called “The Most Powerful Political Office in the World”--because it really is. And if conservatives would organize and unite where they live, inside the Republican Party, by becoming voting members of the Republican Party--precinct committeemen--we’d begin the process of restoring our Republic as envisioned by our Founding Fathers. Because about half of these precinct committeeman slots are vacant, on average, in every locale, the Party is there for the taking by conservatives if conservatives will fill up all of the vacant precinct committeeman slots.  

So why haven’t you heard about this? Because most incumbents, even the conservative incumbents, have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo inside the Party. If everything stays the same, they’ll probably win their next primary election and then the general election. If they recruit more conservatives into the vacant precinct committeeman slots, they might sow the seeds of their own primary election destruction if someone “more conservative” than they are runs against them. All politics truly are local, and, therefore, most “national” advocacy groups would prefer you not discover this fact. Your time and money is best spent where you live, increasing voter turnout through the best, most effective method: neighbor-to-neighbor by calling your fellow Republicans in your precinct and then dropping off a sample ballot and candidate literature to help them make informed votes. And changing the Party from within--making it “more conservative” by increasing the number of conservatives “inside it.”

Simply put, the reason the Republican Party is not “conservative enough” for some complaining conservatives is because not enough of those same complaining conservatives are “inside” the Republican Party where they live--as precinct committeemen.

You can carve out a couple of hours a month to do this, no? And three or four hours at the time of the primary and general elections, no?  For your future and your kids’ and grandkids’ futures?  

You can.  

And I hope and pray you will. (Plus, it’s fun and interesting. Really. And personally rewarding in many ways as you’ll find out.)

So now you know what to do.

Thank you.

Daniel J. Schultz served as an Army Human Intelligence Officer and now practices law. He has been a Republican Party precinct committeeman since 2007 and this year was a co-winner of the Conservative HQ Liberty Prize. State-specific and other information relating to The Neighborhood Precinct Committeeman Strategy can be found at http://precinctproject.us.  He can be reached at acoldwarrior@gmail.com. 

Big Government

Left-Wing Activists Try to Use Fast & Furious to Push Gun Control

by Matthew Boyle 2 Nov 2013

 

  Left-wing activists and officials within President Barack Obama’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), part of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ), attempted this week to reframe Operation Fast and Furious as a problem with America’s gun laws.
“Stricter U.S. gun measures are needed to stem the flow of guns to Mexico, where the weapons are fueling violence and leaving people ‘under siege’ with little hope of help from their government, activists said

Thursday,” according to Chad Garland of Cronkite News. “In addition to tougher laws, they called for tougher enforcement by federal officials, who they say have been reluctant to act since the fallout from Operation Fast and Furious, the failed ‘gun-walking’ operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.”

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and a leader of the ongoing congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, told Breitbart News on Friday that such an argument is ludicrous. “Restricting the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens will never serve as a deterrent for criminals intent on committing future crimes,” Gosar said in an email.

In Operation Fast and Furious, several “straw purchasers”—people who work for the Mexican drug cartels’ American-based weapons smugglers—bought guns in the U.S. which were then smuggled into Mexico. ATF agents, at the direction of supervisors within the agency, allowed this to happen and directed gun store owners to allow it to continue—a practice known as letting the guns “walk.”

As a result of Fast and Furious, Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and about 300 Mexican nationals have been murdered with the weapons the ATF allowed to “walk” into Mexico. Many of the weapons have still not been recovered years later. The congressional investigation that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has shown that ATF willingly allowed—and helped facilitate—cartel-affiliated smugglers in their efforts to purchase firearms in the United States and then traffic them into Mexico.

Despite having enough evidence and laws already on the books to arrest and prosecute those so-called “straw purchasers,” documents and congressional testimony shows that ATF agents were ordered to allow the straw purchases to continue without making arrests. Even Holder, who has since been held in both criminal and civil contempt of Congress on a bipartisan basis for his failure to comply with Issa’s subpoenas for more documents, has admitted that the tactics employed in Fast and Furious were wrong.

“That was a fundamentally flawed program, fundamentally flawed,” Holder said in a February 2012 budget hearing when responding to a question about Fast and Furious. “And, I think that I can agree with some of my harshest critics that there are legitimate issues that need to be explored with regard in which the way Fast and Furious was carried out.”

Holder still denies having known about the tactics at the time but will not share all the requested documents with Congress.

Garland quoted an official from ATF, Phoenix-based Special Agent Thomas Mangan: “By no means are we turning our back or turning a blind eye... Trying to stem that flood of guns and that iron river of guns… and trying to keep ahead of the techniques and tactics that these criminal organizations are using in obtaining guns is ever-evolving.”

Mangan’s comments were in a response to a forum that the far-left Center for American Progress (CAP) hosted at George Washington University (GWU) on Thursday. CAP’s Associate Director of Crime and Firearms Policy, Chelsea Parsons, reportedly said that part of the reason why things like Operation Fast and Furious happened and the reason why U.S. guns are found at Mexican crime scenes is because it is “easy and legal to buy [guns] without a background check.”

“Parsons called for universal background checks and tougher sanctions on straw purchasers to ‘make it worthwhile’ for law enforcement to prosecute the ‘little fish’ in gun-trafficking operations,” Garland explained. “She also pointed to the cartels’ creativity in evading customs inspections to smuggle guns into Mexico."

In response to left-wing groups now trying to use Fast and Furious to promote gun control efforts, Gosar ripped CAP for not attempting to hold Holder accountable for his actions in Fast and Furious and the subsequent congressional investigation. "It sounds like the agenda of this forum, and the personal agenda of some of its organizers, was to talk about the need for stricter gun laws,” Gosar told Breitbart News. “Where has the Center for American Progress been in the fight to hold Attorney General Holder responsible for his role in Fast and Furious and the deaths of hundreds of Mexicans and U.S. Border Patrol Agent Terry?"

“These groups want to have it both ways; call for tougher penalties for gun crimes then turn a blind eye to the gun crimes committed under Holder's watch,” Gosar added. “Justice is blind to the partisan agenda of these gun grabbing groups. The victims' families deserve better.”

Garland also quoted a Jesuit priest from Mexico, Rev. Javier Avila, who serves as the president of the Commission of Solidarity and Defense of Human Rights in Chihuahua, Mexico. Avila said violence resulting from ATF’s gun walking and other cartel activity is brutal in Mexico. “You lose someone in a terrible way and nothing happens,” Avila said. “Young people massacred, mothers disappeared, children disappeared, husbands, wives disappeared.”

Gosar told Breitbart News that he wants “Rev. Avila and the people of Mexico to know our nation joins theirs to mourn the innocent lives lost through gun crimes. This is why it is so important we seek justice and accountability for those responsible for Fast and Furious," he explained. "Our government armed the violent criminals responsible for these deaths and no one wants to take responsibility. This is why I continue to push for Attorney General Holder’s resignation.”

Gosar has a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for Holder to resign his position over Operation Fast and Furious. Holder remains in both criminal and civil contempt of Congress, but Holder’s subordinate, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ron Machen, refuses to prosecute Holder on the criminal contempt resolution. As a result, House Republicans, led by Issa’s committee, have fought against the Obama administration in court for the release of the documents it is continuing to withhold from Congress and the American people.

President Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents last year. Obama is asserting the lower of two executive privilege forms, deliberative process privilege rather than presidential communications privilege. If Obama asserted the higher form, it would have meant that either he or his senior White House staff was aware of the gun walking tactics employed in Operation Fast and Furious, something that both Obama and Holder have denied.

A federal judge recently allowed the House oversight committee’s lawsuit against the administration and the president’s claim of executive privilege to proceed, despite calls for dismissal from Holder's DOJ.

Traditionally, deliberative process executive privilege claims are considered invalid with even the suspicion of any government wrongdoing. In this case, the administration has admitted wrongdoing with regards to the tactics employed during Operation Fast and Furious and in how the Justice Department misled Congress with a false statement when first confronted about the scandal in early 2011.

The administration has since withdrawn that false statement and admitted it provided inaccurate information
 to Congress.

Sen. Grassley told this reporter last year that if the federal judge in the case does not overturn the privilege claim, it would be "the most sweeping abuse of executive privilege in the history of executive privilege."

The Obama administration has also been reportedly holding up the publication of ATF Special Agent John Dodson’s tell-all book on Fast and Furious. Dodson was the original whistleblower who brought this scandal to the attention of Congress.

Big Government