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Fortune investigation: The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal
June 27, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
A detailed Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust. (CNN Money) The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal (excerpts):
On June 20, in a day of political brinkmanship, Issa's committee voted along party lines, 23 to 17, to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for allegedly failing to turn over certain subpoenaed documents, which the Justice Department contended could not be released because they related to ongoing criminal investigations. The vote came hours after President Obama asserted executive privilege to block the release of the documents. Holder now faces a vote by the full House of Representatives this week on the contempt motion (though negotiations over the documents continue). Assuming a vote occurs, it will be the first against an attorney general in U.S. history.
As political pressure has mounted, ATF and Justice Department officials have reversed themselves. After initially supporting Group VII agents and denying the allegations, they have since agreed that the ATF purposefully chose not to interdict guns it lawfully could have seized. Holder testified in December that "the use of this misguided tactic is inexcusable, and it must never happen again."
There's the rub.
Quite simply, there's a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn.
Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies. Fortune reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct knowledge of the case. Several, including Voth, are speaking out for the first time.
How Fast and Furious reached the headlines is a strange and unsettling saga, one that reveals a lot about politics and media today. It's a story that starts with a grudge, specifically Dodson's anger at Voth. After the terrible murder of agent Terry, Dodson made complaints that were then amplified, first by right-wing bloggers, then by CBS. Rep. Issa and other politicians then seized those elements to score points against the Obama administration, which, for its part, has capitulated in an apparent effort to avoid a rhetorical battle over gun control in the run-up to the presidential election. (A Justice Department spokesperson denies this and asserts that the department is not drawing conclusions until the inspector general's report is submitted.)
ADE Fail. The state miscalculated AZ schools’ letter grades.
June 27, 2012
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by David Safier All schools are given AZ Learns letter grades by the state. Schools' reputations live and die by those stats. So the least the AZ Dept of Ed can do is get it right. Looks like the ADE screwed up the school grades by using the formula that's only supposed to be used … Read more
Washington Post: Justice Scalia discredits the Supreme Court, must resign
June 27, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Neoconservative Washington Post, the voice of establishment Republican opinion, has decided that it is time for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia to go.
In an editorial opinion today, the editors deliver the closing argument, Scalia’s discredit to the court (excerpt):
For many Americans, the Supreme Court’s decision on President Obama’s health-care reform poses a keen test of legitimacy. In an atmosphere of intense partisanship, made more acute by a pending national election, can these five Republican-appointed justices and four Democratic-appointed ones pass judgment in a way that impresses most Americans as an act of law rather than politics? We have maintained that they can, or at least that the justices should enjoy a presumption of good faith. But the recent behavior of one member of the court, Justice Antonin Scalia, makes that presumption harder to sustain.
In dissenting from a court ruling that struck down all but one part of Arizona’s law on illegal immigrants, Justice Scalia strayed far from the case at hand to deliver animadversions on President Obama’s recent executive order barring deportation of people who entered the country illegally as children. Based on nothing more than news reports, Justice Scalia opined that this policy would divert federal resources from immigration enforcement, thus creating “the specter” of a “Federal Government that does not want to enforce the immigration laws as written, and leaves the States’ borders unprotected against immigrants whom those laws would exclude.”
This gratuitous outburst, regarding a matter that might someday come before the court as a legal case, followed Justice Scalia’s performance during oral arguments on health care, which included a wisecrack about striking down the “Cornhusker Kickback” — even though that infamous dollop of Medicaid money for Nebraska, allegedly inserted in return for the vote of that state’s senator, was no longer in the statute. He sneered that asking the justices to read the entire 2,700-page Affordable Care Act would violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. He launched into a muddled riff on an old Jack Benny comedy routine that became so protracted and distracting that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., amused at first, eventually had to declare “that’s enough frivolity for a while.”
Wall St. Journal picks up the Imagine Schools/Entertainment Properties story
June 27, 2012
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by David Safier NOTE: This is the seventh in a series of recent posts examining Imagine Schools. (Here are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.) If you have ideas or information to add, please leave comments at the end of the post or email me at safier@schooltales.net. I keep all email correspondence confidential. It … Read more
How Obama (maybe) wins Arizona
June 27, 2012
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by David Safier Nate Cohn writes in the New Republic that Obama has at least a fighting chance of taking Arizona. Cohn's basic premise is, Obama underperformed here in 2008 because he was up against our favorite son John McCain and would have had a shot at taking the state against any other Republican candidate. … Read more
Governor Jan Brewer demagogues on anti-immigrant hatred and hysteria
June 27, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
This woman is an affront to all that is good and decent in Arizona. Our delusional governor, who is in denial of the fact that a conservative U.S. Supreme Court just handed her a smack-down defeat on SB 1070, is now venting her rage by demagoguing on anti-immigrant hatred and hysteria, just as she did during her 2010 gubernatorial campaign.
E.J. Montini of the Arizona Republic reports Brewer says Obama wants “illegals” to vote:
Gov. Jan Brewer went on the radio after the SB 1070 ruling and told KFYI host Mike Broomhead that President Obama’s immigration policies are designed to improve his reelection chances by getting him the votes of illegal immigrants.
Not Latino citizens.
The governor of Arizona says that the president of the United States is encouraging people to cross the border and vote for him.
I’m not making this up. (Here is a link to the radio interview. The accusation comes during an answer beginning at about the 4-minute 30-second mark.)
When asked about her administration’s relationship with the Obama administration Brewer said in part:
“We have done everything we could think of to work cooperatively with them and they turn a blind eye to us. They’re not interested. They want chaos. They want a larger voting base as far as I’m concerned and they want the illegal immigration to continue. Not to even mention the fact that they have addressed the issue that you can register with the federal registration form that doesn’t even need documentation that you’re a citizen… Now they’ll have all the illegals and they can all do whatever they want and register to vote. Although it’s illegal if you’re not a citizen to register. But they’re not enforcing the law so what is going to happen to them? He’s looking for votes.”
Sounds to me like the governor is accusing the president of a crime. A conspiracy to commit voter fraud or worse.
Is she?
I put the question to her office.
A tutorial for the media villagers on SCOTUS opinion re: SB 1070
June 27, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” ― Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (NY)
In the case of news reporters, they are not entitled to express their opinion either. They are supposed to report the facts.
And yet the corporate media villagers continue to misreport and misrepresent the Supreme Court holding in Arizona et al. v. United States, the Court's ruling on federal preemption of SB 1070.
The only way this is possible after two days is if the media villagers have not taken the time to actually read the opinion in Arizona, et al. v. United States (.pdf), in which case, how can they be said to be reporting on the decision? Or they are simply parroting the GOPropaganda talking points, in which case they are not part of a legitimate news organization. I suppose a third possibility is that they are just effin' ignorant, in which case, why are they even employed by a news organization?
Lawrence O'Donnell has provided the most succinct summary of the Court's ruling on SB 1070 that I have seen to date. So pay attention media villagers, and get it right. Start reporting the facts of this case accurately. Video below the fold.
Spencer Morgan Pushes Back on Rightwing Agitprop in CD 5 Race
June 26, 2012
By Michael Bryan
Let's face facts: given a 3 to 2 registration disadvantage, Democrats are not likely to win any races in CD 5. Barring the proverbial dead hooker, the winner of the CD 5 GOP primary will likely be taking a seat in Congress.
But in the process, a whole lot of GOP shibboleths will be whispered by candidates Kirk Adams and Matt Salmon. Wouldn't it be great if there were a Democrat there with a mic to challenge their assumptions, debunk their misinformation, and condemn their ideological orthodoxy?
There is. His name is Spencer Morgan.
He's not an ideal candidate. He's barely old enough to qualify for the office. He tends to include his time in student government among his leadership credentials. And he seems to think that a cardigan is sometimes acceptable campaign attire.
But Spencer understands why government is neccessary and beneficial, and how to persuasively and unappologetically stand up for Democratic principles – which is a damn sight more than can be said for some candidates twice his age.
During a recent Chandler Chamber of Commerce debate, he consistently challenged the two Republicans' talking points and presented an alternative view on the issues. This is something that Democrats should always do, even in hopeless districts – just in case a dead hooker turns up, and to ensure that the GOP doesn't have the opportunity to turn a Congressional race into a conservative echo chamber.
We owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Spencer for providing that service in a deeply red district. He deserves our support and encouragement. I suspect that this is merely the first office Spencer will be running for, and he will certainly be paying his dues in his current endeavor.
See the debate video after the flip, in which Mr. Morgan throws the monkeywrench of truth into the gears of the GOP agitprop machine, again and again…
