Operation Choke Point Overlord

Posted on November 10, 2015November 10, 2015 by Denise Simon

A disgusting program concocted by Eric Holder, former Attorney General was launched called Operation Choke Point. Several Federal agencies are part of this program where government intimidates private business where agency deem them high risk. Banks then are told to no longer do business with them.

Freedom and liberty is threatened.

The current Attorney General, Loretta Lynch is still operating the program and private businesses across the country continue to be squeezed. Across a spectrum of industries, they include ammunition and weapons companies, fireworks manufacturers and payday lenders. The FDIC and the Securities and Exchange Commission are part of the operation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Considers Nomination of Operation Choke Point Overlord

Fairfax, VA -(AmmoLand.com)- On Wednesday; Nov. 4, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the nomination of Stuart F. Delery for the position of associate attorney general of the United States.

If confirmed, Delery would become the third-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), behind the attorney general and the deputy attorney general. Delery has been serving as “acting” associate attorney general since September 2014.

The NRA is seriously troubled by Delery’s nomination because of his supervisory role over DOJ’s scandalous Operation Choke Point (OPC). Fortunately, committee members had some tough questions for him on this point. Delery’s unconvincing denials and platitudes in response demonstrate that he does not take seriously the harm OPC, whether intentionally or not, caused to legitimate businesses. The fact that the Obama administration continues to push his nomination shows that it is more interested in rewarding ideological and political fidelity than performance in the pursuit of justice.

The functions of DOJ, however, are far too important, and the department’s powers too great, to make politics its main function.

Delery himself had key oversight responsibility for OPC. He approved the operation and its tactics. He also individually approved the investigative subpoenas that resulted in various banks ceasing business with certain industries wholesale, rather than trying to separate good actors from bad within those industries. Attached to the subpoenas that Delery approved were FDIC guidance materials that included a list of supposedly “high risk” merchants and activities. These included sales of ammunition and firearms. This same list appeared in a PowerPoint presentation given in September 2013 to bank examiners at a workshop conducted by officials from the FDIC, Department of Justice, and Office of Comptroller of the Treasury.

Whatever the true intent of OPC (and DOJ has done nothing to earn the benefit of the doubt on that score), the effect of the government’s tactics was clear: banks were interpreting DOJ’s actions as directives not to deal with certain types of legal businesses. As a result, numerous gun shops and manufacturers lost long-established banking relationships or were refused those relationships in the first place.

Questioners at Wednesday’s hearings pressed Delery hard on these facts. In his opening statement, Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) called OPC a “stunning and dangerous” use of government power.

He noted that the operation was “sold to the public as merely an initiative to protect consumers from predatory payday lending practices.” Nevertheless, he continued, “we now know based on internal DOJ documents that from the outset it was specifically designed to prey on the banking industry`s fear of civil and criminal liability, with the stated goal of shutting down legal businesses” disfavored by the Obama Administration.

He also criticized the broad net the program cast over the banking industry: “three prosecutions out of 60 subpoenas is hardly a justification for the scattergun approach the Department undertook.”

Sen. Grassley went on to confront Delery with documentation that Delery was aware of the negative affect OPC had on lawful industries. DOJ’s response to these developments was to rationalize that if individual businesses were operating lawfully, they should be able to establish that fact with the banks. Yet the banks themselves had in many cases already made the decision that case-by-case determinations invited more scrutiny and pressure from DOJ than they were worth to the bank.

The toughest questioning, however, came from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Cruz offered a blistering summary of the program and confronted Delery with examples of actual businesses that had lost banking relationships, not because of poor performance, but because the banks had decided to sever all relationships with the firearm industry. Delery insisted that no firearm businesses had even been investigated or prosecuted.

“Choke Point,” Cruz shot back, “was all about using government power to intimidate banks to cut off their money even though they weren’t violating the laws.” “The program as it pertained to firearm businesses,” Cruz continued, “was not targeted on evidence of fraud but based on an antipathy of the Obama Justice Department to the exercise of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms by American citizens.”

Delery uniformly denied any intention to use DOJ’s authority to target lawful businesses. In essence, he blamed the banks themselves for misunderstanding DOJ’s intentions. Yet when bank after bank came to the same supposedly unintended conclusion, DOJ did not change course. Only when Congress itself stepped in to investigate DOJ’s tactics did the department issue public “clarifications” of its objectives to target specific fraudulent actors and not entire industries per se.

By that time, however, the damage to lawful industries had been done. Reports from the field, moreover, indicate that these industries continue to suffer the residual suspicion of financial service providers, notwithstanding DOJ’s more recent guidance on the professed scope of the program. For many banks, once burned means twice shy.

One of the more ridiculous aspects of Wednesday’s hearing was the repeated insistence of Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) that NRA “agrees” that OPC did not intend to target lawful businesses. To “substantiate” this point, he quoted from an alert we issued on May 2, 2014, as rumors were swirling about OPC in the media.

We stated at that point that we had “not substantiated … an overarching federal conspiracy to suppress lawful commerce in firearms and ammunition, or that the federal government has an official policy of using financial regulators to drive firearm or ammunition companies out of business.”

We cautioned, however, that “NRA will continue to monitor developments concerning Operation Choke Point and report on any significant activity of concern to gun owners.”

We also noted, “The Obama administration’s record … certainly provides no reason for confidence.”

Three weeks later, we posted an update to that story in which we specifically stated, “At the time of the [May 2] report, we were unaware of a ‘smoking gun’ to tie [banks’ decisions to drop or refuse firearms industry business] back to pressure from regulatory authorities,” and noted, “That may be changing.”

That second report went on to detail additional evidence on OPC that had since come to light, as well ongoing investigative efforts.

Since that time, NRA has reported on OPC extensively, including here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Anyone who read these reports could not fail to understand that NRA has been gravely concerned about OPC for well over a year and that whatever OPC’s original justification might have been, DOJ was willing to accept or even embrace its negative affect on the firearm and ammunition industries. Yet Sen. Franken cherry-picked one phrase from an early report to falsely portray NRA’s current position and view of the matter. Certainly, this sort of duplicity does not serve the senator’s integrity or the cause of Delery’s nomination well.

Delery’s nomination has not yet been scheduled for a vote. Based on his unconvincing performance at the hearing, however, and continued unanswered questions about the true origins, design, and scope of OPC, NRA remains deeply troubled by this nomination. America deserves better than senior DOJ officials who are merely tools for the political views and schemes of an ideologically-driven administration.

To reward such officials for this behavior with promotions is clearly beyond the pale.

About the NRA-ILA:

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Senator Cruz Lights the Fuse Against Terrorism

Posted on November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

Cruz joins fight to label Muslim B’hood ‘terrorist organization’

Sen. Ted Cruz and several House Republicans are leading a new legislative effort aimed at compelling the U.S. government to label Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood a “foreign terrorist organization.”

“This bill recognizes the simple fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is a radical Islamic terrorist group,” Cruz said upon the introduction of his Senate version of the bill. “A number of our Muslim allies have taken this common sense step, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the [United Arab Emirates].”

“The group supports and stands behind numerous terrorist organizations that are responsible for acts of violence and aggression,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., the lead House sponsor. “It is time for Congress and the Department of State to recognize and sanction them as they deserve, as a foreign terrorist organization.”

The bill, the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, asks Secretary of State John Kerry to label the organization a foreign terrorist organization within 60 days, or to present a report to Congress detailing why he opted against doing so. Much more here. To read the proposed Senate legislation titled: To require the Secretary of State to submit a report to Congress on the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, and for other purposes.

Nearly 200 U.S. troops have been killed and nearly 1,000 injured by Iranian-made explosives in Iraq, according to new disclosures from a partially declassified report conducted by U.S. Central Command and described by sources to the Washington Free Beacon.

The number of U.S. deaths resulting from Iranian terrorism were revealed for the first time on Wednesday by Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) during a hearing focusing on the Obama administration’s failure to prosecute terrorists directly responsible for the deaths of Americans.

At least 196 U.S. service members fighting in Iraq were killed directly as a result of Iranian-made explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, according to Cruz and congressional sources familiar with Centcom’s mostly classified report.

The deaths took place between 2003 and 2011. The Iranian explosive devices wounded another 861 U.S. soldiers, and a total of 1,534 attacks were carried out on U.S. military members over this period, according to sources familiar with the report, which was provided to Cruz’s office.

The explosive devices are a “hallmark weapon” of Iran’s Quds force, a paramilitary group that operates outside of Iran’s borders, according to sources familiar with the report. It has been determined that only Iranian-backed operatives use these weapons in Iraq.

U.S. military leaders disclosed in testimony before the Senate that Iranian terror activities have claimed the lives of around 500 U.S. soldiers, which accounts for at least 14 percent of all American casualties in Iraq from 2003 to 2011.

“That blood is on Iran’s hands,” Cruz said Wednesday afternoon during a hearing on the Obama administration’s decision to not prosecute terrorists who have murdered American citizens and troops abroad.

“Iran has been and still is at war with the U.S.,” Cruz said. “Yet despite the slaughter and maiming of an untold number of America citizens … the U.S. government has rather shockingly failed time and time again to fulfill its sovereign duty to obtain justice for its citizens. Our government has failed terror victims in a number of ways.”

Palestinian terrorists, many of them supported by Iran, have killed more than 53 Americans. The Department of Justice has not prosecuted a single person, Cruz said.

Those testifying at the hearing said they were alarmed by the government’s hesitation to prosecute terror cases.

“The greatest pain that victims and their families have is watching another incident take place, watching another death,” said Aegis Industries CEO Kenneth Stethem, whose brother, Robert, was killed during the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight by Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists.

“I would like to know if the administration has asked Iran if they’re still at jihad,” Stethem said, adding that separating Iran from terrorism is “like separating light from a flame and heat from a fire.”

“Is it sound policy to give money to a terrorist nation that is at war with us?” Stethem asked, referring to the more than $150 billion in cash assets that will be released to Iran as a result of the recent nuclear accord.

Stethem also said he was concerned by the Obama administration’s failure to hold Iran accountable for recent violations of the accord, which include the testing of ballistic missiles.

“I’d just like to see some accountability,” he said. “And Congress must do it because the administration isn’t.”

Daniel Miller, a victim of Hamas terrorism, recalled how suicide bombers destroyed the Jerusalem café that he and his friends were dining at.

Miller said that he and other victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism attempted to sue the Islamic Republic. After winning more than $70 million in damages, the U.S. government stepped in to argue on Iran’s behalf.

“I expected a battle from Iran” to get the money legally owed, Miller said. “What I didn’t expect was the battle we faced from my own government.”

Lawyers from the Department of Justice filed a brief during one legal processing to protect Iran from having to pay the victims.

“On one side [of the courtroom] was my legal team representing victims of terrorism, and on the other side was the U.S. sitting with its newfound ally Iran,” Miller said.

He also said Obama administration “cares more about protecting Iranian assets than protecting its own terror victims.”

Cruz called the story “disgusting,” “shameful,” and “unacceptable.”

Others at the hearing criticized the Obama administration for interceding in a legal case in which American victims of Palestinian terrorists were awarded billions of dollars in damages. The administration argued in an unprecedented briefing to the court earlier this year that this money should not be paid out to the victims because it would financially cripple the Palestinian government.

The Constitution Causes Panic Attack of College Students

Posted on November 3, 2015November 3, 2015 by Denise Simon

This is the next generation to which our country will in their control. What is worse, the university staff appear to hate the Constitution as much as well all enemies of the United States.

There is a good bet, some of these people are going to vote for Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton.

Here is the video, check it out and see the real trouble we are in with the future generation.

HUD, Housing Urban Development, Fleecing-Scandals

Posted on October 28, 2015October 28, 2015 by Denise Simon

The truth and facts are in the details but details never seem to matter or to be an agenda stopper.

Is there just one government agency that operates without a scandal or fleecing the taxpayers? Housing and Urban Development is headed by Secretary Julian Castro and former mayor of San Antonio. By the way, his name has been floated as a candidate for Hillary’s running mate to ensure to Latino vote.

Obama himself has kept a close eye on Castro and is helping him build his resume for bigger political ambitions in spite of a history of scandals based in San Antonio.

HUD backs $9.5 million loan on property valued at $3.8 million

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. —The Department of Housing and Urban Development provided a $9.4 million loan guarantee to renovate an apartment complex here eight months after the owner convinced the county to value the complex at just $3.8 million, a Watchdog.org investigation found.

The loan for Apollo Village Apartments defaulted and the property was foreclosed on in 2012 with HUD losing as much as $4.5 million on the deal, public trustee records show.

Pete Sepp, president of the National Union of Taxpayers, said these government programs put a substantial amount of taxpayer money at risk and should be eliminated.

“Unfortunately, many government loan programs to individual business people aren’t necessarily dictated by the best interests of taxpayers or the laws of the marketplace,” he said after reviewing information Watchdog.org provided him on the loan. “It’s a classic dilemma we see with the federal subsidies programs.”

Instead of foreclosing, HUD sold the note to a private company for $5 million and the company foreclosed on the property six months later, selling the Apollo complex for $6.2 million – netting a $1.2 million profit the government could have realized to offset part of the loss, foreclosure and HUD records show.

“Apollo Village #101-11128 was insured by HUD through a 223f loan in the amount of $9,401,500.00 on March 23, 2009,” according to an email from Baumann.

The owner, represented by a Denver appraisal firm, filed a property tax appeal on May 27, 2008, and the County Board of Equalization reduced the value of the property from $7.199 million to $3.810 million on July 24, 2008, according to county records and the assessor’s office.

County records showed 36 units were condemned in 2008, and building permits for siding, roof and structural repairs were issued between 2009 and 2014.

HUD rules for market-rate apartments only allow the agency to guarantee 83.3 percent of the project’s value after the repairs are completed, which means HUD estimated the value of the repaired project to be about $11.3 million. Federal HUD officials said they did not have any appraisal information for the project, and the local office was looking to see if any documents were available. Read the report in full here.

There is more of course:

Why Are Over-Income Tenants Living in Public Housing?

A recent report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) Office of Inspector General (OIG) and subsequent news articles have raised questions about the treatment of so-called “over-income” families living in federally assisted public housing. “Over-income” families had, at the time of their initial move-in, income low enough to be eligible to live in public housing (income at or below 80% of local area median income), but their incomes later increased above the eligibility threshold. The Inspector General report found that as many as 25,226 over-income families resided in public housing in 2014 (2.6% of all public housing residents). While the majority of over-income families had incomes that exceeded the initial income eligibility limits by less than $10,000, a small subset of families had incomes that were significantly higher.

As HUD has pointed out in its response to the OIG report, allowing over-income families to remain in public housing is not inconsistent with federal law or regulations. Read the report in total here.

But Cohen is a Democrat!

Posted on October 18, 2015October 18, 2015 by Denise Simon

Has anyone attempted to look deeper at Trump’s team? We have a duty to look at all the candidates and their team. Earlier today on this site, we learned some peculiar details on Dr. Ben Carson.

Donald Trump’s Political ‘Pit Bull’: Meet Michael Cohen

By Michael Falcone April 16, 2011

The man behind Donald Trump’s possible 2012 presidential campaign is a registered Democrat who voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

Not only that, but Michael Cohen, an executive at the Trump Organization who doubles as Trump’s chief political adviser, once volunteered for 1988 presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and worked for a Democratic member of Congress.

This election cycle is different. Late last year, Cohen co-founded the draft Trump website “Should Trump Run?” It has received more than 830,000 hits.

Cohen, 44, is known around the office — and around New York — as Trump’s “pit bull.” Some have even nicknamed him “Tom,” a reference to Tom Hagen, the consigliore to Vito Corleone in the “Godfather” movies.

“It means that if somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit,” Cohen said in an interview with ABC News. “If you do something wrong, I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished.”

But since Obama’s election in 2008, he said he has grown disappointed with the president, so much so that he now describes himself as “offended” by the administration’s agenda. America, Cohen said, has become a “third-world nation,” echoing words that have become a familiar refrain of Trump’s.

“I thought it was the greatest thing ever,” Cohen said he felt during the first months of the Obama presidency. “This fantastic orator was going to make a change in this country. He was going to do things that Bush clearly did not do.”

His distaste for Obama, and Trump’s professed interest in pursuing the Republican nomination in 2012, led Cohen, businessman Stewart Rahr and other supporters to create “Should Trump Run?” as a way both to spark — and gauge — interest in a potential Trump presidential bid.

A lawyer by training, Cohen is Trump’s special counsel and a juggler of people and projects. One minute he’s on the phone with a reporter, the next he’s giving orders to an assistant, and a moment later he’s finalizing a deal on another line — and frequently, he’s doing all three at once.

Donald Trump’s ‘Pit Bull’

With Trump stoking new speculation about his political ambitions every day, Cohen said “the phones have not stopped ringing, the fax machine is off the hook” and his email inbox is clogged. More than a few of those messages have to do with the issue that has catapulted Trump into the headlines recently — birtherism.

“I am certain that the president was born in Hawaii — I really am,” Cohen said. “I am most irritated with the fact that this president has been exceptionally secretive when it relates to any personal documentation about his past. If you run on a platform of transparency, you should be transparent.”

Cohen was the aide who flew to Iowa in a private plane bearing Trump’s logo to meet with Republican operatives there in March. He said he may make a similar trip to another crucial early nominating state — New Hampshire — in the weeks to come.

Roger Stone, a Republican consultant known for his controversial brand of politics, is long-time Trump associate and a cheerleader for his presidential run (albeit without Trump’s blessing). In an interview with ABC News, Stone described Cohen as a “nice guy” and an “enthusiast” but lacking the political expertise to manage the growing interest in Trump candidacy.

“If you need brain surgery, you go to a brain surgeon,” Stone said. “You don’t go to a dentist.”

A case in point, Stone said, was Cohen’s one-day Iowa trip that led to questions about his role as both a Trump Organization employee and a promoter of his boss’s potential presidential campaign — questions that he sought to answer by stating unequivocally that the trip and the website were paid for, not with any of Trump’s money, but out of pockets of Cohen and Rahr, who made a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry.

Still, the trip triggered a complaint to the Federal Election Commission by a supporter of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who alleged that the trip violated election law.

Cohen may be new to presidential politics, but he’s not a total novice. In 2003 he briefly became a Republican to run for a New York City Council seat at the request of then-Gov. George Pataki. He lost that race to Democrat Eva Moskovitz by a wide margin. In 2009, he started a short-lived campaign for a New York State Senate seat, but dropped out of the race after a just a few weeks.

Michael Cohen and Donald Trump

By all indications, he and Rahr have more than enough personal wealth to finance the independent effort urging Trump to run. Cohen owns several residences in Trump buildings, including a home at Trump World Tower at United Nations Plaza, and Trump Park Avenue, just blocks from Central Park. His parents and in-laws have also invested in Trump properties in New York and Florida.

“Michael Cohen has great insight into the real estate market,” Trump said of Cohen in a 2007 New York Post interview. “He has invested in my buildings because he likes to make money — and he does.”

The feeling is mutual.

“I think the world of him,” Cohen said of the billionaire real estate and reality television mogul who has said he will decide sometime before June whether to run for president. “I respect him as a businessman, and I respect him as a boss.”

The two talk regularly — “I speak to him even more than I did before,” Cohen said — and he has spearheaded a variety of projects for Trump, including sealing a business partnership in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, running a mixed martial arts promotion company called Affliction Entertainment and a firm that turns landfills into golf courses.

Cohen, whose position allows him to play at any of Trump’s courses around the world, describes himself as a “decent” golfer and an avid tennis player. Much like Trump’s, his circle of acquaintances include political leaders, actors and “super high net worth people,” as Cohen calls them.

He only wears Dolce & Gabbana suits and Hermes ties. Even when he was a legislative intern for former Congressman Joe Moakley, a Massachusetts Democrat, Cohen says he was “always dressed to the hilt.”

“It’s very, very surreal,” Cohen told ABC News. “I’ve been admiring Donald trump since I was in high school.” (He said that when he was a young man he read Trump’s 1987 book, “The Art of The Deal” cover to cover — twice.)

Cohen grew up on Long Island. His mother was a nurse and his father was a surgeon who escaped a Nazi concentration camp with his family during World War II. He attended American University followed by law school and said he got his first taste of politics when he was a boy. A neighbor of his parents’ invited him to walk precincts with New York Mayor John Lindsay in Atlantic Beach, Queens and Brooklyn.

Donald Trump’s ‘Pit Bull’

Like Trump, Cohen has donated money to both Democratic and Republican candidates over the years, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He’s hobnobbed with Hillary Clinton and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Cohen said he and Kennedy even once went sailing near the Kennedy Compound in Cape Cod and later shared a lobster and clambake.

After law school, Cohen went on to work at a personal-injury malpractice law firm in New York and later became a partner at the firm Phillips Nizer. He joined the Trump Organization in 2006 at Trump’s invitation. He’s married and has two children.

Cohen said he sees no conflict in his advocacy for Trump now and his past support for Obama. He said his concerns are three-fold: the “unsustainable” debt, the country’s “ongoing and continuous” loss of jobs and the “basic overall lack of respect” that the rest of the world has for the U.S.

“I’m prepared to put the fact that I voted for Obama to the side,” he said. I’m more concerned now about my children, future grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and everybody’s children and families. I’m more concerned about them than I am about party affiliation.”