A Confirmation he is Gay or What?

There is a real kinship in the Obama White House with the whole LGBT agenda and it has been going on for years. Now it appears some aggressive tactics are surfacing at universities.

Good to know that US Secretary of Education is committed to ending racism on college campuses.

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. & I have been strategizing & connecting today!

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Last June, enough time to organize as noted below:

is in good company at The White House today!

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Other world leaders must be asking themselves and others just what the hell is going on. The world is in a meltdown and Obama is concerned with climate-change and LGBT agendas, even Israel is questioning the White House priorities and relationships.

The top activist at the University of Missouri is Payton Head and as suggested by a previous post on this site, the White House has their fingerprints all over the matter of the protests at Mizzou.

Payton Head has been to the White House along with several other Black Lives Matter activists, so this is no surprise.  

Hat tip to Breitbart: The University of Missouri’s student body president, Payton Head, is apologizing“for scaring everybody with false KKK on campus rumor.”

It was a rough night on the campus of the University of Missouri, thanks in large part to Student Body President Payton Head. Head posted on Facebook earlier in the night that the KKK was confirmed on campus and that he was working with “the MUPD, the state trooper and the National Guard.”

The only problem with that terrifying statement is it wasn’t true and Head was forced to delete the post and apologize:

Given Head’s central role in recent protests at Mizzou, some may not be surprised to find a connection between Head, from an upper middle class Chicago neighborhood, and the nation’s community organizer in chief, Barack Obama. Per his Facebook page, the two met in July, 2011 when Head visited the White House.

There are also as yet unconfirmed Internet reports that Head interned for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Payton Head came from an upper middle class black family in Cook county. He was at the core of the debate over racial tensions. He wrote a long and vivid story on his experience at MU, and posted it on Facebook. Despite being only 7% of the student population, the student council is overwhelmingly (100%) black.

Who is Payton Head? Payton head was an honor student from Chicago. He is openly gay, and calls himself a Christian. He is well traveled. Within one year of his senior graduation from high school, Head traveled to Europe. He met Barack Obama. https://www.facebook…35072167&type=3 When he got to MU, he was selected to be a guide. Not many get that privilege. He resigned that position, and spent the summer in Chicago working on behalf of Rahm Emanuel. Here is a link showing Head being hugged by coldfish Emanuel. Although he is a third year student, Payton Head is still undeclared, but he is very interested in Social Justice. He has helped with seminars in Columbia, and elsewhere on Social Justice. In these seminars they talk about gender inequities, racial discrimination, same sex relationships, and the whole spectrum of sexual deviancy.

Also, Head’s father Lawrence was a Chicago high school principal apparently fired for performance, who then went on to sue the school system.

Lawrence Head, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 99-3408

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Hold on…there is more.

Hat tip again to Breitbart:

OUT

President Obama has made history by becoming the first sitting U.S. president to pose for the cover of an LGBT magazine.

Obama is on the cover of Out magazine’s latest Out 100 issue as the publication’s “Ally of the Year.”

“The 44th President of the United States is our Ally of the Year—a president who came to office on a wave of euphoria, appeared to lose momentum halfway through, and has since rallied, helping us secure marriage equality, among other landmark initiatives that are transforming our place in America,” the editors of Out wrote in an article accompanying the cover.

Obama granted a wide-ranging interview to the LGBT publication, weighing in on his administration’s focus on LGBT rights, the “generational difference” in his daughters’ attitudes toward homosexuality and the role the United States could play in challenging the human rights records of more restrictive regimes in Middle Eastern countries.

Obama told the magazine his fight for equality began “from when I was a kid, because my mom instilled in me the strong belief that every person is of equal worth.”

Obama explained:

At the same time, growing up as a black guy with a funny name, I was often reminded of exactly what it felt like to be on the outside. One of the reasons I got involved in politics was to help deliver on our promise that we’re all created equal, and that no one should be excluded from the American dream just because of who they are. That’s why, in the Senate, I supported repealing DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act]. It’s why, when I ran for president the first time, I publicly asked for the support of the LGBT community, and promised that we could bring about real change for LGBT Americans.

Obama also said he “wasn’t surprised” by the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges earlier this year, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

“Well, I try not to guess how the Supreme Court is going to rule,” Obama said when asked if he expected the Supreme Court’s decision, adding:

But even before the decision came down, one thing was clear: There had been a remarkable attitude shift — in hearts and minds — across America. The ruling reflected that. It reflected our values as a nation founded on the principle that we are all created equal. And, by the way, it was decades of our brothers and sisters fighting for recognition and equality — and too frequently risking their lives or facing rejection from family, friends, and co-workers — that got us to that moment.

Obama also offered some advice for the “Kim Davises of America.” Davis, a Kentucky court clerk, was briefly jailed earlier this year for refusing to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, citing her Christian beliefs.

“I am a man of faith and believe deeply in religious freedom, but at the end of the day, nobody is above the rule of law — especially someone who voluntarily takes an oath to uphold that law,” Obama told the magazine. “That’s something we’ve got to respect.”

You can read the rest of President Obama’s interview with Out magazine here. The “Out 100″ issue is on newsstands this month.

 

Afghanistan: More to the Tea Boys and Martland

Ignoring Abuse of Afghan Children Is a Strategic Failure

More than morality at stake

The Afghan police commander laughed at them. But Capt. Dan Quinn and Sgt. First Class Charles Martland didn’t find anything funny about the situation.

Throughout their deployment, members of the U.S. Army Special Forces detachment under Quinn’s command became troubled by the behavior of the Afghan Local Police forces they were supposed to be mentoring. The team reported several incidents — one involving a police commander who raped a teenage girl — to their commanders and to Afghan authorities.

In each case there was either no consequences or a slap on the wrist.

But late in the deployment, a woman came to the soldiers’ base. She told them an ALP commander chained her son to a bed and raped him, then beat her. She begged the Green Berets for justice.

When Quinn and Martland confronted the ALP commander, he readily admitted to doing it and even joked about it. Furious, Quinn and Martland shoved him to the ground and allegedly beat him.

Not long after, Army brass reprimanded both soldiers and sent them home. Quinn left the Army, while Martland became an Army scuba instructor in Florida where he continued to receive high marks. He previously received two Bronze Stars for valor.

But the incident remained in his files, and the Army decided it was enough to warrant kicking Martland out through its force reduction program. He defended his actions in a January 2011 letter to the Army Human Resources Command, stating he and Quinn “felt that morally we could no longer stand by and allow our ALPs to commit atrocities.”

On Oct. 28 the Department of Defense’s Inspector General office released an announcement that it will be investigating cases of Afghan officials abusing children, and whether American officials could have — or should have — done more to stop it.

The investigation comes after a series of allegations made headlines, as several American military personnel face discipline for either whistleblowing or taking unauthorized action against predators.

The most high profile case has been Martland’s. Nov. 1 was to be his last day on active duty, but the Army is currently reviewing his case on appeal after a media storm and pressure from congressmen, including fellow Afghanistan war veteran Rep. Duncan Hunter of California.

While the decorated special operations warrior may very be vindicated, the case remains part of a troubling chapter of America’s longest war.

Many American officials have defended the military’s hands off approach to Afghan forces committing rape, insisting that it’s a cultural issue and a matter for Afghan law. But many of the Afghan police tasked with enforcing that law are in fact guilty of much of the abuse. And they do so while receiving American training, weapons and funds.

Several experts and special operations veterans War Is Boring spoke to argued that allowing rape isn’t merely a moral failure, it’s a strategic one that undermines America’s mission in Afghanistan — and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Afghan culture.

A dishonorable act

Forms of pederasty involving relationships between influential men and young boys aren’t new and they’ve never been limited to central Asia. “You see this going all the way back to Greece and Rome,” explained anthropologist Thomas Barfield, an Afghan culture specialist at Boston University.

But he said war and weak rule of law have allowed it and other forms of abuse to thrive.

In Afghanistan, the practice of “bacha bazi” — meaning “boy play” — is typically associated with rich and powerful Afghan men, some of whom use it as a means to flaunt their wealth and power. One form of bacha bazi involves concerts in which teenagers and boys dance for older men who then sexually abuse them.

“You cannot try to impose American values and American norms onto the Afghan culture because they’re completely different,” Col. Steve Johnson told the Tacoma News Tribune in August. “We can report and we can encourage them. We do not have any power or the ability to use our hands to compel them to be what we see as morally better.”

But while bacha bazi has existed in Afghanistan for generations, Barfield argues that calling it a “cultural norm” is misleading. He said that while powerful men may take part, it’s not something that Afghan culture celebrates.

“If you’re talking to regular people they wouldn’t find it acceptable,” he said. “It violates Islamic law and cultural norms.”

Many special operations veterans who’ve spent time living among Afghans have come to the same conclusion. “When you get to the point where you have to admit that this is something ‘powerful men’ do, you’re automatically admitting this isn’t normal,” said one veteran.

Barfield recalled a murder he learned about during one of his visits as a researcher in Afghanistan. Afghans told him about how an enraged man had killed his brother after learning he was participating in bacha bazi. “The story of these two brothers was considered a family tragedy,” he said. “Afghans have a very strong conception of honor and this is a stain on that honor.”

Barfield said that while some elites will take part in or watch these acts, most would deny taking part. “It’s something people would rarely admit to,” Barfield explained. “It’s actually used as a pretty common insult, to accuse powerful people of bacha bazi.”

Bacha bazi comes in various forms. During his field research, Barfield interviewed what he called “professional bachas,” typically young adults and teenagers who make a living in a seedy underworld often discussed in whispers.

“If you want to go to see a dancing boy concert they’re usually held out in the middle of nowhere,” Barfield explained.

“But in this case what we’re actually talking about is kidnapping,” Barfield said of the scandal that’s rocked the Pentagon.

Decades of war in Afghanistan have given rise to a much more predatory class of pederasts. Barfield explained that for some powerful Afghans, bacha bazi can be a way of demonstrating their might and asserting that rules don’t apply to them.

“[These people are often] warlords and commanders, so these are people who are used to making their own rules,” he said.

Rape and other crimes were hallmarks of both the Soviet occupation of the 1980s and subsequent Afghan Civil War of the 1990s. When the Taliban seized power, its puritanical worldview demanded an end to vices. One of the group’s top priorities was putting an end to bacha bazi. They executed many of the worst offenders, sometimes publicly.

One Special Forces veteran explained in a conversation with War Is Boring that many Taliban fighters were also once raped by older men, and that for some it was huge reason why they joined the movement. “When the Taliban came to power they put a stop to this shit,” he said.

The militants considered it part of their campaign against immorality, particularly a crackdown on gays and lesbians. However, men who partake in bacha bazi don’t typically consider themselves gay. “Most of these men would consider themselves straight,” Barfield explained.

But the Taliban’s moral campaign soon extended much further. The Taliban banned music, women’s education, kite flying, most sports and destroyed anything the group deemed “un-Islamic.” The goodwill the Taliban earned among Afghans from its crackdown on pedophiles and rapists quickly faded as the group’s repressive puritanical rule took shape.

Many welcomed American forces as they ousted the Taliban after 9/11. Schools reopened and kites returned to the skies.

But American troops and operatives often had to work closely a motley collection of Northern Alliance fighters, Pashtun rebels and other armed groups. The Americans soon learned that not all were as trustworthy as others. And some of them had dark pasts that would soon come to shape Afghanistan’s future.

A symptom of corruption

Afghan children have long been central to the narrative of the war in Afghanistan. When the Taliban was ousted in 2001, American officials touted the return of Afghan children to schools. Educating the next generation was a major emphasis — the children of today will be the leaders of Afghanistan tomorrow.

But with new opportunities came the return of old problems. Former warlords became military commanders, police officers and politicians. “It reflects that the Americans didn’t know who they were dealing with,” Barfield explained. “They unwittingly allowed some of these bad actors to regain power.”

Barfield said that provincial politicians and warlords would often exaggerate their ties to the Americans and present themselves as stronger than they actually were.

“They’d say ‘do as I say or I’ll send the Americans to burn down your village,’” Barfield explained. “The Afghans didn’t necessarily have the information to know that they were lying … the Americans of course had no idea.”

Corruption has been endemic in the new Afghanistan with aid money constantly going missing or wasted on lavish projects. The quality of Afghan security forces has been inconsistent. Soldiers and police officers often do not receive regular paychecks and must depend on shoddy equipment, a consequence of corruption. There’s also problems with abuse and misconduct.

Some Afghan troops and police have been known to engage in extortion, smuggling and kidnapping. In many cases that’s included the kidnapping and sexual abuse of children — sometimes even on U.S. bases. And that was far from a secret before Martland’s case blew up.

In 2012, a 17-year-old Afghan boy kept on a U.S. Marine base by police commander Sarwan Jan got ahold of a weapon and killed three Marines in the base gym. Prior to the killings, junior Marines — including some of those killed — had expressed concerns about Jan. The commander had a long history of corruption and child abuse.

A year later Vice documentary This Is What Winning Looks Like portrayed U.S. Marines candidly telling filmmaker Ben Anderson that the Afghan police they work with regularly kidnap and rape children — and frequently murder them.

The Marines expressed frustration that nobody seemed to take the problem seriously despite their repeated reports.

Johnson, who was a battalion commander with the 1st Special Forces Group at the time Martland and Quinn beat the Afghan policeman, has defended the decision to discipline the two. Johnson asserted the soldiers beat the Afghan commander nearly to death.

However, other Afghans — including a well regarded interpreter — allegedly told officials the injuries were minor and that the commander was walking around the next day.

It’s hard to know exactly what happened. The case was never put through the military criminal justice system and the Afghan police commander later died in a Taliban ambush.

The crux of the arguments against Martland and Quinn is that they acted rashly and potentially could have damaged relations with the Afghans cops — and possibly drive them to join the militants.

One former Green Beret told War Is Boring that the actions of the Afghan police would reflect directly on the advisers. After all, the ALP is trained, paid and equipped by the Americans. According to the veteran, the team had to show the Afghan villagers that they too cared about honor, otherwise villagers might start supporting the Taliban.

“When [Martland] beat the shit out of that police commander, that’s actually something a lot of Afghans would really respect,” Barfield said. “That’s a form of justice that Afghans understand very well.”

Afghan Local Police candidates form up to conduct a patrol drill during a class in Kajran district, Daykundi province, Afghanistan, Jan. 11. The class is part of a three-week ALP training course that covers basic policing procedures, weapons handling and other skills necessary to protect and defend Afghan citizens and maintain stability in the region.

 

Playing by the rules

“I think this really reflects the state of law and order in Afghanistan as a whole right now,” Barfield said. “After 30 years of war, it’s allowed these sorts of bad actors to thrive.”

In the years since Martland and Quinn left Afghanistan, the military has put more and more emphasis on the ALP. These militia-turned-police played a huge role in the security of Kunduz … as well as its recent fall to Taliban militants.

These militias were responsible for protecting the people of Kunduz and maintaining order. But were also notorious for extortion, theft, assault and of course … bacha bazi. The Taliban took advantage of resentment among the locals to reestablish a foothold in the area before delivering a humiliating blow to Afghan forces this summer.

 

During an interview with War Is Boring about his book The Tigers and The Taliban in 2013, Danish army veteran Lars Ulslev Johannesen explained how corruption and instability drove many Afghans to sympathize with the militants, even those who disliked their repressive ideology.

“Predictability is important,” Johannesen said. “They know the Taliban rules, and prefer them even though they do not like them, because they know what they need to do in order to survive.”

Since the Taliban fell, there have indeed been strides in education — and Afghan artists and activists have far more freedom than they’ve known in decades. But when police kidnap and rape the children with impunity, it fundamentally undermines the rule of law and the legitimacy of Afghanistan’s fledgling government.

For many of the soldiers who fought there, despite the battles they won, corruption and sexual abuse undermines America’s purpose and reason for being in the country. “We’re not being outfought,” one veteran bitterly remarked during research for this story. “We’re being outgoverned.”

CIA’s Fugitive Banker in Idaho

This is a story that makes for a great movie script but there are some that would push back especially those involved during the Reagan years and the Contra arms deal.

The newspaper article found here expands even further, naming more names.

A Nugan Hand branch in the Thai opium-producing country, for example, abutted the office of the American Drug Enforcement Administration – and even shared a receptionist with it. Important American companies in Saudi Arabia backed Nugan Hand’s aggressive sales there to American workers; big investment money was raked in, sometimes being carried away in plastic garbage bags, much of it disappearing forever. In 1979, Nugan Hand hoped to gain United Nations money to settle Indochinese refugees in the Turks and Caicos Islands, seen as ideal Caribbean transshipment points on the narcotics routes from South America.

FOUND After 35 Years: CIA’s Fugitive Banker

By Raymond Bonner, Special to ProPublica

It was one of the greatest disappearing acts of modern times.

Amid a swirl of allegations and rumors that the Nugan Hand Bank was involved in arms smuggling, drug-running, and covert operations for the CIA, the institution’s American founder vanished from Australia. Thirty-five years later, that man, Michael Jon Hand, was tracked to a small town in Idaho where he has been living under the name of Michael Jon Fuller.

Hand was found by an Australian writer, Peter Butt, whose just-released book, Merchants of Menace, discloses Hand’s whereabouts after decades of mystery.

If finding Hand, now 73, solves one mystery, it raises another. How could he have lived in the United States so long without being detected? He changed his name only slightly, from Hand to Fuller, and did not get a new Social Security number, according to Butt.

Hand’s company, G.M.I. Manufacturing, is registered with the Idaho secretary of state. The company “now manufactures tactical weapons for US Special Forces, special operations groups and hunters,’’ Butt writes. Has Hand/Fuller been brazen, foolish, or, as Butt asks, does he belong “to a protected species, most likely of the intelligence kind?”

Two years after fleeing Australia, in 1982, when the CIA was involved in a covert operation to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua, Hand was working as a military adviser in the region where the anti-Sandinista “contras” were based, according to an Australian intelligence document, which was declassified earlier this year.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The CIA has previously denied it had any links to Hand.

Hand had been a Green Beret in Vietnam and a CIA operative in Laos before moving to Australia, where he and Frank Nugan, a wealthy playboy, established the Nugan Hand Bank in 1973, with $80. Hand fled Australia seven years later, after Nugan was found dead inside his Mercedes-Benz, his left hand holding the barrel of a .30-caliber rifle a few inches from his head, his right hand near the trigger.

During an inquest into Nugan’s death, Hand testified that the bank was insolvent, owing investors large and small some $50 million. The inquest ruled Nugan’s death a suicide, a finding many Australians found dubious.

With depositors and law enforcement authorities in pursuit, Hand, with assistance from a former CIA officer, secured a forged Australian passport, donned a false mustache and beard, and fled Australia in June of 1980. He flew to Fiji, then on to Canada, from which he could cross into the United States without a visa.

The Sydney Morning Herald first reported on Butt’s findings on Monday. In a segment that aired Sunday night, Australia’s 60 Minutes filmed Hand/Fuller emerging from a pharmacy at a shopping mall in Idaho Falls. He has a full beard and neck brace, and was wearing sunglasses and a blue checked shirt. He refused to answer any questions or speak at all when confronted by 60 Minutes reporter Ross Coulthart.

Suspicions about the bank’s links to the CIA arose almost immediately after Nugan was found dead. His wallet contained the business card of William E. Colby, who had been director of the CIA from 1973 to 1976.

Colby was forced to resign when it was reported that the agency had been engaged in illegal spying on American citizens. He became a legal adviser to Nugan Hand, and on the back of his business card were handwritten dates when someone, presumably Colby, would be in Hong Kong and Singapore.

As reporters began digging into Nugan Hand, they found that Colby wasn’t the only individual with an intelligence or military background involved with the bank.

“Nugan Hand had enough generals, admirals, and spooks to run a small war,” Jonathan Kwitny, an investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal, wrote in the definitive book about the bank, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA.

Sanctuary City Supporter to Head Border Patrol?

Chief Fong drew criticism in June 2008 for failing to complete firearm recertification for over five years though all San Francisco police officers are required to recertify annually by department regulations. Chief Fong was quoted as saying that she was too busy to recertify. When the controversy erupted in the local media, she was recertified a week later. Additionally, in 2003 there was a police scandal in San Francisco where she was involved but skirted prosecuted.

Sources: Vocal supporter of sanctuary cities on short list to be next head of Border Patrol

FNC: A former San Francisco police chief and vocal supporter of a sanctuary cities policy is on a short list of candidates to become the new chief of the Border Patrol, according to sources.

As police chief, Heather Fong shielded illegal immigrants, including aliens who committed crimes, from deportation. In contrast, it is the job of the U.S. Border Patrol to catch and deport all illegal immigrants, including those with a criminal history.

“If they bring (a police chief) in for political purposes based on the sanctuary cities model, that politicizes the job and I think it completely undermines credibility and morale in the organization,” House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, told Fox News.

“If you have someone who is advocating for sanctuary cities, that’s the opposite side. They welcome these illegal immigrants to stay in the country. And so I think it’s at cross-purpose with the mission itself.”

Fong, according to Border Patrol, DHS and Capitol Hill sources, is one of several candidates to replace current chief Mike Fischer, who announced his resignation last month.

Fong is currently an assistant secretary for state and local law enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security. If tapped, she would be the first outsider to lead the Border Patrol in its 90-year history.

That decision is up to Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske, who released a statement Monday saying, “”At this time, CBP has not begun the search for the Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol. It is completely false that any individual could be a potential candidate at this time. We are currently preparing the paperwork to begin the process.”

Rank and file agents were surprised she would be considered.

“The appointment of Heather Fong would prove that the Border Patrol is no longer the enforcement agency that Congress and the American public intended it to be,” according to a statement released by Brandon Judd, head of the agents’ union.

“Heather Fong oversaw a sanctuary city, which is directly contrary to our mission. Her appointment would be for political purposes and the trust of the men and woman of the Border Patrol in DHS and CBP leadership would be lost.”

During her five years as the chief of SFPD, Fong refused to cooperate with ICE, telling reporters in November 2008, “We do not cooperate with ICE when they go out for enforcement of immigration violations of the law.”

A few months earlier, she appeared in a public service campaign telling illegal immigrants they’re welcome in the city. In promoting San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy on TV, radio, posters and brochures in five languages, Fong said illegal immigrants had nothing to fear under her watch. “San Francisco is committed to providing safe access to public services to our communities,” she said.

In a news conference unveiling the campaign, she told reporters, “We do not work on enforcing immigration laws.”

The chief of the Border Patrol position does not require congressional approval. But given the “border security first” mentality among many on Capitol Hill, McCaul said he believes bringing in an outsider could be a hard sell.

Operation Choke Point Overlord

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, herehere, 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.

Read more: http://www.ammoland.com/2015/11/senate-judiciary-committee-considers-nomination-of-operation-choke-point-overlord/#ixzz3r6x9bAv2
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Read more: http://www.ammoland.com/2015/11/senate-judiciary-committee-considers-nomination-of-operation-choke-point-overlord/#ixzz3r6wHLcZu
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
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