What is Wrong with this Supreme Court?

What happened to State's Rights?  It is obvious that this Supreme Court who struck down the Montana campaign finance law has overstepped.  This decision is Corporate rights yes and States Rights no.  When did conservatives quit believing in state's rights?

For 100 years Montana had their campaign finance reform in place that was put there by the vote of the people of Montana to counter the corruption of the legislature by two silver mining companies who had bought and paid for office holders in the Montana Legislature.  Now the SCOTUS has decided that Montana citizens 100 years ago were wrong.

I cannot believe this court has inserted themselves in state finance laws ensuring the more corruption will take place in elections.  The very idea that a Corporation is a person who can give unlimited amounts goes against the very fabric of fair elections.  Individual citizens are limited to spend $2500 in the primary and another $2500 in the general for federal candidates but the Koch Brothers can spend whatever millions they want for a candidate from their corporation and are now pledging $400 million to buy this election.

It is time the American people stood up and ignored the campaign ads from the Super PACs and vote for the person they feel is the best person for the position.  These rich billionaires who pay a small percentage in taxes are out to take over America and destroy the middle class.  When I first heard someone say that I thought they were nuts, but not any more.  Some of the wealthy of this Country like the Koch Brothers are definitely out to buy a President and members of Congress and are basically telling the middle class that we don't count -- only the wealthy and their money now count in this Country.

Yesterday when Justice Scalia went after Obama on immigration, I was appalled at his venom.  When you are named to the SCOTUS, would think you would be held to a higher standard but conservatives like Limbaugh applauded Scalia because he took after Obama.  What was Scalia thinking with the attack on this President or any President?  What if a more liberal justice had taken after President Bush.  The hypocrisy of the conservative pundits is beyond belief today.  Now if the Obama order on immigration is challenged, Scalia must recuse.  That was stupid and childish.

Last night  I became totally embarrassed by the Republican Party and their sell out to corporations and the big money because that is the only explanation for the Romney win when in the early states he didn't even reach 40% of the vote but he was shoved down our throats.  Now the SCOTUS has interfered in State's Rights in a 100-year old Montana Law and some Republicans thinks it is great.

This is not the Republican Party I voted for the first time in 1968.  If things keep up like this, I am not sure I will continue to remain a Republican.  I am not alone as more and more Republicans are questioning what has happened to the Republican Party that is now bought and paid for by big donors.  Rasmussen has this gem today that more than half of Americans don't believe either party represents the American people::

53% Say Neither Party Represents American People

That is very high percentage and shows there are major problems looming in both parties thanks to these two candidates neither who should be President IMHO.  How Republicans are managing to blow this election and drive long time Republicans to vote for a Libertarian candidate who is more Republican than the Republican candidate is one for the record books.

Last week Speaker Boehner said Obama was part of the cover-up on Fast and Furious because he invoked Executive Privilege.  Did he say the same thing when President Bush claimed executive privilege on the firing of US Attorneys by Karl Rove since he was not a cabinet secretary?  Now Cong Issa has declared that he believes the White House knew nothing.  I disagreed when people first said it was a witch hunt but after learning more, it sure looks like the House Leadership will do anything to embarrass Obama to help Romney.  Issa told the truth on Sunday so will the Speaker apologize or is he going to continue to be a hypocrite.

As you can tell, I am totally fed up with the leadership of the National Republican Party who seem to be bought and paid for by the big donors like the Koch Brothers who want to run America and have no rules or regulations including minimum wage.  People like the Koch Brothers are the reason we have unions.

When I can watch MSNBC and discover is it more honest on the SCOTUS rulings then Fox News, there is a real problem.  Michael Medved did a really good job with his appearance on MSNBC.  He gave straight answers which is missing in a lot of conservative pundits as they have turned into pretzels many times to defend Republicans of today and the nominee Romney.  Some have defended Romney more than they ever did President GW Bush. It makes you wonder what is their agenda because Bush was a conservative and Romney has always governed as much more liberal who never met a fee he didn't like as Governor of MA.

Today I voted in the Oklahoma Republican Primary and at least I didn't want to vote 'none of the above' like I did in our Presidential Primary.  Making progress.

Congress is Expanding Fast and Furious (Gunrunning) to the White House

Now we have an anonymous source from the White House saying they knew nothing about the details which I snipped out of the article because if there is not a second source, it is not news and not verifiable.  It is little more than cover-up by the White House IMHO.

It still makes no sense to sell guns to the drug cartels and expect to track those guns in Mexico -- this was a prescription for disaster.  Whoever had the idea in the first place needs to be charged as an accessory to murder of the Border Patrol agent.  Without this hair brain scheme, the guns from the US would not have been used to kill him.  That was some message the cartels sent use guns the ATF had sold them.  Then ATF tried to cover up the source of the gun.  Head of ATF gets another government job when he should have been fired and brought up on charges for the cover-up.  

Will we learn the truth about this operation orchestrated by this Administration to make gun dealers look bad and get more gun control or will they continue to cover up until after the election and then disburse to the wind when Obama loses?

If it was a Republican Administration the Obama media would be investigating everywhere to try and get the latest.  Only LA Times seems to break articles about this while we hear a deafening silence from some others.  Have any of the alphabet networks gone close to this except with a short mention?

We are getting closer with Cong Issa and Senator Grassley now asking for information from the White House.  Will they get that information?  We are not holding our breath!

Congress expands Fast and Furious probe to White House
By Richard A. SerranoSeptember 9, 2011, 12:47 p.m. 

Congressional investigators reviewing the failed gun-tracking program Operation Fast and Furious have formally asked the Obama administration to turn over copies of "all records" involving three key White House national security officials and the program, other ATF gun cases in Phoenix, and all communications between the White House and the ATF field office in Arizona. 

The letter signed Friday by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, was sent to National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon, a top aide to President Obama. 

It marks a significant step in the committee's investigation into the failed gun-tracking operation, as the committee begins to broaden its investigation from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, 

Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and targets White House and Department of Justice officials.
This material, Issa and Grassley said, "will enable us to determine the extent of the involvement of White House staff in Operation Fast and Furious." 

White House officials, along with those at the Justice Department, said they have been cooperating in the widening probe, begun earlier this year when several ATF whistleblowers alerted Congress that Fast and Furious weapons were found at the scene of the slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. 

(snip -- anonymous source from the White House) 

Under the program, ATF agents allowed illegal gun purchases and hoped to track the weapons to Mexican cartel leaders. But most of the more than 2,000 firearms were lost. Hundreds have reportedly turned up in Mexican crime scenes, two at the shooting where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed, and a semi-automatic was used in an altercation and assault with police in Maricopa, Ariz. 

The congressional letter comes after a series of emails surfaced last week showing that William D. Newell, the ATF field supervisor in Phoenix during Fast and Furious, was in routine contact with Kevin O'Reilly, then the White House director of North American Affairs for the National Security Council. The emails discussed a broad range of gun-trafficking investigations on the Southwest Border, and White House officials have since acknowledged that the cases were part of Fast and Furious. 

The White House has said that O'Reilly forwarded the emails to two other White House officials – Dan Restrepo, special assistant to the president and senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the NSC, and Greg Gatjanis, director for Terrorist Finance and Counternarcotics, Counterterrorism Policy, also on the NSC. 

In their letter, Issa and Grassley discussed a new email in which Newell told O'Reilly about a specific case that ATF agents had been aware of for three months involving a 22-year-old illegal gun purchaser whom the ATF allowed to buy nearly 700 firearms. 

The purchaser was on food stamps and, Newell said in a follow-up email to O'Reilly, "when a 22-year-old kid on State financial assistance walks into a gun store and plops down $12,000 in cash to buy a tripod mounted .50 caliber rifle that's a clue (even for us) that he's involved in trafficking firearms for a Mexican DTO [cartel].' 

According to Issa and Grassley, that exchange of information makes it "clear that the case Mr. Newell and Mr. O'Reilly were communicating about was Fast and Furious." 

The letter requests all emails, documents, briefing papers and handwritten notes involving O'Reilly, Restrepo and Gatjanis during the Fast and Furious period, which ran for 15 months between fall 2009 and January 2011. The committee also wants to personally interview O'Reilly by the end of this month. 

Richard.Serrano@latimes.com
Excerpt:  Read More at the  LA Times

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

This report makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.  Watching the video at Fox News with the report shows the cover-up that happened not only in ATF but looks to extend to the DOJ and to some people in the White House.  What other agencies involved?  Fox News has the details along but how much of the MSM has bothered to report on what has happened except for Fox News and some from CBS on this cover-up.  Why was the head of the ATF Hurley transferred in the Government and not fired?

Here is the latest from Rep Issa and Senator Grassley:

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

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

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

It is scary when you realize that these weapons have been showing up at crimes on both sides of the border.  How could the ATF get away with doing this without outcry by the media except for Fox News and CBS demanding answers.  Those are the only two you can find in search that are reporting this cover-up by the US Attorney's office in Arizona that extended to the White House in order to conceal "Fast and Furious" which according to Fox News was aimed to track gun sales to Mexico, allegedly, say critics of the program, to build up evidence to publicly blame cartel violence on U.S. gun store owners and lax American gun laws.

Why haven't more heads rolled in this since the DOJ refuses to turn over documents?  IMO the Obama Administration in their zeal to make gun store owners along with their definition of 'lax' American gun laws the culprits for the drug cartel violence should be held responsible for the death of a Border Patrol agent and who knows how many people in Mexico or Arizona.  Cannot believe the cover-up that was done in the death of a Border Patrol Agent by the US Attorney in Arizona and DOJ with some reporting now that three people in the White House knew.  But then I cannot believe the ATF intentionally sold guns to the cartels.  Is this Administration dumb enough to think that the cartels wouldn't get guns one way or the other? Whoever came up with that idea needs to be indicted along with the leaders that carried out this insanity.

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

By William La Jeunesse & Laura Prabucki 

Published September 02, 2011| FoxNews.com

See video of this report at Fox News. 

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

This picture shows part of a cache of seized weapons 

displayed at a news conference in Phoenix.

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

Also late Thursday, Sen. Charles Grassley's office revealed that 31 more Fast and Furious guns have been found at 12 violent crime scenes in Mexico.

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

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

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

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

“Many ATF agents working on Operation Fast and Furious were under the impression that even some of the most basic law enforcement techniques typically used to interdict weapons required the explicit approval of your office, specifically that from Hurley,” the letter states.Issa and Grassley said they want to speak with Hurley and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Morrissey, along with Patrick Cunningham, chief of the office’s Criminal Division. 

....

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

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

Excerpt:  Read more at at Fox News 

In doing the research for this article discovered from Town Hall that there were more agencies involved in 'Fast and Furious' than the DOJ and ATF:

Yesterday during testimony on Capitol Hill, we heard Former ATF Special Agent in Charge William Newell admit he was in contact with White House National Security staffer Kevin O'Reilly about Operation Fast and Furious as early as September 2010. Newell also admitted that the DHS, IRS, DEA, ATF, ICE and the Obama Justice Department were all heavily involved and were full partners in coming up with the concept and execution of Operation Fast and Furious.There is more from Town Hall about all of this:

Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama still deny authorizing the lethal program, despite President Obama specifically asking Holder to conduct a complete review of current gun enforcement policies during a joint press conference in Mexico City with Mexico President Felipe Calderon in April 2009. The quote below starts at 1:16 in the video. 

“Our focus is to work with Secretary Napolitano, Attorney General Holder, our entire Homeland Security team, ATF, border security, everybody who is involved with this to coordinate with our counterparts in Mexico to significantly ramp up our enforcement of existing laws. In fact, I’ve asked Eric Holder to do a complete review of how our current enforcement operations our working and make sure we are cutting down on the loop holes that are causing some of these drug trafficking problems. Last point I would make, is that there are going to be some opportunities where I think we can build some strong consensus I’ll give you one example and that is the issue of gun tracing, the tracing of bullets and ballistics and gun information that had been used in major crimes.”

So let me get this straight, President Obama specifically asked Eric Holder to do a “complete review” of “current gun enforcement operations,” in April 2009, yet Eric Holder and President Obama deny they authorized or knew anything specific about Operation Fast and Furious until 2011? It seems too “coincidental” that the President of the United States was talking about “ballistics and gun tracing” in April 2009, when Operation Fast and Furious started in Fall 2009, especially when the agencies he listed in the 2009 press conference, DHS, DOJ, ATF, “everybody involved,” match up with Newell’s admission about which agencies came up with the idea for Fast and Furious in the first place, which included, as stated above, DEA, IRS, ATF, DHS, and the Obama DOJ.   

Source:  Town Hall

We ask again why aren't all of the MSM reporting about this and pushing for the answers?  Are they afraid the answers will lead direct to the Oval Office?