But Team Obama was more concerned about protecting the “rights” of illegal aliens—potential Democratic voters—than it was about protecting the American citizens in Arizona, which is why Holder sued it as well as Utah, Alabama, and South Carolina, which passed similar laws. (A lower court blocked key parts of the Arizona law, leading the state to ask the Supreme Court to consider the case. In its brief to the Court, Arizona warned of “extraordinary confrontations between the federal government and other states” over illegal immigration.) The president of the United States believes that American states—American citizens—are greater lawbreakers than the illegal aliens subjecting them to invasion and threat every day. This is what law enforcement means to the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
In a Clockwork Orange display of perverse absurdity, Obama cheered on Mexican president Felipe Calderón as they stood together in the Rose Garden and Calderón ripped Arizona for wanting to protect itself from his country’s murderers, drug dealers, and thugs. One week before Calderón arrived in Washington, he blasted the Arizona law as “criminalizing immigration,” which he said “opens the door to intolerance, hate and discrimination.” With Calderón standing next to him, Obama chimed in, “In the United States of America, no law-abiding person—be they an American citizen, a legal immigrant, or a visitor or tourist from Mexico—should ever be subject to suspicion simply because of what they look like.” The spectacle of the president of the United States joining a foreign head of state to bash one of our own states put Obama’s anti-Americanism in bold relief. He wasn’t defending the United States in the face of foreign criticism. There was no “evil empire” moment. He didn’t rally to our sides. He rallied to the sides of the lawbreakers. Afterward, Obama told Calderón that he had recently seen the film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and that if the Mexican president and his group of bandits needed any more help ripping off America, he would definitely assist them.
Obama has pushed “comprehensive immigration reform,” which is code for amnesty, and a few other new laws he won’t enforce. He’s actually pushing for a massive new voter base, which is why he’s always pandering to such radical open-borders, pro-amnesty groups as the National Council of La Raza. In fact, in early 2012, Obama chose a former senior vice president of La Raza, Cecilia Muñoz, to head his Domestic Policy Council. Nothing says “kissing Latino butt” like putting a La Raza honcho in charge of U.S. domestic policy.
Early on, the Obama administration had increased some deportations of violent criminal aliens, but by late 2011 it had put the brakes on deportations. It also couldn’t find the time to deport Barry’s uncle Onyango Obama and aunt Zeituni Onyango, both in the United States illegally and, in Aunt Zeituni’s case, on the taxpayer dole. She claimed that the “system” took advantage of her and proclaimed, “If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen.” I see where Obama gets his kookocity. Uncle Onyango was arrested for driving under the influence in Massachusetts, but was released and went back to work in a liquor store. Obama’s idea of family values.
Obama has invited in more illegals by reducing the National Guard troop presence on the southern border from 1,200 to fewer than 300. And he has enacted backdoor amnesty by end-running Congress on the DREAM Act, issuing new ICE memoranda that radically changed deportation policies, creating a shadowy new interagency working group to dismiss pending deportation cases, and moving to grant work authorization to some illegals. He has also refused to stop sanctuary cities from impeding federal law enforcement and looked the other way as states such as New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois have stopped participating in the Department of Homeland Security illegal immigrant information program, Secure Communities. He has essentially ended worksite enforcement operation except for auditing I-9 employment eligibility forms and has not included E-Verify in any of his “jobs” plans.
Because Obama and the kooks require chaos, they’re always looking for ways to create more tumult. What better way to capitalize on the violent bedlam on the southern border than by introducing more chaos by running guns across it?
When Team Obama came into office in early 2009, they came upon a legitimate program already in place called Project Gunrunner, which was designed to track the flow of guns. Project Gunrunner took place in Arizona, when Janet Napolitano, now the Department of Homeland Security secretary, was governor. Project Gunrunner spawned another operation called Operation Wide Receiver, which was designed to trace illegal firearms in Mexico. Wide Receiver was tightly managed, with all illegal firearms transactions done under close monitoring, and it was limited, involving only about 500 guns, most of which had fail-safe radio tracking devices. Most important, Wide Receiver was conducted with the full knowledge and buy-in of the Mexican government.
Team Obama saw Operation Gunrunner and the smaller Operation Wide Receiver begging to be used for leftist purposes. Obama often expressed the view that “more than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our border.” That’s a two-for-one kookism: it’s anti-gun and anti-American! Too bad for the kooks that it’s not true. Only about 17 percent of the guns in Mexico come from the United States. But if Team Obama were going to design their own gunrunning operation, they’d do it with one goal in mind: to ramp up the flow of guns, and when the guns were linked to murder and mayhem, they’d have an urgent excuse to crack down on law-abiding gun owners in the United States.
This wasn’t incompetence. It was intentional. As CBS News’ Sharyl Attkisson reported in December 2011, documents showed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed creating and using Fast and Furious to press for new and stricter rules on gun sales. “ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons,” Attkisson reported, “but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation.” We know the true kook purpose of Fast and Furious thanks to intrepid reporting by Attkisson, Fox News’ William LaJuenesse and some others, who pursued the story despite gangsta threats from White House crisis manager Eric Schultz, who even “screamed at” Attkisson for being “unfair and biased by pursuing” the story. Obama and his acolytes were so used to having the media protect, defend, and advance them that when a reporter actually did his or her job, they lashed out in a torrent of intimidation.
In mid-2009, the administration midwifed a gunwalking program so out of control that hundreds of people now lay dead, including border agent Brian Terry and customs enforcement agent Jaime Zapata. Fast and Furious was a sinister operation that blended antigun politics with willful negligence to arm brutal Mexican drug lords and their henchmen. The plan was to get arms dealers to make illegal gun sales to “straw buyers,” who were tasked to transfer the weapons to illegals, drug runners, and other criminals. In theory, the “straw buyers” were supposed to lead them to the drug cartels against whom they could move legally. In practice, it led to murder and mayhem, as expected.
Thousands of guns were permitted to walk, ATF lost track of most of them, and they disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle of Mexico’s violent gangs. The dramatic prosecutions of major drug kingpins of which Holder dreamed never materialized; charges were brought against about twenty people, none of them significant cartel players. Meanwhile, the guns began showing up at savage crime scenes on both sides of the border, including in Arizona at the murder scenes of Agents Terry and Zapata. Of course, the most basic ATF mission is to not lose track of guns.
When the story blew wide open, Team Obama tried to point to Operation Wide Receiver in order to once again blame Bush and suggest that both programs were the same. In fact, unlike Team Bush, Team Obama never bothered to inform the Mexican government of the gunwalking, approved the transfer of thousands—not hundreds—of guns, lied to lower-level ATF agents about the policy, and let the entire operation spin out of control.
Predictably, no one a
mong Team Obama knew nothin’ about no stinkin’ guns. The president claimed he didn’t know that thousands of guns were walking across the Mexican border, even though he is commander in chief. Despite the fact that some of his top deputies knew about Fast and Furious, including Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and former deputy attorney general David Ogden, Attorney General Eric Holder claimed he didn’t know, even though his department oversaw the program. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed she didn’t know, even though the operation occurred over an international border. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano claimed she didn’t know, even though the matter involved international criminal activity and came out of the program she oversaw as governor. Moe, Larry, and Curly in Obama’s cabinet have zero idea about the guns that killed border agent Brian Terry. Yet Eric, Hillary, and Janet all frequently get behind policies that affect every aspect of our personal liberties. I guess everything is sophisticated and nuanced until an American hero is killed by an American gun in the hands of a Mexican outlaw.
Congressional investigations unearthed memoranda that indicated that, contrary to Holder’s previous testimony that he had first learned of Fast and Furious in early 2011, he’d actually been briefed on it far earlier. He testified that he didn’t see the relevant memos because, after all, he had his hands full with suing U.S. states over immigration and letting the 2008 Black Panthers voter intimidation scandal slide. The chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Darrell Issa, was so infuriated with his continuous stonewalling and refusal to release requested documents that Issa had to issue a slew of subpoenas to get them. And in the ultimate insult, when asked if he had spoken with or apologized to the family of slain agent Terry, Holder replied, “No.” Then he released to the media a copy of the letter he had sent to the family—before they had received it. He then abruptly ordered sealed court records containing the grim details of how Mexican drug smugglers killed Terry with a Fast and Furious firearm. So much for the “most transparent” administration in history.
As the scandal grew, Team Obama attempted damage control. It moved key players around as if they were deck chairs on the Titanic. The acting head of the ATF, Kenneth Melson, was transferred into a made-up position at DOJ with the fanciful title, “Senior Adviser on Forensic Science in the Office of Legal Policy.” Others deeply involved with Fast and Furious were moved out of their positions or promoted. The only resignation was by U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke in Phoenix, who attempted to smear an ATF whistle-blower and then denied Agent Terry’s family crime victim status in a court case brought against the lowlife who bought the guns used in Terry’s murder.
A government-run program to illegally transfer thousands of guns to violent Mexican drug gangs? What could go wrong? It was the epitome of leftist thinking: if they could get the program to go awry just enough, not only would they have a ready-made reason to crack down on legal U.S. guns but they could also jump to blame the United States for its appetite for drugs and guns. It’s our fault, you see, that we’re a nation of druggies that creates so much demand for the Mexican drug lords. It’s our fault that we’ve got this stupid Second Amendment with the right to bear arms. It’s our fault that so many illegals want to come here to work and live, and therefore the burden is on us to make them feel at home. And if you disagree, you’re a heartless jerk.
The illegal alien invasion squares nicely with the kooks’ objective of removing American greatness, which is why Obama and Holder sued some of our own states and never apologized for the violent mayhem of Fast and Furious. In fact, the gunwalking operation continues exactly as planned, with Holder predicting that “for years to come, guns lost during this operation will continue to show up at crime scenes on both sides of the border.” Kook mission accomplished.
We usually assume that our leadership is on the side of the rule of law and law enforcement. But as Obama reminded La Raza: “The Democrats and your president are with you.… Remember who it is we need to move to change the laws.”
Obama’s active encouragement of the illegal invasion is community organizing at its best. It’s also a genius application of Alinsky’s revolutionary strategy: stoke chaos to pave the way for your radical agenda. To the leftists, the American people need to be browbeaten, sued, abused, and attacked by their own government in service of their greater goal of “fundamentally transforming” the nation. And if you don’t like it, here comes a Mexican drug lord with a Fast and Furious gun we gave him to convince you of the error of your ways.
Bonfire of the Olive Branches
* * *
Obama seems to believe that diplomacy is a zero-sum game: that is, as you seek improved relations with your adversaries, you must sucker-punch your friends. No American president has blown off long-standing and loyal allies with as much speed and fervor as Obama has slammed into Israel, Egypt, Great Britain, France, Germany, Honduras, Iraq, Japan, and South Korea, prompting them all to think, “What the @$%&! just happened?”
When he first entered the White House, Obama dissed our greatest allies, the British, by returning a bust of Winston Churchill, the savior of Western civilization. The bust was a gift from the British government, but Obama needed to make room for all of those photos of Michelle showing off her buff arms, so something had to go. He also disrespected the British by giving the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, DVDs that he was unable to watch on European players, and to Her Majesty the Queen, he gave an iPod. As she turned it on for the first time, eagerly anticipating the latest Flo Rida single, the British sovereign had her ears assaulted by endless Obama lectures on the virtues of wind farms. She was further stunned to discover that Obama had forgotten to erase a bunch of things from it, like Reverend Wright’s sermons, the Jane Fonda workout, a video clip of Fredo Corleone screaming in The Godfather: Part II, and a ton of Barbra Streisand songs.
He insulted the French by arriving in Paris only to turn down a dinner invitation from French president Nicolas Sarkozy. He further offended the French by sending a letter to the French president—Jacques Chirac—when Sarkozy was the actual president of France at the time, and he held a town hall meeting while there but didn’t call on a single French citizen. Mon Dieu!
He dinged the Germans by canceling his scheduled appearance in Germany on November 9, 2009, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The collapse of the wall is one of the greatest triumphs of liberty over tyranny in the history of mankind, but Obama couldn’t be bothered. He had other stuff to do. Like play golf. Smoke. Chat up J. Lo. Shoot hoops.
He dissed our South Korean allies by refusing to deal aggressively with their—and our—North Korean enemy on its nuclear program, its widespread proliferation, its attack on a South Korean ship that killed forty-six South Korean citizens, and its military assault on the South that resulted in several deaths. The message South Korea and another great U.S. ally, Japan, took from this? You’re on your own. Good luck with that whole North Korean nightmare thingy. Oh, and that Chinese colossus thingy too.
Obama blew off the pro-American, pro-Israel Kurds in northern Iraq who, once they heard about his decision to withdraw completely from Iraq, sent their leader, Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani, to Tehran to seek protection from the Iranian government.
Obama has sold out Honduras, which was desperately trying to prevent a socialist takeover by an anti-American authoritarian whom Hillary Clinton’s State Department thought was a swell fellow to support. This thrilled the Cuban dictators Fidel and Raúl Castro and South American strongmen such as Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and Bolivian president Evo Morales. Their fight for socialism was made so much easier with the United States not just out of the way but actively championing their cause. Muchas gracias, American gringos!
In the most egregious example of the Obama ally blow-off, he took our special friendship with Israel—our historically close friend, our most reliable strategic partner in the Middle East, and a nation with which we share democratic
and free market principles—and he drop-kicked it. Schooled on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the terrorist sympathizer and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, Obama came to office with the view that Israel is an occupying force of lands historically, legally, and morally Palestinian and that Israel bullies its way around the region, exaggerating the threats it faces and holding the so-called peace process hostage with outrageous demands. It’s no wonder that once he became president, he reoriented our policy away from a staunch alliance with Israel and toward one far more sympathetic to Palestinian demands. When he was campaigning in 2008, then–Senator Obama blurted out, “There is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel.” If Obama’s GOP rival, Senator McCain, had said that, the leftist press would have raked him over the coals for its outrageousness as well as its inaccuracy. When Obama referred to Likud, the party had been out of power for two years, replaced by the centrists of Kadima and led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who had been discussing a major territorial compromise. Furthermore, it was under Likud governments that Israel had carried out its biggest territorial withdrawals from Sinai and Gaza. But to Obama, Likud and frankly every Israeli government was seen as uncompromising and hostile to peace.
A few months after entering office, Obama told American Jewish leaders that essentially he had had enough of the close U.S.-Israeli relationship. Referring to the Bush years, he said, “For eight years there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished.” It was during those “nothing” years that Likud prime minister Ariel Sharon removed thousands of Israelis from Gaza and the northern part of the West Bank and enforced the withdrawal with the Israeli Defense Forces. Sharon was so committed to a two-state solution that he resigned from Likud to form a new party to try to see it through.
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