Posted on 06/12/2011 11:04:21 PM PDT by Nachum
HERE’S a story that is so screwy it sounds like a script from “The Simpsons,” but it’s real, and it’s about our federal government at work. That’s what makes it so scary.
At 6 a.m. last Tuesday, a good citizen, Kenneth Wright of Stockton, Calif., was awakened by the clamor of about 15 armed SWAT team members breaking through the front door of his house.
Wearing only his boxer shorts as he came downstairs, Wright was grabbed by the neck and put down on his lawn with an officer’s knee on his back.
His kids, ages 3, 7, and 11 were terrified. Wright, confused and upset, was handcuffed, stuffed into the back of a hot police cruiser and held there for six hours while the agents searched his home.
What’s going on here?
The commandos were armed agents of — really — the U.S. Department of Education. And they bashed their way into his house and held him and his children while they apparently searched for evidence of alleged student loan fraud involving Wright’s estranged wife.
Amazing. Alarming.
Why does the U.S. Department of Education need a SWAT squad? And why would they need to bash their way into an ordinary person’s house and terrorize everyone there at 6 a.m., just to look for student loan paperwork?
Those are good questions for the uber-bureaucrat who requested the search warrant, one Special Agent Howard Nance of the Education Department’s Office of the Inspector General.
But Nance isn’t answering questions. And his Education Gestapo is refusing public requests to explain themselves, citing an ongoing criminal investigation.
Unbelievable. Now faceless bureaucrats can tear up the Fourth Amendment and bash their way into your house brandishing heavy weapons in search of paperwork. And they refuse to explain themselves.
Your papers had better be in order, citizen.
Back in March 2010, I was puzzled to read an obscure account of the Department of Education seeking to buy a couple dozen short-barreled shotguns. Now we know what that was about.
Other unlikely federal bureaucracies have their own armed agents, too, including the Small Business Administration and even the Railroad Retirement Board, according to Quin Hillyer, writing in the Freedom Line Blog at the Center for Individual Freedom, based in Alexandria, Va.
Dealing with government bureaucrats is bad enough, but Americans are really in danger when the bureaucrats can send gunmen to break down your door for any stupid reason they can get a deranged judge to sign off on, as Kenneth Wright and his kids discovered this past week.
There’s no reason for these agencies to have their own little armies. And there’s even less reason for those agents to confront citizens with deadly weapons. Somebody is going to get killed, if for no other reason than negligent handling of those firearms. Check out the YouTube video of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agent who shot himself in the foot while telling a classroom audience he was the only one in the room qualified to handle the pistol he was holding. Now imagine 15 jumpy, macho Education Department commandos with loaded shotguns milling around in your living room.
Apparently all these bureaucratic armed squads in the Executive branch of government have their roots in a law adopted in 1978 setting up Inspector General offices. Shame on Congress for not thinking that one through. Now Congress needs to undo that damage.
Similarly, President Obama needs to tell the Department of Education and all the other oddball armed Inspector General units in his Executive Branch to stand down and turn in their guns before they hurt somebody.
Obama might be a little gun-shy right now, though. That’s because tomorrow, Republican Congressman Darrell Issa of California is to open a congressional hearing into the Project Gunrunner Operation Fast and Furious scandal that has barely made the national news yet.
That’s the scandal in which the U.S. Department of Justice led by Obama crony Eric Holder has been stonewalling congressional inquiries into why the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) allowed hundreds of firearms to be purchased illegally in the U.S. and taken into Mexico supposedly for tracking to narco-gangsters, and how some of those guns the ATF lost track of turned up in connection with the murders of two U.S. agents and who knows how many Mexican citizens.
Whistleblowers indicate that the OK for this insanity went high up into the Justice Department. How could such a dangerous international operation get started without approval of the attorney general or the White House?
And how could anyone who is competent and in their right mind, possibly allow such a ridiculous and potentially deadly scheme to go ahead?
So far, Obama has said only that he and Holder did not authorize the Gunrunner Fast and Furious scheme, which falls short of saying they knew nothing about it.
The answers Rep. Issa is seeking could be, well, explosive.
Meanwhile, make sure not to fudge your college loan paperwork, lest you get a rude awakening at the end of a Department of Education shotgun.
America, what is happening here?
Tom Skoch is editor of The Morning Journal and www.MorningJournal.com, where his Tell the Editor blog appears. He is on Twitter as MJ_Tom_Skoch and can be contacted by e-mail at tskoch@morningjournal.com.
Later
Don’t worry. freedomwarrior998 can explain why this is all ok.
He did it on a previous thread on this subject but I — not having the high mental caliber of freedomwarrior998 — forget all his reasons.
freedomwarrior998, could you please explain again why this is all ok and how it is we’re all getting upset over nothing? (Because I must confess, reading this once again makes me very, very upsted.)
I apologize for my inability to remember all the great thoughts you previously posted on this subject — on why there’s nothing wrong here, why it’s not really a SWAT raid, and why we’re all getting upset over nothing — and I would dearly love to be re-illuminated by them.
Thanks in advance for your troubles.
Something I hadn’t thought of before, these 15 jackbooted thugs for the department of Education had to be flown in in. the DOE better not have a LEO force nationwide.
How much did this cost for a nice little raid in Stockton? Tens of thousands of dollars? how much was defrauded?
Remember, everyone arrested is guilty. LEOs never make mistakes. all alleged perps are scum, even if they have no record.
There should be a "/sarc" at the end of this but I lack the proper Orwellian mindset. Paging Mr Kafka, will Mr Kafka please pick up the white courtesy phone?
Police state.
From the earlier, original article:
1) NO the DOE doesn't have a nationwide force. They had one local cop with them to 'make it legal' (or seem legal). And fwiw, the local cop didn't get involved in the raid, he stayed outside.
2) Yes they had to be flown in. Prolly on Gubmint owned Lear Jet type 'business' plane. (as seen on tv shows NCIS or Criminal Minds)
yes — you are wrong. See you in 2012 to check!
Remember, everyone arrested is guilty. LEOs never make mistakes. all alleged perps are scum, even if they have no record.And according to freedomwarrior998 on another thread (sorry for not forgetting this, freedomdude, but you really, really ticked me off on that other thread and I'd love to see you come on this one and try posting your tripe here), the "perp" in this case is a "fraudster", which I guess makes it all ok.
Frankly, I don’t care if you get “ticked” or not. The fact is, there was no SWAT team. The lying media how desperately ran with the sensationalist version of the story has now confirmed that. So this columnist is lying right from the start.
Second, according to the statement released by OIG, he was not handcuffed, and the children were not held against their will. So unless you were there and can provide proof, all you have are the ramblings of a liar. Since we already know that the first version of the story that this liar has put out there has been retracted (because it was a lie) then give me one reason to believe any other version of events he offers.
You can stamp your feet like a petulant child and tell me how ticked you are if you like, but you will get no other response from me, especially since you don’t have a right to demand anything of me. Here is how it is... no matter how “ticked” you get, unless you can provide proof of the sequence of events, then you don’t have a leg to stand on, and this is just more Alex Jones tinfoil nonsense that you just want to believe so you will deny reality to believe it. So go back to telling us about “Satanists at Bohemian Grove, Lizard People, evil Jews controlling the banks, FEMA teams, concentration camps, black helicopters, and SWAT boogeymen.”
Since there is no way to rationally communicate with folks who want to believe that black helicopters are after them, I’ll not even try. Post away. You aren’t going to get anything further from me in this thread, even if it makes you “really, really, really, ticked.”
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