Posted on 06/04/2009 12:28:10 AM PDT by STARWISE
At approximately 10:30 a.m. on June 1, as two young U.S. soldiers stood in front of the Army Navy Career Center in west Little Rock, Ark., a black pickup pulled in front of the office and the driver opened fire on the two, killing one and critically wounding the other.
*snip*
According to police, the suspect told the arresting officers that he had a bomb in his vehicle, but after an inspection by the police bomb squad, the only weapons police recovered from the vehicle were an SKS rifle and two pistols.
*snip*
Several weeks ago, STRATFOR heard from sources that the FBI and other law enforcement organizations had been ordered to “back off” of counterterrorism investigations into the activities of Black Muslim converts.
At this point, it is unclear to us if that guidance was given by the White House or the Department of Justice, or if it was promulgated by the agencies themselves, anticipating the wishes of President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.
(Excerpt) Read more at stratfor.com ...
“...especially coming at a time when the Obama administration appears to be following the Clinton-era policy of stressing the primacy of the FBI and the law enforcement aspect of counterterrorism policy at the expense of intelligence and other elements. “
Especially coming at a time when...more and more efforts
are being made to tie “white militia/rightwing radicals
to terrorism.
Coincidence? I think not.
I agree, someone needs to do an investigation. This is just beyond what I would have expected and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true! How in the world can the fbi support and defend the constitution, protect the citizens from terrorists (homegrown and foreign)if they are told to BACK OFF? Why would they “back off”?
There is nothing logical about this....
Yep - it was important to push the FBI into investigating Americans who happen to be conservative. Those Republicans - the party of Abraham Lincoln - those grandparents - the ones who believe in things like the Constitution - they're the problem. /s
when the power of the state
the FBI -
is used to go after the political enemies
of the party in power.
WRONG
AGAINST THE
LAW.
But, historically, that’s what leftist/collectivists ALWAYS do -
use the power of the state to punish/kill their political opponents.
...Several weeks ago, STRATFOR heard from sources that the FBI and other law enforcement organizations had been ordered to “back off” of counterterrorism investigations into the activities of Black Muslim converts.
At this point, it is unclear to us if that guidance was given by the White House or the Department of Justice, or if it was promulgated by the agencies themselves, anticipating the wishes of President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder...
Thanks for the heads up on this one, hoosiermama!
Given that they already knew this guy had been arrested in Yemen for using a Somali passport, why in the heck would they not watch him, if not for some “hands off” policy from on high?
Makes yer head spin.
I wonder how long Mueller is going to stand for this.
Thanks for the ping....bump!
Several weeks ago, STRATFOR heard from sources that the FBI and other law enforcement organizations had been ordered to "back off" of counterterrorism investigations into the activities of Black Muslim converts. At this point, it is unclear to us if that guidance was given by the White House or the Department of Justice, or if it was promulgated by the agencies themselves, anticipating the wishes of President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.Welcome to Detroit, everyone!
“Dear Lord .. Jamie Gorelick must be a stealth admin operative. Here we go again .. inviting an attack. Prayers for protection.” ~ STARWISE
WSJ
Gorelick’s Wall
The Commissioner belongs in the witness chair.
Thursday, April 15, 2004 12:01 A.M. EDT
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004956
We predicted Democrats would use the 9/11 Commission for partisan purposes, and that much of the press would oblige. But color us astonished that barely anyone appreciates the significance of the bombshell Attorney General John Ashcroft dropped on the hearings Tuesday. If Jamie Gorelick were a Republican, you can be sure our colleagues in the Fourth Estate would be leading the chorus of complaint that the Commission’s objectivity has been fatally compromised by a member who was also one of the key personalities behind the failed antiterror policy that the Commission has under scrutiny. Where’s the outrage?
At issue is the pre-Patriot Act “wall” that prevented communication between intelligence agents and criminal investigators—a wall, Mr. Ashcroft said, that meant “the old national intelligence system in place on September 11 was destined to fail.” The Attorney General explained:
“In the days before September 11, the wall specifically impeded the investigation into Zacarias Moussaoui, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. After the FBI arrested Moussaoui, agents became suspicious of his interest in commercial aircraft and sought approval for a criminal warrant to search his computer. The warrant was rejected because FBI officials feared breaching the wall.
“When the CIA finally told the FBI that al-Midhar and al-Hazmi were in the country in late August, agents in New York searched for the suspects. But because of the wall, FBI headquarters refused to allow criminal investigators who knew the most about the most recent al Qaeda attack to join the hunt for the suspected terrorists.
“At that time, a frustrated FBI investigator wrote headquarters, quote, ‘Whatever has happened to this—someday someone will die—and wall or not—the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain ‘problems.’ “
What’s more, Mr. Ashcroft noted, the wall did not mysteriously arise: “Someone built this wall.” That someone was largely the Democrats, who enshrined Vietnam-era paranoia about alleged FBI domestic spying abuses by enacting the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Mr. Ashcroft pointed out that the wall was raised even higher in the mid-1990s, in the midst of what was then one of the most important antiterror investigations in American history—into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. On Tuesday the Attorney General declassified and read from a March 4, 1995, memo in which Jamie Gorelick—then Deputy Attorney General and now 9/11 Commissioner—instructed then-FBI Director Louis Freeh and United States Attorney Mary Jo White that for the sake of “appearances” they would be required to adhere to an interpretation of the wall far stricter than the law required.
Ms. White was then the lead prosecutor in cases related to the Trade Center bombing. Ms. Gorelick explicitly references United States v. Yousef and United States v. Rahman—cases that might have greatly expanded our pre-9/11 understanding of al Qaeda had investigators been given a freer hand. The memo is a clear indication that there was pressure then for more intelligence sharing. Ms. Gorelick’s response is an unequivocal “no”:
“We believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will more clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations. These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation” (emphases added).
In case anyone was in doubt, Janet Reno herself affirmed the policy several months later in a July 19, 1995, memo that we have unearthed. In it, the then-Attorney General instructs all U.S. Attorneys about avoiding “the appearance” of overlap between intelligence-related activities and law-enforcement operations.
Recall, too, that during the time of Ms. Gorelick’s 1995 memo, the issue causing the most tension between the Reno-Gorelick Justice Department and Director Freeh’s FBI was not counterterrorism but widely reported allegations of contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign from foreign sources, involving the likes of John Huang and Charlie Trie. Mr. Trie later told investigators that between 1994 and 1996 he raised some $1.2 million, much of it from foreign sources, whose identities were hidden by straw donors. Ms. Gorelick resigned as deputy attorney general in 1997 to become vice chairman of Fannie Mae.
From any reasonably objective point of view, the Gorelick memo has to count as by far the biggest news so far out of the 9/11 hearings. The Mary Jo White prosecutions and the 2001 Moussaoui arrest were among our best chances to uncover and unravel the al Qaeda network before it struck the homeland. But thanks in part to the Clinton Administration’s concern with appearances and in part to its legacy, these investigations were hamstrung.
Ms. Gorelick—an aspirant to Attorney General under a President Kerry—now sits in judgment of the current Administration. This is what, if the principle has any meaning at all, people call a conflict of interest. Henry Kissinger was hounded off the Commission for far less. It’s such a big conflict of interest that the White House could hardly be blamed if it decided to cease cooperation with the 9/11 Commission pending Ms. Gorelick’s resignation and her testimony under oath as a witness into the mind of the Reno Justice Department. What exactly was the purpose of the wall?
Mueller will weight all the options He has more facts than we have, more power - and more constraints. That said, I believe he'll make his choice based on the law and what's best for the safety of this country.
The Washington Post is making an attempt to be more "objective" - we'll see if they'll look at this. In the meantime: Fight the Machine - STOP supporting the MSM.
“Goes right along with dropping the charges on the New Black Panthers.” ~ visualops
And other lawless factions / criminal element - all members of which vote for and support DemocRATS:
“Obama has indicated willingness to end federal oversight of the Teamsters [& gets Hoffa endorsement]” ~ Robert Novak 2/23/08 [Crumbling Ohio Firewall]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1974928/posts
Obama Signals Less Union Oversight
by Robert B. Bluey (more by this author)
Posted 05/09/2008 ET
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=26440
The Labor Department’s seven-year effort to improve financial reporting and disclosure by unions could come to a screeching halt once President Bush leaves office.
Sen. Barack Obama’s support for ending federal oversight of the Teamsters is the clearest indication yet of how a Democratic administration would treat labor unions.
Both Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton wooed the Teamsters in hopes of securing its coveted endorsement.
But only Obama went so far as to say that government oversight had “run its course.”
The union endorsed Obama in February.
Since then, Obama’s ties to Teamsters President James P. Hoffa have grown stronger. Hoffa has traveled with Obama on the campaign trail and acted as a surrogate on trade issues for the candidate.
History of Corruption
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has a history of corruption problems dating back to 1959, when the Landrum-Griffith Act created many of the financial reporting and disclosure requirements in law today.
Within years of the act’s passage, Hoffa’s father was sparring with then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy over union corruption.
But it wasn’t until 1992 that the Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of creating a three-member independent review board to help the Teamsters root out its mob influence.
When the younger Hoffa became president in 1999, he made it a priority to end the government’s oversight.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported Obama’s promise to the Teamsters, notes that the review board’s caseload has declined over the years. Still, many problems remain with local Teamsters outfits, according to the Labor Department’s union enforcement agency.
In the last seven years, the Office of Labor-Management Standards has secured more than 30 convictions of Teamsters officials for crimes ranging from embezzlement and wire fraud to theft and falsifying union records.
Two former officers of Teamsters Local 743 in Illinois were convicted in March as part of a 14-count criminal complaint alleging conspiracy, mail fraud, theft and embezzlement. Another conviction in April involved a former bookkeeper charged with embezzling $140,000 from Houston’s Teamsters Local 19.
Increased Enforcement
These types of cases aren’t limited to the Teamsters.
The Labor Department’s enforcement agency has secured 900 indictments and successfully prosecuted more than 850 individuals since 2001. During that time the office has a recouped more than $103 million for American workers.
This wasn’t always the case. The number of employees working for the Office of Labor-Management Standards fell from 392 in 1992 to just 260 in 2002 after years of cuts by the Clinton administration. Fewer employees meant fewer audits — forcing the office to rely more heavily on unions to police themselves.
Since taking office, Bush has restored many of the positions cut under Clinton to boost auditing and enforcement. As of 2006, there were 384 employees working for the office.
The lean Clinton years could return, however.
While other offices at Labor last year reaped budget increases from the Democratic-controlled Congress, the enforcement office saw its budget cut by $3 million.
And that wasn’t all. Congressional leaders and their Big Labor allies also tried to water down financial reporting requirements. A dispute arose last year over the revised LM-30 form that requires union bosses to “disclose possible conflicts between personal interests and the officer’s or employee’s duty to the union and its members.”
The Labor Department revised the rule to give the union rank-and-file more information about how their dues were spent. But union leaders such as John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO denounced the new reporting requirements as a “debilitating burden.”
With promises from Obama to ease union oversight, and endorsements from congressional Democrats for the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800), better known as the card check bill, Big Labor is salivating at the prospect of a return to “one-party government” in Washington next year.
Mr. Bluey, a contributing editor to Human Events, is director of the Center for Media & Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation. He maintains a blog at RobertBluey.com.
Hm. Bad news, if true. But I'd want independent confirmation of this before I take it too seriously.
Appeals to "sources" are untrustworthy in any event, especially when they're so ... timely. And Strafor "went sensational" several years ago, so I'm not sure that we can trust what they're saying, either.
Thanks for the cautionary note.
Assuming that Stratfor or it's "sources" aren't just making it up, you mean?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.