19 Nov 2015

Krugman on Obama National Security State: “He’s Normal”

Contra Krugman, Krugman 26 Comments

For an episode of Contra Krugman I want to remind our listeners of Krugman’s assessment of the Obama presidency in Rolling Stone in late 2014. Here’s the one time I heard Krugman address Obama on foreign policy / civil liberties (he never stops talking about the war crimes of the George W. Bush years), and here’s what Krugman said:

So far, i’ve been talking about Obama’s positive achievements, which have been much bigger than his critics understand. I do, however, need to address one area that has left some early Obama supporters bitterly disappointed: his record on national security policy. Let’s face it – many of his original enthusiasts favored him so strongly over Hillary Clinton because she supported the Iraq War and he didn’t. They hoped he would hold the people who took us to war on false pretenses accountable, that he would transform American foreign policy, and that he would drastically curb the reach of the national security state.

None of that happened. Obama’s team, as far as we can tell, never even considered going after the deceptions that took us to Baghdad, perhaps because they believed that this would play very badly at a time of financial crisis. On overall foreign policy, Obama has been essentially a normal post-Vietnam president, reluctant to commit U.S. ground troops and eager to extract them from ongoing commitments, but quite willing to bomb people considered threatening to U.S. interests. And he has defended the prerogatives of the NSA and the surveillance state in general.

Could and should he have been different? The truth is that I have no special expertise here; as an ordinary concerned citizen, I worry about the precedent of allowing what amount to war crimes to go not just unpunished but uninvestigated, even while appreciating that a modern version of the 1970s Church committee hearings on CIA abuses might well have been a political disaster, and undermined the policy achievements I’ve tried to highlight. What I would say is that even if Obama is just an ordinary president on national security issues, that’s a huge improvement over what came before and what we would have had if John McCain or Mitt Romney had won. It’s hard to get excited about a policy of not going to war gratuitously, but it’s a big deal compared with the alternative. [Bold added.]

26 Responses to “Krugman on Obama National Security State: “He’s Normal””

  1. E. Harding says:

    Is there any actual criticism of Obama Krugman made over the past half-decade? Not “I worry”, but accusations of dishonesty.

    • Major.Freedom says:

      Right up there with the number of criticisms you make of MM grounded posts. We’re talking a lot. Zero, even one maybe.

      Tribal philosophy manifests in tribal thought processes.

      • E. Harding says:

        I’ve disagreed with Sumner on whether monetary policy was too loose in the 1970s (him: yes), on the causes of the EZ double-dip (him: monetary policy), and on our evaluation of Trichet (him: strongly negative), Greenspan (him: negative) and Bernanke (him: quite positive) and on what tight money does to long-term nominal interest rates (him: mostly lowers). I’ve only been strongly M.M. sympathetic for only a couple of years. I do think Scott Sumner is God, though, or, at least, the person closest to him in nature.

  2. E. Harding says:

    Bob, why are there no dates and times on the comments? The metadata exists.

  3. Gene Callahan says:

    I don’t see what the problem is with Krugman’s remarks: he’s not approving of the bombing, just saying that at least it’s better than what Bush would have done. And… that seems correct.

    • Joseph Fetz says:

      “Would”? “Did”?

      Ba, who cares about such distinctions?

      • Tel says:

        I think Krugman has a fair case with John McCain, because the guy is mad as a meat-axe and basically the very last person on Earth I would trust with any nuclear codes.

        However, I think it’s kind of weak to call Mitt Romney any sort of war hawk… Romney is almost a Democrat anyway and probably never raised a fist in anger his entire life.

        … I worry about the precedent of allowing what amount to war crimes to go not just unpunished but uninvestigated, even while appreciating that a modern version of the 1970s Church committee hearings on CIA abuses might well have been a political disaster …

        Look I agree with Krugman here, the only problem being he didn’t go far enough down the long and sordid list of crimes that went unpunished. Just plug the word “arkancide” into a search engine, and then start going item by item:
        * Holder and the guns that got away into Mexico (but so far no serious investigation)
        * IRS and their vanishing emails after targeting the Tea Party for political reasons (but apparently no investigation).
        * All sorts of National Security Agency expansion (both Bush and Obama) with unwarranted wire tapping and bulk data slurping
        * Tax money pissed away (very long list) e.g. Solyndra, Bank bailouts, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Ginnie Mae bailouts, motor company bailouts (GM, etc).
        * Deliberate refusal to make the slightest effort to control illegal immigration
        * Repeated executive changes to Obamacare bypassing congress (Law by decree)
        * Hillary sacrificing people at Benghazi (who were probably smuggling guns in order to encourage revolutionary jihad, but we are supposed to pretend we don’t know that), not to mention the “The Martyrs of the February the 17th Revolution Brigade” who were supposedly the (joke) security detail… then blaming it all on a stupid amateur movie.
        * Hillary’s illegal email server, and her attempts to hide the fact.
        * Massive rise of food stamps during Obama’s “recovery”
        * War in Libya with a pretend authorization based on the invasion of Iraq (huh?!? yeah weird)
        * Obama’s drone strikes on arbitrary people, without oversight let alone due process (kill list, etc)
        * The so called “workplace violence” at Fort Hood, I mean, you are kidding me
        * The incredibly bad Veterans Affairs single payer health system

        There’s probably a lot more minor incidents. For example, the treaty that Obama struck with Iran was something of a decent treaty, but it was still illegal because Obama completely went out without any backing from congress.

        • Keshav Srinivasan says:

          Let me go through these points one by one:

          1. Eric Holder did not authorize Operation Fast and.Furious, and also the nature of what happened has been fundamentally misunderstood. I suggest you read this article in Fortune Magazine:

          features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/

          2. This has been thoroughly investigated. The IRS did not target the Tea Party for political reasons. What happened is that In 2012, there was a large surge in the number of 501(c)(3) applications, and the IRS needed some way to distinguish which organizations were primarily devoted to social welfare and which organizations were primarily devoted to politics. In order to identify potential organizations that might be political, some IRS employees developed a “Be on the Lookoout” (BOLO) list containing a bunch of keywords that would prompt extra scrutiny. That list included conservative keywords, like “Tea Party” and “9-12” project, but it also included liberal keywords, like “Progressive” and the like. And the Lois Lerner emails that were deleted (because the IRS only keeps the last six months worth of emails) were emails from 2010, which before the so-called “targeting” would have occurred. See here:

          http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/06/yet-another-irs-scandal-isnt

          3. Krugman explicitly mentioned that: “And he has defended the prerogatives of the NSA and the surveillance state in general.” In any case the NSA’s actions have been entirely consistent with section 215 of the Patriot Act, and they’ve been carried out with warrants. But I won’t defend the merits of the policy.

          4. The Energy Department loan guarantee program that Solyndra was a part of had a very high success rate. Solyndra was one of its few failures, but it was obvious from the start that there would be a few failures. A lot of the bailouts you mentioned were under Bush, but in any case, I think Krugman has a pretty positive view of the bailouts and the role they played (in his view) in rescuing the economy.

          5. Border arrests and deportations reached an all-time high under Obama, at least until the implementation of the DACA and DAPA programs.

          6. The Affordable Care Act grants Obama certain waiver authority to delay the implementation of certain parts of the law.

          7. Actually, to this day there is strong evidence that at least some of the attackers were motivated by the YouTube video; the leader of the attack specifically recruited people by invoking the YouTube video. And Hillary never said it was caused by a YouTube video, just that it’s unacceptable to use the video as an excise to justify an attack. And it was called a terrorist attack from day 1. The only bit of inaccurate information that Susan Rice gave, even though it was the CIA’s best understanding at the time, is that there were protests before the attack. That was witnesses were telling the government, but it later turned out not to be true. Also, the CIA outpost wasn’t being used to smuggle weapons to Syria or anything, it was being used to retrieve weapons that the US government had given to Libyan rebels during the civil war, so that they could be destroyed. And Hillary didn’t leave Americans to die, the administration tried its best to look for means to rescue them. The idea of a “stand down” order has been thoroughly debunked.

          8. Hillary’s email server was authorized by the administration, and it did not break any laws.

          9. I think Krugman would view that as a positive, part of the automatic stabilizers in response to a recession.

          10. The Libyan air strikes were done entirely in keeping with the War Powers Act. See the legal memo the Obama Administration sent to Congress. But I think Krugman would be against it, and so would I.

          11. Krugman mentioned this: “quite willing to bomb people considered threatening to U.S. interests”. In any case, for the legal justification for the Drone strikes, see the legal memo put out by the Obama administration. Again, I’m not defending the policy on its merits; I’m a pacifist.

          12. The mere fact that a Muslim guy shot a bunch of people does not make his attack part of the Jihadi movement.

          13. I haven!( been following the VA scandal for a while, but I think this would be relevant to read:

          http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/05/va

          Also, it should be noted that the VA gets higher patient ratings than the private healthcare system.

          14. As far as the Iran deal, it’s not a formal treaty, but in any case Congress did pass a bill saying that the deal wold go into effect unless overridden by a 2/3 majority. So that was done with congressional authorization.

        • Keshav Srinivasan says:

          Let me go through these points one by one:

          1. Eric Holder did not authorize Operation Fast and.Furious, and also the nature of what happened has been fundamentally misunderstood. I suggest you read this article in Fortune Magazine:
          features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/

          2. This has been thoroughly investigated. The IRS did not target the Tea Party for political reasons. What happened is that In 2012, there was a large surge in the number of 501(c)(3) applications, and the IRS needed some way to distinguish which organizations were primarily devoted to social welfare and which organizations were primarily devoted to politics. In order to identify potential organizations that might be political, some IRS employees developed a “Be on the Lookoout” (BOLO) list containing a bunch of keywords that would prompt extra scrutiny. That list included conservative keywords, like “Tea Party” and “9-12” project, but it also included liberal keywords, like “Progressive” and the like. And the Lois Lerner emails that were deleted (because the IRS only keeps the last six months worth of emails) were emails from 2010, which before the so-called “targeting” would have occurred. See here:
          motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/06/yet-another-irs-scandal-isnt

          3. Krugman explicitly mentioned that: “And he has defended the prerogatives of the NSA and the surveillance state in general.” In any case the NSA’s actions have been entirely consistent with section 215 of the Patriot Act, and they’ve been carried out with warrants. But I won’t defend the merits of the policy.

          4. The Energy Department loan guarantee program that Solyndra was a part of had a very high success rate. Solyndra was one of its few failures, but it was obvious from the start that there would be a few failures. A lot of the bailouts you mentioned were under Bush, but in any case, I think Krugman has a pretty positive view of the bailouts and the role they played (in his view) in rescuing the economy.

          5. Border arrests and deportations reached an all-time high under Obama, at least until the implementation of the DACA and DAPA programs.

          6. The Affordable Care Act grants Obama certain waiver authority to delay the implementation of certain parts of the law.

          7. Actually, to this day there is strong evidence that at least some of the attackers were motivated by the YouTube video; the leader of the attack specifically recruited people by invoking the YouTube video. And Hillary never said it was caused by a YouTube video, just that it’s unacceptable to use the video as an excise to justify an attack. And it was called a terrorist attack from day 1. The only bit of inaccurate information that Susan Rice gave, even though it was the CIA’s best understanding at the time, is that there were protests before the attack. That was witnesses were telling the government, but it later turned out not to be true. Also, the CIA outpost wasn’t being used to smuggle weapons to Syria or anything, it was being used to retrieve weapons that the US government had given to Libyan rebels during the civil war, so that they could be destroyed. And Hillary didn’t leave Americans to die, the administration tried its best to look for means to rescue them. The idea of a “stand down” order has been thoroughly debunked.

          8. Hillary’s email server was authorized by the administration, and it did not break any laws.

          9. I think Krugman would view that as a positive, part of the automatic stabilizers in response to a recession.

          10. The Libyan air strikes were done entirely in keeping with the War Powers Act. See the legal memo the Obama Administration sent to Congress. But I think Krugman would be against it, and so would I.

          11. Krugman mentioned this: “quite willing to bomb people considered threatening to U.S. interests”. In any case, for the legal justification for the Drone strikes, see the legal memo put out by the Obama administration. Again, I’m not defending the policy on its merits; I’m a pacifist.

          12. The mere fact that a Muslim guy shot a bunch of people does not make his attack part of the Jihadi movement.

          13. I haven!( been following the VA scandal for a while, but I think this would be relevant to read:
          motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/05/va
          Also, it should be noted that the VA gets higher patient ratings than the private healthcare system.

          14. As far as the Iran deal, it’s not a formal treaty, but in any case Congress did pass a bill saying that the deal wold go into effect unless overridden by a 2/3 majority. So that was done with congressional authorization.

          • Tel says:

            1. You post an article from 2012 that gives “The Truth” about documents that were only released after a court order in 2014… seems a bit implausible. The sort of stonewalling that we saw from Holder certainly would not be tolerated if some regular citizen attempted to hide evidence from a government investigation. The common interpretation is that people hiding evidence must have something to hide.

            The same article completely ignores the statements of gun shop owners, and of course there are published emails backing that up.

            http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/gunwalking_emails_041411.pdf

            I understand that the frequency with which some individuals under investigation by our office have been purchasing firearms from your business has caused concerns for you. I totally understand and am not in a position to tell you how to run your business. However, if it helps put you at ease we (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into detail. We are working in conjunction with the United States Attorney’s Office (Federal Prosecutors) to secure the most comprehensive case involving the different facets of this organization. If it puts you at ease I can schedule a meeting with the Attorney handling the case and myself to further discuss the issue. Just know that we cannot instruct you on how to run your business but your continued cooperation with our office has greatly aided the investigation so far.

            Thanks again and please let me know how I can be of service to you.

            Respectfully,

            David Voth

            Group Supervisor

            Pheonix Group VII

            Pretty clearly Voth is giving strong encouragement towards cooperation here, without actually giving an outright instruction. I think a lot of people want to cooperate with law enforcement and feel they are doing the right thing.

            Voth seems to think that the United States Attorney’s Office not only knew about it but was supporting the efforts. Holder (the guy who stonewalled and hid evidence from investigation) claims he knew nothing about it, I don’t believe him.

          • Tel says:

            2. The IRS scandal might have been “thoroughly investigated” but clearly not thoroughly enough.

            That business with the “hard drive crash and only 6 months backup” does not comply with the Federal Records Act (and that’s according to David Ferriero, National Archives and Records Administration, as well as others). The IRS are obligated by law to keep archives, most citizens are expected to obey the law, government employees don’t get special dispensation. What’s more when the hard drive crashed they should have notified the National Archives about the loss.. and they failed to notify anybody.

            But wait! It wasn’t just one hard drive that crashed, oh no, seems every hard drive that was related to the IRS investigation must have crashed (what are the odds?) that’s seven drives in total, deleting emails from the following employees: Lois Lerner, Nikole Flax, Michelle Eldridge, Kimberly Kitchens, Nancy Heagney, Julie Chen, Tyler Chumny.

            How can anyone claim “thoroughly investigated” when most of the evidence has been destroyed? I just cannot explain it.

            Now from the sublime to the ridiculous… Judicial Watch discovered that the “6 months backup” was complete nonsense, there exists a long term backup, and it’s always been there, just no one could be bothered looking.

            http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/backups-for-missing-lois-lerner-irs-emails/

            Department of Justice attorneys for the Internal Revenue Service told Judicial Watch on Friday that Lois Lerner’s emails, indeed all government computer records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide catastrophe. The Obama administration attorneys said that this back-up system would be too onerous to search.

            Oh lookie here, we have a backup after all. Only took five years to discover it. So now we go round for an other thorough investigation. Astounding how difficult it is to get certain groups to tell the truth.

          • Tel says:

            3.

            In any case the NSA’s actions have been entirely consistent with section 215 of the Patriot Act, and they’ve been carried out with warrants.

            No. They. Have. Not.

            In 2010 Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that the NSA broke the law because they required court approval for domestic surveillance (i.e. the NSA no warrant).

            In 2012 the EFF collected evidence from a number of whistle-blowers that full Internet backbone data collection has been implemented (and many other reports confirm this), but the case is ongoing because it has bounced back and forth so many times with the State claiming that the information is too secret for courts to even discuss.

            https://www.eff.org/press/releases/three-nsa-whistleblowers-back-effs-lawsuit-over-governments-massive-spying-program

            In 2013 the Washington Post reported on Snowden documents where the NSA internally audited their compliance and found it had “broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year”.

            So the NSA even admitted to breaches, they just shrugged it off as unintentional. Well if the law is too difficult for them to comply with, maybe they should either give up, or request easier laws. Everyone else is expected to comply. I don’t get to shrug off my speeding fines or traffic violations as “unintentional”.

            U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon found the NSA surveillance program broke the fourth amendment.

            in 2015 the European Court of Justice ruled that the USA cannot be considered a safe place for Europeans to store data, because of NSA surveillance.

            If you check on Wikipedia, there’s plenty more, I’m trimming this down a bit:

            Some people assert that the Patriot Act is not unconstitutional as pertaining to its implications on US citizens. Their arguments are based on the assertion that government has unlimited powers to protect against enemies during wartime. There have been no Declarations of war by the US that could include a direct declaration of war against US citizens. Under the War Powers Resolution the only option otherwise was to enact an authorization of the use of military force (which has been seen as unconstitutional since its creation. Under the War Powers Resolution Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF) was enacted.

            Since no US citizens have been identified as being involved in the 9/11 attacks, and since AUMF strictly states that war-time enemies are those who were involved in 9/11, extending these war-time powers to US citizens can be seen as unconstitutional or an undeclared war.

            The full details with references can easily be found on Wikipedia. Why defend the indefensible here?

        • Keshav Srinivasan says:

          Also, Romney is a war hawk. Romney is “almost a Democrat” in exactly the same way that McCain is “almost a Democrat”; the moderates of the Republcian Party tend to only be moderate on domestic issues like immigration and the like, but they also tend to be more conservative on foreign policy than the average Republican candidate. Romney was one of the biggest hawks on the field; the Tea Party contingent like Bachmann and Herman Cain were opposed to military intervention in Libya.

          • Grane Peer says:

            Come on Keshav, since when do presidential candidates stick to their promises?

            • Keshav Srinivasan says:

              Yeah, but you have to look at the dynamics of the Republican Party. 2012 was not a time when hawkishness was riling up the base as much as things like Obamacare, and yet Romney still emphasized his foreign policy views. So I think it’s Romney’s genuine belief. On the other hand, I do agree that he was being insincere when he told the base that he was a “severe conservative” on domestic issues, and when he said he favored self-deportation. The truth is that he was just about as moderate as Gingrich on immigration, but he didn’t want to admit it.

              • Grane Peer says:

                Maybe, I mean we could speculate on what his motives were or what he truly believed but that is just skirting around what he really brought to the table; He looked just like what I imagined a president should look like. Everything else is just frippery.
                🙂

    • RPLong says:

      If by “correct,” you mean “red herring,” I agree. But, in your defense, your comment is more reasonable than one that Bush would have written.

    • Grane Peer says:

      I think Bush would have acted similarly to Obama if he had an additional 8 years in office but I have no special expertise here since I have no formal training in evaluating imponderables.

  4. ax123man says:

    The real story here is that he can get away with saying this is just a “normal president”. The new normal – it’s come a long way since prior to Wilson.

  5. Colombo says:

    Why does Krugman have such a low standard for success?

    • E. Harding says:

      If President Trump had a budget surplus, 8% nominal and real growth for eight years, and unemployment being continuously below 3% under him, Krugman would attribute it to leftist policies and external factors, and would publicly call Trump a failure.

  6. guest says:

    [Response to this.]

    On the Fast and Furious topic (Primary sources for the following include the very individuals to whom the ATF whistleblowers confided; It is comprehensive, to say the least):

    The Gunwalker Scandal: Overview and Timeline
    [www]http://rinosandrats.com/2011/09/the-gunwalker-scandal-overview-timeline/

    “NOTE: Project Gunrunner pre-dated the Obama administration, but the practice of deliberately walking guns untracked by way of known and suspected criminals did not (see Project Gunwalker, below). …”

    “… Operation Fast and Furious is the BATFE name for the Phoenix, AZ division operation of Project Gunrunner. Fast and Furious was a 100% Obama/Holder DOJ operation. It ran at least 2,020 weapons to the Sinaloa cartel through known and suspected criminals, without any plan for, or intention to either track the weapons, or to arrest the straw purchasers, smugglers, or cartel operatives. Despite continuing widespread White House and media propaganda to the contrary, there never was any intention whatsoever of a “sting” operation attached to Fast and Furious. …”

    “… Shortly after President Obama took office in January 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched a coordinated effort to pass more gun control laws here in the US, specifically the re-instatement of the previously failed, deeply flawed, and unconstitutional “assault weapons ban”. The justification? On multiple occasions, Holder and Clinton publicly declared versions of the following statement: “90% of the guns used in the cartel wars in Mexico were bought in U.S. gun stores and smuggled across the border.” Also on record over the last two years repeatedly making the same official, public statement were Ken Melson, Director, BATFE, Janet Napolitano, Secretary, DHS, and Barack Obama, President of the USA.

    “There is only one problem: It was all a lie.

    “NOTE: Drug cartels primarily purchase, and much prefer fully automatic weapons such as the Kalashnikov AK-47 and its variants, over all US-made and US-imported semiautomatic weapons. In the USA, for other than military, law enforcement, and in certain states (limited by Class 3 license), it is a felony to manufacture, buy or sell fully automatic weapons. Generally speaking, only semi-automatics are available on the US retail market. The cost and logistics of converting semi-auto weapons to full auto is prohibitive in any quantity, particularly for Mexican drug cartels. When the cartels are unable to steal weapons in high enough quantity to arm themselves, they readily purchase automatic weapons on the international arms black market at a fraction of the cost of retail US semi-automatics. The world’s most notorious gun smuggler of the modern era, Viktor Bout, known by the DEA and worldwide as “the merchant of death”, a former Soviet air force officer, consistently sold full auto AK-47 Kalashnikovs (delivery anywhere in the world included) at a unit price of $55 USD. US retail gun dealers sell the same weapon, remanufactured to semi-automatic US-spec, for $500 to $1000 (depending on configuration, grade, etc.) in US gun shops.

    “The Obama administration’s deliberately fabricated deception that US retail sources supply 90% of Mexican cartel guns has given rise to the media’s non-existent “iron river” and “gun show loophole” fallacies. This wholly manufactured narrative has been widely published in the mainstream media as if it were a fact. We now know that not only did the Justice Department know that the 90% figure was deliberately and grossly overstated, but that the State Department knew where the bulk of the seized cartel weapons (again, nearly all fully automatic) were actually coming from — that is, prior to Operation Gunwalker and the State Department’s Direct Commercial Sales Program: Central America, China, Eastern Europe, the Mexican military, and various other non-US sources on the international arms black market.”

    • guest says:

      More on the 90% lie:

      “The Gunwalker Scandal Timeline

      “Early 2009: High ranking members of the administration launch a major campaign to pass a new “Assault Weapons Ban” in the US. Over and over again, they state that 90% of weapons recovered in Mexico from drug cartels come from U.S. retail gun shops. Almost immediately, the 90% figure is called into question. it becomes apparent that:

      “1) 90% of seized Mexican cartel guns submitted to the U.S. BATFE for tracing are found to have come from the US. HOWEVER: ONLY ABOUT ONE IN 20 GUNS RECOVERED IN MEXICO IS SUBMITTED FOR TRACING, since 19 of 20 are obviously fully automatic weapons, and/or otherwise without question, obviously came from other than US retail sources. Weapons clearly manufactured without serial numbers, for example, are neither manufactured in the US, nor imported for retail sale.

      “2) The administration was also including any firearm from the U.S. in their figures – including firearms originally legally sold to the Mexican military, and subsequently illegally diverted to, or stolen by the cartels. Information revealed by Wikileaks confirms that the State Department was well aware that large numbers of these weapons were ending up in the hands of the cartels – and that BATFE would discover this when they ran the traces. Counting these guns as coming from U.S. retail gun shops and gun shows was deceitful and flat out deliberately dishonest.

      “3) Diplomatic cables recently published by Wikileaks now also confirm that at the time the “90% lie” was being sold to the U.S. public, Hillary Clinton’s own State Department knew that the majority of weapons were actually coming from Central America, not the U.S. This would include the so-called “assault weapons” the administration was seeking to ban.

      “In short, there is now ample proof that one of the first things the new Obama administration did upon taking office was to broadcast DISINFORMATION that they absolutely knew was false to attempt to pass new gun control laws. The story does not end there. It appears that the administration may have reacted to the exposure of their lie by trying to make it come true.

      “Early 2009: The BATFE began the practice of ordering gun dealers to sell guns to known and suspected smugglers through straw buyers.

      “Early 2009 to late 2010: Instead of arresting the smugglers, BATFE agents are ordered to watch as the guns are smuggled into Mexico. Over and over, gun shop retailers begged for permission to stop the guns from going into Mexico – every time the order was the same – Stand down.”

  7. Tel says:

    There’s a good report on the whole point-by-point timeline of immigration control and lack of enforcement here:

    http://www.fairus.org/DocServer/Obama_Enforcement_Report.pdf

    There are some incidents where fudging of deportation statistics were involved:

    october 8
    ICE Presents Misleading Deportation Data — According to ICE’s deportation statistics, from October 2009 until September 2010 the agency deported 392,862 illegal aliens. Roughly half of the deportations — more than 195,000 — were of criminal illegal aliens. However, Napolitano fails to mention that while the deportation of criminal illegal aliens has risen, the change in the total number of over all deportations is statistically insignificant. In fact, the number of deportations of non-criminal illegal aliens has decreased.

    december 6
    Public Learns Homeland Security Padded FY2010 Deportation Numbers — In October, DHS announced it had “removed more illegal aliens than in any other period in the history of our nation” during the 2010 fiscal year. However, interviews and internal communications cited in the Washington Post indicate the Department’s record number of 392,862 deportations (also called “removals”) was padded. First, the article charges that ICE included 19,
    422 removals in FY2010 that were really from the previous fiscal year. The Post articleal so describes how ICE extended a Mexican repatriation program beyond its normal operation dates, adding 6,500 to the final removal numbers.

    Then later on they quote Obama admitting the numbers were fudged in other ways:

    September 28
    President Admits at Hispanic Roundtable that Interior Enforcement is Negligible — In an attempt to deflect criticism from illegal alien advocates, the President argues that new deportation statistics are misleading and acknowledges that he has virtually stopped interior enforcement of our immigration laws. He says, “[T]he statistics are actually a little deceptive because what we’ve been doing is…apprehending folks at the borders and sending them back. That is counted as a deportation, even though they may have only been held for a day or 48 hours.”

    So by reorganizing the way you count, it’s possible to get bigger results, smaller results, or whatever you want.

    The real question is whether the border policy is effective or not. Back in 1986 when Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (along with a promise to strengthen the border and discourage illegal employment), there was estimated to be a bit more than 3 million illegal residents of the USA. If you believe the Pew Research people (who certainly are partisan) this rose rapidly until 2007, reaching a peak of 12 million, and then settled back to 11 million with the main factor being the economic slump. However, other estimates are much higher. There’s a group called “immigrationcounters.com” who put the current number over 20 million (including all family, children, etc out of which approx 10 million are employed), and there’s a bunch of references including some estimates as high as 30 million.

    Clearly there’s been an increase and I don’t claim that Obama is responsible for all of that, but if you follow through the timeline linked above you can find plenty of items that indicates Obama is at least partly responsible.

  8. guest says:

    Scott Horton said that France is hijacking the Arab Spring, but the Arab Spring was the result of Marxist agitation, not a grassroots movement, as this 60s Marxist agitator, Wade Rathke, notes:

    Spontaneous No Way! Organizers Speak in Egypt « Wade Rathke Chief Organizer Blog
    http://chieforganizer.org/2011/02/11/spontaneous-no-way-organizers-speak-in-egypt/

    Occupy Wallstreet was also the result of Marxist agitation:

    Revealed — The Left’s Economic Terrorism Playbook: The Chase Campaign by a Coalition of Unions, Community Groups, Lawmakers and Students to Take Down US Capitalism and Redistribute Wealth & Power
    [www]http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/03/22/revealed-the-lefts-economic-terrorism-playbook-the-chase-campaign-for-a-coalition-of-unions-community-groups-lawmakers-and-students-to-take-down-us-capitalism-and-redistribute-wealth-power/

    Who Is Behind the ‘US Day of Rage’ to ‘Occupy’ Wall Street this September 17th?
    [www]http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/08/19/seius-stephen-lerner-invokes-bill-ayers-days-of-rage-to-take-down-wall-street-this-september/

    Guest Post: Tracing the Origins of the Days of Rage Protest
    [www]http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/09/16/guest-post-tracing-the-origins-of-the-days-of-rage-protest/

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