I can remember a Karaoke site. A friend of mine who was a guitarist talked me into going to this karaoke site to learn how to record my music online. At first they were pretty friendly, but soon I learned how cliquey they were, especially where the black artists were concerned. There weren't many. This should have been my first clue. Anyway I got involved in the contests that were rigged most of the time and it depended who your friends were, whether or not you did well. That seemed to carry over into places like newer sites too, but that's another story.
The great thing about this site was, music was not the only thing that was peoples interests were confined to. Politics was becoming popular, and the place was quickly becoming Right Wing. They were not happy when I posted things about George Bush and that administration, but they really didn't pay all that much attention, until one of our black Senators from Illinois decided to run in the democratic party.
Being a democrat, and listening to this man's ideas compared to John McCain and Sarah Palin, and began to have fun with that, much to the chagrin of many members of this little club.
Pretty soon I became isolated and pretty much ignored, but that didn't stop me, and one of the members who worked for a defense contractor got involved in the Teaparty and dragged a few people along with her.
This went on and one of the members, Andrew tried to convince me when the bottom of the stock market dropped out, that everything was going to be alright. I knew better. Bush and Cheney were idiots. I had kids to put through college and almost everything I had invested in was gone.
My daughters health got worse. She was an apnea kid, and had asthma and it was hard to keep working and keep her insured. If it wasn't for Obama, we wouldn't had a prayer when she left for college. She wanted to be a Speech Pathologist, but they had just passed Obamacare and she was my responsibility until age 25, so we lucked out. My son was unable to find decent employment so I was able to keep him on my insurance until age 23, and ended up getting him his own insurance. The same with my daughter who went to school two extra years. The financial strain got worse, and I was laid off, and went to work for the AFL-CIO as a counselor for peers that I was laid off with. What these people went through was an entirely different story, and it was hard to find them jobs, and the republicans made it worse by declining to educate them when they came in and picked the wrong field, and the republican business owners wouldn't pay for their educations. It made the job very difficult. Not everyone wanted to be a nurse or a truck driver. Now that the republicans are dominate over house, my friends at the unemployment office are being laid off and the employee assistance organizations are paying to try to get Obama re-elected, and have shut down operations.
So now...We were all lucky enough to be called back to work after they moved all of our jobs to Texas, and Obamacare was passed, and now I have been lucky enough to get cancer. However, Now that Obamacare is in, it looks like my out of pocket will be very limited, and these expensive treatments will be picked up by the insurance company. Before...We would have been stuck with the entire bill, and I would have to forgo treatment. So...Don't tell me about Obamacare...It's pulled me out of a hard place twice now. And if you have a job and insurance, Thank a democrat. Because with the McCain administration everything would have stayed status quo, and you would have nothing.
It is no surprise that most of the weapons promptly disappeared.
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These are the facts, and they don’t cover any Justice Department officials with glory. But neither do they remotely justify the partisan witch hunt by House Republicans who threaten, without legitimate cause, to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress. Obama has responded by asserting executive privilege — effectively shutting down the inquisition.
The House wants to go fishing in a vast sea of documents, some of which relate to ongoing investigations. As a believer in sunshine and disclosure, I don’t much care for questionable claims of executive privilege. But I like the politically motivated sideshow the GOP is staging even less.
Holder called the contempt threat “an extraordinary, unprecedented and entirely unnecessary action . . . an election-year tactic intended to distract attention.”
His frustration — especially with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — is understandable. Holder has acknowledged that Fast and Furious was a mistake. He has turned over more than 7,600 documents relating to the botched operation. He has personally testified on Capitol Hill about the matter on nine occasions.
Indeed, Fast and Furious was a grievous error. All told, suspects were allowed to buy more than 2,000 firearms — including AK-47s, .50-caliber sniper rifles, powerful handguns — and fewer than 700 were ever seen again. Of the weapons that were recovered, many were found at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States. But even as it became clear that Fast and Furious guns were being used as instruments of mayhem, the operation continued.
Then in December 2010, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in a shootout with suspected illegal immigrants in Arizona. Two assault rifles found at the scene were identified as Fast and Furious weapons; it could not be determined whether one of them fired the bullet that killed Terry.
In testimony before Issa’s committee, ATF agent John Dodson, a critic of the operation, stated the obvious: “I cannot begin to think of how the risk of letting guns fall into the hands of known criminals could possibly advance any legitimate law enforcement interest.”
Congress has not only the right but also the duty to investigate how such a bad idea as gun-walking was conceived and executed over five years — and to make sure nothing of the sort happens again. The problem is that Issa isn’t interested in the truth. He just wants to score political points.
Issa’s focus isn’t on the operation itself. It’s on what Holder and Justice Department officials did or did not say last year when questions were first raised.
What Issa wants to do is manufacture something that can be portrayed as a high-level Obama administration cover-up. The problem is: A cover-up of what? Holder has acknowledged that the operation, of which he says he was unaware, was wrong. He has provided documents showing how wrong the operation was, and why. He has taken responsibility for the whole thing, because he is the boss. As cover-ups go, this is pretty lame.
What should Congress be investigating? The obvious first step is learning how officials in two administrations convinced themselves it was sensible to stand back and watch as powerful weapons passed into the hands of Mexican drug smugglers.
Then Congress should look into the overall flow of firearms from the United States into Mexico. The Fast and Furious weapons were just a small part of a much larger problem. Mexican officials have complained for years that lax U.S. gun laws have the effect of worsening drug-related violence along the border. The damage done by cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine smuggled north across the border is mirrored by the damage done by guns smuggled south.
If Issa really wants to save U.S. and Mexican lives, he should convene hearings on banning the sale of high-powered weapons. I think Holder would be happy to testify.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
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