Elizabeth Warren is explaining the basis of public policy.

Responsible Public Policy provides for the common good. It is a fairness

in taxation dialogue, but, it is more than that. It is not campaign jargon or

rhetoric and evidently the bought and paid for "Wall Street" Scott Brown

is unable to discern the difference.

Thank you, Elizabeth. Please continue. We are hungry for it.

Thank you Arieanna. Thank you Huffington Post. Brave people one and all.

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Settle In, Despite Weather And Police Clashes (click title to entry - thank you)

...At their twice-daily general meetings in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan's financial district, whoever has an announcement to make speaks slowly and clearly, with a pause every few seconds, so that everyone within earshot of the speaker can repeat back what he or she just said -- amplifying it for the crowd of hundreds to hear....


They are well funded, but, they bring the most valuable 'capital' in the work with them, their lives and minds.  I applaud them and thank them.  They are brave beyond imagination.

Governor Bev Purdue of North Carolina has to be the most hated Democrat by Republicans to date.

Bev Perdue greets supporters at a legislative breakfast in Chapel Hill. At right, her press secretary, Tim Crowley.


She ran on reform, but, was faced with a majority State House and Senate of the most extreme Right Wing Republicans this state has ever seen.


It has been nothing but war for the good Governor.  Now, today, she is being DEFAMED again for expressing to constituents how tired she is of the Republican Legislature which has a Political Agenda to insure re-election.  She wants to get things done and unlike the Washington Republicans they are difficult and attempting a smear campaign rather than earning their salary and living up to their oath of office.

NC governor says comment about suspending congressional election was sarcastic, not serious (click title to entry - thank you)

By Associated Press, Published: September 28

...Perdue spokeswoman Chris Mackey said Perdue was using hyperbole when she made the suggestion Tuesday. She said it would give members of Congress more breathing room to make decisions instead of worrying about another term in office. She was responding to an audience question....

Her statement was a statement of disgust as many of her constituents simply can't believe how extreme the legislature has become and unwilling to work toward solutions.  She is only saying what the citizens in NC feel.


The Right Wing however wants to take the statement as literal, but, it is completely taken out of context when they do attempt to parlay the statement into a national agenda of 'shame' to postpone elections of 2012.  It would take an extreme emergency such as 9 - 11 when the elections in NYC were postponed or an act of Congress proven to be Constitutional in order to change elections.  Governor Purdue would never have enough support from her State House and Senate to achieve that, she had to veto a budget this year, I doubt there is much cooperation at all between the Executive Branch and a hostile Republican legislature.  


What else is new?


The hyperbole is not that of Republicans as they shoot themselves in the foot attempting to make lies to smear the Governor out of a sincere expression of disgust for the lack of governing ability of the NC elected Republicans.


Go, get 'em, Governor !

The American Jobs Act (click title for video of President's Speech - Thank you)

I hear the Right Wing Media state such things as, "The Stimulus" was crony capitalism or venture socialism.  What a crock.  The economy was in the toilet and of course the President and his Democratic majority was suppose to ponder how best to increase the economy after the previous administration had just given the largest bailout in history to Wall Street.


The American RECOVERY and Reinvestment Act is not "The Stimulus."  There was no economy to stimulate!  Let's get that much straight.


The Recovery Act rescued the USA economy from complete collapse.  Something had to be done and at the time the States were crying for a piece of the action because they were failing in large numbers.  The purpose of The Recovery Act was rescue the economy and it did.  


Now the USA is left with a huge whole in its work force.  That is a fact and it is a separate topic from the saving of the USA economy.  The USA Work Force is in need of good paying jobs that will sustain into the future.  Not an easy fix for a country with very complicated problems including the continued downward spiral of foreclosures that is feed by unemployment which results in more foreclosures which results in more unemployment like a revolving door.


I would think any builders association would be pounding at every Republican Legislator's door in Washington to be sure this all gets straightened out and cooperate with Democrats to see the complete recovery of the USA economy and a return to Pre-Bush levels of construction.


We know for a fact one of the most ambitious undertakings of continuing recovery of the USA economy legislated by the Congress with the help of the White House is the new infrastructure of providing modern, clean and fast transportation that is still on the ground, namely a new railroad infrastructure.  That project will have a MINIMAL of a thirty year timeline for the USA Work Force.  Here again, those jobs will require training and there is still probably a skills gap, but, the professional engineering opportunities coming out of that project alone will elevate struggling firms across the country.  As a rule, these engineering firms do well in a good economy and today they are grappling for work and competing intensely for what is available.


By all rights the work needed to supply this ambitious plan should have all its materials and labor come from the USA.  Unfortunately, that is probably not the case at this point in time.  The USA has been relieved of its manufacturing by Wall Street while seeking higher profits regardless the hardship on 'the peoples' of the nations involved.  The Third World Countries that gratefully accepted the jobs from the USA basically never had a working class.  The idea of actually demanding higher wages than what was being offered by these companies was never a part of the agenda and while these countries were anticipating a growth of its people into a Working Class matched only by that of the USA, it never occurred autonomously.  Now, today, in a speech to a global economic government meeting, China stated it has a five year plan to improve the lives of its working class.  The dynamics that exist in manufacturing in the USA and in China and India is not the making of the governments, but, of capitalists that care little about the people they see as "Human Resources" as opposed to "Natural Resources."


Accepting that as "A Truth" means the USA is going to have to subsidize the manufacturing sector in the USA as manufacturing returns to it proper 'PORTION.'  There is no other way of returning manufacturing to the USA.  Legislation is going to have to demand all the products required for advancement of projects such as the railroad infrastructure will have to be "Made in the USA."  That will help, but, it won't be the complete answer.  The USA government will have to be vigilant to the accomplishments of its manufacturing sector to return its economy to a SURVIVABLE state.


Until all that COOPERATION is realized and the USA economy is Number One in the legislatures there needs to be survival of the people of the USA.  Therefore, the President has proposed a "Jobs Bill."  I think it is appropriate to read it.  So, over the next few weeks I intend to do exactly that without neglecting my other responsibilities.  Starting tomorrow I'll begin to read The American Jobs Act.


It begins:

A Bill (click here)

To provide tax relief for American workers and businesses, to put workers back on the job while rebuilding and modernizing America, and to provide pathways back to work for American looking for jobs.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled,

SEC. 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS…

I'll continue to comment on other topics as needed, but, this will be a focus and I look forward to it.  

Until later.

One other thing about the El Paso find.

I heard a statement about El Paso and I don't want to speculate where I heard the statement because it will be called a 'pundit thing' and won't be taken seriously.


But, I heard that El Paso was a quiet area where none of these activities happen.  No violence.  However, the violence happens fifty miles in from the border from El Paso.


It makes sense to me that this 'find' in El Paso, which is usually considered a quiet area and immune to the drug cartels, WOULD BE QUITE as a hub of gun traffiking.


In other words, why would the cartels or gun traffickers accumulate shipments of guns in an area of SUSPICION?  It makes a lot of sense to me that El Paso IS KNOWN by the traffickers and the cartels as a place where munitions and weapons are secure and will find their way across the border and ABOVE suspicion for ATF or FBI or anyone else for that matter to investigate.

I regret to hear about Brian Terry, one of the hundred officers placed at the border with Mexico...

...but, has anyone considered the guns used in this crime were there by choice of the drug cartels?  An intimidation tactic?  These cartels, IF THEY ARE THAT ORGANIZED, which they seem to be have plenty of weapons.  It isn't as thought they needed any more.  There is an excellent chance this would have happened anyways.  Or are these killers simply opportunists and independent of drug cartels?

According to emails and court records, 40 AK-47-type assault rifles purchased from the Lone Wolf Trading Co. in Glendale, Ariz., turned up in El Paso, Texas. (Carlos Chavez, Arizona Republic)

It is reported that Eric Holder gave a speech to the fact "Gunrunner" on April 2, 2006 was being supported by the DOJ to insure its success.  So, to begin end the criticism about Mexico not knowing about the operation, Mexico was informed.  Did they have Mexican agents working the case?  No.  I don't believe Mexico has agents trained to carry out such an operation.  Mexico could not even respond to the attacks on the USA Embassy and the DOD had to respond.  So does Mexico have the capacity to 'partner' with the USA?  No, they don't.  Their special sheriffs don't even survive investing reports of lost husbands, okay?  They do not have the capacity to carry out sophisticated surveillance.  


What is the role of the DOJ in all this?  What this operation means to the Justice Department is far different than what the means to the ATF.  So, knowledge about this operation and actually planning and implementing it are two different things. What Holder is saying is that any evidence received by this program will actively be pursued by his department.  Holder is not a strategist and I honestly don't see him or anyone else in the Cabinet actively participating in this operation.  Whoever carried this operation out was responsible for its successes and failures and the danger the Border Patrol could be exposed to as a result.  Did Holder or anyone in his office assist in this operation?  No.  It was early in the administration and the drug war at the Mexican - USA border was in full swing.  Holder's speech was on April 2, 2009, slightly more than two months after taking office.  I am quite confident he was briefed on the operation, but, did he supervise it.  No.

The DOJ backs up the ATF, the FBI and other agencies involved with crime, they don't plan covert operations or fact finding missions such as "Gunrunner."  If one recalls NOTHING was ever reported about the Mexican - USA Border issue by the previous administration to the extent the current administration gave it transparency.  Never before this administration was there any involvement with the problem at the border by the USA military.  

Mar 1, 2009 11:18am (click here)

…Defense Secretary Robert Gates described drug cartel violence in Mexico as a "serious problem" and acknowledged that the United States is currently assisting the Mexican government in fighting cartels along the U.S. border.

Gates, in a Sunday interview with NBC’s "Meet the Press", said the U.S. is providing Mexico with reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities, training and resources.

"I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans move," said Gates….

These are the words and reference to the speech:

Anyway, the problem with Holder’s feigned ignorance is that he gave a speech  in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on April 2, 2009, in which he boasted about Operation “Gunrunner” and told Mexican authorities of everything he was doing to insure its success.

Holder told the audience: (click here)

Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels.  My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion. (Italics mine)

Mexico captures man blamed in U.S. consulate attack (click here)

Updated 3/22/2009 2:15 PM

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican army arrested an alleged drug trafficker suspected of organizing an attack on a U.S. consulate as well as the killing of several soldiers in retaliation for a government crackdown, President Felipe Calderon said Friday.

Calderon said alleged Gulf cartel hit man Sigifrido Najera Talamantes was captured in the northern city of Saltillo, Coahuila, earlier in the day.

Najera Talamantes is suspected in an Oct. 12 attack in which one man opened fire on the U.S. consulate in the northern city of Monterrey and another man threw a grenade that failed to explode. Nobody was hurt.

He is also suspected of involvement in a similar gunfire and grenade attack Jan. 7 on the offices of the Televisa television network's station in Monterrey.

Calderon said Najera Talamantes "was directly responsible for the torture and execution of soldiers" — a reference to the killings of nine soldiers whose bodies were found in Monterrey in late October, reportedly in retaliation for the army's participation in anti-drug operations....

The U.S. Guns In Mexico's Drug War (click here)

March 26, 2009 4:14 AM

By Cami McCormick

...Walking through an evidence room at the ATF headquarters in El Paso, an agent points out a variety of deadly weapons — seized before they could make their way across the border into Mexico.

"This is a typical AK-47," he says, pulling one from the rack. Pointing out another firearm, he explains that it is capable of higher-caliber rounds that can penetrate armored vehicles. Yet another has a huge scope, "which could be used as a sniper-type rifle." 

And then there is the "cop killer," a Belgian-made handgun capable of firing armor-piercing ammunition.

These are the weapons of Mexico's drug war....

The plan has caused a death and that cannot be ignored, but, the fact that these guns never made it over the border and are still involved with Mexican Drug Cartels in the USA is significant.  We have also seen plans by the ATF go very wrong before, this isn't exactly new for that branch of the government.


The USA did not carry out programs for political leverage against the NRA.  That is really reaching.

US guns fuel Mexico drug war? The politics behind the issue. (click here)

A new report shows that 70 percent of confiscated weapons submitted for tracing come from the US, but critics say the figure is politically motivated.

By Sara Miller Llana, Staff writer / June 15, 2011

...Cherry-picked data?

The ATF's statistic has been controversial since it was first cited two years ago. (At that time the number was even higher, at around 90 percent. It may have dropped now because more guns are getting traced today).

Nonetheless, it only accounts for guns seized in Mexico, and of those, the ones that the Mexican government submits for tracing. Many see that as an incomplete set of data, leading them to dismiss the statistic as inaccurate.

“It is completely misleading. There is a huge population of guns that Mexicans confiscated that they don’t submit to trace to the ATF,” says Rober Farago, the managing editor of the website The Truth about Guns.

Still, it is estimated that about 30 percent of weapons seized in Mexico are submitted for tracing. And whether it is 90 percent or 70 percent that come from the US within that pool, that is still a large number of American guns circulating in Mexico....

If this is the case then it only proves that Mexico is not able to engage in sophisticated monitoring of gun activity in their country and perhaps the only traceable ones come for the USA.  REGARDLESS, that is not an excuse for ANY guns to come from the USA!

The ATF did not plan this operation for political reasons.  The operation was counter intuitive according to most that are qualified to pass judgement.  So, why would such a risky strategy ever be carried out for political reasons, unless it was to embarrass the new administration.  Perhaps, but, I don't believe that is true either.  The USA was faced with increasing violence and now we know even within our borders and the ATF was going to get to the bottom of it.  Was it an effect method?  Not if the Border Patrol was going to be the target.  But, the information being received from this odd method has proven to provide some knowledge and a more diffuse existence of the drug violence culture along the border.  I remind Illegals that cross the border are prey to those that seek to commit crimes against them without protection from law enforcement, except, what the Border Patrol runs into.  What I want to know is what were the activities of the men that killed our Border Patrol officer and what is their relationship with Mexico, if any at all and what does that tell us about all this?  Was the information new and valuable or not?


I realize this operation is political gamesmanship, but, in all honesty I believe the administration can handle the truth and end this speculation.  I am assuming the investigation to all this is concluded and if not it might be understandable why the public is only getting the facts from political pundits for the Right Wing and cronies of the NRA.


Is the article below fact or fiction?  If that is fact then there had to be something done to find a solution.

Attacks on Border PatrolAgents ‘Relatively Stable’--at More Than 1,000 Per Year, Says DOJ (click here)

September 28, 2011

...“Levels of violence directed against federal law enforcement officers (LEOs) along the Southwest Border have remained relatively stable over the past 3 years, but surged in some areas and abated in others,” says the Justice Department’s newly published National Drug Threat Assessment. “The total number of assaults directed against border patrol agents along the Southwest Border remained practically unchanged between FY2009 (1,056) and FY2010 (1,049).”

“However,” the assessment says, “sharp increases were recorded in the Tucson and El Paso Sectors, and there was a sharp decrease in the San Diego Sector. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the assaults demonstrate the growing frustration of drug traffickers and alien smugglers faced with enhanced security initiatives along certain portions of the border.”...

AND, no surprise one of the ATF's guns turned up in El Paso according to the Los Angeles times.  I think the USA has a problem with violence.

They were being stored for shipment to Mexico, (click here) documents show. It's the first case of vanished weapons from the surveillance program showing up on this side of the border outside the Phoenix area....

By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

September 29, 2011

...Under the program, dubbed Fast and Furious, agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosivesin the Phoenix field office allowed licensed firearm dealers to sell weapons to illegal "straw" buyers in the hope that the agents could track the weapons and arrest Mexican drug cartel leaders.

Instead, more than 2,000 weapons were trafficked along the U.S.-Mexico border, and many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. In addition, two AK-47 semi-automatics involved in the program were recovered after a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed south of Tucson, and two others were found after a violent confrontation with state police officers in Maricopa, Ariz.

The El Paso case is the first example of Fast and Furious weapons turning up on this side of the border outside the Phoenix area....

As hideous as this methodology is and as dangerous as it became; did we learn anything, it would seem so.  Is the methodology a good one?  I can't answer that, I am not the ATF.  Is this 'find' significant in a puzzle that is going to end this hideous reality within the USA borders and possibly beyond to Mexico?  I think we have a right to the answer to that question!


And the current administration has been nothing but forthcoming if there are court records and emails in the hands of the court.  There is no cover-up here, no matter how much "The Right" wants there to be !  I sincerely doubt there is any need for a Special Prosecutor with a special salary.