Category: Born again Cynic!
Federal investigators said whistleblowers exposed the matter.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives intentionally overstated the duties of multiple workers so they could be classified as law enforcement agents and be paid more, according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel report this week.
Federal investigators say the agency has been making such overpayments since 2003. And over 100 jobs in the agency’s human Resources department and other departments were falsely labeled as criminal investigators, according to the Washington Times.
The investigators allege that roughly $20 million was wasted on overpayments in a five-year period, according to a letter for the special counsel office Tuesday to President Biden.
Fifty employees who held positions that were misclassified have either been reassigned or have retired, according to the letter, obtained by CNBC that also states whistleblowers helped expose the matter.
“I thank the whistleblowers for coming forward with these very serious allegations and am pleased that under [Office of Personnel Management] oversight, ATF has initiated corrective measures,” special counsel Henry Kerner said.
Kerner said progress is being made toward fixing the problems, but acknowledged the process is slow.
“While I find the report to be reasonable, progress toward full resolution has been slow, which may be attributable to the long-standing nature of the problems and the entrenched culture reinforcing ATF’s practices,” he said.
Miracle Star Vaughn, a 27-year-old woman from North Liberty, Iowa, was sentenced last week to serve one year and a day in a Federal prison after pleading guilty to making false statements during the purchase of several firearms, according to an ATF press release.
Vaughn lied about her drug use on an ATF Form 4473, court documents show. Two of the firearms she purchased were later found in the possession of convicted felons, one of whom is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.
Vaughn’s 366-day prison sentence was the product of a plea agreement. After she completes her prison term, she must serve an additional three years of supervised release.
The false statements Vaughn made about her drug use are similar to the false statement Hunter Biden allegedly made on Oct. 12, 2018, when he answered “No” on an ATF Form 4473, when asked;
“Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
Hunter Biden’s drug usage is well known and well documented, especially by him.
The president’s son enjoyed taking pictures of himself smoking crack cocaine and cavorting with prostitutes while brandishing a handgun. [airgun] Several years before he allegedly lied on the ATF form, Hunter Biden was booted out of the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine, and both he and his father have spoken openly about his crack cocaine addiction.
Lying on a Form 4473 is a federal felony and should be punishable by up to 10 years in prison, even for a president’s son.
At the time of his pistol purchase, Hunter Biden was living in Delaware and dating Hallie Biden, the widow of his late brother Beau. Police have said Hallie became concerned about Hunter’s mental health after he purchased the weapon. She allegedly placed the pistol in a plastic bag and tossed it in a dumpster behind a high-end grocery store, which is across the street from the Alexis I. du Pont High School and could have easily been found and misused by a child.
The FBI and the U.S. Secret Service became involved in the incident, but the full extent of their participation is not known. David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, has been investigating Hunter Biden’s firearm purchase and other alleged crimes for more than five years, but so far, no charges have been filed.
Takeaway
This case further illustrates how federal agents are more than willing to act like medieval palace guards rather than professional law enforcement officers if a Biden is involved.
Hunter Biden should be subjected to the same standard of justice that Miracle Star Vaughn received, if not more. After all, the 53-year-old unemployed drug addict is a negligent discharge just waiting to happen. His own videos show him holding a cocked 9mm Beretta [airgun] with his finger on the trigger, after smoking crack in a motel room with naked prostitutes. It’s only a matter of time before Hunter puts a round in someone.
If the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, the Department of Justice or the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware want to retain even the smallest shred of credibility, they need to follow the law, not the politics, and take enforcement action, regardless of whether the one with the smoking pipe or the smoking gun is a president’s son.
This story is presented by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and wouldn’t be possible without you. Please click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support more pro-gun stories like this.
About Lee Williams
Lee Williams, who is also known as “The Gun Writer,” is the chief editor of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project. Until recently, he was also an editor for a daily newspaper in Florida. Before becoming an editor, Lee was an investigative reporter at newspapers in three states and a U.S. Territory. Before becoming a journalist, he worked as a police officer. Before becoming a cop, Lee served in the Army. He’s earned more than a dozen national journalism awards as a reporter, and three medals of valor as a cop. Lee is an avid tactical shooter.
The sales of firearms, especially AR-15-style rifles, unexpectedly turned up last month, apparently driven by efforts in several states to impose gun bans.
Industry officials reviewing the latest FBI background check information said that states planning gun bans or moving to change the rules governing firearms purchases saw massive jumps in April sales.
In Washington state, where the governor just signed a law banning the sale or transfer of AR-style rifles, background checks for April sales surged to 71,272 compared to 49,641 in April 2022, a 43.6% increase, said Mark Oliva, the spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
The industry trade group found a surge in Illinois, where it recently won a federal court decision to block a ban on modern sporting rifles. There, Oliva said, sales background checks increased 11.7% in April.
(Image via the NSSF)
Ditto in Oregon, he said: “Oregon, a state with a legislature and governor’s office hostile to lawful firearm ownership, totaled 43,574 adjusted background checks in April 2023, compared to 27,921 a year ago, representing a 56.1% increase.”
Even states that moved to change the rules to buy guns saw a big sales uptick before any new regulations began to take effect.
“Notably, North Carolina’s legislature overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a bill that repealed the state’s antiquated Jim Crow-era permit-to-purchase a handgun scheme which immediately reverted the state to using the FBI NICS system to verify all handgun sales,” Oliva said. “North Carolina came in with 68,181 background checks in April 2023, compared to 18,967 in April 2022, a 238.4% increase.”
In recent months, concerns about safety drove sales highs, and that is continuing to add to the records. But Oliva said the difference in April was the threats from the government to take away gun rights.
SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS
“April’s uptick of 1,369,296 FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications shows that there continues to be a steady appetite for lawful firearm ownership even as certain state governors and legislators are taking radical measures to infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens to possess firearms, especially the Modern Sporting Rifle,” Oliva said in a reference to AR- and AK-style rifles.
“These figures show that when Americans are concerned that government authorities will deny them the full spectrum of their Second Amendment rights, they will respond by exercising those rights. It also shows that when barriers to lawful firearm ownership are torn down, law-abiding citizens will exercise their right to lawfully purchase firearms,” he said.
“If it saves one life, then we should give up another one of our few remaining rights!” Chorus and repeat!
“There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army.”—Thomas Jefferson, 1789
What does it say about the state of our freedoms that there are now more pencil-pushing, bureaucratic (non-military) government agents armed with weapons than U.S. Marines?
Among the agencies being supplied with night-vision equipment, body armor, hollow-point bullets, shotguns, drones, assault rifles and LP gas cannons are the IRS, Smithsonian, U.S. Mint, Health and Human Services, FDA, Small Business Administration, Social Security Administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Education Department, Energy Department, Bureau of Engraving and Printing and an assortment of public universities.
Add in the Biden Administration’s plans to swell the ranks of the IRS by 87,000 new employees (some of whom will be authorized to use deadly force) and grow the nation’s police forces by 100,000 more cops, and you’ve got a nation in the throes of martial law.
We’re being frog-marched into tyranny at the end of a loaded gun.
Make that hundreds of thousands of loaded guns.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the number of federal agents armed with guns, ammunition and military-style equipment, authorized to make arrests, and trained in military tactics has nearly tripled over the past several decades.
As Adam Andrzejewski writes for Forbes, “the federal government has become one never-ending gun show.”
While Americans have to jump through an increasing number of hoops in order to own a gun, federal agencies have been placing orders for hundreds of millions of rounds of hollow point bullets and military gear.
For example, the IRS has stockpiled 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammunition in recent years, including 621 shotguns, 539 long-barrel rifles and 15 submachine guns.
The Veterans Administration purchased 11 million rounds of ammunition (equivalent to 2,800 rounds for each of their officers), along with camouflage uniforms, riot helmets and shields, specialized image enhancement devices and tactical lighting.
The Department of Health and Human Services acquired 4 million rounds of ammunition, in addition to 1,300 guns, including five submachine guns and 189 automatic firearms for its Office of Inspector General.
According to an in-depth report on “The Militarization of the U.S. Executive Agencies,” the Social Security Administration secured 800,000 rounds of ammunition for their special agents, as well as armor and guns.
The Environmental Protection Agency owns 600 guns. The Smithsonian now employs 620-armed “special agents.”
Even agencies such as Amtrak and NASA have their own SWAT teams.
Ask yourselves: why are government agencies being turned into military outposts?
What’s with the buildup of SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies? Even the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Education Department have their own SWAT teams. Most of those officers are under the command of either the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Justice.
Why does the Department of Agriculture need .40 caliber semiautomatic submachine guns and hollow point bullets? For that matter, why do its agents need ballistic vests and body armor?
For that matter, why do IRS agents need AR-15 rifles?
Why do local police need armored personnel carriers with gun ports, compact submachine guns with 30-round magazines, precision battlefield sniper rifles, and military-grade assault-style rifles and carbines?
Why is the federal government distributing obscene amounts of military equipment, weapons and ammunition to police departments around the country?
Why is the military partnering with local police to conduct training drills around the country? And what exactly are they training for? The public has been disallowed from obtaining any information about the purpose of these realistic urban training drills, other than that they might be loud and to not be alarmed.
We should be alarmed.
As James Madison warned, “We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.”
Unfortunately, we’re long past the first experiment on our freedoms, and merely taking alarm over this build-up of military might will no longer suffice.
Nothing about this de facto army of bureaucratic, administrative, non-military, paper-pushing, non-traditional law enforcement agencies is necessary for national security.
Moreover, while these weaponized, militarized, civilian forces which are armed with military-style guns, ammunition and equipment; trained in military tactics; and authorized to make arrests and use deadly force—may look and act like the military, they are not the military.
Rather, they are foot soldiers of the police state’s standing army, and they are growing in number at an alarming rate.
This standing army—a.k.a. a national police force—vested with the power to completely disregard the Constitution and rule by force is exactly what America’s founders feared, and its danger cannot be overstated or ignored.
This is exactly what martial law looks like—when a government disregards constitutional freedoms and imposes its will through military force, only this is martial law without any government body having to declare it: Battlefield tactics. Militarized police. Riot and camouflage gear. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Drones. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Concussion grenades. Intimidation tactics. Brute force. Laws conveniently discarded when it suits the government’s purpose.
The militarization of America’s police forces in recent decades, which has gone hand in hand with the militarization of America’s bureaucratic agencies, has merely sped up the timeline by which the nation is transformed into an authoritarian regime.
Now we find ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of administrative, police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military with little to no regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, and military drills that acclimate the American people to the sight of armored tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, and combat aircraft patrolling overhead.
This quasi-state of martial law has been helped along by government policies and court rulings that have made it easier for the police to shoot unarmed citizens, for law enforcement agencies to seize cash and other valuable private property under the guise of asset forfeiture, for military weapons and tactics to be deployed on American soil, for government agencies to carry out round-the-clock surveillance, for legislatures to render otherwise lawful activities as extremist if they appear to be anti-government, for profit-driven private prisons to lock up greater numbers of Americans, for homes to be raided and searched under the pretext of national security, for American citizens to be labeled terrorists and stripped of their rights merely on the say-so of a government bureaucrat, and for pre-crime tactics to be adopted nationwide that strip Americans of the right to be assumed innocent until proven guilty and creates a suspect society in which we are all guilty until proven otherwise.
Don’t delude yourself into believing that this thinly-veiled exercise in martial law is anything other than an attempt to bulldoze what remains of the Constitution and reinforce the iron-fisted rule of the police state.
This is no longer about partisan politics or civil unrest or even authoritarian impulses.
This is a turning point.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are sliding fast down a slippery slope to a Constitution-free America.
If we are to have any hope of salvaging what’s left of our battered freedoms, we’d do well to start by disarming the IRS and the rest of the federal and state bureaucratic agencies, de-militarizing domestic police forces, and dismantling the police state’s standing army.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
SF prosecutors decline to charge security guard in fatal Walgreens shooting, cite self-defense
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The security guard arrested for allegedly shooting and killing a person inside a San Francisco Walgreens last Thursday has been released from jail after prosecutors declined to pursue charges.
According to a statement released by the district attorney’s office Monday, they decided to not file murder charges, at this time, after a review of the evidence gathered by the San Francisco Police Department.
The statement said in part, “The evidence clearly shows that the suspect believed he was in mortal danger and acted in self-defense.”
Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony is accused of fatally shooting 24-year-old Banko Brown during what police are calling a shoplifting incident.
“We cannot bring forward charges when there is credible evidence of reasonable self-defense. Doing so would be unethical and create false hope for a successful prosecution,” the statement said.
On the same day Anthony was released from jail, loved ones of Brown held a rally in San Francisco to demand justice for his death.
“It’s insane that Walgreens has armed security, there’s nothing in that store worth a human life,” Jessica Nowlan, a representative from the Young Women’s Freedom Center said.
Julia Arroyo, co-Executive Director of the Young Women’s Freedom Center said the rally held Monday for Brown was also to demand housing, specifically for Black trans youth.
“Being a Black trans man, it was complicated for him. To be inside of women’s housing or men’s housing. He was constantly being targeted and so he often talked about, ‘where’s my place for a home?'” Arroyo said.
She says Brown was one of their community organizing interns and like many of the people connected with the center, he had been experiencing homelessness since he was just 12 years old.
“He was the next in line to receive his housing, and so they continued to tell him, you just got to call back every morning,” Arroyo said.
But despite sometimes helping others get resources before him through the Young Women’s Freedom Center, that call for permanent housing never came for Brown.
“I know that Banko called tirelessly to all of these places, waited in line for housing and was turned away so many times and I’ve just seen his urgency to get there and, this is the result,” she said. “This is the result and we should all be ashamed of ourselves in San Francisco.”
Police say this shooting was originally called in as a shoplifting incident, though a cousin who was with Brown Thursday evening tells ABC7 they were not shoplifting.
Darren Stallcup, a neighbor who shops here daily, believes shoplifting in San Francisco is part of a much larger problem.
“People who are struggling to make a life for themselves, to build a life for themselves, are having an even more difficult time nowadays,” Darren Stallcup, a San Francisco resident said. “What’s happening right now in San Francisco is an absolute humanitarian crisis, this is not an isolated incident.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s office said they could not comment on the specifics of this case, but released a statement saying Breed announced a goal of ending trans homelessness last year and that the city has created a number of programs to support trans communities including the Our Trans Home SF Coalition, the Taimon Booton Navigation Center, guaranteed income programs and the Dream Keeper Initiative.
“San Francisco strives to be a national leader in supporting trans communities and helping people on the path to housing and stability in a country where too often the basic rights and safety of trans people are under attack,” the Mayor’s Office said.
Hope — and some skepticism — as fentanyl crackdown begins in SF’s Tenderloin
“I’m hopeful something good comes out of this and we can help reclaim this city,” one resident said.
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Monday marks the start of Governor Gavin Newsom’s major move to crack down on San Francisco’s open-air drug market. California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard are teaming up with the SFPD and District Attorney’s Office to help get drug dealers off the streets.
CHP officers will be targeting the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods, while the California National Guard works behind the scenes analyzing intelligence.
“As we hopefully wind down the drug market, we also have to make sure that we are winding up support for the people who are going to have a harder time finding drugs,” said Supervisor Dorsey.
RELATED: ‘Injecting Hope’ | Watch documentary on innovative program tackling drug overdose, fentanyl epidemic
“If you are going to be eliminating the supply like this, especially with people that do have substance use disorder and if their primary substance is fentanyl. We really need to make sure that we’re able to help these folks and very quickly,” said Gary McCoy of HealthRight 360, one of the nonprofits working with the city in hopes of establishing safe consumption sites.
Safe consumption sites, also known as safe injection, or overdose prevention sites, are places people can go to use their drugs under supervision in case of an overdose – and be connected to services like treatment and housing. The sites are illegal under federal law, but the Mayor’s Office and Board of Supervisors are trying to find workarounds, similar to sites like those in New York City, operated by a nonprofit.
“There are some conversations happening that fingers crossed we’ll make some progress on some of the overdose prevention sites that we’re talking about,” said Supervisor Dorsey.
Driving around the tenderloin on Monday afternoon, it looked pretty much like it does on any other day. There were a few SFPD officers on foot patrol. And we spotted two CHP cars passing through.
But despite no visible difference in the neighborhood, some San Franciscans are hopeful Monday will mark a turning point in San Francisco.
VIDEO: National Guard explains their role in fighting San Francisco’s fentanyl crisis
“I am cautiously optimistic. Let’s put it that way,” Tom Wolf, a recovering fentanyl addict who used to live on the streets of the Tenderloin, told ABC7 News.
Wolf said word has already spread around the community.
“From what I’m hearing from people on the street, is that they’re hunkering down. The people using drugs are hunkering down in anticipation of this increase in law enforcement to kind of ride out the storm,” Wolf said.
“The key is that, when we do this enforcement, it’s going to have to be a sustained approach,” he added. “We can’t just have the CHP come in here for three weeks and then go home. If they’re going to be here, they’re going to have to be here for six months at least.”
CHP said they have 75 uniformed officers in San Francisco, but they won’t say how many officers are being deployed at any given time for this effort.
Supervisor Dean Preston — who represents the Tenderloin and has been critical of Newsom’s plan — said he’s heard it’s going to be about six officers. He is among those skeptical the plan will make much change.
VIDEO: Mixed reaction to Gov. Newsom’s plans to combat San Francisco’s fentanyl crisis
“It’s kind of a big nothing burger in some ways,” Preston said. “I mean, the governor announced military deployment with the National Guard and CHP and all that. In reality, now we find out that the plan appears to be taking six CHP officers who are already stationed here in San Francisco and having them drive around the Tenderloin and SOMA.”
“So, I wish the governor would focus less on these publicity stunts and more on working on us to actually improve the community,” he added.
Wolf, meantime, is just thankful that there’s focus on combating the crisis.
“We definitely need to do something, so adding more law enforcement is a first step in that direction,” he said.
Jury is still out, he said, if that increased police presence will be enough to deter drug dealers.
“I think they’ll believe it if they see it,” Wolf said. “Until then, I think they’re going to keep doing what they’re doing. There’s too much money to be made out here.”
“That’s why I’m saying I’m cautiously optimistic,” he added. “I’m hopeful something good comes out of this and we can help reclaim this city.”
A CH-47 Chinook flight engineer during a training session over Cyprus in 2020.Maj. Robert Fellingham / 12th Combat Aviation Brigade / U.S. Army, file
Hundreds of Army aviation officers who were set to leave the military are being held to another three years of service after they say the branch quietly reinterpreted part of their contract amid retention and recruitment issues.
The shift has sparked an uproar among the more than 600 affected active-duty commissioned officers, including some who say their plans to start families, launch businesses and begin their civilian lives have been suddenly derailed.
“We are now completely in limbo,” said a captain who had scheduled his wedding around thinking he would be leaving the military this spring.
That captain and three other active-duty aviation officers who spoke to NBC News spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
As part of a program known as BRADSO, cadets commissioning from the U.S. Military Academy or Army Cadet Command from 2008 and 2020 were able to request a branch of their choice, including aviation, by agreeing to serve an additional three years on active duty.
For years, the Army allowed some aviation officers to serve those three years concurrently, and not consecutively, along with their roughly contracted seven or eight years of service.
In a phone call with reporters Thursday, Army officials admitted “errors” in the system, which they noticed a few months ago, led to the discrepancy.
“We are fixing those errors, and we are in communication with the unit leadership and impacted officers,” said Lt. Gen. Douglas Stitt, deputy chief of staff of G-1, which is in charge of policy and personnel.
“Our overall goal to correct this issue is to provide predictability and stability for our soldiers while maintaining readiness across our force,” Stitt added.
In letters the Army sent this month to the affected aviators as well as to members of Congress, which were obtained by NBC News, it said it “realized” after conducting a “legal review of this policy” that the three-year BRADSO requirement has to be served separately.
“This is not a new policy, but we are correcting oversights in recordkeeping that led some officers with an applied BRADSO to separate from the U.S. Army before they were eligible,” the letter said.
Thursday’s media roundtable came after more than 140 aviation officers banded together to demand answers after learning one by one that they were being denied discharges due to outstanding BRADSO obligations beginning last fall.
More than 60 of them signed a letter to Congress outlining how they had been misled by the Army for years about the exact length of their service contract.
“It has been this unanimous uprising of emotions and frustrations,” said another Army aviation captain, who is newly married and wanted to begin having children.
He called the reversal of a precedent an “injustice” to an already burnt-out department still regularly deployed despite the end of the longest war in American history.
“Yeah, the war on Afghanistan ended. There’s still a high demand for Army aviation,” he said, while en route to another deployment. “We have units still in constant training or deployment rotations. They’re failing to recognize the human aspect.”
The newlywed said it has been difficult for him and his wife to accept a three-year delay in starting a family.
“That was the big kick in the gonads,” he said. “We wanted to start having kids, and we no longer can. It’s a stressor we didn’t plan to deal with.”
Documents obtained by NBC News show officers were given conflicting information about their service obligations.
Its just a pity that we did not adopt this round back then instead of playing politics with our Allies! But now we have adopted the 6.8 round. Which is a sorta, kinda version. Oh well better late than never!
Grumpy