Government on both sides of “Fast and Furious”

Gunwalking into Knebel & Bailey territory?

...Congressional sources have learned that not only was U.S. taxpayer money being used to buy guns that were later sent to Mexico, but the main target of the investigation was actually a FBI informant and former drug dealer who had been deported years ago. - Fox News

UPDATE (110708 16:30):

Fast and Furious, aka Gunwalker, Funded By Stimulus Bill
Hidden in plain sight, in a bill that no one read, was $10,000,000 for an ATF project called "Gunrunner.”...

Attorney General Eric Holder said he wouldn’t authorize it, but someone in Congress knew enough about it to earmark ten million bones for it.  And Obama signed the bill and gave it to them.

Elsewhere:
Related:

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“The one bias they will not admit to having, ever...”

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Clipfile - July 6, 2011

*  ...or ‘tax expenditures’ for ‘letting taxpayers keep their own money.’

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Clipfile - July 4, 2011

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Ripping off the teachers, too?

Washington Examiner:

In the past, Kaukauna’s [Kaukauna School District, Wisconsin] agreement with the teachers union required the school district to purchase health insurance coverage from something called WEA Trust -- a company created by the Wisconsin teachers union.  "It was in the collective bargaining agreement that we could only negotiate with them,” says [school board President Todd] Arnoldussen.  "Well, you know what happens when you can only negotiate with one vendor.”  This year, WEA Trust told Kaukauna that it would face a significant increase in premiums.

Now, the collective bargaining agreement is gone, and the school district is free to shop around for coverage.  And all of a sudden, WEA Trust has changed its position.  "With these changes, the schools could go out for bids, and lo and behold, WEA Trust said, ‘We can match the lowest bid,’” says Republican state Rep. Jim Steineke, who represents the area and supports the Walker changes.  At least for the moment, Kaukauna is staying with WEA Trust, but saving substantial amounts of money.

Most commenters, both on the Examiner story and over at Althouse, are concentrating on the ripping-off-the-taxpayers aspect of this story.  But the taxpayers weren’t the only ones getting a haircut: I’m confident that the WEA Trust’s higher-than-market prices didn’t trickle down as improved health benefits for the union’s teacher-members, and I’d lay better than even money that a lot of the Trust’s excess costs wound up as "compensation” paid to union officers and their cronies.  While Ace wonders about a hidden agenda:

Why, this is such a bizarre state of affairs, you’d almost think... the teachers’ unions’ mission was not to improve education, but rather to keep it in crisis forever so they could make ever-escalating demands upon the taxpayers.

...I believe I’ll opt for old-fashioned graft-n-corruption as a  first explanation.

Union-operated benefit funds have a long history of thievery, the poster children being the gangster-plundered funds run by (mostly) east and west coast trades’ locals and, closer to home, the Teamsters Union’s Central States Pension Fund.^[1]  Even absent outside criminal influence, union operations historically have not been paragons of efficiency.  At Kaukauna, the "excess” money the district was forced to spend on "health benefits” wasn’t there to spend on other things... like teacher pay.  And in view of these revelations, were I a member of the union, I’d be very interested in discovering who wrote the single-vendor provision into the contract, and finding out where the excess money went.

Ace, again:

There is corruption going on here that we didn't even imagine.   Corrupt people can think up too many corrupt schemes for the honest man to keep up with.

Yep.

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Of course, they’re probably remembering Britain as it was 50 years ago...

Toronto Star:

Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence from the United Kingdom, but a new island-wide poll suggests most residents of the tiny Caribbean nation believe they would be better off had the country remained a British colony.

Via:  Insty

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Clipfile - July 1, 2011

HT:  Tam.

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That’s because he *LIKES* the Iranians

Instapundit:

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Clipfile - June 30, 2011

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Upton goes through the motions

Beltway Confidential spins for the RINO:

Upton flip-flops on the light bulb ban

Three bills have been introduced on the national level to repeal the ban on incandescent light bulbs in Congress’s 2007 energy bill.  That bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., now the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  Upton has now become the law's worst foe...

Suuure he has...

The Michigan View reports:

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., has finally agreed to support a bill this summer that means lights out on the looming 2012 ban on the common light bulb.  Upton himself co-sponsored 2007 legislation making light bulbs illegal, a ban that has become a symbol of bipartisan Big Government run amok.

Upton has come under increased pressure in recent weeks, sources say, after failing to follow up on a promise he made after assuming the committee chairmanship that he would hold hearings on reversing the ban.  After months of paralysis - and with the ban just six months from going into effect on January 1 - outrage was building among his own Republican committee colleagues and conservative activists...

Sooo... Beltway doesn’t get it: "Finally” agreed.  "Failing to follow up” on a promise (that he never intended to keep).  Doesn’t sound like someone who is "the ban’s worst foe” to me.  And if we read the rest of the View’s post (the part BC didn’t quote), we find that:

...Upton [initially] scheduled hearings ... featuring rent-seeking corporate fat cats that stood to benefit from the ban...

Which was the last straw for some members.

...Anger boiled over and the chairman agreed not only to cancel the hearings but to bring up a bill repealing the ban.

...after being dragged kicking and screaming.  But still laying traps:

The View’s source says that the bill will likely be brought up under "suspension,” which means no amendments will be allowed and passage requires a two-thirds majority.

Making it harder for anything to pass, while leaving Upton saying, "Hey, I sent it to the floor. I allowed a vote. Just too bad that it couldn’t make it.”

Just remember, RINOs, it’s all about results, not excuses.  And until we see an actual repeal pass the House, Upton’s no hero, he’s just another weasel.

Previously:
Via: Glenn Reynolds (in this case displaying a distressing naïveté about how Congress does things.)

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