"We-re-not-a-goddamn-christian-nation." Two countries, two world views, two contradictory histories. Each irreconcilable with the other.

Was the American Revolution a holy war?

We cannot fully understand the revolution without recognizing such appeals for God’s favor on the battlefield. Both the founders and ministers understood these ideas because they knew scripture, one of the major sources of American patriotism. Colonists fought the Revolutionary War in a society in which the Bible was the most read, most owned and most respected book. John Adams once told Thomas Jefferson, “The Bible is the best book in the world.” Perhaps more important, Adams also called the Bible the world’s “most Republican book” — scripture inspired morality, but it also fueled patriotism.

Fred Rich, on the other hand begs to differ: We’re Not a Christian Nation.

What I found interesting was the wording of the link to Rich's article at the Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/03/we-re-not-a-goddamn-christian-nation.html. Rich does not use "goddamn" in his article, so presumably the language for the link was provided by some moke at the Daily Beast. Not too hard to figure out which beast they serve.

What is equally plain is that we are now two hostile countries representing two opposing world views, with two contradictory histories. Each is fundamentally irreconcilable with the other. Wars have happened over much less.

One country? Or two?

 Pretty girl from Alabama with some guy in the background.

Speech at the Alamo, 19 October 2013

One country? Or two?

My name is Mike Vanderboegh.  I am from the great free state of Alabama and I am a Three Percenter. This is not the first time Alabamians have come to the aid of Texas in her time of need. There is an Alabama flag hanging in this sacred shrine of American liberty behind us, marking the sacrifice of the Alabamians who died here. But that was the least of my state's losses in your war of independence. After the surrender and massacre at Goliad, it is said that every single planter family in the Tennessee River valley of Alabama went into mourning, grieving for their lost sons squandered by COL Fannin. Alabamians have since been more than a little suspicious of Texas colonels, but as for myself I expect to make it back to Alabama in one piece after this, although I suppose that's up to the city leadership of San Antonio.

For those of you who don't know me, if you need to pigeonhole my politics I consider myself a Christian libertarian. I believe in God, free men, free markets, the rule of law under the Founder's Republic and that the Constitution extends to everyone regardless of race, creed, color or religion. I most especially believe in the right of the people to keep and bear arms as the ultimate guarantor of liberty.

I have also been called a "seditionist" by members of the current regime. If faithfully fulfilling my oath to the Founders' Republic and unrelenting hostility to those who would undermine and overthrow it makes me a "seditionist" then I cheerfully plead guilty.

The Three Percent movement I founded has been denounced by that paragon of moral virtue Bill Clinton and I am a perennial "honorable mention" on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of dangerous folks. I have even been the subject of an eighteen and a half minute rant by Rachel Madcow on MSNBC and the current Attorney General of the United States knows -- and despises – me by name because of the Fast and Furious scandal that, with my friend David Codrea, I broke the news of on the Internet. Eric Holder would not be surprised to know that the feeling is mutual.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence calls me an "insurrectionist" because I don't believe, as they do, in a government monopoly of violence, but rather in a literal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as a bulwark against tyranny. Well, as my friend Kurt Hofmann says, "It is better to be despised by the despicable than admired by the admirable" and I suppose my remarks here today will only reinforce my enemies' opinions of me. I think I can bear the burden.

But as you can see by my hat, I have also been forced by circumstances to become a smuggler. You see, the recent spate of citizen disarmament laws in states like Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland and New York has led me on a campaign to defy, resist, evade and smuggle in opposition to those laws. This is my specialty – a standard capacity magazine. So far my friends and I have broken the laws of three of those states – and we don't smuggle for money, we give the magazines away to people who have committed no crime save the ones that these state officials, these petty tyrants, have created. So, am I a law breaker?

They certainly think so. But it is an established principle in American jurisprudence that an unconstitutional law is null and void. One man's criminal is another man's freedom fighter.

This same principle was at the center of the civil rights movement in the 60s as was the concept of armed civil disobedience and the right of self-defense against uniformed criminals acting out their prejudices on the innocent under color of law. Few however know this part of our history.

Raise your hands if you've ever heard of the Deacons for Defense and Justice.

The Deacons formed black self-defense militias made up mostly of veterans of World War II and Korea (often carrying the weapons they had smuggled back from the wars) who protected the advocates of non-violent resistance. Ironic, huh? We've all heard of Martin Luther King's Gandhian principles, but few know that when he came to my adopted home town of Birmingham he slept soundly and safely because armed men like Condoleeza Rice's father guarded him with firearms in the hands and determination in their hearts. The Deacons were the Three Percenters of their time and place. And like the Deacons, we Three Percenters are here today not to break the law but rather to reinforce those laws against those who would force an opinion-driven agenda as punishment upon the law-abiding under the mere color of law.

The concept of the Three Percent harkens back to the Revolution when as best we can determine only 3% of American colonists actually took the field against the King. They were actively supported by perhaps another 10% with a further 20% approving but merely acting as cheerleaders from the sidelines. Likewise, a third of the population supported the King and the final third blew with the wind and took what came.  Today this third is watching Dancing with the Stars and gossiping about the Kardashians.  Some things never change.

The lesson of our Revolution – as relevant today as then – is that history is made by determined minorities. For good or ill this has been true throughout the ages. The Founders were such a determined minority. So too are the people today who are determined to subvert and overthrow the Founders' Republic and replace it with some supposedly benevolent collectivist Borg.

To these people the Three Percent of today declare:

WE WILL NOT DISARM.

YOU CANNOT CONVINCE US.

YOU CANNOT INTIMIDATE US.

YOU CAN KILL US, IF YOU THINK YOU CAN.

BUT REMEMBER, WE'LL SHOOT BACK.

THERE'S MORE OF US THAN THERE ARE OF YOU, AND WE'RE NOT GOING AWAY.

SO, YOUR MOVE, MR. WANNABE TYRANT. YOUR MOVE.

Another way of putting it is this: WHEN DEMOCRACY TURNS TO

TYRANNY, THE ARMED CITIZEN STILL GETS TO VOTE.

This is not sedition. It is not insurrection. It is a philosophy that the Founders embodied and would endorse today. The men who died at the point of Mexican bayonets behind those walls would endorse it as well. This philosophy does not even constitute revolution. We don't want to overthrow the government. We simply want to restore it to the Founders' model of what a republic should be. It is that determined minority of so-called progressives, the statists, the collectivists – call them what you will – who have spent the last century waging quiet revolution against the Constitution and the rule of law embodied by the Founders' Republic. Thus, if you wish to be precise, we are the forces of COUNTER-revolution to the collectivists' revolution. We are indeed the forces of restoration.

Whether we can restore the republic remains to be seen. I know of no example in history where a republic so corrupted, so undermined by its internal and external enemies, has saved itself from bloody collapse. So it remains to be seen.  I do know that we have to try.

There is abroad in our land the growing thought that America is now in fact two countries sharing a common border and (mostly) a common language but divided along the answer to this question:

DOES THE GOVERNMENT SERVE THE PEOPLE OR DO THE PEOPLE SERVE THE GOVERNMENT?

Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC recently reinforced this idea when she accused your Senator Ted Cruz of not being loyal to or caring about “the country.” It is apparent to me that Ted Cruz is in fact loyal to MY country and to his, which is the Founders' Republic. It is equally apparent that Mika does NOT see him as loyal to HER country. She believes that the people should serve the government.  Ted Cruz, and the rest of us, answer the question differently.

This is not a question whose answer can be finessed, compromised or negotiated. It is either one or the other. It is either the answer of individual liberty or that of the collectivist Borg. It cannot be both or part of either. For  our part we would be happy just to be left alone. But the collectivist impulse – the tyrannical appetite – cannot be readily denied by its practitioners. It is an addiction for which there is no easy 12-Step Program. And those who possess this insatiable appetite for other people's liberty, property and lives can only be deterred by the compelling and credible counter-argument that such appetites come with personal consequences for them – consisting at the least of a bad case of indigestion and, if necessary, broken teeth.

Are we irrevocably two countries and not one? WE ARE HERE TODAY TO TEST THAT THEORY. WE ARE HERE TODAY TO LEARN WHETHER WE ARE TWO COUNTRIES OR STILL ONE, UNITED AND INDIVISIBLE UNDER THE CONSTITUTION AND THE RULE OF LAW.

AND, I MIGHT ADD, WE HAVE THE OFFICIALS OF SAN ANTONIO TO THANK FOR THAT.

When San Antonio enforces its leaders political opinions under color of law they are no better than Bull Connor in Birmingham in 1963, fifty years ago. What we have seen is not “law enforcement”: it is AGENDA enforcement under color of law – which is itself illegal and unconstitutional. When Police Chief William McManus is quoted as saying he doesn't care what Texas law is, he is declaring himself to be the modern-day Bull Connor.

I am shamelessly lifting this next observation from my good friend Bob Wright of New Mexico who is here today. “Let's be clear,” as Barack Obama is fond of saying,

"OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS ARE NOT SUBJECT TO THE ANTI-FIREARM NEUROSES OF OUR LIBERAL NEIGHBORS OR THOSEOF NERVOUS PUBLIC OFFICIALS."

THAT is why we are here today on this spot sacred to the liberty of all Americans. That is why we are here – to determine whether we still live in one country, or two. The answer is up to the city officials of San Antonio.  Are they still part of the Founders' Republic? Do they support the actual rule of law and the Constitution that they took an oath to uphold?

Their own declaration of the answer to these questions will be seen on the streets of San Antonio today and going forward.

So, which is it, Mr. Mayor? Which is it, City Council of San Antonio? Which is it, Chief McManus?  You tell us. But take care with your answer. For we are the 3% and we will honor our oaths to the Constitution and the rule of law even if you will not.

Thank you.

Raising the stakes in Mexico: Dan Restrepo, Kevin O'Reilly & the NSC crew send in CIA & mercenaries. Wasn't Gunwalker good enough for them?

NSC big-wig Dan Restrepo. He's smiling because he doesn't care how many Mexicans get killed.

U.S. Widens Role in Battle Against Mexican Drug Cartels. Right. I'm sure the Mexicans will appreciate that. First these guys commit an act of war against a sovereign government and its people and now they want to send in the CIA. To do what? Smooth out the inefficiencies demonstrated by the Gunwalker Plot? Are they going to take over the distribution networks both ways, now?

The United States is expanding its role in Mexico’s bloody fight against drug trafficking organizations, sending new C.I.A. operatives and retired military personnel to the country and considering plans to deploy private security contractors in hopes of turning around a multibillion-dollar effort that so far has shown few results.

In recent weeks, small numbers of C.I.A. operatives and American civilian military employees have been posted at a Mexican military base, where, for the first time, security officials from both countries work side by side in collecting information about drug cartels and helping plan operations. Officials are also looking into embedding a team of American contractors inside a specially vetted Mexican counternarcotics police unit.

Officials on both sides of the border say the new efforts have been devised to get around Mexican laws that prohibit foreign military and police from operating on its soil, and to prevent advanced American surveillance technology from falling under the control of Mexican security agencies with long histories of corruption.

“A sea change has occurred over the past years in how effective Mexico and U.S. intelligence exchanges have become,” said Arturo Sarukhán, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States. “It is underpinned by the understanding that transnational organized crime can only be successfully confronted by working hand in hand, and that the outcome is as simple as it is compelling: we will together succeed or together fail.”

The latest steps come three years after the United States began increasing its security assistance to Mexico with the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative and tens of millions of dollars from the Defense Department. They also come a year before elections in both countries, when President Obama may confront questions about the threat of violence spilling over the border, and President Felipe Calderón’s political party faces a Mexican electorate that is almost certainly going to ask why it should stick with a fight that has left nearly 45,000 people dead.

“The pressure is going to be especially strong in Mexico, where I expect there will be a lot more raids, a lot more arrests and a lot more parading drug traffickers in front of cameras,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a counternarcotics expert at the Brookings Institution. “But I would also expect a lot of questioning of Merida, and some people asking about the way the money is spent, or demanding that the government send it back to the gringos.”

Mexico has become ground zero in the American counternarcotics fight since its cartels have cornered the market and are responsible for more than 80 percent of the drugs that enter the United States. American counternarcotics assistance there has grown faster in recent years than to Afghanistan and Colombia. And in the last three years, officials said, exchanges of intelligence between the United States and Mexico have helped security forces there capture or kill some 30 mid- to high-level drug traffickers, compared with just two such arrests in the previous five years.

The United States has trained nearly 4,500 new federal police agents and assisted in conducting wiretaps, running informants and interrogating suspects. The Pentagon has provided sophisticated equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters, and in recent months it has begun flying unarmed surveillance drones over Mexican soil to track drug kingpins.

Still, it is hard to say much real progress has been made in crippling the brutal cartels or stemming the flow of drugs and guns across the border. Mexico’s justice system remains so weakened by corruption that even the most notorious criminals have not been successfully prosecuted.

“The government has argued that the number of deaths in Mexico is proof positive that the strategy is working and that the cartels are being weakened,” said Nik Steinberg, a specialist on Mexico at Human Rights Watch. “But the data is indisputable — the violence is increasing, human rights abuses have skyrocketed and accountability both for officials who commit abuses and alleged criminals is at rock bottom.”

Mexican and American officials involved in the fight against organized crime do not see it that way. They say the efforts begun under President Obama are only a few years old, and that it is too soon for final judgments. Dan Restrepo, Mr. Obama’s senior Latin American adviser, refused to talk about operational changes in the security relationship, but said, “I think we are in a fundamentally different place than we were three years ago.”

No shit, Dan. Facilitate the smuggling of thousands of weapons south of the border and it is amazing what a fundamentally different place can be built upon mounds of dead Mexicans. You know, I'm sick and tired of these guys getting a pass on their murderous functional racism. The fact is that they didn't care -- and still don't care -- about how many little brown Mexican bodies got stacked up as a result of Gunwalker. These hypocrites portray themselves as "anti-racists" when the fact is they've managed to facilitate the murder of more Mexican nationals than the Texas Klan ever dreamed of doing.

And if you liked that, you're going love this:

American officials declined to provide details about the work being done by the American team of fewer than two dozen Drug Enforcement Administration agents, C.I.A. officials and retired military personnel members from the Pentagon’s Northern Command. For security reasons, they asked The New York Times not to disclose the location of the compound.

But the officials said the compound had been modeled after “fusion intelligence centers” that the United States operates in Iraq and Afghanistan to monitor insurgent groups, and that the United States would strictly play a supporting role.

“The Mexicans are in charge," said one American military official. “It’s their show. We’re all about technical support.”

The two countries have worked in lock step on numerous high-profile operations, including the continuing investigation of the February murder of Jaime J. Zapata, an American Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Mexico’s federal police chief, Genaro García Luna, put a helicopter in the air within five minutes after receiving a call for help from Mr. Zapata’s partner, the authorities said. Then he invited American officials to the police intelligence center — an underground location known as “the bunker” — to work directly with Mexican security forces in tracking down the suspects.

Mexican officials hand-carried shell casings recovered from the scene of the shooting to Washington for forensics tests, allowed American officials to conduct their own autopsy of the agent’s body and shipped the agent’s bullet-battered car to the United States for inspection.

No mention of the Gunwalker Plot that facilitated the smuggling of the murder weapons south. This is not ONE sentence in this story about Gunwalker. For the New York Times, it is as if Gunwalker never happened.

Of course, this is no surprise.

For me there are two important points raised by this story.

First, this suggests to me that Calderon was in fact briefed on the Gunwalker Plot.

Second, when the Mexican people figure out that Calderon is signing off on the deployment of even more diablos Yanquis, including CIA and mercenaries, in the wake of the Gunwalker Plot -- the truth of which has yet to have been revealed -- they are going to be some kind of pissed.

Some.
Kind.
Of.
Pissed.

The murderous chaos of Gunwalker was apparently not enough for the NSC pukes Restrepo and O'Reilly and their bosses at the State Department and the White House. They really don't care who or how many they kill to achieve more power, do they? On both sides of the border, it is all about showing "progress" in time for elections. Murderous bastards.

Telling the truth to ourselves, no matter how unpleasant it is. Speech in Big Spring, Howard County TX, 21 June 2014

Not too bad for a speech I wrote on about two and a half hours sleep.

I'd like to open my speech today with two shout outs, one to my most devoted sponsors, the One Hundred Heads Life and Casualty Company and the other to the twice-elected President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, on the singular milestone in his career, or indeed of anyone who has ever sat in the Oval Office. Sometime later this month, if my estimate is correct, Mr. Obama will have presided over the ONE HUNDRED MILLIONTH FBI FIREARM SALES BACKGROUND CHECK. Now, for a guy who's only been in office for a term and a half, that's quite an accomplishment as a firearm salesman representing the Unintended Consequences Armaments Corporation, he has managed to put even Bill Clinton in the deep shade.

Barack, you're the biggest and best firearm salesman in world history and THAT'S some kind of legacy, so I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart on behalf of the armed citizenry of the United States. And we won't even mention what you've done for ammunition sales. But thanks for everything, Barack. You may go down in history as this country's worst President ever, but you are ONE HELL OF AN ARMAMENTS SALESMAN.

You know, in doing my research before coming here today, I noted with interest that one of the major employers in Big Spring these days is the Federal Correctional Institution. This interested me because I have so many people recently who are interested in putting me inside of one those places for what they imagine is my sedition or even incitement to insurrection, not to mention their irritation at my violation of some newly oppressive citizen disarmament state laws. To those who have been worried in the past about the present administration closing Guantanamo Bay, I always reassure them, "Don't worry. The Obama administration will cease trying to close Guantanamo the moment they figure out that they can imprison US there." So, for those of you who work at the Big Spring FCI, maybe I'll see you through the bars one day. Or not.

Folks, I am honored to be here today to speak on the subject of "Restoring the Constitution," if for no other reason than that task is what I have devoted the past two decades of my life trying to accomplish. This is a subject that consumes the attention of many Americans these days all over the country. Yesterday I stood outside town in the dust of the Old Comanche Trail. Last weekend I gave a speech on the same subject in Massachusetts almost literally in the shadow of the famous Springfield Armory where the men of Shay's Rebellion contended for their vision of what they believed they had fought the Revolution for. On Patriots Day, I was out in the Nevada desert, speaking on the same subject on the Bundy Ranch. In the last year I have given speeches and talks at the Alamo, the steps of the Connecticut state house in Hartford and other places from Alabama to New York state to Temple Texas. Next month I'm going to Colorado and the month after that I'll be smuggling myself and some thirty round magazines into New York just to twist Governor Cuomo's tail a bit. In each place comes the question, "How can we restore the Constitution?" How can we return to the Founders' vision of a government of limited powers, which preserves liberty and property while upholding the rule of law and most importantly operating within it? For this administration, this regime, seems to operate ever more increasingly as a lawless gang bent not on the rule of law, but rather the rule of man, which is to say the law of the jungle enforced by the iron fist of government power.

But how DO we restore the Constitution? I think first and foremost we must tell the truth, not only to those who we are trying to convince to join us but, as well, to those who are trying to defeat us However, and most importantly, we must first tell the truth to ourselves, no matter how unpleasant it is.

As Patrick Henry said in his immortal speech to the Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775:

"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth -- to know the worst and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past."

And what, I ask you, have been our experiences of the recent past? I will be bluntly honest for I know of no other way to say what is on my heart. We are at present two peoples, two countries really, living within a common border and sharing (mostly) a common language but divided upon the answer to this question: does the government serve the people or do the people serve the government? This is not a question that the answer can be finessed, negotiated or ignored. It is one or the other, That of individual liberty as the Founders intended or of collectivist power in service to a few. Every smaller question we struggle wit is merely a subset of this larger question, every answer a component, for good or ill, of the ultimate answer upon which hinges the fates of our liberty, our property, our lives and those of our children and their children. Many of you will admit that, in your heart of hearts, you know this to be true. Yet we shrink from the honest conclusion.

And that conclusion is that such mutually exclusive worldviews cannot long coexist without one or the other winning out. History tells us -- the Founders would tell us themselves were they here -- that neither side of such a divide will surrender without a fight, which means there WILL be a fight. To think otherwise is to whistle past the graveyard of our own history and that of republics dead, gone and turned to blood-stained dust when they could not overcome similar corruption and collectivist rot from within combined with barbaric attack from without.

We like to think that all our fellow Americans -- even those who plainly state that they are committed to stealing our liberty and our property and attempting to control our very lives -- are merely suffering from differences of opinion that can be overcome by the right mix of persuasion or electoral politics. Yet how many of us have tried such methods with every fiber of our being and fallen short, not because we were wrong, but because those of the other side were impervious to such arguments, such tactics, for they believe completely in their right to their appetites for our liberty, our property and our lives with all the religious fervor of a pagan worship of naked power wrapped in a catechism of lies. They believe that the people serve the government, their vision of government, and you'd better do what they say or else.

The Founders had a name for people with such appetites, and it is honest to call them by it. If as the Bible says that by their fruits ye shall know them then let us call them what they are -- domestic enemies of the Constitution. The fact that many of them took an oath to defend the same Founders' Republic that they daily attack should be proof enough for an honest observer to admit that the term fits such people. And if no oath, no law, no court restrains such appetites then what will? The Founders had an answer, and you know it too, today, in your hearts, if you are honest enough to admit it.

Let us be honest enough to admit first to ourselves, and then to proclaim to those domestic enemies of liberty and thence to the world, that failing all other appeals to peaceful means that the Founders' solution to such tyranny is still available, still potent, still waiting. FOR WHEN DEMOCRACY TURNS TO TYRANNY THE ARMED CITIZENRY STILL GETS TO VOTE. This is the promise, the warning, the threat embodied by the Gadsden flag of our Founders -- "Don't tread on me." Don't tread on us.

This does not mean that the time for politics, for moral suasion is over. It is not. In many ways and many places we are winning those battles, which is why those domestic enemies of the Constitution continue to seek to disarm us with arguments less and less cloaked in their alleged good intentions and more and more in plain naked power. Such cries are in fact maneuvers of, and evidence of, increasing desperation. I told you that last weekend I was in the Northeast, speaking to firearm owners who in a very real sense now live behind enemy lines. In the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, their states passed laws -- Intolerable Acts, the Founders would have called them -- demanding firearm registration and confiscation and making resistance to those "common sense gun laws" a felony. And do you know what happened? Fully eighty five percent of Connecticut citizens, threatened with arrest by their new law, have not complied but resisted. Eighty five percent. In New York the number likely approaches NINETY FIVE percent. Yet the politicians, having declared their appetites, their desires to work their tyrannical will upon their own fellow citizens, are hesitating to take a bite. In fact, they don't know whether to defecate or go blind. They are scared spitless -- and yes, I said sPit less -- by the thought that enforcing such laws on an uncowed, armed people might have personal consequences for them. They are beginning to realize too late that the rule of law as crafted by the Founders protects THEM from us far more than it protects US from them.

These men and women -- these practitioners of a godless secular religion which worships government so that they may increase their own power -- these tyrant wannabes who know of no argument of law, or history, or logic, or even common sense that could blunt their appetites, are now sitting at the feast table that they so carefully made AND THEY DARE NOT TAKE A BITE FOR FEAR OF THEIR INTENDED MEAL BITING THEM BACK.

THAT is the Founders' argument. That is what we must be honest enough to admit to ourselves, and then to proclaim to those domestic enemies of the Constitution and to the world. Forget all the arguments, all the emotion, all the wasted effort we have spent trying to convince people who will not, cannot, be convinced contrary to their own tyrant's religion and the rumbling of their own appetites for other people's liberty and property and lives. Forget that, but remember this, in all honesty, that in the end, our liberty is defended by the cold calculation that every criminal, whether of the common class or the Constitutional class, makes when he sizes up a victim, whether that victim be a person walking down the street or a nation at a crossroads -- will my victim resist? Do they have the means to resist? Do they have the WILL to resist? Can I con my victim into putting down what weapons he possesses? If you convince the criminal that he will personally lose more than he gains from such a transaction, he will resign himself to finding another victim, or, in the case of the wannabe tyrant, to retiring to play golf in Hawaii. And that's the honest truth about how to defend and restore the Constitution.

So if you wish to stay free, prepare to resist, defy, evade and smuggle. The Founders did. The enemies of liberty will certainly never be convinced by anything less.

Thank you.

Defiance: The Armed Civil Disobedience Movement. "How many of us are they willing to see dead?" Speech, Alabama Firearms Freedom Conference, 21 February 2015.

You know, I was glad to hear Jan Morgan from Arkansas. My second (and last) wife Rosey is from Arkansas and she told me very quickly when I met her thirty years ago that Arkansas girls don't divorce, they commit homocide, so I'm with her 'til I die, one way or the other.
 
I am here today to brief you on the national firearm rights movement -- on where we are and where we’re headed and the news is not good.  What I am about to say is unpleasant and many of you will not like it.  I don’t like it myself.  The only thing I can tell you is that it is the unvarnished truth.  If you feel better being spoon-fed horsecrap and wishful thinking, you should have invited someone else.  Wayne LaPierre or Alan Gottlieb, maybe.  I’ll try to wrap this up as fast as I can so that we might have time at the end for your questions.  If not I'll try to hang around after the last speaker.

You may thank the Lord that you are Alabamians by birth and Southern by the grace of God.  This accident of lineage and location has shielded your liberty, your property and your lives from a predatory state government.  We have had the luxury here today of discussing how to move the cause of firearm rights forward in our state – if, that is, we can just get past the Boss Hoggs and Roscoe P. Coltranes of the Alabama Sheriff’s Association who are more concerned about preserving their petty powers and the gravy train of the permit system than they are about our God-given liberty and the constitutional oaths that they swore before the Almighty to uphold.

Count yourselves lucky.  For the last two years I have been traveling behind enemy lines to states whose citizens are not so lucky.  And “behind enemy lines” sounds like a comic exaggeration but believe me, it is not.  In such states as CT, NY, MD, CO and, most recently, WA state, the authorities have passed a series of Intolerable acts banning and registering firearms and magazines and, yes, even registering their owners – for that is what permits and background checks are really all about.  Why worry about registering firearms when you can register their owners?  After all, it’s those potential trouble makers the government is really interested in controlling – not crime and not criminals, oh, no – they are interested in controlling you – us – ALL of us – In controlling us and stripping us of our means to resist their appetites for our liberty, our property and yes, our lives.

You know, Rudy Guiliani got in trouble the other day for daring to say that he didn’t believe Barack Obama loved his country.  Now I don’t pretend to know what evils reside in the innermost being of Barack Obama.  Only God knows that.  But I will venture to defend the President on this point: I think Barack Obama loves his country – No, I really do.  The problem is that HIS country and OUR country are two DIFFERENT countries.  Oh, we share a common border and (mostly) a common language but we are divided along the lines of the answer to this eternal question – does the government serve the people, or do the people serve the government?  In Barack Obama’s country the people exist to serve the government. 

In our country, the government exists to serve the people – mostly by staying out of our way and leaving us the heck alone.  This is how the Founders intended it.  It is why they gave us a constitutional republic of limited powers securing the rule of law -- NOT the rule of man -- NOT the rule of A man -- no matter how many of his fellow citizens consider him a demi-god and blindly vote his tyranny into power.

We are two countries, ladies and gentlemen, and the sooner you recognize that fact the clearer everything else becomes.  Barack Obama loves his country.  We love our country.  The only question is which vision – which country – which answer to that existential question is to prevail?

Do the people serve the government or does the government serve the people?  What do you think?

And if we are honest enough to admit that we inhabit two different countries with two mutually exclusive world views, then let us be honest enough to call the people on the other side by their proper description in language that the Founders would understand–-- indeed, in their own words that they left us with so long ago.

When someone declares his appetite for your liberty and your property at the threat of naked government force against your very life – and takes steps to make that happen -- in contradiction to the Constitution and the rule of law which the Founders crafted -- then such people should be called what they plainly are – DOMESTIC ENEMIES OF THE CONSTITUTION.   Let us be that honest, at least, for there is no other way to accurately describe them.

The people who pass these laws hateful to God-given, natural and inalienable rights know EXACTLY what they are about.  They know what they want regardless of whatever soft lie of the moment they wrap their naked ambition in -- no matter what velvet glove they cover the iron fist of predatory government with --  What they want is power.  Power over you and power over me.  Power to tell the rest of us what to do, how to act and even what to think.

But standing in their way, as the Founders intended, is US -- the armed citizenry of the Republic of the United States.  And so they have to set out disarm us -- to strip us of our weapons if they can, but in any case to persuade us that resistance is futile.  For if we swallow that lie we will have lost the battle before it begins and the weapons we own mean nothing without the will to use them.  So the first battleground of this war between the collectivists and ourselves is between our own ears – where lies attack the truth and fears can immobilize principle.

“We have the power,” they say.  “We won an election, so we have the power.  Do what we say, or else.”  To which I would reply, “Or else what?”  For the truth is that the rule of law protects THEM from US far more than it protects US from THEM and they should try to remember that when democracy turns to tyranny, the ARMED CITIZENRY STILL GETS TO VOTE!

They are learning this enduring truth -- these domestic enemies of the Constitution -- in states such as CT.  They are being taught this lesson by a determined minority of their own citizens who have declared that will NOT comply with unconstitutional laws.  They will not comply no matter what promise of state violence threatens them for their non-compliance.

How do I know this?  Because these same people from CT & MA, NY, CO and WA state invited ME into their homes.  They take me in, letting me spend the night, KNOWING that they will all be moved up on the list they're already on -- or that they will be placed on another list --  They do it KNOWING it may cost them everything AND THEY DO IT ANYWAY.

THEY WILL NOT COMPLY.   And you know what?  The proto-tyrants who issued their diktats don’t know whether to defecate or go blind.  A good example of this is CT and after numerous trips up north behind those particular “enemy lines,” I am still amazed at these new practitioners of the art of armed civil disobedience.  They are few, they are brave, they are magnificent in their defiance.  Who knew that Yankees still had it in ‘em?  But they do.  The Founders would be proud.

You may recall that right after Sandy Hook, the state legislature up there passed a law mandating the registration of all semi-automatic rifles and even their magazines – and we’re talking hundreds of thousands of rifles and literally millions of magazines.  The penalty for non-compliance was a Class D felony.  And what happened?

Two years ago this April, in the aftermath of that law, I spoke at a huge rally on the steps of their state capitol and told those assembled that if the state wanted to make them criminals that they should embrace that fact and try to be the best, most successful criminals they could be.  I urged them to “Defy, resist, evade and smuggle” in resistance to that law.  As evidence of my seriousness of purpose, I announced to the crowd that I myself had smuggled in thirty-round AR-15 magazines in defiance of the ban.  I dared the authorities to arrest me.   Of course surrounded as I was by thousands of armed CT citizens, that probably wasn’t the smartest thing they could have done, so they didn’t.

But I had the luxury of flouting their law and then coming home to the great free state of Alabama.  My audience didn’t.  They were stuck behind enemy lines.  And what happened?
 The deadline for registration came and went and it was estimated that there was an EIGHTY-FIVE PERCENT NON-COMPLIANCE RATE!  EIGHTY- FIVE PERCENT.  Perhaps as many as a hundred thousand CT firearm owners – perhaps more – simply refused to comply. 

They said, like Leonidas at Thermoplyae and the Texans at Gonzales, “Come and take them.”

The state government blustered, made threats of gun raids and then did, exactly, nothing.  Of course part of their calculation may have been that yours truly published a list of the legislators who had voted for this Intolerable Act on my blog --- along with their home addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.  And you know what?  They didn’t react well to that.  No, not one little bit.  It seems -- and it’s a funny thing -- – but it seems that people who like to put people on lists don’t like to BE on lists themselves.  Go figure.  Of course they did open a criminal investigation on me for that and for my continuing smuggling activities in defiance of their law.  However, late last year I went back to CT to attend a gun show and, frankly, to give them the chance to arrest me.  And you know what happened?  Exactly nothing.  I’m probably going back there this coming April, marking the two years since the beginning of the armed civil disobedience movement in CT.  So they will have another chance to arrest me.

But here’s the thing.  Since the enactment of the law, the state government has been looking at one hundred thousand of its citizens over rifle barrels -- those of the state police and those of their previously law-abiding citizens -- and beyond empty promises to the firearm confiscation lobby and occasional growling, the “authorities” have not dared to enforce their diktat.

Has that stopped their appetite for their fellow citizens’ liberty and property?  Oh, hell no.  Here is a portion of the final report of the Sandy Hook Commission.  It just came out last week.  And what do they further demand?   Why, the registration of ALL firearms, the banning of all so-called “assault weapons” and their magazines, the state screening of all firearm owners, and here’s my personal favorite on Page 59: “require that any shell casing for ammunition sold or possessed in CT have a serial number laser etched on it for tracing purposes.”  I kid you not.

But of course, this begs the question: “If your state government is afraid to enforce the hateful laws you already have on the books, what is the point of passing more onerous laws?”  The firearm owners of CT have already nullified these laws by armed civil disobedience.  Is it the intention of this state commission to actually enforce even more onerous and unconstitutional laws to provoke a civil war?  How many of our lives, and those of our families and other innocents, is it worth to these collectivists to enforce their appetites upon us?  A thousand?  A hundred thousand?  A million?  Six million?  Ten?  How many of us are they willing to see dead?

And the armed citizens of CT -- who are yet free and intend to remain so -- live with this question every day, wondering what the answer will be.  Every day they go home, they have to wonder if their home has been invaded, their property confiscated while they were away.  Every night they go to sleep, they have to wonder if tonight is the night that the state will send armed men -- paid by their own tax dollars -- to work the tyrant’s will upon them and their innocent families.  So, like I said, consider yourselves lucky to be living in Alabama.  These questions need not trouble your sleep, but they should.  They should because what happens in CT, or in any other state now “behind enemy lines,” will not STAY in CT.  It will, in a short time, come here, to visit you.

For if the state of CT should decide to go to war with its own citizens, then the “authorities” will find out quickly what was like for Custer at Little Big Horn.  And they will have but one alternative: to call  upon the federal government to send its militarized police and indeed, the military itself, to come help them attack their own people.  And then?

This is not entirely unexplored territory.  Back in the 90s when I was in Constitutional militia movement, the FBI in the aftermath of the OKC bombing and with the Freemen standoff happening in Montana, became extremely solicitous of the intentions of those of us who had sworn there would be no more free Wacos.  In the middle of this, the FBI Special agent in Charge of the Albuquerque NM field office met with a good friend of mine, Bob Wright of Lea County NM.  Bob was a militia leader of national reputation and commanded the 1st Brigade, New Mexico Militia.  After some preliminary fencing, the SAC got down to the question he needed to know the answer to:  “Bob, if this Montana thing turns out badly like Waco, would you really take your unit up there to fight us?”

Now, we had no love for the Freemen.  In our eyes they were petty criminals who had victimized their neighbors.  But we also determined -- we had sworn to ourselves and to our God -- that the federal government would enjoy no more free Wacos.  We viewed the Freemen as proper subjects of state police enforcement and for us the FBI poised to carry out another Waco was intolerable.  So when the FBI SAC asked Bob if he would take his unit to Montana if things “went south,” Bob looked him in the eye and said, “Why would I want to do that?  There’s plenty of you Federal sonsabitches around here.”

Now this was an aspect to the situation that the FBI man had apparently not previously considered, and witnesses report that his eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped a bit.  In the end, we didn’t have to find out.  Just like at the Bundy Ranch this past April we didn’t have to find out, although that was much more of a close run thing.  But the Bundy situation bore all the hallmarks of Waco --– federal militarized police abuse, the demonization and isolation of the intended target -- and that is why it got the response from an aroused armed citizenry that it did.  Those of us who went out to Bunkerville NV didn’t necessarily believe that Bundy was right.  But we knew that whatever his conflict with the federal government, it didn’t excuse another Waco.  That we got another Freemen result and not a Waco result, however, was, as I know from being there, mere chance.  For we are, as I said, two countries.  And that question has yet to be answered.  But just like Bundy Ranch, a shooting war in CT, or Co, or NY, or Washington state, would not be a local affair.  It would start a bloody civil war in the entire nation and that civil war would, in short order, come to visit us all here.

These are not pleasant thoughts.  They are the reality that has been growing in this country for some time, although it has hardly been reported by the so-called “mainstream media.”  But then the Fast and Furious scandal, which I had the humbling duty and honor to break the story with the help of my friends back in December 2010 was largely ignored by the media as well.  That didn’t mean it wasn’t the truth.

And the truth is that civil war is possible precisely because the possibility of such a conflict is not being reported -- precisely because people -- especially people on the other side -- do not think it is possible because, well, this is America in the 21st Century and things like that can’t happen anymore, can they?  I assure you that they can.  To believe otherwise is to whistle past the graveyard of our own history.  I am currently reading a remarkable book, An Empire on the edge: How Britain Came to Fight America by the English historian Nick Bunker.  Bunker points out that while Lexington and Concord came as a surprise to many, there were a small number of both American colonists and Britons who foresaw the possibility and would not shrink from it.  Nathaniel Greene, later one of Washington’s best generals, wrote as early as July 1774: “Soon very soon expect to hear the thirsty earth drinking in the blood of American sons.  This was a full nine months before Captain Parker’s demonstration of armed civil disobedience on Lexington Green led to the “shot heard ‘round the world.”  Commenting on Nathaniel Greene’s prediction, Bunker writes:


In the eighteenth century, treason could take many forms, with the sword or with the pen.  Long before . . . general (Gates) arrived in Boston, and even with the war a year away, we find young patriots in America already committing lines to paper that might have sent them to the gallows if any british spy had read them.

You know, I am reliably informed that Eric Holder’s Justice Department has had a sedition investigation going on me since before I broke the Fast and Furious scandal story.  The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has called me an “insurrectionist” and the Southern Poverty Law Center -- a misnamed and misbegotten bunch of liars for money if there ever was one -- has long had me on their list of dangerous folks.  I have even been the subject of an 18 and a half minute rant by Rachel Madcow on MSNBC and Bill Clinton, that paragon of moral virtue, has denounced the Three Percent movement that I founded in a speech on national television.  Well, as my friend Kurt Hofmann, says, “It is better to be despised by the despicable than admired by the admirable.”

But the fact of the matter is that this cold war I describe between the federal government and its citizens has been going on for 20 years now, and I am proud to say that I have been on the enemies lists of the last THREE White Houses, irrespective of party.  I am at least an equal opportunity gadfly.  But despite the name calling by the other side, I am not seeking an “insurrection” nor soliciting civil war but I am trying to prevent one.  The men and women behind enemy lines who, now that every other means of defending their essential liberties have failed, and have turned to armed civil disobedience are trying to prevent one as well.  Only by convincing the other side of the seriousness of our purpose and the credibility of our deterrence will we avoid one.

Again, these are dark and bloody thoughts but they are not new for some of us.  Back in January 2009, I had been working on the David Olofson case and other ATF scandals when one day, in my post office box, I received an anonymous envelope.  It was postmarked from somewhere in Oklahoma. It said this in handwritten block letters:

“Sir,

I have read you on the internet and believe in what your doing. One day the ATF will come to count coup on you & take your head. I promise to take One hundred heads for yours.

Cheyenne 0317/8541”

There was a small, delicate ink drawing on the bottom of the sheet, showing what appeared to be a coup stick crossed with a tomahawk and over-arched with eagle feathers. 0317/8541, for the uninitiated, are the current and former MOS numbers for a Marine Scout/Sniper. 

One hundred heads. I sat in the car, reading and rereading this piece of paper, touched and frankly shaken by its simple sincerity. I had no doubt the man meant what he said. It is a token of the power of the written word to evoke such a response.  I also had no doubt that a Marine scout/sniper had the skills to take a hundred heads if, God forbid, this should come to guns. I shared this with a friend at the time and he had only this blunt comment: "A hundred heads properly targeted could finish this thing." Indeed.

Now I did with this what I always do, I wrote about it on my blog, Sipsey Street Irregulars, and it became somewhat of a dark running joke, albeit a deadly serious one and it picked up a life of its own.  One reader embraced the idea and crafted a teeshirt reading “100 Heads Life and Casualty Company,” with a little mound of skulls in the center.  And then, stranger still, I would go places, speeches, rallies, gunshows, even the NRA convention, and people would come up to me, shake my hand and say, “One hundred heads, sir,” and then walk away.  It wasn’t a discussion they were seeking, it was a declaration of intent.  It wasn’t approval they were looking for, it was just, well, a valediction.  For the honoree this is quite a two-edged sword for the action promised, you may recall, is predicated upon his own – MY own – demise.  Yet it is somehow strangely comforting that my life has been insured these past six years by the entirely voluntary and absolutely free of charge One Hundred Heads Life and Casualty Company.  Who knows, maybe it is one reason I’m still alive.  We have since, by popular demand, begun selling “One Hundred Heads Life Insurance” ball caps in order to raise money for the armed civil disobedience campaign.  Some of them are on sale over at my table here, along with these "Fight Tyranny, Shoot Back" hats -- IF you are looking for headgear that comes with a free personal FBI file at no extra charge.  But I offer this story -- which like all the best stories has the advantage of being true -- as evidence that some of us, like Nathaniel Greene and his contemporaries of the Founders’ generation, have been thinking about this sort of thing for a while.  If a civil war breaks out in CT, or in Washington state, tomorrow, we at least will not be surprised.  Horrified, saddened, like everyone else.  But not surprised.

I mention Washington state because that is where the latest front of armed civil disobedience has been opened.  Back in November, you may recall, Michael Bloomberg and some other millionaires bought themselves a mandatory background check law by referendum, called I-594.  Now, the so-called mainstream gun rights organizations had only themselves to blame for this fiasco because they couldn't restrain their petty jealousies and refused to work together lest the other group get the credit for the win -- and I’m talking here about the NRA and Alan Gottlieb’s bunch.   The only thing was, they lost.  Immediately there sprung up an “I Will Not Comply” organization that held a rally on the 13th of December to not only protest the new law, but to break it, and dare the state authorities to do anything about it.  They were initially granted then denied a permit.  They said, “fine, we don’ need no steenking permits.  We’re still going to have our rally.”   “Well arrest you,” the state police threatened.  They told the state police, “hey, do what you gotta do.  We’ll do what we gotta do.  Your move.”

I was honored to be invited to speak in front of a group that I estimated at 2,000 folks (the WSP said it was more like 1800, but that still made it one of the largest firearm rights demonstrations ever held in the state).  We gathered, armed, we broke the law and . . . nothing happened.  We were even congratulated by the state police for the professional manner with which we carried out the protest.  Last month, I went back to Olympia to help with another armed civil disobedience action after the state legislature banned firearms from the galleries.  Again they threatened to arrest us.  Again we said, “Fine, do what you gotta do.”  And what did they do?  They locked the gallery doors on us.  In a word, they wimped out.  So we trooped, about a hundred of us who gathered on a day of awful weather, through the state house, served our list of grievances by taping them to the gallery and governor’s office doors and then marched over to the governor’s mansion where we startled a gate guard by presenting the same petition and then, having knelt in prayer, adjourned.

Now in the process of all this law-breaking, the Washington activists presented me with this.  All firearms being female, meet Mrs. Bloomberg.  I call her Charlotte when nobody’s listening.  She is named for Michael Bloomberg’s mother.  It seemed only fitting that if I was breaking Bloomberg’s law that I give at least a tip of the boonie hat to the nanny state fascist who motivated me to do so.  It is my intention to tote Charlotte around to every other armed civil disobedience event and speaking engagement that I attend from now on.  And the next one in Washington state ought to be a doozy.

You see, the armed civil disobedience resisters out there are hosting an arms expo late in June -- a background check free gun show --– and they are again daring the authorities to do anything about it.  I’ll be there, toting Mrs. Bloomberg, and daring right along with them. 

Armed civil disobedience has a long, honorable history in America.  From Captain Parker to the Battle of Athens TN in 1946 to the Deacons for Defense and Justice during the civil rights movement to the Bundy Ranch standoff, Americans have been opposing government-sanctioned violence by putting their own bodies on the line with determination in their hearts and firearms in their hands.

This is no surprise to black Americans who, like Condoleeza Rice’s father stood armed guard over Martin Luther King while that advocate of Gandhian non-violence slept, made safe from Klan violence and Sheriff Bull Connor’s Klan-member deputies by their .38 revolvers and .45 automatics.  Throughout our history Americans have been a practical people and when the regular means of sustaining our rights and our liberties have failed, we have always turned to our own resources.

Is it dangerous?  You bet.  Is it desirable?  No way.  But it is sometimes required.  You live in a free state.  But there are people in this country who do not.  There are people who, thanks to the domestic enemies of the Constitution in their states, now live behind enemy lines.  You may disagree with them.  You may condemn them.  They may make you nervous.  They may make the authorities nervous.  Heck, they make me nervous.  But they are meant to.  As Jefferson observed, where the people fear the government there is tyranny.  Where the government fears the people, there is liberty.

But remember, whatever you think of them, these armed civil disobedience activists, you sleep safe at night, safe from the arbitrary exercise of government violence.  They do not.  But however you react to them, they are there, they are not going away, and the conflict that their oppressive state governments force on them will likely come to your door anyway -- if it happens, accidentally or intentionally, it will come to all of our doors.  This is the new reality, the new paradigm.  This is the state of our two countries, the one that Barack Obama loves and the one that we love.  And they will tell you, they will say to anyone including Barack Obama if he asks, that if you don’t like it you’d better ease up out of their faces, get your hands out of their pockets, off their property and liberty as the Founders intended  before something goes wrong.  “Be careful what you wish for,” they will quote the old Chinese adage, “because you may get it.”

As for me, I am honored to stand beside them, these brave men and women behind enemy lines.  I am honored and I am humbled but I will stand with them until God, according to his own plan, calls me home.

Thank you.

And remember folks -- Fight tyranny, shoot back.

Kurt picks up on something I missed. "But other than that, Senora Lincoln, it really IS a very good play." Bureaucrat tries to calm Mexican fury

William F. Brownfield, head of the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, who is trying to sell the "benefits" of the Gunwalker scandal to outraged Mexicans.

Although I mentioned Laura Carlsen's article from Foreign Policy in Focus entitled "Obama's Mexicogate?" yesterday here, I missed an important event and a larger conclusion to be drawn from it in his Examiner article, "'Project Gunwalker': When 'justice' is in the hands of criminals."

Meanwhile, let us not forget the State Department, as well, from whom Rep. Issa has also requested documents. That's probably a good idea, because there would certainly seem to be at least some knowledge of "Project Gunwalker" in that department. William Brownfield, head of the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, seems proud of this operation, as reported in Foreign Policy in Focus:

The outrage increased when William Brownfield, the State Department’s head of International Narcotics, praised the program to the Mexican press and confirmed it was “ongoing.” The former ambassador to Colombia and long-time promoter of the drug war scoffed at criticisms, stating that the number of arms that have passed to “uncontrolled destinations” was “limited.”

Well, Secretary Brownfield, I'm certainly glad the number of guns our government helped to put into the hands of ruthless killers was "limited" -- I would hate to think that the number was infinite.

When the Justice Department commits crimes (and is protected in those crimes by a member of the House committee charged with government oversight), and the State Department is complicit with and defends what has been described in some circles as an act of war against a neighboring nation and important trade partner, the legitimacy of the entire government must come into question.

That's the larger point. But the event I missed, referred to by Laura Carlsen, is contained in this article from last month in the Mexican newspaper Reforma.

Here is a Google translation of the article. I will have comment afterward.

Wednesday March 9, 2011

PREDICTS SURPRISES WITH 'FAST AND FURIOUS'

REFORMA Mexico City (March 9, 2011) .- The operation "Fast and furious" that implemented the Bureau of Alcohol, Snuff, Firearms and Explosives United States (ATF, for its acronym in English) to track network traffic weapons and know their intermediaries, will produce positive results in the future, saw yesterday William R. Brownfield, subsecretario antinarcóticos de EU. Brownfield, U.S. undersecretary narcotics.

"When we have all the details of this operation we will discover that produced very positive results, and that's just a projection, I think we will discover that only a very limited number of weapons in this operation, which is still active, went from one person to another or to other places without control. "

In a CBS television report, an ATF agent revealed that one of the nearly 2 billion arms spending in recent years left to Mexico, through the "Fast and Furious", end up being used in the killing of a U.S. agent.

"We will discover that the operation resulted in lawsuits against several people who have been responsible for past criminal activity related to arms trafficking. In the end the two governments, the two peoples, will conclude that this operation, like many others in years past, produced positive results," he said in an interview with REFORMA.

Brownfield said the implementation of any government action to curb arms smuggling along the common border and detect the movements of the smugglers involved "some risk" to be assessed and calculated.

Also former U.S. ambassador to Colombia and Chile, said he did not know the details of the operation of the ATF, disclosed last week in an interview on CBS, but warned that nearly all of the devices used by U.S. law enforcement agencies are successful.

"For years and to some extent for decades, I heard on both sides of the border concerns and criticisms, from time to time, by the capacity of municipal institutions, state and federal United States to control the movement and arms sales.

"It is suggested that this lack of control occurs or increases the movement of weapons from U.S. to Mexico. In my 32 years of service as a diplomat of the U.S. Government have seen many police operations in several U.S. police agencies, the vast majority, 99.9 percent yield positive results, "he said.

The undersecretary of the U.S. State Department said that in general terms, the actions of the ATF to limit arms trafficking and bring to justice those responsible for this illegal has been positive.

"I agree that the media have a right to express opinions, to ask questions, but I have the right to talk about the big screen and not only that part of the display of one centimeter by one centimeter in which everyone talks about problems.

"If all the display indicates that this process is positive overall, I think your readers have a right to know that too," he said.

Missing years to provide anti-narco achievements

Brownfield also acknowledged that the Merida Initiative will get its first results "visible" until two or three years.

"We had to wait like 40 years to reach this situation so complicated, we are entitled to at least two or three years to produce measurable results, visible results that you can make and state.

"It is a process that can produce an immediate result, the truth is that I maintain optimism," said the bilateral cooperation program anticrime marked in Mexico in June 2008 between President George W. Bush and Felipe Calderón.

Brownfield said the program provides a route similar to that in the beginning, had the Plan Colombia for more than a decade to reduce the violence of drug cartels.

"Experience with the Plan Colombia was that in the early years, when the government began to apply pressure against organized crime, for about two years the reaction of these organizations was incredibly violent, for about five years around the world criticizing the situation, even my government.

"They said they had not produced results, which still produced a lot of cocaine, there was much violence, where were the results of the investment, we had to wait about seven years to see results. Colombia is not Mexico (...) but I think that if we learned anything it is that these processes and strategies take time, "he said.

The official predicted that the Government of Mexico to win the battle being waged against organized crime.

More coordination

The U.S. government is promoting a new anti-crime plan for regional cooperation which will integrate the seven Central American countries, Colombia and Mexico.

Brownfield said the plan seeks to reclaim the guidelines of Plan Colombia and the Merida Initiative to reduce the supply of illicit drugs, limit their transfer and to have safer communities.

"The logic is that countries will participate to make a consultation to decide their priorities ... because every country is different and has its own set of threats," said U.S. Undersecretary narcotics, after meeting privately with Attorney General's Office, Arturo Chavez Chavez, with the Secretary of Public Security, Genaro Garcia Luna, and the undersecretary for North America of the Foreign Ministry, Julian Ventura.

Right.

"But other than that, Senora Lincoln, it really is a very good play."

This was printed on 9 March, a lifetime ago in Gunwalker scandal terms. But the ham-handed attempt of this ugly American trying to sell the Mexicans on the positive aspects of the mounds of Gunwalker dead is just breath-taking in its stupidity. The administration really doesn't have a clue how to defend the indefensible. Nor, for that matter, do I. It only gets worse for the guilty from here on out, until we have the truth. Then it REALLY gets bad for them. The country, however, will be a good deal better off. Both countries, in fact.

Melson, are you sure you're not better served by rolling on this? What? Are you afraid they'll kill you? Well, considering that Hillary Clinton seems to be investing her reputation in the coverup, perhaps you should be. Try to stay out of Fort Marcy Park, if you can.

Ambassadors of that other country we share borders with. The smiling mask slips to reveal the evil underneath. "Gott mit uns?" Which god is that?

"There is abroad in our land the growing thought that America is now in fact two countries sharing a common border and (mostly) a common language but divided along the answer to this question: DOES THE GOVERNMENT SERVE THE PEOPLE OR DO THE PEOPLE SERVE THE GOVERNMENT? . . . This is not a question whose answer can be finessed, compromised or negotiated. It is either one or the other. It is either the answer of individual liberty or that of the collectivist Borg. It cannot be both or part of either. For our part we would be happy just to be left alone. But the collectivist impulse – the tyrannical appetite – cannot be readily denied by its practitioners. It is an addiction for which there is no easy 12-Step Program. And those who possess this insatiable appetite for other people's liberty, property and lives can only be deterred by the compelling and credible counter-argument that such appetites come with personal consequences for them – consisting at the least of a bad case of indigestion and, if necessary, broken teeth. -- Mike Vanderboegh, speech at the Alamo, 19 October 2013.

"Democrats are More Bothered by the Second Amendment than Socialism." It should be noted that socialism in its various collectivist permutations is the prime killer ideology of all time, by more than one reckoning stacking up more bodies in the 20th Century alone than all of the religious wars ever fought. The columnist notes:

So, to recap, opposing capitalism doesn’t bother modern Democrat primary voters one whit. On the other hand, having even the smallest amount of respect for the Second Amendment is a political death sentence. I bring this up because for all that people talk about the way that Washington has changed and for all that people moan about how Obama has overstepped his executive authority (and he has), it’s equally important to understand that Washington is merely reflecting the fact that America has changed.

Not merely "changed," but developed into two distinct countries, one of which will continue and the other assigned to the dustbin of history according to the will of God and the actions (or inactions) of those who claim to be on His side. In any case, given the fundamental differences of world view, the argument will not be settled without the violence of bloody civil war. If history teaches us anything, it is clear on that. Readers will also recall Vanderboegh's Dictum of Collectivism:

"A socialist is a communist who has not yet found his AK-47 or the will to use it, whereas a communist is a socialist who has found his AK-47 and the determination to kill you with it to get what he wants. The difference is merely one of timing and opportunity." -- Mike Vanderboegh.

"Gott mit uns" (God is with us) was a phrase commonly used on arms, armor and field equipment such as belt buckles in the German military from the German Empire to the end of the Third Reich. The Russian Empire used it as well, in World War I, and combatants on both sides slaughtered each other in the millions, each ironically invoking the same deity, each convinced that God was on THEIR side and not their enemy's. The real question was and is not whether God is on our side but rather are we on His?

The domestic enemies of liberty in this country in this century have made it plain that beyond the same kind of meaningless lip service that the Nazis gave the phrase (witness Nancy Pelosi's claimed Catholicism), their gods are not the God of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David and Christ but rather (and variously) Gaia, or Satan, or the child-destroying Moloch, or Baal of the "sacred orgies" or Man himself alone as in Humanism and Collectivism.

Yet this should not, by simple process of elimination, be accepted as proof that we are on God's side. I refer you to my recent post, regarding the Oregon massacre and the evil in the mirror. Let us make sure in whose service we fight, lest we all become Matthew Arnold's "ignorant armies clashing by night."

The coat of arms of the Prussian state, 1933.

Two different countries. "Obama may be the letter writer's fuhrer. He's not mine."

So, the last newspaper I bought on our way out of town on my trip to Ohio contained this letter: "Health act ruling should mean it's time to end states' rights talk."

The Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed the Affordable Care Act. Alabama, with its rich heritage in states' rights, will scream in agony that the federal government has acted to save all families from financial ruin.

The Republican presumptive nominee for president has vowed to reverse the Supreme Court if elected. Who remembers George Wallace and Eugene "Bull" Connor inciting the public to "get rid of outside agitators"? Who remembers the Alabama governor telling the national media "we don't want no outsiders coming down here telling us what to do"? I remember. But, more important, I remember why.

As long as the state could keep federal law away from Alabama, the "states' rights" good-old boys could enforce segregation, redesign voting districts, deny civil rights and refuse people the opportunity to vote, provide separate and unequal education and a number of other atrocities without fear of legal recourse. The Civil Rights Act was passed because states like Alabama would not do it on their own.

Even U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy begged the Rev. Martin L. King Jr. to stop demonstrating in Birmingham. It was too ugly for the nation to watch. The media coverage was giving all of the U.S. a very nasty view of the reason why civil rights was important in the first place.

Those politicians who said states' rights had precedence over federal law were known segregationists -- haters who would rather die than sit in church next to anyone of a different race or origin. How stupid and naive.

Yet, today, are we that far removed from that ugly past? Mitt Romney sounds like Wallace in my view. The message is the same, just worded a bit different.

The Romans knew poverty leads to insurrection. They knew the people must have opportunity and a chance to succeed; otherwise, they could not govern. It is no different now.

Our beloved country is in a crisis. To break loose from the chains that bind us, we must think and act as a single people. We are American citizens. No one is any better than the other.

If you do not care about your neighbor, who is going to care about you? The time for separatism is over. The time for teamwork is here.

Let us work together to strengthen our great country by accepting our role as bona-fide citizens. Put away the cancer of thinking like a states' rightist and act like you love our country.

Jefferson J. Drew

Birmingham

Needless to say, I felt this required a rejoinder. It was printed today.

"We don't serve government; government serves us."

The June 30 letter "Health act ruling should mean it's time to end states' rights talk" (Your Views) linking Jim Crow to opposition to Obamacare is so full of historical fallacies and leaps of illogic that it would take your entire editorial page to detail. The letter writer's primary beef seems to be with the founders' concept of the republic and the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which to my knowledge has not been repealed.

Taken together with the letter's "no justice, no peace" threat implied in the words "poverty leads to insurrection," the collectivist credo of "we must think and act as one people" evokes the street-brawling Hitlerian motto "One people, one government, one leader" -- or else. President Barack Obama may be the letter writer's fuhrer. He's not mine.

The letter taunts us to submit to federal tyranny and "act like you love our country." The writer's fundamental error is to think we still inhabit the same country. We are, in fact, two countries divided by the fundamental difference of principle on the question: Does the government serve the people, or do the people serve the government?

This is not a question whose answer can be negotiated or finessed. The answers are mutually hostile to one another. I know how the founders answered that question to the tyrant King George -- at the muzzles of their rifles.

As for me, I love MY country; I do not love the collectivist "people's paradise" of a country the letter writer seems to inhabit.

Mike Vanderboegh

Pinson

Sipsey Street Exclusive: "In at the beginning." The State Department & the Gunwalker Scandal. Part 1. "To take the fight to the Mexican drug cartels."

James Steinberg, former Deputy Secretary of State.

It began auspiciously.

Obama Eyeing Jim Steinberg As Deputy Secretary Of State, Official Says

Barack Obama is leaning towards appointing former deputy national security adviser Jim Steinberg as his Deputy Secretary of State, a well-connected Democratic source tells the Huffington Post.

The potential appointment of Steinberg -- an Obama adviser during the campaign, respected voice on international affairs, and Clinton-era national security official -- is significant for a variety of reasons, none more so than what it could mean for the department as a whole.

With Sen. Hillary Clinton reportedly set to accept the job of Secretary of State, questions have surrounded which other figures would fill out the staff. Steinberg is not a Clinton loyalist -- like, say, Richard Holbrooke -- having counseled Obama during the primary. He is well regarded throughout the party, known, as his former Brookings Institute colleague Michael O'Hanlon put it, as "an incredible networker, but someone who masters the substance as well." According to the New York Times, Clinton had been "reassured" by Obama that she "could select her own staff" as Secretary of State.

Steinberg has been rumored to be in the running for the post of national security adviser. Should he end up at State, that would almost certainly clear the NSA path for retired four-star general and former Marine commandant Jim Jones, who has been discussed as the frontrunner for the spot regardless.

Two other names that were once floated for that post no longer appear to be in the running. Greg Craig has taken the job of counsel to the president. Susan Rice, one of Obama's chief foreign policy aides on the campaign trail, has been thought to being heading towards an advisory role, a deputy position at the National Security Council, or the post of ambassador to the United Nations.

A former Clinton aide, discussing the construct of an Obama cabinet, noted that Craig and Rice were two of the most vocal critics of Sen. Clinton's foreign policy capacity and gravitas during the Democratic primary. It didn't seem coincidental, the source said, that they would not be working alongside Clinton in the future administration.

Steinberg took office as Deputy Secretary of State on January 28, 2009

A little more than two years later, it was announced that Steinberg's time in the Obama State Department was over. From the New York Times, 30 March 2011:

The State Department’s No. 2 official, James B. Steinberg, is leaving to become dean of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a letter to her staff Wednesday. President Obama plans to nominate William J. Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, to succeed Mr. Steinberg as deputy secretary.

Mr. Steinberg’s departure is not a big surprise: there had been rumors he wanted to return to academia for some time. He had been dean of the Lyndon Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas before joining the Obama administration in January 2009. He also never became particularly close to Mrs. Clinton, despite having served as deputy national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, her husband.

Mrs. Clinton heaped praise on Mr. Steinberg, describing him as an “indispensable” partner. “On every foreign policy challenge, big and small, he has helped formulate our policy and oversee its execution,” she wrote. Mr. Steinberg, she said, played “Oscar to Jack Lew’s Felix,” referring to Jacob J. Lew, her other deputy, who left earlier this year to become Mr. Obama’s budget director.

With his occasionally brusque demeanor, Mr. Steinberg is a contrast to the affable Mr. Lew. But together the two were a formidable team: Mr. Steinberg the foreign-policy thinker, Mr. Lew the budget whiz and skilled operator on Capitol Hill. Mr. Lew was replaced by a Morgan Stanley executive, Thomas Nides.

Mr. Steinberg devoted a lot of attention to Asia, patching up strains with Japan over an American airbase there and mobilizing pressure on North Korea over its nuclear program and aggression toward South Korea. He traveled frequently to China, working to stiffen Beijing’s response to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il. Mr. Steinberg also worked on issues involving Israel and the Balkans.

A year ago, there were reports that Mr. Steinberg was a candidate to be dean of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, which he denied. Like the Lyndon Johnson School, the Maxwell School at Syracuse is a highly regarded graduate school for public affairs.

The Taipei Times reported his departure with barely disguised glee.

US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, a pro-China diplomat with little sympathy for Taiwan, has resigned and will return to academia. He is to be replaced by William Burns, a Middle East expert who is currently undersecretary for political affairs and the department’s third-ranking official.

The move is unlikely to have an immediate impact on US-Taiwan relations at a time when Washington is preoccupied with developments in the Arab world.

Announcing Steinberg’s departure on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said: “Jim has been particularly instrumental in shaping our renewed engagement in the Asia-Pacific.”

“From managing our expanding relationship with China, to reaffirming our historic alliance with Japan, to addressing challenges on the Korean Peninsula, Jim has been at the center of shaping our efforts,” she said.

Clinton said Steinberg had been a “fixture” at meetings with the National Security Council (NSC) and frequently represented the US State Department at the White House. (Emphasis supplied, MBV.)

Insiders said Steinberg has been at least partly responsible for US President Barack Obama’s decision to put Taiwan’s request to buy advanced F-16 aircraft on the backburner. He is said to have argued in private that F-16 sales to Taiwan would not result in enough benefits to justify upsetting Beijing.

US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers said US decisions regarding Taiwan were made collectively through an interagency process, coordinated by the NSC.

“That said, Steinberg did have the power to say no. It was a power he exercised reflexively when it came to Taiwan,” he said.

“I believe his actions spoke volumes for his view of Taiwan and the issues he believed it created for the US-China relationship. We can only hope that his successor takes a more balanced view of American interests on Taiwan and injects some badly needed ambition into our goals for US-Taiwan relations,” he said.

“I’m hopeful that a reassessment of our Taiwan policy will accompany the change,” said Walter Lohman, director of Asian studies at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

“US-Taiwan relations right now are going nowhere. Steinberg was a well-known advocate for closer relations with China and I think that tendency was undermining movement in US-Taiwan relations,” Lohman said. . .

Steinberg will be remembered for his “strategic reassurance” policies toward Beijing.

Analyzing these policies in the Wall Street Journal, Kelley Currie, a nonresident fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, wrote: “There is a chance that the US is starting a quiet but important strategic shift away from a policy that incorporates an understood, if often inchoate, desire to see China become a more liberal and democratic society, toward an acceptance of China as a permanent authoritarian state.”

Gerrit van der Wees, editor of the Washington-based Taiwan Communique, said Steinberg was “too soft on China.”

“On Taiwan, Steinberg regrettably clung too much to old ‘one China’ policy mantras and was not able to engage the US in more creative thinking and action in support of Taiwan’s democracy and international space. He also was overly cautious on US arms sales to Taiwan,” he said.

Taiwan, along with Hillary Clinton, was glad to see the professional backside of James Steinberg. Steinberg's last day as Deputy Secretary of State was 28 July 2011.

Since early March, this reporter has been using what sources I could find to explore what the State Department knew about the Gunwalker Scandal and when they knew it. Two names kept popping up in the mixture of whispered facts and gossip. One was James Steinberg. He was, I was told, "In at the beginning."

As the highest ranking Obama loyalist at State (and the political marriage of convenience that made Hillary Clinton Secretary of State automatically divided loyalties at Foggy Bottom between "hers" and "his"), Steinberg was, as Hillary said, "a 'fixture' at meetings with the National Security Council (NSC) and frequently represented the US State Department at the White House" simply because he was the most welcome of the senior State department officials. Steinberg was the most welcome, and the heir apparent with the ear of President should Hillary ever put a wrong foot forward or tire of the job. She did neither.

So Steinberg was left in an odd position that he didn't relish. He was wired in to the NSC and the President yet singularly powerless to shape foreign policy in the face of Hillary's ability to get what she wanted. Said one long time State watcher: "Hillary always valued loyalty above everything and Steinberg wasn't loyal." Steinberg was seen as a "traitor" to the Clintons because he had previously been in the Clinton administration but had backed Obama in the primaries. He wasn't as bad in the eyes of the Clintonistas as some of the other Obama partisans like Greg Craig and Susan Rice, so he was accepted, without grace, as "Obama's man at State."

One of the first subjects Steinberg was called upon to deal with was security on the Mexican border. Something had to be done, and the Obama administration decided upon a surge to the border.



On 24 March, Steinberg participated with DHS Secretary Napolitano and Deputy Attorney General David Ogden in a press conference on U.S.-Mexico Border Security Policy. This press conference, preceded a visit by Hillary Clinton to Mexico City. Here is the policy announcement that preceded what became the Gunwalker Scandal.



I present the transcript here in its entirety because it is, in its own way, a foundational document of the Gunwalker Scandal.

Press Briefing by Napolitano, Steinberg and Ogden on U.S.-Mexico Border Security Policy

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg and Deputy Attorney General David Ogden gave this press briefing on border security issues between the U.S. and Mexico. They described "the administration's comprehensive response to the situation along with the border with Mexico" under the Merida Initiative and other programs.

Mr. Gibbs: Good morning, guys. I want to discuss an issue that's very important to the President this morning -- the steps we are taking on both sides of the border, working with our Mexican partners to support the Mexican government's campaign against the violent cartels and to reduce contraband in both directions across the border.

Under the Merida Initiative, we're investing $700 million this year to work in collaboration with Mexico on law enforcement and judicial capacity. DHS, DOJ and Treasury are all ramping up personnel efforts directed at the Southwest border. We're renewing our commitment to reduce the demand for illegal drugs here at home. The President admires President Calderón's courage and determination to confront and dismantle the drug cartels, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with him in that fight.

Mexico undoubtedly faces serious challenges, but it is vigorously confronting them. Mexico's drug-related violence is carried out among the warring cartels and against government forces.

The U.S.-Mexico relationship is getting sustained high-level and comprehensive attention. President-Elect Obama met with President Calderón in January. Chairman Mullen visited Mexico on March 5th and 6th. Secretary of State Clinton goes to Mexico tomorrow. And Secretary Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder visit April 1st and 2nd, all ahead of the President's visit on the way to the Summit of the Americas April 16th and 17th.

Because this effort has so many facets, the U.S.-Mexico relationship and our efforts to help address the increase in violence in Mexico are being coordinated with the White House through the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.

Today, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, and U.S. Deputy Attorney General David Ogden will lay out the administration's comprehensive response to the situation along with the border with Mexico, and will take a few questions.

So let me hand it off to a return guest to the briefing room, Secretary Napolitano.

Secretary Napolitano: Thank you. Good morning. There are a number of issues involved, a number of actions being undertaken by DHS in conjunction with the Department of State, the Department of Justice, with respect to Mexico. And I'm just going to go through a whole inventory of actions that are underway. Some we have already undertaken in the last several weeks; others are being taken either today or in the immediate future.

First we are doubling the number of law enforcement personnel that are working in border-enforcement teams along the border. These are called BEST teams. These are teams that combine state and local with ICE and CBP personnel. Every state along the border will now have BEST teams. New Mexico previously had not had one. But just to give you a sense of how effective they are, they have already made more than 2,000 criminal arrests and seized nearly 8,000 pounds of cocaine.

We are also strengthening Operation Armas Cruzadas. This is our operation where we work to seize arms that are going south to be used in this violent war in Mexico.

Just this past week, March 7-13, we seized 997 firearms in one week that were going into Mexico, along with $4.5 million in conjunction with those firearms. So that is underway.

We are tripling the number of Department of Homeland Security Intelligence Analysts located on the Southwest border.

We are increasing the ICE -- that's Immigration and Custom Enforcement -- Attaché personnel in Mexico by 50 percent. These will primarily be located in Mexico City, working alongside the Attorney General of Mexico.

We will be increasing our efforts on what's called Operation Firewall; this is a Treasury-directed initiative that's designed to interdict money laundering that is going back and forth between the drug cartels in Mexico and where they get the cash, which is in the United States.

We are doubling the number of agents in our violent crime alien sections along the border. This is designed to prosecute violent recidivist aliens.

We're quadrupling the number of border liaison officers. This is designed to make sure -- these officers work between us on the border and Mexican law enforcement on the border -- make sure that things are properly coordinated and goes smoothly.

We are bolstering technology and resources with a significant increase in our biometric identification deployment. What does that mean? What that means is the capacity of state and local law enforcement on the border to run fingerprints on people they've apprehended, that are in the jails and so forth, to make sure they've been run through the ICE databases among other things to identify whether they are criminal aliens.

We are embarking on increased screening of rail that goes south from the United States into Mexico. There are in reality only eight rail lines that actually transverse that border, so we are working to have 100 percent screening on those rail crossings into Mexico.

We are moving mobile X-ray units to the border. These will be used to help identify anomalies in passenger vehicles. Well, what does that mean? That means we're trying to identify vehicles that are carrying arms into Mexico that are being used in the drug war in Mexico.

We are moving today 100 more CBP personnel to the border to do outbound inspections. We are moving 12 teams of cross-trained dogs. They can be used to detect both weapons and currency to the Southwest border. We are moving three mobile response teams of Border Patrol agents to deploy to the border. And we're increasing the number of license plate readers on -- to look for the plates of suspected smugglers.
They will be deployed, again, to the outgoing lanes and ports of entry.

In terms of grant funding, Operation Stonegarden, we are changing the grant guidance for our remaining balances in that grant pool. It will be immediately modified to focus $59 million to enhance current state, local, and tribal law enforcement operations and assets along the border. And we will expand the scope of Operation Stonegarden funds to pay for additional law enforcement personnel, overtime, travel, and the like for deployment of state and local tribal officials to the border.

In addition, we are engaging state and local law enforcement in a way I don't think has been done previously with regular calls and conferences with state and local law enforcement in those border areas, in those border counties. So we really get a better sense of what's happening on a real-time basis in this issue with -- in this battle, actually, that is ongoing in Mexico.

Let me just say there are a number of other actions being undertaken, and you'll hear DOJ and Department of State here in a minute.

One question I anticipate you'll ask is where are we with the National Guard. And we are still considering and looking at that. One of the things I wanted to be able to do is to meet with the Governor of Texas, to ask specifically what he is thinking about with respect to Guard along the Texas-Mexico border. I will see him on Thursday; I'll be in Texas to meet with him. And as you just heard, both the Attorney General and I will be in Mexico next week to consult with the Minister of the Interior there and the Attorney General about what other actions can be taken.

Our goal is twofold. One is to provide assistance to the government of Mexico, to break up these huge cartels which are funneling tonnage quantities of illegal drugs into our country on a regular basis, and are conducting this war of violence within Mexico that has resulted in over 6,000 homicides, over 550 of which were assassinations of law enforcement and public official personnel.

The second is to guard against an increase in violence in the United States as a result of the actions undertaken in Mexico.

We've seen some increase in violence between -- primarily between cartels, themselves -- kidnappings, for example, in the Phoenix area and the Houston area. But what we want to do is to better secure the border area against further violence and make it a safe and secure area where, of course, the rule of law is upheld and enforced. So that gives you an inventory of all the things that are happening right now with respect to homeland security and the border in this very, very important initiative.

And now I think it's your turn. Thank you.

Deputy Secretary Steinberg: Thank you, Madam Secretary. Good to be back in the briefing room.

I just want to put this effort in the context of our broader relationship with Mexico. This partnership between the United States and Mexico is as important as any bilateral relationship that we have and extends not only to these critical questions of counter-narcotics and law enforcement, but the full range of issues that engage our two countries.

And as Robert said, this is part of what has been a very clear effort by this administration from the beginning to build and strengthen that partnership, beginning with the President's meeting with President Calderón before inauguration -- carrying on that very important, very special tradition -- to the Secretary's visit tomorrow to Mexico, where she'll be engaged with President Calderón and her counterparts, talking about not only our partnership in dealing with crime, law enforcement and counternarcotics, but some of the broader issues that engage our two countries dealing with the G20 summit that's coming up, where Mexico will be a key partner: the U.N. Security Council, where Mexico sits on the Security Council; the upcoming Summit of the Americas; climate change, another area where Mexico has taken an important leadership role.

And so we have a very rich agenda with Mexico. But one of the things clearly that has been important to both countries is this deep partnership to deal with the problems of narcotics, law enforcement and violence. It's a partnership that began clearly in the previous administration, with the Merida Initiative, which is a comprehensive partnership between the two countries to deal with a full range of issues associated with crime and violence along the borders and in Mexico. It represented a profound and strategic commitment by President Calderón to address these deep challenges, which not only affect us here in the United States, but profoundly affect the safety and security of citizens in Mexico.

That partnership really is quite comprehensive. It deals not only directly with the border issues that Secretary Napolitano had talked about, but more profoundly with the law enforcement and criminal justice system in Mexico dealing with legal reform, dealing with issues of corruption, dealing with issues of strengthening the capacity of the Mexican state to meet these challenges, which are so important to our common well-being. It's an effort that has been supported by the Congress, on a bipartisan basis. It is an effort that involves every -- almost every agency in the federal government. The State Department has played a key role as the chair of the high-level Merida Group, which brings together all of the key agencies in our government with their counterparts in Mexico. But it also extends to dealing with some of the systemic challenges that Mexico faces as it deals with the crime and drugs problem, including creating economic opportunity, strengthening education in Mexico, bringing technology to bear on both sides of the border to deal with these challenges.

And so it really is quite a unique and comprehensive set of engagements that really represents an important commitment by both of us to deal with this problem, the challenges in this. And it's something that we deal with not only bilaterally but also in regional contexts with the core Central American countries, which are also an important component of addressing this problem, as well as a number of the countries in the Caribbean.

So let me turn it over to David.

Deputy Attorney General Ogden: Thank you, Jim. Under the President's leadership, and together with the State Department and DHS, the Department of Justice stands ready to take the fight to the Mexican drug cartels.

We're all concerned about the increased levels of violence in Mexico, and we very much admire the courage and resolution of our Mexican counterparts who are bravely confronting these cartels in their own backyard. And we'll resolve to do everything we can to work together with them to destroy these criminal organizations.

For more than a quarter century, U.S. law enforcement agencies have recognized that the best way to fight the most sophisticated criminal enterprises is through intelligence-based investigations to target the greatest threats. Under the leadership of the Justice Department, the command and control of La Cosa Nostra, which was once the most powerful organized-crime group operating in the United States, has been effectively dismantled, with many of its most senior leaders behind bars. Built on this same approach, and together with our Mexican counterparts, the Department's Mexican cartel strategy confronts those cartels as criminal organizations rather than simply responding to individual acts of violence.

That strategy is carried out by prosecutor-led, intelligence-based task forces that bring together all DOJ and DHS and other relevant law enforcement agencies to disrupt and dismantle the drug cartels through investigation, prosecution, extradition of their leaders, and the seizure and forfeiture of their assets.

As we've found with other large criminal groups, if you take their money and lock up their leaders, you can loosen their grips on the vast organizations that are used to carry out their criminal activities. Attorney General Holder and I are committed to taking advantage of all Department resources and those of associated agencies to target the Mexican cartels. We will investigate and prosecute the criminals who smuggle drugs into the United States and distribute and sell them in our cities and towns. We will also investigate and prosecute those who smuggle guns, bulk cash and contraband from the United States to Mexico.

Just last month, the Attorney General announced the arrest of more than 750 individuals on narcotics-related charges under Operation Accelerator, a multi-agency, multinational effort that targeted the Mexican drug-trafficking organization known as the Sinaloa cartel. Through Operation Accelerator, prosecutors and federal law enforcement agencies, led by DEA, delivered a significant blow to the Sinaloa cartel by seizing $59 million, hundreds of firearms, and more than 12,000 kilograms of cocaine and 12,000 pounds of methamphetamine.

A similarly sweeping DOJ-led initiative against the Gulf cartel, announced in September 2008, called Project Reckoning, produced similarly dramatic results. The President has directed us to take action to fight these cartels. And Attorney General Holder and I are taking several new and aggressive steps as part of the administration's comprehensive plan.

Those steps include the following: DOJ's Drug Enforcement Administration, which already has the largest U.S. drug enforcement presence in Mexico, with 11 offices in that country, is placing 16 new DEA positions in Southwest border field operations, specifically to target Mexican trafficking and associated violence.

The DEA is also deploying four new mobile enforcement teams to specifically target Mexican methamphetamine trafficking, both along the border and in U.S. cities impacted by the cartels.

DOJ's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is increasing its efforts by adding 37 new employees in three new offices, using $10 million in Recovery Act funds, and redeploying 100 personnel to the Southwest border in the next 45 days to fortify its Project Gunrunner, which is aimed at disrupting arms trafficking between the United States and Mexico.

ATF is doubling its presence in Mexico itself, from five to nine personnel working with the Mexicans, specifically to facilitate gun tracing activity, which targets the illegal weapons and their sources in the United States.

DOJ's Office of Justice Programs is investing $30 million in stimulus funding to help state and local government and law enforcement combat narcotics activity along the Southwest border and in high-intensity drug trafficking areas. Additionally, the state and local law enforcement in those areas can apply for COPS and Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, a total of $3 billion of which were provided in the stimulus package.

DOJ's Organized Drug Enforcement Task Forces Program, or OCDETF, is adding personnel to its strike force capacity along the Southwest border.

And the FBI is stepping up its efforts in the region by creating a Southwest intelligence group, focusing its activities on -- increasing its focus on public corruption, kidnappings and extortion related to the cartels' activities.

As the Department did in dismantling La Cosa Nostra, these new resources will build on the framework already in place to disrupt and dismantle the Mexican drug cartels.

Mr. Gibbs: Let's take a couple questions.

Question: Madam Secretary, first for you, can you tell us, does this effort suggest a shift in the thrust of the agency's mission from preventing terrorism to preventing the spread of organized crime?

And for you, Deputy Secretary, if you could tell us -- statements by the Mexican President suggest that Mexico is a bit miffed right now about some of the statements that have been made about Mexico by this administration. Is there a new commitment that Secretary Clinton is taking with her when she goes to Mexico tomorrow? Thank you.

Secretary Napolitano: Yes. No, our Department is always engaged in the fight on terrorism. This Department was stood up in the wake of 9/11. It is a central tenet of our Department, and those efforts are ongoing and, if anything, stronger now than perhaps before.

But our Department has a very broad mission; we have to be able to multitask. And as we multitask, one of the things that has happened -- one of the changes in the threat environment has been what is going on in Mexico.

So we need to make changes in order to deal with that particular threat. And again, it's twofold. One is, we want to help our colleagues in Mexico, but it does have an impact on safety and security within the United States.

So it's not only consistent with the Department of Homeland Security's mission, but it is one of the ongoing threats to safety and security today.
But to return to the beginning of your question, the answer is, absolutely not. And we will always be embarked on that fight.

Deputy Secretary Steinberg: I think the Secretary's trip is part of this broader effort by the administration, really from the beginning, to demonstrate that we really see this as a critical partnership and one that requires as much high-level attention as any bilateral relationship that we have.
The President already developed his own ties with President Calderón. The fact that he will be making an early visit himself to Mexico before the Summit of the Americas really represents the importance that we attach to it.

The Secretary I think really wants to stress that while we have a critical set of issues that we need to deal with in terms of law enforcement, counternarcotics, guns and the like, and the violence problem, that we really value Mexico a partner across the board. And the leadership that President Calderón has showed in courageously taking on this challenge, which is vital to the well-being of his own country, but also across the board, in showing leadership in so many different areas. And Mexico is stepping out, not just in the hemisphere but globally, to play a big role in the G20, showing great leadership on the climate change agenda, one of the first of the recently emerged developing countries to take a major commitment to reduce greenhouse gases.

So I think we want to give a very strong signal, and her visit I think will emphasize the fact that we really appreciate this remarkable leadership we're seeing from Mexico and the importance of this partnership that we've been building.

Question: I think a lot of people along the border, particularly in Texas, who were hoping for a large influx in personnel are going to look at the announcements today as pretty modest and incremental. How do you assure those folks who are looking for hundreds or even thousands of troops or border personnel that this is really going to protect Americans in their security?

Secretary Napolitano: Well, first of all, it is a very robust movement of personnel. DHS alone, it's 350 specifically dedicated to cartel -- in addition to what we already had moved there. So it is a very robust movement.

Secondly, empowering state and local law enforcement and helping them with their resources by moving millions and millions of dollars to them along the border is a very robust move. So when I say we're moving $59 million of Stonegarden money, that's money that will immediately become usable by local police departments, sheriffs' departments and the like along the border.

And the third is, the border itself has a number of assets already located there -- thousands, actually, located along the border. So there's already a very, very heavy federal presence. We add to it, we target, we dedicate. And then, as I said earlier, I anticipate that there will be more announcements as we work with Mexico and work through this drug cartel issue.

So, if anything, this is really the first wave of things that will be happening. And we're already seeing, I think, some changes along the border. For example, the communities at the border towns themselves, some of them are actually reporting a decrease in violent crime. The issue is, obviously, can that be sustained over time and what needs to happen over time for that to continue.

So this is going to be an ongoing piece of very, very significant work.
Question: Can I follow up on that?

Mr. Gibbs: Yes.

Question: Can you explain the $700 million that is from the package, it's additional to the Merida Initiative funds already --

Deputy Secretary Steinberg: The $700 million is the existing appropriations for the Merida Initiative. As you know, we've committed a total of $1.4 billion over three years. And so we'll be looking forward to additional funding in the FY 2010 budget for Merida.

Question: So the five helicopters -- are the helicopters already approved?

Deputy Secretary Steinberg: Correct. Those are already approved.

Question: Second, Secretary Gómez-Mont that you saw last week. After the meeting with you, he give us a press conference, to the Mexican media, and told us that he found doubts on the U.S. government in terms of sharing intelligence with the Mexicans, because the -- there are corruption in the high levels of government in Mexico. Is that true? Can you explain to us why you have doubts on that?

Secretary Napolitano: Have doubts, is that what you said?

Question: Doubts of giving information, intelligence information, to the Mexican authorities, because you have the problem of -- in Mexico, has the problem of drug corruption at the high levels of the government.

Secretary Napolitano: It has been a problem in Mexico.

Question: -- said you have doubts to share information with Mexico.

Secretary Napolitano: And that's why the meeting with the Minister of the Interior, the Attorney General of Mexico, that I've had over the last two weeks have been so important, because we need to be able to share information. We want to share it, and we want to make sure that it doesn't get into the hands of the cartels. And historically, that has been a problem with respect to intelligence sharing in Mexico. I think we all recognize that.

But I also think we have in place some tools to deal with that. And one of the initiatives under Merida is to recruit law enforcement personnel in Mexico. And that, in and of itself, will be an anti-corruption measure.

Question: I have a question here. Mexico has always complained that part of the reason they have this huge drug-trafficking problem is because of U.S. consumption of drugs here. So I was wondering if your plan encompasses some sort of plan to fight against consumption here.

And on the other hand, restrictionist groups in the U.S. have said that this is all the more reason why the border wall needs to be completed. Can you tell us what's going on with the completion of the wall along the border?

Secretary Napolitano: With respect to demand, yes, that is part and parcel and needs to be. This is a supply issue and it's a demand issue. In the stimulus package, there was approximately $70 million for drug courts, which have been very effective in reducing recidivism among drug offenders. I look forward to working with the new head of the National Drug Control Office to see what else can be done to increase our demand-reduction programs. But that obviously has to be a part.

In terms of the wall itself, we are going to complete the sections that had already been begun and for which there already were appropriations. To the extent we request any other sections it will part and parcel of a system that includes technology and manpower. But if you've ever worked on these cartel cases, as I have as prosecutor, you know that a wall is not the best way to spend our dollars to prevent these drugs from coming into the United States and to be able to apprehend and prosecute the smugglers themselves.

Question: Madam Secretary, you said that this is -- this is all taking place right now. So we are to understand that the plan that you detailed previously, that personnel, that new personnel, is already there in place? Or they will be moving into their positions --

Secretary Napolitano: It's both.

Question: It's both.

Secretary Napolitano: It's both. Some have already started; some are in the process of moving. Obviously, you know, you've got to get agents and they've got to actually physically move to the border and all the rest. So some of it is underway; some are already there.

For example, I mentioned the screening of rail going southbound along those eight rail lines -- that has already begun. But the additional 100 Border Patrol agents that are only going to focus on southbound interdictions, that's underway. So it's both.

Question: And by -- when do you hope to have everything in place?

Secretary Napolitano: Well, I think it's going to be ongoing, but the things I've mentioned today are all things that will be completed within, at the longest, 90 days.

Mr. Gibbs: Yes, sir.

Question: Madam Secretary, do you already have an assessment of what are the risks if the Mexican government fails in this struggle against the drug smugglers?

Secretary Napolitano: Yes. I believe that the Mexican government will not fail, and I believe that our role is to assist in this battle because we have our own security interest in its success. But yes, one of the things we do at the Department is to plan for even the most remote contingencies, and we have those plans. But even to say it, I think, overestimates the situation.

Question: Can I follow on that, Madam Secretary?

Question: Yes, Madam Secretary, on the issue of arms, part of the problem -- I mean, the question basically is, do you -- how success do you expect to be in this effort to clamp down on the trafficking of arms going into Mexico, where part of the problem is, you know, all these (inaudible) along the border? I mean, do you expect to go up against the people who sell these arms, which is part of the problem? I mean, maybe you can be successful in stopping arms, but if you don't do anything -- do something on the source of this illegal business, how can you expect to have a real impact on this issue?

Secretary Napolitano: Several things. One is, first of all, you've got to interdict the arms. You've got to stop them from going into Mexico. That's why we're increasing the southbound inspections. That's why we're moving the technology to the border to help with screening going into the border. We're coordinating with Mexico because they can do more by way of southbound screening on their side of the border.

But then the Department of Justice, moving their agents down there, as David said, and increasing tracing, that will help us identify who are -- who is putting those arms into the arms -- those guns into the arms of the traffickers moving south. And out of that, there can reasonably be seen more prosecution of actual arms dealers who are intentionally and knowingly putting arms into the hands of the smugglers.

So that is part of the reason why the Department of Justice is such an essential part of this initiative on Mexico. (Emphasis supplied, MBV.)

Question: Madam Secretary, what are the most compelling arguments you have heard for and against sending National Guard troops to the border, and what does Governor Perry need to tell you to convince you to do what he's asking?

Secretary Napolitano: Well, the questions for Governor Perry are very logistical in my view: Why 1,000? Where was that -- where did that number come from? Where in Texas? Texas has a huge border with Mexico. And what does he anticipate the Guard doing?

And those are the kinds of things that I think then I will transmit to the Secretary of Defense and the President in the ongoing decision about Guard -- yes/no, and if so how many and where.

Mr. Gibbs: Thank you, guys.

Nothing there about gunwalking is there? Nor is there any mention of Fast and Furious, which had yet to be launched as part of the surge described. But that is the point, say my sources. Policy is strategy enunciated. Tactics flow from strategy. The policy that got the Obama administration into trouble was the surge and the desire, in the words of Napolitano, for "more prosecution of actual arms dealers who are intentionally and knowingly putting arms into the hands of the smugglers."

This fit with the Obamanoids preconceived notion -- promoted by the Brady Campaign, the Mexican Government and other entities -- that the violence in Mexico was a direct result of the access in the United States to civilian market firearms. As we will see in "In at the beginning," Part 2, it was this obsession, translated into policy, that laid the predicate for the Gunwalker Scandal. And the State Department was a full participant in the policy that led to gunwalking, for they were "in at the beginning."