Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - 08:28 am:

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Meet Four Business Owners Squeezed by Operation Choke Point
Kelsey Harkness /@kelseyjharkness/August 12, 2014

With no explanation, Brian Brookman last month lost the bank account for his pawn shop.

He had no idea why. Brookman says his store in Grand Haven, Mich., never had been in trouble with federal or state officials. And being in the pawn industry, he was required by law to get a city license every year.

“If there was ever a problem, they wouldn’t renew my license,” Brookman, a former police officer and Army veteran, told The Daily Signal.

After researching his case on the Internet, Brookman says he concluded that his banker, JP Morgan Chase, closed the account because two of his business activities — dealing in vintage coins and selling firearms — were labeled “high risk” by federal bureaucrats as part of an Obama administration initiative called Operation Choke Point.

Critics say Operation Choke Point, so dubbed by Department of Justice officials, seeks to weed out businesses that the White House considers objectionable.

The Justice Department contends the goal of the program is to combat unlawful mass-market consumer fraud, although recent evidence suggests otherwise.

A House report indicates that a primary target of Operation Choke Point is the short-term lending industry. A more expansive list of out of favor, non-financial businesses includes certain ammunition merchants, coin dealers, home-based charities, and sellers of pharmaceutical drugs – also lawful enterprises.


...Brian Brookman was a police office for 10 years before joining the Army after 9/11. When he got out, he and his wife of 16 years moved to Grand Haven, Mich., to start a private security agency.

Last fall, Brookman sold his agency to open a pawn shop. On the side, he sold firearms, but decided to let that license expire in June because of “overregulation.”

In July, he opened an account for the pawn shop with a local Chase Bank, where he and his wife had been private customers for years. Two weeks later, without warning, Brookman received a letter saying the bank was closing that new account.

“The only account they closed is my business account,” Brookman says. “It was strictly targeted at my business, and the only reason they would have targeted my business is because of Choke Point.”

Chase refused to elaborate, Brookman says, but he decided they either thought he was still selling firearms or categorized him as “high risk” for buying and selling vintage coins.

“There’s just no explanation,” he says. “It has to be Operation Choke Point.”

Brookman successfully opened a business account at another local bank. To his dismay, though, he received an email from PayPal saying the Internal Revenue Service has an issue with his account because of new regulations.

“I have heard many stories about PayPal closing accounts on gun dealers,” Brookman says. “But I’m no longer a gun dealer.”


...Marc Cohen has been a Second Amendment supporter for years. After a four-year hitch in the Air Force beginning in 1970, he moved back to his home in Cape Cod to open Powderhorn Outfitters, a sporting goods store that sells guns and outdoors equipment.

Eleven years ago, he lost his wife to cancer. He remarried five years ago, Cohen says, after he “got lucky and found somebody else.”

Three months ago, Cohen had a rude introduction to Operation Choke Point. After approaching TD Bank for a new line of credit, he was rejected because of his involvement in the firearms industry.

Cohen says his bank manager of more than 20 years told him: “I’m very sorry to say this – I’m very embarrassed – but the bank won’t lend you money because you sell guns.”

Cohen was stupefied. “My credit and history are 100 percent,” he says.

When he came across Operation Choke Point on the Internet, Cohen was outraged.

He had bills to pay and six employees to support. “I depended on this,” he says.

Three weeks later, Cohen was able to find a bank that he says “would accept a second-class citizen.”

Now, he speaks out against the government operation.

“I can’t take on a Department of Justice and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,” Cohen says. “I’d love to, but I can’t.”

Instead, he’s sharing his story, which he says has resulted in more than 600 of his Powderhorn customers leaving TD bank.

“They were livid,” Cohen says. “I had one young lady call me up and say, ‘I just closed my account from TD bank and I stood back about 10 feet away from the counter and announced to the whole bank why I was closing my account.’ ”

What does he think of the Obama administration’s actions?

“I think Choke Point is an affront to the American way of life,” he says, “and I’m very disappointed in our government for doing this to us.”

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Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - 05:26 pm:

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It was off to the races for a top Obama administration official earlier this summer — and on the taxpayers’ dime.

Attorney General Eric Holder took a one-day trip to Elmont, N.Y., for the Belmont Stakes. Cost to taxpayers: $14,440.

But the nation’s lead law enforcement officer, who traveled to the Triple Crown race aboard a government jet with his two daughters, two male friends, and two security officers, reimbursed the U.S. Treasury only $955, The Daily Caller reported.

The group traveled June 7 on a government-owned Gulfstream V...

“The attorney general wrote a check payable to the U.S. Treasury in the amount of $955 to cover round trip airfare,” state documents provided to the news organization by the Justice Department under a Freedom of Information Act request.

...The Office of Management and Budget stipulates that agency officials traveling on government aircraft must reimburse the government “for a wholly personal or political trip.”

...It isn’t the first time Holder has flown on government aircraft for a personal trip. In February 2013, the Government Accountability Office released a report showing the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Gulfstream V jets were being used for “non-mission” flights. From 2007 to 2011, 24 percent of flights by Holder and then-FBI Director Robert Mueller aircraft were categorized as personal.

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Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - 06:52 pm:

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Every Day Is Opposite Day For The Obama Administration
By Debra Heine, 12 Aug 2014

[On Monday White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest responded] to a letter from a coalition of 42 journalism groups and media organizations condemning the White House's increasing "politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies."

David Cullier, president of the Society of Professional Journalists [see link below], described the Earnest response as “typical spin and response through non-response ... nowhere does the White House address specific concerns about excessive message management and preventing journalists from getting information on behalf of citizens.”

[ Said Press Secretary Earnest, in reply to the letter: ]

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"The president's commitment to transparency and the crucial role of the independent press is unwavering. The president has set an historically high standard of transparency that is part of the legacy to which future presidents will aspire ..."

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Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - 07:47 pm:

• Ineffective
• A liar

Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - 08:03 pm:

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Senator Obama calls Bush "unpatriotic" for adding trillions to debt
In a purely ironic twist then Senator Obama calls President Bush "unpatriotic" for adding trillions to debt.

http://youtu.be/DyLmru6no4U

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Posted on Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - 09:13 pm:

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February 23, 2009: 0bama Pledges to Cut the Deficit in Half By the End of His First Term in Office:

http://youtu.be/RGt4LYMXQpo

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