DICE Roundup 20 June

June 20, 2012
at 4:50 pm

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DICEMAN FOR PRESIDENT 2012 page

“Our founding fathers put their lives on the line for independence. The time has come today for us to do the same.”–Ray Semko

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Ban All Super-Sized Government Regulations . . . .

Massachusetts mayor proposes sugary drinks limit

(Reuters) The mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has asked the city’s health officials for recommendations on limiting the size of soda and sugar-sweetened drinks served in restaurants. The request follows a controversial proposal by New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg to limit the size of such drinks.

Cambridge Mayor Henrietta Davis said in a statement that “the target of this effort is super-sized and over-sized sugary drinks, especially when children are the primary consumers.” . . . Davis said Cambridge had already enacted important health policies related to smoking and unhealthy trans fats. She said she hoped the request for recommendations on sugary drinks “gets the ball rolling on limiting the amount of soda consumed by children and adults in our community.”

Bloomberg’s proposal would limit sales of large-sized sugary drinks by restaurants, mobile food carts, movie theaters and delis. It is aimed at fighting the growing problem of obesity and would affect drinks sold in containers larger than 16 ounces (0.47 liters). . . . .

Henrietta Davis re-election website. Vote her and all nanny politicians who think they should run our lives OUT on Nov. 8

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What comes around, goes around . . . .

Doctors group calls on Obama to stop eating junk food in public

(The Hill) A healthcare advocacy group run by physicians is preparing to file a petition calling on President Obama to stop eating hamburgers, hot dogs and other unhealthy foods before cameras. “As role model to millions of Americans, the president has a responsibility to watch what he eats in public,” said Susan Levin, nutrition education director with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).

Obama’s occasional stops at Washington, D.C.-area burger joints always receive press attention. He famously treated staff to lunch at Good Stuff Eatery on Capitol Hill in August 2011. A year before that, he and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev grabbed food at Ray’s Hell Burger in Arlington, Va. And in March, during a visit to Ohio with British Prime Minister David Cameron, he ate hot dogs while watching college basketball.

Levin said in a statement that processed meats like hot dogs “kill more Americans every year than tobacco does, and they cost taxpayers billions of dollars in healthcare.” . . . .

. . .PCRM’s petition asks the White House to issue an Executive Order barring the president, the first family, the vice president and all members of the Obama Cabinet from eating foods in public “that can cause cancer and obesity.”

There goes the great American cookout.

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Native American issue continues to dog Warren

(CBS News) Nearly a month after questions were first raised surrounding Elizabeth Warren’s past claims to Native American lineage, the Democratic Massachusetts Senate candidate continues to be dogged by a debate over whether or not she improperly identified as Native American in order to further her professional career.

Despite attempts by the Warren campaign to downplay the controversy, a new report Friday by the Boston Globe calls into question the veracity of Warren’s recent claim that she had been unaware Harvard Law School touted her as a Native American employee during her tenure there.

“I think I read it on the front page of the Herald,” Warren said in late April, when asked about Harvard’s having promoted her purported minority status.

According to the Globe, Harvard reported for six years during Warren’s tenure at the school that a Native American woman was among its senior law professors. “According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves,” writes the Globe’s Mary Carmichael. The story also alleges that Warren fails to meet both federal and school-wide standards that would qualify her to formally list herself as a Native American.

“I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group, something that might happen with people who are like I am,” Warren said on May 2.

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Operation Fast and Furious (Commitee on Oversight and Government Reform)

Fast and Furious scandal: House panel votes to hold Eric Holder in contempt

(Washington Post) A House panel voted Wednesday to hold Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt for failing to cooperate with a congressional inquiry into Operation “Fast and Furious” hours after President Obama asserted executive privilege over related documents.

On a party-line vote, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted 23 to 17 to hold Holder in contempt for failing to share documents related to the operation run out of the Phoenix division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives between 2009 and 2011, with the backing of the U.S. attorney in Phoenix. The move makes Holder the first member of Obama’s Cabinet held in contempt by a congressional committee. . . .

. . . . On Wednesday, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the president’s decision to use executive privilege “implies that White House officials were either involved in the ‘Fast and Furious’ operation or the cover-up that followed. The administration has always insisted that wasn’t the case. Were they lying, or are they now bending the law to hide the truth?”

. . . . In Operation Fast and Furious, federal agents targeting the Mexico-based Sinaloa drug cartel did not interdict more than 2,000 guns they suspected of being bought illegally, in the hope of later tracking them to the cartel. The ATF lost track of most of the firearms, some of which have been found at crime scenes in Mexico and the United States.

Two of the guns connected to the botched operation were found at the Arizona site where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010.

In recent weeks, Issa narrowed his request to the internal Justice deliberations since early February 2011, when Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) first began asking Justice about Fast and Furious. On Feb. 4, 2011, the Justice Department sent the committee a letter denying use of the “gunwalking” tactics used in Fast and Furious. Officials were later forced to retract the letter after whistleblowers came forward and said they had used those very tactics. . . . .

‘Fast and Furious’ whistleblower says he’s ‘disappointed’ one year later

(Fox News) More than a year after ATF Special Agent John Dodson first blew the whistle on the scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, Dodson says he is “disheartened and disappointed” by the congressional investigation and Attorney General Eric Holder’s handling of the botched gunrunning probe.

“I am here today because it’s been a year since the first hearing and Brian Terry’s family still doesn’t have answers,” Dodson said from his living room in Greenville, S.C.

In his first interview since February 2011, when he first revealed the U.S. government was helping run guns to Mexican cartels, Dodson exclusively told Fox News he has no regrets. “We did it. I was there. I was part of it. You don’t get to lie about it. That is not who we are,” Dodson said.

According to records, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation sent some 2,500 guns to the Sinaloa Cartel from September 2009 to January 2011. Agents asked American gun dealers to sell the weapons and report the transactions immediately to the ATF. Despite their misgivings, most firearms dealers went along. When the guns began showing up immediately at crime scenes in Mexico, Dodson warned his supervisors their operation was going to kill an American law enforcement officer, not to mention hundreds of Mexicans.

“I asked them if they were prepared to go to the funeral of a Border Patrol agent over this or Cochise County deputy – if they were prepared to watch that widow accept that folded flag because that’s exactly what was going to happen. So they can’t claim that was an unforeseen consequence,” he said. . . .

. . . . “I don’t feel vindicated at all,” Dodson explained. “It’s not a matter of me feeling vindicated. … Maybe the truth will come out — ultimately that’s what this is supposed to be about … to get the truth.”

After internal emails revealed Fast and Furious guns were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, Dodson said he complained repeatedly to the ATF Office of Professional Responsibility. Twice he was directed to voicemail. Eventually, he went outside the agency to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

“Do I regret it? No. To me, there wasn’t a choice. But I thought I would be one of many agents to come forward,” he said. Dodson was wrong. Dodson says Grassley’s staff warned, “going public will probably not end well for you.” But he went ahead, knowing he could lose his job. Other agents considered it, but were urged not to.

“Other agents were held back because of their families,” said Dodson’s wife Keri. “When you have a family and spouse who wants and expects certain things, the thought of losing that is incomprehensible.” Dodson and his wife say they were raised in the rural South by families with strong values but limited means.

After Terry’s shooting,”John had to come forward,” Keri Dodson said. “The way we were both brought up, truth is the ultimate. Truth may hurt. It may sting. It may be hard to deal with. To lie or not tell truth because you are worried about money is just not something that we do.” . . . .

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40th Anniversary of Watergate

Complete coverage

Woodward and Bernstein: 40 years after Watergate, Nixon was far worse than we thought

Ray Semko

Ray Semko, the D*I*C*E Man, is a professional public speaker, motivator, and national security educator who is the creator of Defensive Information to Counter Everything (D*I*C*E) security awareness briefings.