Think Progress fails to address fundamental flaw in DHS’ explanation

Paul Joseph Watson

Infowars.com

March 26, 2013

UPDATE: Pat Robertson On DHS Arms Build-Up: “Who Are They Going to Shoot, Us?”

The George Soros-funded Obama campaign front group Think Progress has responded to concerns about a DHS arms build-up by claiming the whole issue is a ‘debunked conspiracy theory’.

In an article entitled, OOPS: Fox News Peddles Conspiracy Theory It Already Debunked, the website claims that the, “DHS justified the purchases in a letter to lawmakers,” by explaining, “that it regularly purchases ammunition in bulk to save money and noted that “the 1.6 billion number was misleading because the language of DHS’s purchase said it would need ‘up to’ a certain amount.”

The article then quotes Fox News’ Charles Krauthammer who claimed that, “the amount of ammunition (purchased by the DHS) is less than in previous years.”

However, while the DHS’ own figures show ammo purchases of just over 100 million rounds purchased in the previous two years, over the last 12 months the agency has committed to purchasing at least 1.6 billion bullets. Even if you spread this figure out over the next five years (and discount additional purchases which are happening on a monthly basis), it still amounts to 320 million rounds a year – a threefold increase on previous years.

By attempting to debunk the matter as a conspiracy theory, Think Progress has followed in the footsteps of other news outlets who dismissed the whole story as a non-issue by citing the glib statement of a single DHS official, who claimed the bullets were being bought in bulk to save money and were for training purposes only.

However, as the Think Progress report fails to address, the notion that the ammo is being purchased in bulk to “save money” is completely erroneous since most of the bullets are hollow point rounds, which are almost twice as expensive as regular firing range bullets and therefore unsuitable for training purposes.

As former Marine Richard Mason told reporters with WHPTV News in Pennsylvania earlier this month, “We never trained with hollow points, we didn’t even see hollow points my entire four and a half years in the Marine Corps.”

Not a single one of the “debunking” pieces has even addressed this fundamental flaw in the DHS’ explanation for why it is buying ammo in bulk. Either the DHS is lying about its claim that the bullets are for training purposes only, or the agency is wasting tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money while simultaneously releasing illegal immigrants claiming it is broke.

In addition, if the number of bullets being purchased by the DHS is normal, as Think Progress claims, then why would the DHS need to justify its bulk purchase of them in the first place? To concede that the bullet buys represent “bulk” purchases is to concede that they are being acquired in unusually large quantities.

Furthermore, the claim that the DHS is nowhere near approaching its “up to” figure of 1.6 billion bullets purchased is contradicted by the fact that large ammo purchases are being delivered to the same locations consecutively. For example, last month the agency bought 240,000 hollow point rounds to be sent to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico, the same destination for an additional purchase of 360,000 bullets which was announced last week.

As we have previously documented, Think Progress claims that it is a “nonpartisan organization,” and yet is bankrolled by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a think tank headed by Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff John D. Podesta , who was also head of Barack Obama’s presidential transition team after the 2008 election.

According to SourceWatch, “CAP’s Progressive Media project emerged as a major communications war room on behalf of Obama’s domestic and foreign policy agenda and CAP became a strong advocate for escalation in Afghanistan. Progressive Media is run through the Center for American Project Action Fund, the more political 501(c)4 arm of CAP. It coordinates closely with the Common Purpose Project, an effort to create message discipline among the pro-Obama organizations, with a direct tie to the White House.”

According to Center for American Progress director Jennifer Palmieri, the organization is focused around “driving the White House’s message and agenda.”

Think Progress is also closely allied with Media Matters under the umbrella of Podesta’s Progressive Media propaganda campaign. An investigation by the Daily Caller last year revealed that Media Matters is an Obama administration front that strategizes with the White House on a weekly basis on how to influence and direct the news media.

Though the Center for American Progress is shy about revealing its financial backers, according to SourceWatch, no less than 58 foundations have donated over $15 million dollars since 2003, as well as corporations and elitist philanthropists such as George Soros, who donated $3 million for “general support” in 2006.

Given that Think Progress is a little more than a PR firm for the Obama administration which routinely invents its own conspiracy theories in order to denigrate its ideological adversaries, it’s unsurprising that the organization is once again running defense for the federal government.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

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