{"id":11580,"date":"2016-02-05T08:09:27","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T14:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=11580"},"modified":"2016-02-05T08:09:27","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T14:09:27","slug":"operation-choke-point-government-extortion-made-legal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/02\/05\/operation-choke-point-government-extortion-made-legal\/","title":{"rendered":"Operation Choke Point: Government Extortion Made Legal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>If you have not heard about this, you need to watch this 1 minute clip below and send it to all your friends. This is one of the most nefarious attempts yet by Obama&#8217;s cronies in the Justice Department to control and\/or influence various private industry, including firearms and ammunition manufacturers, via Government extortion.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Thank God this measure got shot down in Congress but don&#8217;t be surprised if BHO pulls one of his famous &#8220;Executive Actions&#8221;, aka, &#8220;The Tyrant&#8217;s Pen&#8221; very soon. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>I warned over 3 years go that the last year of Obama&#8217;s reign would be the most dangerous and I think I am being proven right.-SF<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Operation Choke Point Explained in One Minute\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7iaYPBk9i7M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h1 id=\"post-title entry-title\" style=\"text-align:center;\">Find Out If Your Lawmaker Voted to End Operation Choke Point<\/h1>\n<p>The House of Representatives concluded a tense debate Thursday by voting\u00a0250-169\u00a0to\u00a0end a controversial\u00a0Obama administration program called Operation Choke Point.<\/p>\n<p>Critics say\u00a0the\u00a0secretive\u00a0program, run by the Department of Justice, has been used to target politically unpopular industries such as gun sellers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re elated,\u201d Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., one of the bill\u2019s co-sponsors, told The Daily Signal after the vote. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working on this for two and a half years\u2014we\u2019ve been lied to, put off and dissed by the different regulatory agencies, and we\u2019ve prevailed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Operation Choke Point was designed by the Justice Department in 2013 as a way to fight fraud by pressuring banks to \u201cchoke off\u201d \u00a0access to credit and other banking services by merchants and industries the administration considered at a high risk for fraud.<\/p>\n<p>Without access to banking services, it is difficult\u2014if not impossible\u2014for a business to survive.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans who have been fighting the program believe the Obama administration abused its power under Operation Choke Point by targeting entire lines of legal industries. Some members view the tactics as \u201creminiscent of the IRS targeting of conservatives,\u201d as Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., said Thursday on the House floor.<\/p>\n<p>Businesses targeted under Operation Choke Point include gun sellers, pawn shops and short-term lenders. The National Rifle Association is among groups that have strongly come out against it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCongressman Luetkemeyer\u2019s legislation puts an end to the Obama administration\u2019s unwarranted attacks upon a legal and thriving sector of the American economy,\u201d said Chris Cox, executive director of NRA\u2019s Institute for Legislative Action. \u201cOn behalf of the NRA\u2019s 5 million members, I\u2019d like to thank Congressman Luetkemeyer for his steadfast support of the Second Amendment and congratulate him on the passage of H.R. 766.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Luetkemeyer\u2019s bill, the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act, \u00a0bans federal agencies that oversee banks from requesting or ordering that banks terminate customer accounts \u201cunless the regulator has material reason.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are debating a bill on the floor of the House that says the government can\u2019t force banks to shut down legal banking accounts,\u201d Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., said on the House floor. \u201cThe fact that we have to have this debate frightens me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The measure requires that any requests to close a customer\u2019s banking account that come from a federal official be made in writing and rely on information other than \u201creputational risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The term \u201creputational risk\u201d has become a sticking point in the Operation Choke Point debate, as critics of the program believe the term has been used to provide federal regulators a way to close bank accounts of legal and legitimate businesses the Obama administration doesn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReputational risk\u201d is a commonly used term in the banking industry to describe businesses\u2014often illegal\u2014that are at high risk for fraud.<\/p>\n<p>In 2011, guidelines created by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) labeled firearms and ammunition sellers as \u201creputational risks,\u201d pinning them alongside pornography and other enterprises like Ponzi schemes and racist materials.<\/p>\n<p>According to investigations conducted by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, that list was adopted into the Justice Department\u2019s Operation Choke Point. After its adoption, many gun sellers, pawn shops and short-term lenders reported their bank accounts being shut down.<\/p>\n<p>Read the Remainder and See How your Lawmakers Voted at <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/dailysignal.com\/2016\/02\/04\/find-out-if-your-lawmaker-voted-to-end-operation-choke-point\/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=morningbell&amp;mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRovs6%2FBZKXonjHpfsX84%2BkqXKK0hYkz2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTcZqPLnYDBceEJhqyQJxPr3NLtQN191pRhLiDA%3D%3D\">Daily Signal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you have not heard about this, you need to watch this 1 minute clip below and send it to all your friends. This is one of the most nefarious attempts yet by Obama&#8217;s cronies in the Justice Department to control and\/or influence various private industry, including firearms and ammunition manufacturers, via Government extortion.\u00a0 Thank&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3958,74,2086,2045,1405,3553],"tags":[4326,70,3129,4408,4409,4410,4411,78,4412,470],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11580"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}