Education Out Of Control

Is it just me or does anyone else find it extremely disturbing that the U.S. Department of Education has their own heavily armed entry teams breaking down the doors of private residences and conducting S.W.A.T. style police raids?

Education Department S.W.A.T. team raids California home

A S.W.A.T. team with orders from the U.S. Department of Education broke into a California home at 6 a.m. Tuesday and reportedly roughed up a man because of a student aid issue involving his estranged wife. His wife was not present.

In 2010, the Post’s Valerie Strauss reported that the Education Department was purchasing 27 Remington Brand Model 870 police 12-gauge shotguns to replace old firearms used by Education’s Office of Inspector General, which is the law enforcement arm of the department. DoE said the guns were necessary to help enforce “waste, fraud, abuse, and other criminal activity involving Federal education funds, programs, and operations.”

Kenneth Wright says his house was raided because of his wife’s unpaid loans. One blogger speculated that we finally know what those guns are being used for.

But the Department of Education told Reason Magazine Wednesday that the SWAT team raided the house because of a criminal investigation, not a student loan.

See also:
Failure to pay student loan brings SWAT team kicking in debtor’s door
SWAT Team Raids Man’s Home Over Student Loans
Federal agents search Stockton home
‘Unpaid Student Loan’ Raid Claim Refuted as Feds Target California Couple in Fraud Probe
Feds defend Department of Education raid on a home
OK, Education Dept. raid is not a hallmark of liberty
These Are the Charges That Require the Department of Education to Send a Dozen Armed Agents to Kick Through Your Front Door
DoE Releases Partial Search Warrant Related to Yesterday’s Raid
Update on Department of Education SWAT raid in Stockton
Reading, Writing, Breaking, Entering
Office of Inspector General

You know, I don’t really care why a U.S. Department of Education S.W.A.T. team is breaking down doors and conducting raids. What I care about is that the U.S. Department of Education has a S.W.A.T. team and law enforcement arm in the first place. Seriously, what the hell, isn’t conducting raids and making arrests like this why we already have the FBI?

This is totally out of control and way beyond the pale, is this what legislators had in mind when they set up the Department of Education in 1979, military style police raids on private residences? The U.S. Department of Education is operating well beyond it’s original mandate. The DoE should be abolished, we’d save billions of dollars annually and it wouldn’t even be missed.

/when I graduated from high school, there was no Federal Department of Education and we all survived and made it through school just the same, and arguably with a better education too

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Taking time out from his relentless crusade to destroy capitalism, the U.S. economy, and America as we used to know it, Obama finally got one right today.

Obama Seeks to Block Release of Detainee Abuse Photos

President Barack Obama reversed course and is seeking to block release of photographs that show the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by U.S. personnel.

“This is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action,” Obama said today at the White House. “Publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals.”

Instead, it might “inflame anti-American opinion and put our troops in greater danger,” he said.

A federal appeals court ordered the release in connection with a Freedom of Information Act suit. Last month, the Justice Department told a federal judge that the administration would not resist a court order to turn over 44 photographs sought by the American Civil Liberties Union in the suit.

The president told his legal team last week that he “did not feel comfortable with release of the photos,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said earlier.

Gibbs said that Obama concluded that Justice lawyers, during former President George W. Bush’s administration, didn’t make the strongest case against release of the pictures.

“The argument that the president seeks to make is one that hasn’t been made before,” Gibbs said. “I’m not going to get into blame for this or that,” he said, adding that the case was working through the court system before Obama took office.

Evidence

During the Bush administration, release of photographs of prisoner abuse by U.S. troops at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq caused an international uproar. The pictures at issue are part of potential evidence in cases that have been wrapped up since 2004, Gibbs said.

Obama said releasing the pictures may have a “chilling effect” on future investigations.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he recommended to Obama that the photos be withheld and that both General Ray Odierno, who commands U.S. forces in Iraq, and General David McKiernan, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, objected to the release.

“Our commanders have expressed very serious reservations and their very great worry that release of these photographs would cost American lives,” Gates said when asked about the issue at a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

Durbin, Lieberman Comment

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, one of Obama’s closest allies in Congress, said the legal brief in the court cases initially “led him to believe” that releasing the photographs was “inevitable.”

“Now they seem to have some reservations about what the impact of those photos might have, particularly on the security of troops,” Durbin said.

Senators Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, supported Obama’s decision.

“It’s good for the troops to know that their commander-in- chief is going to bat for them and that is what he did today,” Graham said at the Capitol.

Lieberman said releasing the photos would have done more harm than good. When the Abu Ghraib photos were first released, “they were immediately put up on jihadist Web sites across the world and were used by al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to recruit,” he said.

See also:
Obama seeks to block release of abuse photos
In reversal, Obama seeks to block abuse photos
Obama reverses course on alleged prison abuse photos
Obama sets up abuse-photos fight
Obama Moves to Block Release of Detainee Abuse Photos
Obama seeks to block release of abuse photos

Of course Obama had to be dragged kicking and screaming into changing his mind under intense pressure from his military commanders or else he he would have made this no-brainier decision in the first place. I mean, it’s obvious to any moron that doesn’t absolutely despise the U.S. military that releasing these photographs would do nothing besides incited and inflame our enemies, hand them a huge propaganda victory that they would exploit as a recruiting tool for years to come, and generally put U.S. troops worldwide in much greater danger.

/but hey, small victories, credit where credit is do, it was the correct decision, let’s just hope he follows through with opposing the release of the photographs in court