Dirty Bomb Feared in Alleged NYC Terrorist Plot

A plot by al-Qaida to attack America — specifically New York City — in the days leading up to reported the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy has worsened. Authorities believe the threat could involve a dirty bomb, according to CBSNew York.

The New York Police Department tightened security Friday by setting up a series of checkpoints where random vehicle stops were conducted. At times, traffic came to a standstill.

“Terrorism is theater, and this is the stage,” NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said. “This is right now probably the world’s biggest stage.”

The dirty-bomb scare has dialed up the drama.

“We have to think about a dirty bomb, where you take radiological material and mix it with conventional explosives,” Kelly said.

CBSNew York reported that intelligence sources are concerned the terrorists — three suspects are being sought, including one American — have concocted a device containing both radiological and explosive materials.

“We think about how to handle these people,” Kelly said. “How do we approach them if we believe they have some device, a bomb, something that’s going to explode? We have to think about tactics and strategies.”

Kelly said the NYPD has suited up its officers with radiation detectors and other sophisticated instruments, and has ensured the equipment is being used within 50 miles of New York City, a radius that encompasses Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Times Square is the new “ground zero” of the latest terrorist plot. Sources told CBSNew York that al-Qaida wants to finish the job that failed last year when Faisal Shahzad tried to detonate a car bomb there in May of 2010.

Dick Cheney to Newsmax: 'The Threat Is Still There'

One of the greatest threats facing the United States is that a group of terrorists will be able to acquire a nuclear device or a biological agent that will enable them to far exceed the carnage inflicted on 9/11, former Vice President Dick Cheney tells Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview.

Cheney, in an interview about his new book, “In My Time” by Newsmax Chief Washington Correspondent Ronald Kessler, noted that terrorists armed with box cutters were able to kill nearly 3,000 Americans on a crystal clear day ten years ago.

“I still worry more than anything else, really, about the possibility of a group of terrorists acquiring really deadly capabilities,” Cheney said.



“When we got hit on 9/11, 19 guys armed with airline tickets and box cutters. The next time around I worry they may have a nuclear device or a biological agent of some kind and would be in a position to inflict far greater damage and loss of life than anything we experienced on 9/11. I think that’s still a very really threat. I think we need to be concerned about it. I think we need to have policies and procedures in place that minimize that threat.”

Cheney said the days when an attack employing nuclear or biological weapons could only be managed by a nation-state such as the Soviet Union are long gone.

“Technology is, when you think about it, so widely available to so many different kinds of people now that you have to be concerned, that the proliferation, if you will, of that kind of capability is a very real threat. It’s not as though you can accept a situation in which you stop 99 out of 100 attacks. You’ve got to stop them all. You’ve got to beat them every time. That’s hard to guarantee.”

To meet such a high standard requires committing more resources and personnel because he said “the cost of failure” is the many lives that would be “lost if in fact they’re able at some point to launch a major biological agent inside the United States.”

During his eight years as President George W. Bush’s vice president, Cheney was a lightening rod for critics, upset over such things as his advocacy of enhanced interrogation techniques and his push to take the war on terror to Iraq. Cheney said he was not surprised that people disagree with “what we did. That’s the nature of the business.”

However, he worried that Americans might “fall into the trap of thinking that what we’ve done wasn’t necessary, that there was never going to be another attack anyway, this notion that somehow we overreacted.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute,” he said. “But the danger headed down that path, with more and more people beginning to think that, they become less and less tolerant of the policies, the searches before you get on an airliner for example, than would otherwise be the case. The danger there, of course, is that the threat is still out there and you need to be able keep in place those measures that have provided safety for the last seven or eight years.”

Cheney concluded that the tenth anniversary of 9/11 is not just a reminder of “how enormously painful it was for us as a nation to go through that, but also a reminder the threat’s still there, you still got people who want to do us harm, and we can’t turn our back on it or say gee that’s kind of a nasty business, or it’s too tough, we shouldn’t be doing that.

“We weren’t the ones that generated the attack, these are people who mean us harm, mean us ill and they demonstrated it very conclusively on more than one occasion,” he concluded.

IRS Is Paying Illegal Immigrants Billions of Dollars

The IRS paid out billions in refundable tax credits to undocumented immigrant workers last year, according to a new Treasury audit.
Federal law bars illegal immigrants from collecting tax benefits, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, that can be claimed by residents with Social Security numbers. But the Treasury report found that the tax code’s lack of clarity is allowing the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC), which reduces taxes owed by certain individuals with children, to be heavily claimed by undocumented workers;if their tax bills dip below zero, they can collect government checks. 
Even wages earned illegally in the U.S. are taxed. Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) are available to people without Social Security numbers who cannot legally work in the U.S. so they can file tax returns. These ITINs have become increasingly linked to fraudulent tax claims, which helped inflate IRS payouts on the Additional Child Tax Credit from $924 million in 2005 to $4.2 billion, the report said. 
“The payment of federal funds through this tax benefit appears to provide an additional incentive for aliens to enter, reside, and work in the United States without authorization, which contradicts federal law and policy to remove such incentives,” the report said. 
The report attributed the massive outpouring of child tax credit refunds to recent expansions of the credit as part of the 2001 Bush tax cuts and the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the legislation that created the stimulus program.
In response to the report, IRS officials said they would follow one of its recommendations to meet with Treasury officials to determine whether people unauthorized to work in the U.S. can collect refundable tax credits. But the IRS rebuffed the audit’s second recommendation that it collect additional documentation from people claiming the ACTC, arguing that the agency lacks the legal authority to challenge such tax returns. 
“Any suggestion that the IRS shouldn’t be paying out these credits under current law to ITIN holders is simply incorrect,” IRS spokesperson Michelle Eldridge told The Fiscal Times in a statement.  “The IRS administers the law impartially and applies it as written. If the law were changed, the IRS would change its programs accordingly.”
The audit underscores a broader debate about the contribution of illegal immigrants to the U.S. economy, as well as who is ultimately charged with enforcing immigration law.
“The IRS doesn’t seem to think its job is to make sure people who are claiming these credits are entitled to them. The children may or may not be living abroad--or even exist. It’s absurd, almost a joke,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group which advocates securing U.S. borders.  “The IRS scares the heck out of most Americans, so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be just as vigilant against people in the country illegally….especially when the deficit is topping $1.5 trillion.”
However, some groups argue that as members of U.S. Society who contribute to the economy, undocumented workers have every right to claim tax benefits.
An April study by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy found that undocumented immigrants paid $11.2 billion in taxes in 2010. It estimated that nearly half of all illegal immigrants pay income taxes.
“Undocumented immigrants are undoubtedly positive for the fiscal health of this country,” says Leticia Miranda, associate director of the Economic Policy Project at National Council of La Raza, a group that advocates for Hispanics in the U.S.  She says that harping on the number of undocumented immigrants claiming this credit glosses over the bottom line that these workers are paying hefty sums into the Social Security trust fund, despite having no claim on the benefits. The Social Security Administration’s chief actuary estimated last year that undocumented immigrants had paid $120 billion to $240 billion into the Social Security trust fund as of 2007. “If you make it impossible for people to make those tax payments, that would be a self-inflicted wound to the budget of this country,” says Miranda.

Video Game Targets 'Tea Party Zombies,' Fox News Personalities

A New York-based video game developer has set his virtual crosshairs on Republican and conservative political figures in a game called "Tea Party Zombies Must Die," which allows players to indiscriminately slaughter politicians like Michele Bachmann, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin.

The gruesome game, created by StarvingEyes Advergaming, is billed as "first-person shooter" featuring "Tea Party zombies" to be targeted with an "arsenal of weapons," including multiple firearms and a crowbar. Notable politicians depicted in the game include current and previous presidential hopefuls like Palin, Bachmann, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.  Several Fox News personalities are also featured, including Huckabee, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Brit Hume.

Lesser-known targets include "factory made blonde Fox News Barbie who has never had a problem in her life zombie" or the "Koch industries Koch Whore lobbyist pig zombie." Fox News logos and a recreation of its studios can be seen in blood-spattered screengrabs posted on the company's website.

Attention to the game's release has heightened after violent rhetoric from Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, who in a speech over the weekend told President Obama that his supporters would "take out the son-of-a-bitches" in the Tea Party who were waging "war" against unions. 

"The liberal media have been preaching for years that conservatives are the ones who invoke violent imagery and rhetoric. Yet in the space of two days, the radical, pro-Obama left calls us 'son-of-a-bitches' and says they want to 'take us out.' And they follow that with a hideously violent game where they do just that -- depicting ways of shooting prominent conservatives, presidential candidates and journalists," said Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center. "The news media would be in an uproar if violence had been incited against liberals. Their silence disgusts me."

The game's developer, Jason Oda, of Brooklyn, N.Y., did not respond to FoxNews.com requests for comment. But the 32-year-old Connecticut native is no stranger to violent, politically-themed video games. 

In 2008, he created "Kung-Fu election," which invited players to choose their favorite candidate to take them into battle against a political adversary. Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson were pitted against Republican counterparts like Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain.

"The would-be presidents duke it out with an array of special weapons and Kung-Fu moves that will leave only one man -- er, person -- standing," reads a press release about the game. "If you thought that McCain was too old for the rigors of a grueling election, wait until you see what he can do with a bo staff in his hands!"

In 2004, Oda also created "Bushgame.com," in which 1980s television characters waged war against monstrous versions of officials in the Bush administration. At the end of each level, players would receive a text critique that blasted the president's position on Iraq, the economy, taxes and Social Security, according to The Associated Press.

"I just hoped that people can go beyond the obvious little soundbites you hear all the time and have better ammunition and better understanding of the reasons why Bush should be out of the White House," Oda told The Associated Press at the time.

Oda, according to Connecticut's Darien Times, earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design in 2001. Two years earlier, he was awarded best in show at the Darien Art Show. In 2002, he produced an online game based on popular "emo" rock groups that was featured on MTV and was later cited by the New York Times and Spin Magazine.

Oda's list of clients, according to his website, include high-profile firms like Pepsi, Hasbro, Sears, UPS and many others.

Huckabee, who discussed the game during his weekday radio commentary called "The Huckabee Report," questioned whether corporate supporters would stand by while the video game projects violence toward real people.

"Will Pepsi, Motorola, and NASCAR among others cease to advertise on the website that promotes this violent and hate-filled bigotry or will there be the usual double standard?" Huckabee asked. 

"I'm personally flattered to be included in this young game-makers efforts to be funny, and I even support his First Amendment rights to produce things that are in poor taste or unseemly to rational people, but I do not support the hypocrisy of the left who scream at all offenses they can manufacture toward conservatives, but turn their backs on the same standards when applied to someone of their own political ilk," he told FoxNews.com.

 

Perry Surge Creates Two-Man Race on Eve of Key Debate

GOP contenders striding onto the debate stage Wednesday evening at the Ronald Reagan library will do so knowing that pundits and prognosticators already are beginning to describe the nomination fight as a two-man contest between Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Although Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann or Texas Rep. Ron Paul could still find a game-changer to alter the Perry-Romney dynamic, their window to do so appears to be closing, at least in the eyes of many political analysts.

“Clearly the Republican Party is rallying behind Rick Perry in a way nobody expected a couple of weeks ago,” Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza told MSNBC on Tuesday.

Bad jobless numbers, a festering European debt crisis, and a spate of polls indicating that President Barack Obama’s disapproval ratings have hit an all-time high have left Republicans increasingly confident that they can accomplish a political rarity: knocking off an incumbent U.S. president. The credible prospect that a Republican may take the oath of office in January 2013 makes selecting the right candidate all the more critical.

“It is a two-person race,” Democratic pollster and Fox News commentator Doug Schoen tells Newsmax. “Money drives the process. But really, when you look at the polls, it is effectively a two-person race between Rick Perry and Barack Obama.

“Romney is frozen, Bachmann is sinking,” Schoen says. “This is Perry's nomination, if he doesn't blow it and if Chris Christie stays on the sidelines,  which is likely.”

Ironically, the view that the nomination is now a fight between Perry and Romney originated with Bachmann’s erstwhile campaign chief, Ed Rollins.

“The Perry-Romney race is now the story, with us the third candidate,” Rollins told Cillizza on Sunday. Rollins later confirmed this view in an interview with CNN host Anderson Cooper.

“You now have two serious money people in the sense of Mitt Romney and [Perry] . . . I think legitimately it’s a Romney-Perry race, they’re the leaders in the polls, leading in money,” Rollins said.

“I think she’s the third candidate at this point in time, which is way different and better than we thought when we started this thing," Rollins said. "And she’s very much in this thing. And I think the key thing here . . . is think of it as a marathon. It’s a long time before voters actually cast their votes. It starts in Iowa, and she’s still very strong in Iowa.”

Rollins announced he would be stepping down from the campaign, citing health reasons. That left observers to speculate whether his candidate evaluation of Bachmann’s campaign had led to a shake-up.

“I love Ed, but the ‘health’ excuse reminds me of what a mobster says to avoid going on trial,” Bloomberg author and columnist Jonathan Alter told Newsmax by email. “This is a two-person race, but Bachmann can do a lot of damage to the frontrunners in the meantime. Her attacks on Perry for being a Ricky-come-lately conservative could resonate.”

Whether Bachmann has an opportunity Wednesday to take on Perry directly will depend on whether the Texas governor is able to take a break from fighting the Texas wildfires that already have destroyed 1,000 homes. On Tuesday afternoon, he signaled he might forgo the debate in Simi Valley, Calif., in order to remain on the job in the Lone Star State.

Not everyone agrees, of course, that the contest already is a two-man race. Former George W. Bush campaign advertising guru Mark McKinnon tells Newsmax that the race remains wide open.

“I think things are so volatile, anything can still happen,” he says. “I don't count anybody out, and I'm not sure that everyone [who will toss their hat in the ring] is in.”

There are indications Bachmann may have lost momentum and may be under pressure to deliver a rousing debate performance on Wednesday to re-invigorate her candidacy. The latest Gallup poll has Perry leading the GOP faithful with 29 percent, followed by 17 percent for Romney, 13 percent for Paul, and just 10 percent for Bachmann. That same survey in July showed her support at 13 percent.

But the real decision-makers who will determine how many viable candidates remain in the race are donors rather than voters. So far, many major GOP donors have held back from writing big checks as they watch the front-runners shake themselves out.

In the first half of 2007, for example, GOP presidential candidates raked in about $118 million. That compares with just $40 million Republican contenders collected in the first half of 2011, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Bachmann is a skilled debater who knows how to fire up a conservative crowd, and was the top fund-raiser in Congress during the 2010 political cycle. But she has yet to demonstrate she can appeal to the mega donors, who often write checks based more on electability than ideology.

Perry seems to already have jumped that hurdle. On Tuesday, NBC News investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff reported that “Make Us Great Again,” a pro-Perry super PAC, has crafted a strategy to pour $55 million into key primary battleground states. The group’s objective is to overwhelm his opponents and seal the GOP nomination for the Texas governor by next spring.

“After countless attempts to lure new options into their party’s presidential field, GOP fundraisers and power brokers are coming to terms with what looks like an increasingly binary choice between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry,” Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin of Politico.com report.

University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato tells Newsmax that “it is a pretty good bet” that Rollins’ departure from the Bachmann campaign is a sign of internal friction. He adds it is “pretty obvious at this point” that Romney and Perry are the “two finalists, at least at the moment.”

Sabato adds: “Strange things happen in politics, but they have the money and poll ratings to claim the head-of-the-pack status. And Perry is currently out in front, although I don't think it's over at all. Usually in open-seat contests like this, it is a roller coaster.”

Four Ways Obama Has Blocked Job Growth

Wonder who's to blame for today's stagnant economy? Look no further than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to see where the buck ought to stop. Though President Barack Obama constantly points fingers at others for America's economic woes, his policies are to blame for preventing the U.S. economy from getting back on track. Before you watch President Obama present his latest jobs plan in his speech on Thursday, be sure you know the four major measures he has taken to prevent job growth in America:

1) Obama's Overregulation

During President Obama's first 26 months in office, his Administration imposed 75 new major regulations, with reported costs to the private sector exceeding $40 billion, as The Heritage Foundation’s James Gattuso and Diane Katz document in "Red Tape Rising: A 2011 Mid-Year Report." That's more than any comparable period on record. The annual cost of regulation--$1.75 trillion by one frequently cited estimate--represents twice the amount of individual income taxes collected last year. Katz and Gattuso write that there are even more regulations in the pipeline, as well.

That's bad news for job growth, and you don't just have to take our word for it. Ask the people who create jobs in America. John Schiller, chairman and CEO of Energy XXI, told CNBC that "if the government would get out of the way, from a regulation standpoint, and let us do what we do good, you'll see us continue to hire and grow this economy."

2) Obamacare

There's a disturbing trend if you look at job growth in America over the past two and a half years. Heritage's James Sherk writes that, following the recession, the U.S. was on a track for a steady recovery. The economy went from losing 841,000 jobs in January 2009--the recession’s low point--to gaining 229,000 jobs in April 2010. But then Obamacare became law. "From May 2010 onward, private job growth improved by only 6,500 jobs per month--less than one-tenth the previous rate," Sherk explains and as illustrated by this chart.

Though correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation, there's reason to believe that Obamcare helped turned off the spigot on job growth. The law imposes costly new requirements on businesses, which remain uncertain of what their costs will be down the road, leaving them to postpone hiring decisions. In fact, one survey showed that 33 percent of small business owners said Obamacare was either their greatest or second-greatest obstacle to new hiring.

3) Big Spending and Runaway Deficits

President Obama's $787 billion stimulus was supposed to create jobs, but instead deficits mounted and economic growth is now stagnant. Meanwhile, all that money intended to "stimulate" the economy had to come from somewhere, which means taxing or borrowing from other sectors of the economy. The result? Less money for investment, and that means less job growth. Brian Riedl explains in The Wall Street Journal:

[L]arge stimulus bills often reduce long-term productivity by transferring resources from the more productive private sector to the less productive government. The government rarely receives good value for the dollars it spends. However, stimulus bills provide politicians with the political justification to grant tax dollars to favored constituencies. By increasing the budget deficit, large stimulus bills eventually contribute to higher interest rates while dropping even more debt on future generations.

4) Pro-Union, Anti-Business Policies

In South Carolina, Boeing sought to build a new factory to produce one of its airliners, which would have created new jobs in the state. Enter the Obama Administration's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which filed a complaint against the company, arguing that using a non-union facility constituted an unfair labor practice. And that's just one example of the Obama Administration's pro-union, anti-business policies.

Other recent NLRB decisions include several rulings on snap elections and restricting secret ballot elections, and it instituted a new rule that allows unions to cherry-pick which workers get to vote on unionizing. Rather than putting the economy first, the President has decided to put unions first, and unemployed Americans are paying the price.

Earlier this summer, businessman Steve Wynn said that the Obama Administration has been "the greatest wet blanket to business and progress and job creation in my lifetime." And when Investors Business Daily asked Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, "What's the single biggest impediment to job growth today?" he replied, "The U.S. government." Business owners--those men and women who create jobs in America--know that the Obama Administration is the root cause of the stalled economy.

The American people are catching on. According to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 77 percent say the country is headed seriously off on the wrong track, and "Americans by a 2-1 margin, 34 percent to 17 percent, now say [the Obama] administration’s efforts have done more to harm rather than help the nation's economy." On Thursday, the nation will find out whether the President plans to continue the path he set two and a half years ago or finally change direction.

AT ATF, 200 MURDERS EARNS TRANSFERS TO DC

In the tradition of the Weaver family murders and the Waco inferno, ATF has now brought us “Fast and Furious” with the highest body count to date: approximately 200. At the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), that merits transfers for the four managers involved.

Fast and Furious was a project spawned at a multi-agency meeting in October of 2009 consisting of ATF, FBI, Border Patrol and Immigration, the IRS, Customs Enforcement and the Justice Department.

It began as an outgrowth of Operation Gunrunner, a typical sting operation begun in 2005 that targeted straw gun purchases. A legal buyer typically buys a gun after passing the Instant Background Check. But under Gunrunner, if something about the transaction was suspicious, ATF would surveil the purchaser until he sold the gun to a buyer who was not legally able to own a gun. At that point they would make an arrest.

But under Operation Fast and Furious, guns were, in fact, allowed to “walk” -- with no arrests being made. Most of the guns went to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, but some also turned up at Arizona crime scenes.

One straw buyer bought over 700 guns. Another was an FBI informant and a felon the ATF knew nothing about. He did not pop up in the background check because the FBI was fiddling with the system.

Fast and Furious was directed by the Phoenix ATF office, when William Newell was the Special Agent in Charge of that office. When Newell testified before Congress this summer -- “testilied” would be more accurate -- he mostly avoided giving direct answers.

An exasperated Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, exclaimed that he knew who Newell was: “A paid non-answerer.”

Committee member Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) asked if there had been any email exchanges between him and National Security Council member Kevin O’Reilly, who works in the White House. One of the few direct answers of the day was “Yes.”

Then Rep. Labrador asked Newell if there had been any discussion of Fast and Furious. Newell replied that “We never had any specific discussions of Fast and Furious.” Rep. Issa jumped in and said to Newell, “Answer that last question without the use of the word specific.” The answer then was, “Yes, we did discuss it sometimes.”

Newell committed perjury when he first denied that guns were allowed to walk, but then later was forced to admit that they had. Contempt of Congress, a criminal offense, could possibly result.

Another coconspirator in the Fast and Furious debacle was William McMahon, who was the Assistant Director of the Western Division. He and Newell both admitted to having made mistakes, but said they would do the same thing all over again.

It is quite disappointing to know that McMahon was assigned to the Office of Personal Responsibility -- the very office in charge of investigating Fast and Furious.

You might think that the transfers for Agents Newell and McMahon top the charts for bureaucratic chutzpah. But wait, there is more!

A third person worthy of a Washington reassignment is David Voth who was under Newell in the Phoenix office. Voth was part of the ATF team that allowed thousands of guns to “walk” into Mexico.

Last but not least, Acting Director Kenneth Melson has been transferred (read: demoted) to the Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy.

The failure of the President and the Attorney General to fire Melson and the other three officials who have been transferred to Washington means the Administration now owns the cover-up. Can you say Richard Milhouse Obama?

Ironically, the very folks who were responsible for committing various federal felonies -- involving illegal gun sales and exports -- are now the very ones telling lawful Americans, “You need more gun control!”

Specifically, ATF has told dealers in the four southwest border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to submit sales reports for anyone who, in five days or less, purchases multiple semi-auto rifles of a caliber higher than a .22.

That order itself is illegal. ATF is only permitted to require multiple sales reports for handguns. But investigators in the House of Representatives have found that email traffic within the ATF made it clear that the purpose of Fast and Furious was to put the blame for the Mexican carnage on gun stores and gun owners.

ATF clearly has no shame.

The DC headquarters of ATF, and some field offices such as the one in Phoenix, are led by criminally corrupt agents. They need to be put in jail.

Until Obama is no longer President, it is a no-brainer that Attorney General Holder, who has been complicit in this whole Fast and Furious debacle, will not order his own arrest. However, the House of Representatives could appoint an independent counsel and put him in the Office of the Sergeant at Arms, who heads up the Capitol Hill Police Force.

When the Sergeant at Arms develops a case dealing with crimes committed in the Capitol -- for example, perjury and obstruction of justice (resulting from the refusal to hand over documents and answer questions) -- the Capitol Hill Police Force could make arrests anywhere in Washington, D.C.

In addition, an Arizona prosecutor could seek indictments for people such as Newell, Voth and those above them -- charging them with aiding and abetting the murder of a federal agent. Following indictment, the accused could be extradited to Arizona.

When some Justice Department and ATF officials begin telecommuting from their suburban homes, we will know that the end is near.

There is a way. Hopefully there is a will.