Fast And Furious Revisited

Sharyl Attkisson had a story this morning on her Full Measure news show about Operation Fast and Furious and BATFE Senior Agent John Dodson. Since it isn't syndicated in all markets, I have embedded it below.

As I watched her interview with Agent Dodson, I was struck by a few things. First, Dodson is a brave and ethical man. He is still with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives despite all the crap thrown his way by his own agency. He has been transferred 11 times in the six years since he blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious. It is obvious that the powers that be in BATFE - who just happened to be in positions of power six years ago - want him gone. Dodson has gone into some detail about his experiences in his own book over the scandal.

Second, I am aghast that the Department of Justice under President Trump and AG Sessions has not seen fit to release all the documents sought by the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee. I have to hope that the reason the documents haven't been released is because the issue hasn't been brought before Sessions himself. If I remember it correctly, Jeff Sessions and his staff were some of the first people approached by the late Mike Vanderboegh regarding the gunwalking.

Third, the Deep State exists. There are still people in positions of power who are working tirelessly to retaliate against whistleblowers like John Dodson and to continue submerging the truth about Project Gunwalker aka Fast and Furious. Until these people are rooted out and dismissed, I doubt the full truth will ever be known.

Earlier this month, the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee released another report which dealt with the obstruction of Congress by the DOJ with regards to Operation Fast and Furious. The report concluded that there were failures (1) to provide answers to the Terry family, (2) there was a failure to objectively gather the facts, (3) there was a significant lack of respect for Congressional oversight, and (4) that former Attorney General Eric Holder's priorities were politics and spin.

Day Two Of Project Gunwalker At Lynch's Confirmation Hearings

The second day of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Loretta Lynch featured nine witnesses who touched upon a number of things. There were the "Loretta was a great US Attorney and I felt fortunate to work with her comments" from attorney David Barlow and former FBI Assistant Director in Charge Janice Fedaryck. There was the "Loretta comes from a good Baptist family" testimony by Rev. Dr. Clarence Newsome. There was the testimony from law professor Stephen Legomsky that said he was "the" expert on immigration law and Obama's actions on making illegal aliens legal was OK with him.

Then there was what I consider the meat of the day:  the witnesses who described just bad the Department of Justice has gotten, how it has screwed people over, and how it has looked the other way at the abuses of power by the White House. Catherine Englebrecht of True the Vote described how the dogs of war were unleashed on her when she filed applications for non-profit status for two organizations. These "dogs of war" include the IRS, OSHA, the FBI, and BATFE. Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee discussed how the Department of Justice under Eric Holder was actively hostile to local law enforcement. He discussed how Holder and DOJ made the situation in Ferguson, Missouri worse by inserting itself where it had no business. Professor Nicholas Rosenkranz of Georgetown and the Cato Institute spoke about the role of the Attorney General in providing legal advice to the President and how Eric Holder has failed in this regard.

Then there was the testimony of Sharyl Attkisson and Professor Jonathan Turley. They were the bookends, so to speak, as they began and ended the testimony for the day. Leading off was Ms. Attkisson who described how she had been targeted by the Justice Department for her factually accurate reporting on
Operation Fast and Furious (among other things).

When I reported on factual contradictions in the administration’s accounts regarding Fast and Furious, pushback included a frenzied campaign with White House officials trying to chill the reporting by calling and emailing my superiors and colleagues, and using surrogate bloggers to advance false claims. One White House official got so mad, he angrily cussed me out.

The Justice Department used its authority over building security to handpick reporters allowed to attend a Fast and Furious briefing, refusing to clear me into the public Justice Department building.

Advocates had to file a lawsuit to obtain public information about Fast and Furious improperly withheld under executive privilege. Documents recently released show emails in which taxpayer paid White House and Justice Department press officials complained that I was “out of control,” and vowed to call my bosses to try to stop my reporting.

Let me emphasize that my reporting was factually indisputable. Government officials weren’t angry because I was doing my job poorly. They were panicked because I was doing my job well.

While the testimony of Ms. Attkisson was damning, I think the testimony of Prof. Jonathan Turley of George Washington University was even more damning of the Justice Department under Eric Holder. Turley admitted he voted for Obama and supported many of the Administration's policies. Turley is a DC insider. He appears on Sunday morning talk shows, he writes op-eds, he goes to the insider cocktail parties, and he rubs elbows with the powers that be.

Turley submitted a 26-page written testimony accusing the Justice Department of being the architect of the effort to expand the power of the presidency beyond what was Constitutional. He says that they actively attempt to block legislative authority and Congressional oversight. The most egregious example of this, in Turley's opinion, and the one that best captures the obstruction of Congress in recent years is Operation Fast and Furious. Turley devotes seven pages of his testimony to it.

However, the controversy that best captures the obstruction of Congress in recent years is the response of the Obama Administration in the Fast and Furious investigation. The reason that Fast and Furious is particularly illustrative is for a couple of salient factors. First, no one (not even General Holder) defends the Fast and Furious operation, which proved as lethal as it was moronic. It is a prototypical example of a program that is legitimately a focus of congressional oversight authority. A federal agency was responsible for facilitating the acquisition of powerful weapons by criminal gangs, including weapons later used to kill United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Congress has investigated not only the “gunwalking” operation, but also what it saw as concealment and obstruction, by the Administration, in its efforts to investigate the operation. Second, Congress had ample reason to expand its investigation after the Justice Department sent a letter on February 4, 2011 stating categorically that no gunwalking had taken place. It was not until December 2011 that Attorney General Holder informed Congress that it had been given false information and the letter was formally withdrawn. Congress responded by expanding the investigation into the false information given to it by the Executive Branch and the months of delay before Congress was informed of the misrepresentation of the facts underlying Fast and Furious. Finally, the position of the Justice Department on withholding documents has, in my view, been facially invalid and lacking in any credible good-faith interpretation of the executive privilege.

Turley goes on to say that one of the most troubling aspects of the Justice Department's behavior has been its refusal to prosecute the House of Representative's contempt citation against Eric Holder.

One of the most troubling aspects of the Fast and Furious investigation was not just the withholding of non-privileged material but the later refusal of the Justice Department to submit the alleged violation to a grand jury— despite a historic vote of the House of Representatives finding General Holder in contempt. The decision to block any prosecution was a violation of a long-standing agreement between the branches and represents a serious affront to the institutional authority of this body.

He goes on to attack the Obama Administration's circular reasoning cited for withholding requested documents saying "I have had criminal defense clients who would only envy such an ability to cite the basis for a criminal charge as the defense to a criminal charge."

I don't think any of the testimony given in day two of the hearings will derail Ms. Lynch's confirmation as the next Attorney General. I really have no doubt that she will be confirmed. I see this testimony as more an airing of grievances and an attempt to put the Administration on notice that a Republican-majority Senate - unlike the Democratic-majority Senate run by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) - is watching them.

CBS News - Back In Good Graces With The White House?

There had been some hope for CBS News. They seemed to be the only one of the old Big Three networks that seemed willing to say anything negative about the Obama Administration. This was especially true in the reporting of investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson who won an Emmy for her reporting on Project Gunwalker.

Politico reported this afternoon that Attkisson and CBS News had parted ways.

CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson has reached an agreement to resign from CBS News ahead of contract, bringing an end to months of hard-fought negotiations, sources familiar with her departure told POLITICO on Monday.

Attkisson, who has been with CBS News for two decades, had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network’s liberal bias, an outsize influence by the network’s corporate partners and a lack of dedication to investigative reporting, several sources said. She increasingly felt that her work was no longer supported and that it was a struggle to get her reporting on air.

I imagine the foul-mouthed little fascists that run the White House Office of Communications as well as the flacks at the Justice Department are jumping up and down with joy over this development.  The fellow travelers in the newsroom at CBS News who cringed over Ms. Attkisson's objective reporting must be overjoyed that her dissonant voice is gone.

As for Ms. Attkisson, she will continue working on a book with the tenative title, Stonewalled: One Reporter’s Fight for Truth in Obama’s Washington.

A Missing Third Fast And Furious Rifle?

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News reports that the Department of Justice's Inspector General is looking into the existence of a three firearm found at the scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's murder.

In a new development in the Fast and Furious gunwalking case, the Justice Department's Inspector General (IG) is making inquiries into the possible existence of a missing third weapon in the 2010 murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, CBS News has learned. According to sources close to the investigation, the IG is questioning the Border Patrol’s evidence collection team this week in Tucson, Ariz.

The Justice Department, which oversees ATF and the FBI - and which is investigating Terry’s murder - has steadfastly denied the existence of a third gun. Court records have previously only mentioned two weapons: Romanian WASR AK-47 type rifles found at Terry’s southern Arizona murder scene on Dec. 14, 2010. Both weapons were sold to suspects who were under ATF's watch in the agency’s controversial gunwalking case. Also, a ballistics report only mentions the two WASR rifles and states that it's inconclusive as to whether either of them fired the bullet that killed Terry.

 The missing third rifle from the Fast and Furious murder scene is thought to be a SKS carbine which also shoots the 7.62x39 cartridge. Secret recordings made of meetings between ATF Agent Hope McAllister and Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company, referenced such a rifle.

In the audiotapes, ATF’s lead agent on Fast and Furious, Hope MacAllister, tells Howard that a third weapon recovered at the Terry murder scene is an SKS rifle. It's unclear why a weapon would be absent from the evidence disclosed at the crime scene under FBI jurisdiction. If it’s proven to exist, sources familiar with the investigation say it would imply possible evidence-tampering for unknown reasons.

DOJ denied its existence back in 2011 and neither the DOJ or the Inspector General's Office is willing to answer questions about this possible third murder weapon.

I'm glad to see that Sharyl Attkisson is keeping on the case and not letting it fade away as many in Washington seem willing to do.

The Third Event

Yesterday I said things happen in groups of three and wondered when we'd be hearing that CBS New Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson was targeted. Well, that didn't take long!

It was revealed in Politico today that her personal and work computers have been compromised and the incident is under investigation.

"I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I'm not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I've been patient and methodical about this matter," Attkisson told POLITICO on Tuesday. "I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public."

And when did she first notice this intrusion? It was in February 2011 which is when she began working on the Operation Fast and Furious story. According to her interview with WPHT Philadelphia, she was also working on a story about green energy spending by the Obama Administration.

I realize that correlation is not causation. However, it does seem very strange to me that right after Sharyl Attkisson starts work on a big story such as Project Gunwalker, her computers are compromised. When you add in the targeting of William LaJeunesse of Fox News, it gets even stranger.

You wonder if her post on CleanUpATF.org was the trigger or was it something more sinister such as the surveillance of bloggers Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea who passed the story on to her. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but the timing is too coincidental and the topic too sensitive for the Obama Administration.

UPDATE: In an article in Commentary Magazine, Jonathan Tobin calls the attack on the press a fundamental attack on democracy. He discusses both Sharyl and William LaJeunesse.

Happening In Threes

It is often said that things, especially bad things, happen in threes. I wonder if that will be true of disclosures about Project Gunwalker.

The first thing that happened is that the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Justice released a report saying that former US Attorney for the District of Arizona Dennis Burke had leaked a sensitive document to the press with the intention of undermining the credibility of ATF Senior Agent John Dodson. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) blasted this in a release earlier today.

The second thing that happened was the revelation that the Department of Justice targeted two FoxNews reporters and one producer. While much of the attention is about their targeting of Fox's Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen, what caught my attention was that they also targeted William LaJeunesse. You may remember that LaJeunesse was one of two mainstream reporters who reported extensively on Operation Fast and Furious.





I'm now wondering if we will soon find out that the DOJ was also targeting CBS's  Emmy-award winning Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. She not only was the lead mainstream reporter on Project Gunwalker but has also made the White House's shit list over her reporting on the Benghazi scandal.

You know I wouldn't be surprised given the Obama Administration.

Subtle Reminder From Sharyl Attkisson

The lead story on this morning's CBS Sunday Morning was a report by Sharyl Attkisson about bribes and corruption within the US Customs and Border Protection. Narco-terrorists and illegal immigrant smugglers have been targeting CBP agents in an effort to have them turn a blind eye to smuggling of both drugs and humans. Since 2004, there have been 358 convictions of Customs and Border Patrol employees and their associates for this. Of course this is an important story and I'm glad Sharyl is on it.

However, that is not what I want to discuss. Instead it is a rather subtle reminder - intentional or unintentional - that was embedded in the story about Project Gunwalker. Just before a graphic came up showing the DHS Office of Inspector General's report on the corruption convictions, the camera focused for approximately three seconds on the sign below.

Sharyl and her producers could have used any Border Patrol Station between Imperial Beach, California and Brownsville, Texas or any Ports-of-Entry from San Ysidro, California to Brownsville, Texas. Rather they chose the one Border Patrol Station that would remind observant viewers of Operation Fast and Furious. I can't believe this is just a coincidence.

As it is, the Brian A. Terry Border Patrol Station is a constant reminder that Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in the line of duty with firearms that were allowed to be smuggled to Mexico by the Department of Justice and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. It is also a reminder that while his killers have pled guilty to his murder, the Obama Administration is still sitting on thousands upon thousands of documents that may well point to complicity in the operation by those at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Finally, it is a reminder that BATFE managers such as former Phoenix FD SAC Bill Newell and his ASAC George Gillett still haven't been fired and/or indicted for their role in this affair.

Thank you Sharyl for this reminder lest we forget.

Well Deserved Honor

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News has won an Emmy for her reporting on Project Gunwalker. Given the hard work she did on this story as well as the risks to her career in reporting a story that the Obama Administration would have liked to stay hidden, it is a honor that is well-deserved. She won her Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast.

Request For DOJ IG To Investigate Zapata Murder

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News is reporting this afternoon that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have sent a letter to Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice Inspector General, requesting that he investigate the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata. The murder weapons used in Zapata's death have been traced to guns that ATF allowed to be walked.

According to the letter, ATF may have had probable cause to arrest two firearms dealers before they bought and trafficked a weapon used to murder Zapata, who was on assignment in Mexico. "Only after Agent Zapata was murdered...and one of the weapons was traced back" to suspect Otilio Osorio "did ATF finally arrest Otilio, his brother and a third suspect for their gun trafficking activity," reads the letter.

Congressional investigators say ATF had earlier witnessed the Osorio brothers in a Walmart parking lot providing 40 weapons with obliterated serial numbers to be trafficked to Mexico. It was what's known as a "controlled delivery," meaning law enforcement officials were monitoring the sale. In this case it was part of a joint investigation with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). But "ATF failed to confront the two individuals" leaving them to continue to allegedly traffic weapons, including one used in Zapata's killing, according to the letter.

The DOJ IG's office is said to be reviewing the request.

Sharyl Attkisson On The DOJ OIG Report

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News, one of the few journalists to take Project Gunwalker seriously, had a story this evening on the DOJ Inspector General's report. Her story notes that both former ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson and Assistant Deputy Attorney General Jason Weinstein disagreed with the findings of the report.

In all, the inspector general faults 18 officials from the Justice Department, to the U.S. Attorney's office on Arizona, on down to the Phoenix ATF agents who oversaw Fast and Furious.

The report says Holder was in essence let down by his deputies. Although he received numerous briefings on Fast and Furious, they didn't specifically mention gunwalking and Holder said doesn't recall reading them anyway.

Eggs, Caskets, Adoptions, Or Project Gunwalker?

Those are the four topics for the nominees in this year's Emmy Awards Outstanding Investigative Journalism in a Regularly Scheduled Broadcast category. Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News is one of the four nominees in this category for her series "Gunwalker: Fast and Furious".

I won't comment on the other stories except to say that Brian Ross of ABC always comes across as a little slimey.

Congratulations to Sharyl and her team for the nomination and to those who nominated her in the first place. It is well deserved. I do think a couple of names are missing, however, from her team: Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea.

OUTSTANDING INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM IN A REGULARLY SCHEDULED NEWSCAST

CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley CBS
Dover Mortuary Scandal
Executive Producer
Patricia Shevlin
Senior Producer
Ward Sloane
Producers
Kate Rydell, Mary Walsh
Anchor and Managing Editor
Scott Pelley
Correspondent
David Martin

CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley CBS
Gunwalker: Fast and Furious
Executive Producers
Rick Kaplan, Patricia Shevlin
Senior Producer
Bill Piersol
Producer
Christopher Scholl
Anchor and Managing Editor
Scott Pelley
Correspondent
Sharyl Attkinson

CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley CBS
Kansas City Adoption Scam
Executive Producer
Rick Kaplan
Senior Producer
Keith Summa
Producers
Pat Milton, Michael Rey
Correspondent
Armen Keteyian

Good Morning America/ABC World News with Diane Sawyer ABC
Mc Donald's Eggs
Chief Investigative Correspondent
Brian Ross
Chief of Investigative Projects
Rhonda Schwartz
Executive Producers
Jeanmarie Condon, Michael Corn
Producers
Cynthia Galli, Momtaz Rym
Field Producer
Angela Hill
Digital Managing Editor
Mark Schone
Digital Producer
Lee Ferran

Congratulations To Sharyl Attkisson

CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson and her team just won the 2012 Edward R. Murrow Award in the Video Investigative category. They won for their coverage of Operation Fast and Furious aka Project Gunwalker.

CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, producer Chris Scholl and editor Matt Tureck took home the prize for won for Gunwalker. In the gunwalker case, ATF agents say they were ordered to allow thousands of weapons to be sold to suspected suppliers for Mexico's drug cartels. The idea of letting so many guns "walk" onto the street was apparently to see where they would turn up and go after the major cartel kingpins instead of the smalltime weapons traffickers.

That wailing and gnashing of teeth you hear is coming from DOJ press flack Tracy Schmaler and White House Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz. They were the ones in the Obama Administration who tried to silence Sharyl through their bully tactics. Obviously, it didn't work and the judges at the Radio Television Digital News Association rewarded her for standing tall.

"I Think They Are Leaving My Son Behind" - Josephine Terry

That is the opinion of Brian Terry's mother, Josephine Terry. It was said in reference to her son's service as a Marine and the ethos that fallen Marine is ever left behind.

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News interviewed slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's parents yesterday in the wake of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing featuring Attorney General Eric Holder. They still have not been given answers and are planning to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the Federal government.

This episode that aired on this morning's The Early Show is very powerful as was Ms. Attkisson's interview with the parents of slain ICE Agent Jaime Zapata.

Sharyl Attkisson On "The Grilling" Of Holder

Sharyl Attkisson had a report on today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the CBS Evening News. Some of it is a repeat from earlier reports today.

However, the most touching part were statements from Brian Terry's father, Kent, who said that those involved should be prosecuted not only for his son's death but for "all the people murdered in Mexico." He's absolutely right. Unfortunately, I'm sure Holder and his minions will claim governmental immunity for their actions.

Holder Admits Letter Was "Inaccurate"

CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson reports on today's hearings in the video below. In it Attorney General Eric Holder admits the letter sent from the Department of Justice denying involvement in Operation Fast and Furious was "inaccurate". We average people out here in the hinterlands would call it a lie.

Jaime Zapata And The Smoking Gun

The thing that really struck me watching this report by CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson was the utter hypocrisy of Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano as they spoke at the funeral of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata's funeral in Texas. And we will be treated to more hypocrisy from Mr. Holder today as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Is The FBI Suppressing Evidence?

In a follow-up to this morning's Face The Nation interview of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) about Operation Fast and Furious, CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson reports that the committee will be asking for more information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Issa said this morning that the family of Agent Terry was told by agents attending his funeral that there were three firearms found at the murder scene.

Documents released to the committee only mentioned two weapons linked to Operation Fast and Furious. Issa wants to know more about the third weapon and what tests from it have shown. Recordings from conversations between ATF Agent Hope McAllister and the owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company seem to indicate there was a third firearm and that it was an SKS.

Issa On Face The Nation

If you missed seeing Rep. Darrell Issa and CBS Investigative Reporter Sharyl Attkisson on CBS's Face The Nation this morning, here it is courtesy of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's YouTube page.



One of the key things that Issa said was that the Committee's subpoenas to the Department of Justice were narrowly focused. He goes on to say that in many cases they already have e-mails and memos provided to them by whistle-blowers but want the original documents from the Department of Justice and/or White House to confirm their authenticity. This goes along with what Dave Hardy wrote earlier this week about the subpoena in Of Arms and The Law.

I was happy to see that CBS featured Project Gunwalker on their Sunday news show Face The Nation. While I would have wanted more questions asked (and answered), the mere fact that it was on this program underscores its growing importance in Washington. We in the blogosphere and in the gun rights community have always recognized this but having it shown on one of the premier mainstream media programs confirms it to the general public.

Bill O'Reilly Interview With Sharyl Attkisson

To get a broader context of Eric Schultz's rude, crude, and unacceptable behavior towards Ms. Attkisson, I think it is important to read the assessment of it by Keith Koffler in the White House Dossier blog. I mentioned this earlier today as it seems such behavior is not only common from the White House but is a practiced tactic used to bully reporters.

Rude Behavior By Press Flacks Towards Sharyl Attkisson Is Standard Tactic In Obama Admin

The rude, crude, and unattractive behavior exhibited by DOJ press flack Tracy Schmaler and White House Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz towards CBS News Investigative Reporter Sharyl Attkisson is part of a conscious effort on the part of the Obama Administration to bully reporters over their stories. This according to a blog post by Keith Koffler of the White House Dossier blog. Koffler has covered the White House since 1997 and is the White House correspondent for Roll Call.

Koffler says the bullying tactics used against reporters are part of the Obama Administration's standard repetoire of tactics used to get them to spike negative stories.

Such tactics as this were rare in both the Clinton and Bush White Houses.

These Obama flacks are not just reacting with visceral anger to the story. They are specifically trained and encouraged to do this. Most of them are actually quite nice to be around when they’re not in Kill the Story Mode.

As Koffler notes, this tactic amounts to a suppression of free speech by this administration. He has written more extensively about it here.

Moreover, Koffler says it amounts to an admission on the part of the Obama Administration that the reporting on Operation Fast and Furious and Project Gunwalker "has legs." Of course, any reader of this blog or Mike Vanderboegh's Sipsey Street Irregulars or David Codrea's National Gun Rights Examiner column knows that. Still he has some good advice for Sheryl:

If Ms. Attkisson understands it’s nothing more than a tool being used against her, it shouldn’t affect her.

Except in that she should understand there’s a good reason they’re doing it: she’s onto something big. The higher the volume of the screaming and the more sickening the language, the closer she’s getting.

As to the immature twits running press operations in this administration, frankly they need their mouths washed out with soap and should be sent to their rooms without dinner. It goes without saying that they shouldn't be allowed their Blackberries or Xbox 360s either.