In the last couple of weeks my cigar company has had a hell of a time trying to find a credit card processing company that’ll do recurring revenue charges for my customers who’d like to get an automated, monthly dose of one of the finest cigars on this planet, our Safari Cigar.
As my team and I were going back and forth trying to find a company to handle our transactions, I started redlining, getting a wee bit pissed, about how ridiculous it has become to do trade.
My business boys tried to calm me down by telling me it was normative now for banks to crap on our enterprise, given that cigars have been deemed a “high risk” business. Their explanation and well-meaning solace made me even more annoyed, causing me to yell, “What is this, Russia?” And then I said, “No … it can’t be Russia because Russia wouldn’t do stupid, PC junk like this.”
Fast forward to this past Wednesday when my publicist called me and said Newsmax TV wanted me on to talk about “Operation Choke Point” with JD Hayworth and Miranda Khan on their show, America’s Forum.
Having a new book to plug, of course I said, “Yes” even though, and I hate to admit it, I had no clue what Operation Choke Point (OCP) was. I thought it was some kind of organized rescue effort to try to save Rosie O’Donnell if she ever started gagging on nachos again during a lesbian cruise to Nassau. So, I googled OCP and, low and behold, did I find a little treasure trove of backdoor control that has come to characterize BHO and his boys’ modus operandi for the last six years.
Essentially, Operation Choke Point, launched in 2013 in partnership with the DOJ, is a program that makes a financial institution’s life a living hell, with insane audits and investigations, if they provide services to clients who are a part of an “offensive industry” that is rife with “fraudulent activities.”
Sounds good and noble on the surface, eh?
So, I started to dig a around a bit to see what they deem “offensive” because it’s always interesting in Obamaland to see what they brand as bellicose.
Offensive businesses, according to OCP, are porn sites and prostitution. Also, included were online gaming, Ponzi schemes, payday loans, bogus MLM sites, and check cashing stores.
Okay, I can see how those are gross, some illegal, but I really don’t know that they demand an “Operation” to quell them.
Continuing on, I started running into offensive things like fireworks, as in firecrackers. And I’m like … huh? Fireworks? Really?
And then it started getting really good, as I saw in my ham-fisted online research that OCP also targets banks that work with online gun and ammo sales and tobacco.
Yahtzee.
There it was … buried deep in the dastardly heap of porn, pirate hookers and bottle rockets are the nefarious, oh-so-offensive, guns and cigars. It took awhile, but I found ‘em.
Lets see: firearms and cigars are a “high risk” and an “offensive industry?” To whom? Mary Poppins? Not to the millions that own and use both.
Also, someone help me here, since when did gun and ammo sales become fraud laden? That industry is more regulated than Bill is when Hillary’s in town and in one of her “moods”; and yet, the DOJ is going to lump them in with porn and Ponzi schemes and threaten banks with unannounced audits? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
According to Alden Abbott of Heritage.org- "The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for firearms and ammunitions manufacturers, said that several of its members have had banking relationships wrongfully terminated as a result of Operation Choke Point. The group argues the federal government is discriminating against businesses simply because they are engaged in the lawful commerce of firearms."
And cigars? Cigars? Cigar companies are “filled with such widespread deception” that they demand being squeezed out of existence with a special-op via the DOJ? I bet George Burns, JFK and Winston Churchill are spinning in their respective graves so fast they could light up all of Vegas. Pardon me, but my BS detector is pinging on that claim.
Here’s what it boils down to with me and my little cigar company, my love of guns and this thing called freedom: Obama and his ilk’s freakish control fetishes have failed so miserably in the last few years that they have resorted to bullying banks to punish people they’ve deemed enemies and make it impossible for legitimate businesses to operate. That’s what you call a “fundamental transformation” of America. I don’t know how a gun owner or a cigar lover can still support such liberty-abusing louts like Obama and his clowns.
For more on Operation Choke Point go to: StopTheChoke.com
BTW, we don’t have the recurring rev feature up and running yet, but you may still purchase our amazing smokes online via SafariCigar.com.
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