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    Second Amendment .... Perverted

    A "Fast and Furious" Plan ....

    See http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-inf...leads-way.html


    Blood On Their Hands: Giving Guns to Criminals Was the Plan All Along
    6/15/2011 | Katie Pavlich

    “Allowing loads of weapons
    that we knew to be destined for criminals,
    this was the plan.
    It was so mandated.”


    –Special Agent John Dodson ATF Phoenix Field Division.
    Damning new evidence from Capitol Hill shows that ATF Directors and Justice Department Officials knew about and encouraged the purposeful trafficking of thousands of weapons across the southern border, despite strong objections from ATF agents. Thousands of innocent lives were taken as the result, including those of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE Agent Jamie Zapata.

    New emails released by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa show that ATF Director Kenneth Melson was briefed weekly about Operation Fast and Furious and watched a live feed of straw purchasers (who serve as middle men, purchasing guns and giving them to cartel members) in Arizona gun shops from his cozy Washington D.C. office. Emails also show that Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations William McMahon was enthusiastic about the operation.

    “An e-mail from April 12, 2010, indicates that Acting Director Melson was very much in the weeds with Operation Fast and Furious. After a detailed briefing of the program by the ATF Phoenix Field Division, Acting Director Melson had a plethora of follow-up questions that required additional research to answer. As the document indicates, Mr. Melson was interested in the IP Address for hidden cameras located inside cooperating gun shops. With this information, Acting Director Melson was able to sit at his desk in Washington and – himself – watch a live feed of the straw buyers entering the gun stores to purchase dozens of AK-47 variants,” Chairman Issa said in his opening statement.

    Senator Charles Grassley, who has been working closely with Rep. Issa, pointed out that officials from the Justice Department have been stonewalling the investigation for months. Attorney General Eric Holder has said he is unaware of who ordered the operation.

    “On October 26, 2009, emails indicate that there was a meeting of senior law enforcement officials at the Justice Department. It appears to have included the heads every law enforcement component of the Department, including directors of the FBI, the DEA and the ATF. It also included the U.S. Attorneys for all the Southwest border states, the Director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and the Chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee,” Grassley testified.

    Emails also show that ATF encouraged gun dealers to sell to straw buyers, in spite of their own hesitance to do so.

    "ATF encouraged gun dealers to sell to straw buyers. Emails prove that at least one dealer worried prophetically about the risk. He [a dealer] wrote to ATF about his concern that a border patrol agent might end up facing the wrong end of one of these guns. ATF supervisors told the dealer not to worry. So, the agents said it was a bad idea. And, the gun dealers said it was a bad idea, but ATF supervisors continued anyway", Grassley said.

    Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was that agent. He was killed by cartel member 18 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border near Rio Rico, Ariz. Agent Terry was a fighter-a former Marine who was willing to put everything he had, including his life, on the line for his country. He was dedicated to his job, his family and the United States.

    “It was just ten days before Christmas last year, when our family received the devastating news; Brian had been shot and killed while engaged in a firefight with a group of individuals seeking to do harm to Americans citizens and others,” said Robert Heyer, the cousin of Terry, testifying on behalf of the entire Terry family. “Brian did ultimately come home that Christmas; we buried him not far from the house that he was raised in just prior to Christmas day. The gifts that Brian had picked out with such thought and care began to arrive in the mail that same week. With each delivery, we felt the indescribable pain of Brian’s death, but at the same time also remembered his amazing love and spirit.”

    ICE Agent Jamie Zapata was killed in Mexico in February 2011 while on assignment. He was killed by a gun traced back to Operation Fast and Furious, however, Zapata’s family will never see justice. Once guns flow back into Mexico, they are no longer within the jurisdiction of the United States, leaving the government without any authority to prosecute anyone for any crime.

    Three Special ATF Agents gave additional incriminating testimony. ATF Agent Dodson, one of the first whistleblowers to come out publicly against Operation Fast and Furious, provided details about the failed operation.

    “I was involved in this operation, we monitored as they purchased hand guns, AK-47 variants, and .50 caliber rifles almost daily. Rather than contradict any enforcement actions, we took notes, we recorded observations, we tracked movements of these individuals for a short time after their purchases, but nothing more. Knowing all the while, just days after these purchases, the guns that we saw these individuals buy would begin turning up at crime scenes in the United States and Mexico, we still did nothing,” Dodson said. “Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals, this was the plan. It was so mandated.”

    And there still isn’t an explanation as to why.

    “Allowing firearms to be trafficked to criminals is a dangerous and deadly strategy. The thought that the techniques used in the “Fast and Furious” investigation would result in “taking down a cartel” given the toothless nature of the “straw purchasing law” and the lack of a “firearms trafficking statute” is, in my opinion, delusional,” Special Agent Peter Forcelli said. “This operation, which in my opinion endangered the American public, was orchestrated in conjunction with Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley. [Emory Hurley is the same Assistant U.S. Attorney who previously prevented agents from using some of the common and accepted law enforcement techniques that are employed elsewhere in the United States to investigate and prosecute gun crimes.] I have read documents that indicate that his boss, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, also agreed with the direction of the case.”

    There is no way to prosecute drug cartels in Mexico even if firearms trafficking had been successful in locating them. They are not within United States jurisdiction.

    “I can’t think of a single, logical strategy as to why this would have worked,” Forcelli said. “This was a catastrophic disaster.”

    According to testimony, it has become common practice for retaliation to occur against ATF Agents who spoke out against their supervisor's corruption, even when operations had no logical backing.

    Forcelli also added that while the ATF was ordering gun dealers to sell to straw buyers under surveillance, gun dealers were taking the heat for it, and being held responsible for violence in Mexico. He stressed gun dealers were not the problem. In fact gun dealers were helpful in pursuing cases against cartel members, making it blatantly clear law abiding gun owners are not at fault, but the government is.

    Issa said he will continue to investigate in order to find the truth and get to the bottom of the operatation. The government owes the truth to the American people and to the family of Brian Terry and Jamie Zapata, he explained. “There has now become a focus on getting the truth out.”

    http://townhall.com/columnists/katie...plan_all_along
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    Document drop: More Project Gunrunner fit hits the shan
    By Michelle Malkin • June 15, 2011 11:24 AM

    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/06/15...hits-the-shan/

    I’ve been keeping you abreast of all the Obama administration’s Project Gunrunner stonewalling since March (links/chronology below). Today, vigilant GOP House Oversight and Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa is holding another hearing to pressure Team Obama for the whole truth. On Monday, Issa and GOP watchdogs spotlighted DOJ obstructionism (Sipsey Street Irregulars has a rundown here http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogsp...ocess-one.html )

    More fit is hitting the shan. And in one of those rare confluences, other MSM outlets have joined CBS News in exposing the story.

    First, new documents. Just in from Issa’s office:

    Moments ago in his opening statement at today’s hearing, Operation Fast and Furious: Reckless Decisions, Tragic Outcomes, Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) released three e-mails detailing the intimate involvement of ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson and Acting Deputy Director Bill Hoover in Operation Fast and Furious:

    * The first e-mail from March 10, 2010, to Operation Fast and Furious Group VII Leader David Voth indicates that the two most senior leaders in ATF, Acting Director Kenneth Melson, and Deputy Director Billy Hoover, were “being briefed weekly on” Operation Fast and Furious. The document shows that both Melson and Hoover were “keenly interested in case updates.”
    * A second e-mail from March 12, 2010, shows that Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations William McMahon was so excited about Fast and Furious that he received a special briefing on the program in Phoenix – scheduled for a mere 45 minutes after his plane landed.
    * A third – and perhaps the most disturbing – e-mail from April 12, 2010, indicates that Acting Director Melson was very much in the weeds with Operation Fast and Furious. After a detailed briefing of the program by the ATF Phoenix Field Division, Acting Director Melson had a plethora of follow-up questions that required additional research to answer. As the document indicates, Mr. Melson was interested in the IP Address for hidden cameras located inside cooperating gun shops. With this information, Acting Director Melson was able to sit at his desk in Washington and – himself – watch a live feed of the straw buyers entering the gun stores to purchase dozens of AK-47 variants.
    Here are the e-mails:




    The LA Times covers the outrage of federal ATF agents rebuffed by their superiors over the fatal consequences of the program: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,4428106.story

    Federal gun agents in Arizona — convinced that “someone was going to die” when their agency allowed weapons sales to suspected Mexican drug traffickers — made anguished pleas to be permitted to make arrests but were rebuffed, according to a new congressional report on the controversial law enforcement probe.

    Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told congressional investigators that there was “a state of panic” that the guns used in the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in January and two U.S. agents in Mexico a month later might have been sold under the U.S. surveillance operation.

    “I used the word anxiety. The term I used amongst my peers is pucker factor,” Larry Alt, special agent with ATF’s Phoenix field division, told investigators preparing a joint staff report for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The report will be released Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

    Neither of those shootings was ultimately linked to the “Fast and Furious” probe, though two weapons sold to a suspect under surveillance were found at the scene of the fatal shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near Nogales, Ariz., in December.

    Terry’s family will be among the key witnesses at an oversight committee hearing Wednesday on the ATF operation, under which the bureau allowed purchases of high-powered weapons in an attempt to track their progress into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. According to the report and numerous interviews with The Times, several ATF agents regarded the operation as dangerous and misguided…

    At the Examiner, Dave Workman provides needed context and background on the Dems’ wagon-circling on Gunrunner. http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-i...gun-ban-agenda

    They can run, but they can’t hide.



    Previous:

    March 30 Project Gunrunner: Obama’s Stimulus-Funded Border Nightmare
    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/03/30...der-nightmare/

    April 1 Stop ATF’s anti-gun zealots
    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/04/01...i-gun-zealots/

    April 1 Project Gunrunner update: Issa subpoenas the stonewallers
    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/04/01...-stonewallers/

    April 19 Project Gunrunner update: ATF ignored warnings, DOJ ignores document requests
    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/04/19...ment-requests/

    April 20 Project Gunrunner document drop: Issa blasts DOJ stonewalling, threatens contempt proceedings
    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/04/20...t-proceedings/

    May 4 Project Gunrunner update: The fit hits the shan
    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/05/04...hits-the-shan/
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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    Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee Elijah Cummings is blaming the Second Amendment and repeating lies about how Mexican drug cartels obtain weapons to carry out lethal operations. The majority of weapons in Mexico come from Russia, Central America and China, not the United States, however, democrats and the Justice Department have been using law abiding gun shop owners as a scape goat, blaming them for the violence in Mexico since early 2009. http://townhall.com/tipsheet/chrisfi...control_agenda

    However, new information obtained by Chairman Darrell Issa, shows is ATF responsible for violence in Mexico and the United States, not the Second Amendment and not law abiding Americans. It seems as though democrats will use this opportunity of gross government failure to push more gun control.

    From Cummings opening statement:

    No legitimate examination of this issue will be complete without analyzing our nation’s gun laws, which allow tens of thousands of assault weapons to flood into Mexico from the United States every year, including fifty caliber sniper rifles, multiple AK variants, and scores of others. When Mexican President Calderon addressed Congress in May, he pleaded for us to stop fueling a full-scale drug war with military grade assault weapons.
    This statement is false. Tens of thousands of assault weapons do not flood into Mexico each year from the United States. This has accusation has been discredited over and over again through studies and even through WikiLeaks. The only flooding of weapons across the southern border is occuring at the hands of the U.S. government. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...ation-sure-to/

    -- Agents expected to interdict weapons, yet were told to stand down and “just surveil.” Agents therefore did not act. They watched straw purchasers buy hundreds of weapons illegally and transfer those weapons to unknown third parties and stash houses.

    -- ATF agents complained about the strategy of allowing guns to walk in Operation Fast and Furious. Leadership ignored their concerns. Instead, supervisors told the agents to “get with the program” because senior ATF officials had sanctioned the operation.

    -- Agents knew that given the large numbers of weapons being trafficked to Mexico, tragic results were a near certainty.

    -- Operation Fast and Furious contributed to the increasing violence and deaths in Mexico. This result was regarded with giddy optimism by ATF supervisors hoping that guns recovered at crime scenes in Mexico would provide the nexus to straw purchasers in Phoenix.

    The family of Border Partrol Agent Brian Terry will testify today on Capitol Hill. Terry was killed in the Arizona desert by a gun traced back to ATF's lethal operation.


    http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepa...urious_hearing



    After months of stonewalling from the Obama Justice Department, a new scathing and damning report about Operation Fast and Furious has been released, and the initial details are ugly.
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    Whispers of A Dark Ulterior Motive In Operation Fast and Furious Getting Louder
    June, 20, 2011 — nicedeb

    http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2011/06...etting-louder/

    The very idea that any administration in this country, even the Obama administration could be this reckless – this corrupt- this cold blooded in its drive to further an unpopular agenda is almost unthinkable. I finally dared hint last week that something dark and nefarious must be behind this insane, irrational operation – nobody can be this incompetent: Video: Issa’s Opening Statement at Today’s Operation Fast and Furious Hearing + More http://nicedeb.wordpress.com/2011/06...rious-hearing/

    This whole debacle begs the question: How could top officials at the DOJ have been this criminally, insanely, impossibly incompetent?

    In the past, the Obama Administration and the Department of Homeland Security had implied that the violence in Mexico was the fault of the Second Amendment — law abiding gun shop owners who sold to cartel members.

    This whole thing stinks to high heaven and heads should roll.

    The higher up – the better.

    It is increasingly looking like the Obama administration decided that in pursuit of its omelet – anti-gun legislation, it would have to “break a few eggs”, like border patrol agent, Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata . http://minx.cc/?post=317734


    Thank God for whistleblowers like ATF agent John Dodson because had he not blown the whistle on this travesty, the American people, would never have learned of it. http://tucsoncitizen.com/view-from-b...w-enforcement/

    Heads are beginning to roll, as Andy from AoSHQ reports: http://minx.cc/?post=317749

    There’s a report in the weekend Wall Street Journal suggesting that ATF head Kenneth Melson is about to take the fall for Operation Fast and Furious a/k/a Gunwalker.

    The Justice Department is expected to oust the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to people familiar with the matter, amid a troubled federal antitrafficking operation that has grown into the agency’s biggest scandal in nearly two decades.Moves toward the replacement of Kenneth Melson, acting ATF director since April 2009, could begin next week, although the precise sequence of events remains to be decided, these people said.

    There’s a report in the weekend Wall Street Journal suggesting that ATF head Kenneth Melson is about to take the fall for Operation Fast and Furious a/k/a Gunwalker. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...631543738.html

    The Justice Department is expected to oust the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to people familiar with the matter, amid a troubled federal antitrafficking operation that has grown into the agency’s biggest scandal in nearly two decades.Moves toward the replacement of Kenneth Melson, acting ATF director since April 2009, could begin next week, although the precise sequence of events remains to be decided, these people said.

    Instapundit is deeply suspicious of the motivations behind what some are calling a scandal “worse than Iran-Contra.” http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-def...n-iran-contra/

    Bonus quote: http://townhall.com/columnists/katie...plan_all_along
    “Allowing loads of weapons that we knew to be destined for criminals, this was the plan. It was so mandated.” –Special Agent John Dodson ATF Phoenix Field Division. I retain my suspicions about the connection between a secret ATF operation that allowed thousands of weapons to go from U.S. gunshops to Mexican crime scenes, and a public gun-control campaign by the Obama Administration that stressed the need to limit gun sales in the United States because weapons from U.S. gun shops were turning up at Mexican crime scenes.

    Call me cynical, but this is an awfully convenient juxtaposition.

    Andy at AoSHQ created a helpful timeline of relevant events throughout this scandal: http://minx.cc/?post=317749

    January 20, 2009: A hard-core, idealogical leftist becomes President. Gun control is right up there with high taxes and abortion-on-demand as a sacrament of the left, but the prospects for enacting gun control legislation look bleak due to a shift in public mood and the 2008 Heller decision along with a pesky lack of carnage from widespread adoption of shall-issue concealed carry laws and the 2004 expiration of the assault weapons ban.

    March 26, 2009: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claims on a flight to Mexico City that 90% of the firearms used by drug cartels in Mexico come from the U.S. After layers of rigorous fact-checking, the MBM repeated the claim For example, USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...xicoguns_N.htm

    On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano visit Mexico to discuss ways to stop the smuggling of American weapons, which Mexico says account for 90% of confiscated arms here. The meeting is part of an urgent American effort to aid Mexico as it fights a bloody war against drug cartels.

    April 2009: The 90% claim is almost immediately debunked

    And lest some liberal scream Faux News!!11!, the 90% stat has been so widely debunked that even the liberal FactCheck.org can’t spin it.*
    http://www.factcheck.org/politics/co...icos_guns.html

    Fall 2009: Operation Fast and Furious begins.

    November 2010: The body of kidnapped Mexican attorney Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez is discovered in a shallow grave. It is now reported that he was killed with guns allowed to be smuggled under Operation Fast and Furious. http://www.foxnews.mobi/sr=1/dd=1/ms...175&pageNum=-1

    December 14, 2010: Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is shot with an AK-47 allowed to be smuggled to Mexico under this operation. He died the following day. http://www.odmp.org/officer/20596-bo...-brian-a-terry

    The ATF Head’s ouster should only be the beginning. Issa says “Holder absolutely knew” about this operation earlier than he testified:
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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    Fr: Christian Science Monitor:

    But even if the Senate were to vote Traver down, the White House doesn’t necessarily lose, says Mr. Kopel at the Independence Institute. Traver’s nomination by itself is a “way to improve [Obama's] standing” among campaign donors who strongly favor gun control, he says.

    http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice...ealot/(page)/2

    ----


    AP Rips Obama For Not Acting on ‘Gun Safety’ (i.e., ‘Gun Control’), While Nearly Ignoring DOJ/ATF Scandal

    Holder’s refusal to cooperate is true to the administration’s “Gangster Government” instincts (Michael Barone first coined the term in May 2009 in the wake of the Obama administration’s orchestrated short-circuiting of the legal rights of many of Chrysler’s secured creditors; the name grows more apt with virtually each passing day).

    A total non-shock is the fact that Fast and Furious aka “Gunwalker” aka “Gun Runner” was barely news in the national establishment press until about 10 days ago; a Google News search at 9:30 p.m. on ["Eric Holder" ATF] (typed exactly as indicated between brackets; sorted by date) returned 112 items from the past 30 days. 85 of them are older than June 12, and of the 27 older items, a half-dozen at most are from national mainstream sources. One of them, from the Hill on May 25, reports that “Attorney General Eric Holder has denied knowing of Gun Runner.” If so, why is he stonewalling?

    The Associated Press conveniently kept Eric Holder’s name out of the single story (“ATF agents:
    Border weapons operation a disaster” on June 15) it appears to have done on the scandal.

    Apparently, the wire service’s reporters have been too busy trying to cook up sympathy for gun control in other, less lethal ways to stick with a story which, if it had surfaced during the Bush administration, would likely have been called “the next Iran-Contra” and dominated the headlines for weeks.

    Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blu...#ixzz1Pv1lsMOZ

    There was recently a pharmacy robbery in New York. The robber came in armed and wanted prescription drugs. In the process of robbing the store he murdered everyone in it, I believe it was 4 people.
    Thank goodness that NY has very restrictive ownership restrictions on handguns, and even more restrictions on carrying for personal protection. There’s no telling how many of those 4 victims could have hurt someone if they’d had a gun with them.
    If not for these restrictive gun laws, armed robbers in NY would have to select their targets more carefully.


    Remind me again, what type of weapons have the IRS armed themselves with?
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    Reminder: Another zealot waiting in ATF wings
    By Michelle Malkin • June 21, 2011 10:52 AM


    Thanks to vigilant pressure from 2nd amendment bloggers and House GOP Oversight and Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa, the White House is set to throw acting ATF director Kenneth Melson under the bus over the Project Gunrunner/ Fast and Furious scandal (all background links below). Internal documents released this week show he was intimately involved in overseeing the program and screened undercover vid of thousands of straw purchases of AK-47s and other high-powered rifles — some of which ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartel thugs, including those who murdered Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

    Getting rid of Melson is a start — but this one move alone ain’t gonna cure ATF’s problems. It’s going to take a bigger bus. Corruptocrat AG Eric Holder knew about the program much earlier than he testified to, Rep. Issa says, and he has been an obstruction to the Gunrunner probe since day one.
    And then there’s the man waiting in the wings to replace Melson — either as acting director or as permanent director. He’s Chicago anti-gun radical Andrew Traver and he’s scheduled to meet with Holder and DOJ today.

    I told you all about Traver in April when only a few were paying attention and I’m reprinting my column in full to bring you back up to speed. See also David Codrea’s FOIA on Gunrunner from April for Traver’s fingerprints.

    ***

    Stop ATF’s anti-gun zealots
    by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate April 1, 2011


    For 30 years, Chicago banned handguns. The crime rate skyrocketed. Murders soared. Gangs blossomed. Desperate city officials even considered calling the National Guard to combat the out-of-control violence that all the “community organizing” in the world couldn’t curb. The Supreme Court struck down Chicago’s individual firearms ownership prohibition last year, but the same anti-gun zealots who put Windy City citizens’ lives at risk remain in power.

    And now one of them may soon be in charge of the scandal-plagued Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

    Meet Andrew Traver. He’s President Obama’s nominee to head ATF. The Senate Judiciary Committee refused to act on the original nomination last fall. His name was sent up again earlier this year, and a hearing has yet to be scheduled. Obama’s czar-happy habits should be a red flag on a possible recess appointment.

    Traver has spent two decades in the Chicago ATF office bureaucracy. The White House touts his record as a Navy vet and crime-fighter. But it’s his anti-gun advocacy that won him Chicago crony backing in the Beltway. Liberal Republican Sen. Mark Kirk and rabid leftist Sen. Dick Durbin both support their home state bureaucrat. Grassroots Second Amendment groups across the country (not to mention rank-and-file ATF agents) have raised their voices in opposition.

    Traver allied with the progressive Joyce Foundation to lobby for tighter federal restrictions of Second Amendment freedoms. He supports curtailing access to ATF databases and opposes privacy protections for gun-owners. He has also compared automatic black-market weapons to legal semi-automatic assault weapons.

    As the National Rifle Association points out, Traver misled the public in a fear-mongering appearance on a Chicago NBC affiliate TV news show. In the interview, he hyped “the growing frequency of gang members and drug dealers using heavy caliber military-type weapons” and described them as if they were machine guns: “Pull the trigger and you can mow people down.” Traver and his agents “provided the reporter with a fully automatic AK-47, with which she was unable to hit the target,” the NRA reported. “He then said that stray bullets are ‘one of the main problems with having stuff like this available to the gangs.’”

    Except for the fact, contradicting the implication of the NBC scare story and Traver’s rhetoric, that fully automatic firearms are not available for sale through normal retail outlets. But the truth wouldn’t have made for a story as sensationalized and swaggering as the one Traver helped concoct.

    Instead of focusing on criminals, the bureaucracy-expanding ATF suits and their left-leaning, anti-gun benefactors target law-abiding gun dealers and shop owners. Far easier to shoot fish in a barrel than reptiles slithering in the dark.

    Second Amendment activist Mike Vanderboegh, who helped expose the ATF’s emerging Project Gunrunner scandal (in which botched sting operations have allowed straw purchasers monitored by the feds to walk untold thousands of guns across the southern border), says Traver is known to be a “managerial bad apple in ATF circles.” He rose through the agency hierarchy, “all the while making friends of notorious Illinois anti-firearm rights politicians of both parties. He has had personal friendly contact with Barack Obama and Hizzoner, the King of Chicago Richard Daley. He has worked with the virulently anti-firearm Joyce Foundation … putting his efforts and his name to a report which calls for more firearm bans and regulations that amount to the gutting of the Second Amendment.”

    NRA’s Chris Cox summed up the nomination bluntly: “You might as well put an arsonist in charge of the fire department.”

    Traver’s pending nomination hearing comes as Republican watchdogs Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa turn up the heat on the Obama administration’s stonewallers over Project Gunrunner. The State Department, Justice Department and ATF have failed to produce documents in a timely manner on a bloody initiative that has been tied to the deaths of at least two American law enforcement officials. Traver would be another go-along, get-along Chicago cog in the machine. Americans need someone who’ll strip the whitewash, not second-coat it.

    http://michellemalkin.com/2011/06/21...-in-atf-wings/
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    Predictable, really
    Posted by: Phineas on June 22, 2011 at 2:18 pm


    The marketing divisions of the Democratic Party, aka The New York Times and The Washington Post, have launched a vigorous defense of the Obama administration in the wake of scandalous revelations about Operation Fast and Furious (“Gunwalker”) by launching a smear campaign against Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the committee investigating this fiasco. Patrick Richardson at PJM’s Tatler blog has the story: http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/...had-to-happen/

    Issa of course has been holding hearings on the fiasco that was Operation Fast and Furious, where the ATF allowed thousands of guns across the border into the hands of the drug cartels, weapons which then began showing up at crime scenes, including the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

    The NYT is continuing to tell the lie that most of the weapons which end up in Mexico came from the U.S. They also show their complete ignorance when they say the weapons sold were military rifles. They were not. Whatever the semiautomatic rifles sold may look like, they are not true assault rifles. They do not have a selective fire capability, meaning they cannot fire full auto, as military rifles will. The NYT is merely using these hearings in order to push for the re-enactment of the so-called assault weapons ban while doing the administration’s dirty work.

    The WaPo is perhaps more thoughtful in their attack, attempting to look like real reporting. Using anonymous sources to take potshots at Issa, claiming he was briefed in on the operation last year.
    Let’s keep in mind that not only have two US federal agents been killed by guns that were allowed to “walk” over the border with the full knowledge of the ATF, but at least 150 Mexican soldiers, federal agents, and civilians. And Mexico is an ally.

    If they were real newspapers truly concerned with the pursuit of the truth, the Times and the Post would be demanding to who knew what when and who gave the okays. They’d be digging into the serious foreign policy implications for the United States (1), and they’d be giving wall-to-wall coverage of the grotesque human tragedy caused by gunwalker — on American orders — something Representative Issa has described as “felony stupid;” an understatement if there ever was one.


    But that would only happen if there were an (R) after the president’s name.


    Real newspapers are mostly gone, at least at the national level. (2) Now, instead, we have PR flacks disguised as newspapers trying desperately to distract us from a trail that seems to lead directly to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, if not to the Oval Office itself.

    Heckuva job, guys!

    Footnotes:

    (1) Supplying weapons to groups that threaten to destabilize a foreign state. Y’know, those little things we used to call “acts of war.”

    (2) One exception is the Washington Examiner, which has a great lineup of journalists and analysts. Among the legacy media, CBS deserves real credit for following “Operation Fast and Furious” almost since the story first broke.

    http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...ctable-really/


    where is the outrage??
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    Gunwalker: ATF head to tell all?
    Posted by: Phineas on June 28, 2011 at 2:01 pm


    Well, this could get very interesting. Instead of resigning in disgrace and going away quietly so that everything could be swept under the carpet, Acting ATF Director Ken Melson has agreed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a deal between Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA): http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...d-furious.html

    The head of the embattled federal agency that combats gun trafficking has agreed to talk with Senate investigators, a potentially important breakthrough as Congress tries to determine whether higher-ups in the Obama administration knew about a controversial sting that let assault weapons flow across the border into Mexico’s drug wars.

    The testimony — expected next month from Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — was brokered as part of a deal between Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the committee’s top Republican, Iowa’s Charles Grassley. Grassley and his fellow Republicans were given full access to ATF documents, Melson, and other key witnesses; and in return, Grassley agreed to release three Obama administration nominees he had been blocking, according to correspondence obtained by Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
    So, is Melson the new John Dean, or is this a prelude to being the fall-guy? At Pajamas Media, Bob Owens considers five possibilities:

    Melson falls on his sword.

    Melson implicates the head of the DoJ Criminal Division, who signed off on a Gunwalker wiretap.

    Melson implicates Attorney General Holder, himself.

    Melson also names Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano.

    Melson does the “full Dean” and implicates Obama.

    For various reasons, Bob considers numbers two and three the most likely, leading to the resignation or even impeachment of the officials involved. Be sure to read the piece to find out why.

    Going a step further, Howard Nemerov makes a plausible argument that Holder and other officials could be charged as accessories before and after the fact to federal crimes. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/‘gunwal...inglepage=true

    Regardless, Melson’s forthcoming testimony promises some summer fireworks.

    http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...d-to-tell-all/


    “GunWalker” was simply a means of demonstrating that U.S guns were fueling Mexican violence so he would appear justified in banning all semi-auto firearms in the U.S. The deaths of a few Border Patrol agents would be an acceptable means to an end.
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    Gunwalker: ATF head to tell all?
    Posted by: Phineas on June 28, 2011 at 2:01 pm


    Well, this could get very interesting. Instead of resigning in disgrace and going away quietly so that everything could be swept under the carpet, Acting ATF Director Ken Melson has agreed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a deal between Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA): http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...d-furious.html

    The head of the embattled federal agency that combats gun trafficking has agreed to talk with Senate investigators, a potentially important breakthrough as Congress tries to determine whether higher-ups in the Obama administration knew about a controversial sting that let assault weapons flow across the border into Mexico’s drug wars.

    The testimony — expected next month from Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — was brokered as part of a deal between Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the committee’s top Republican, Iowa’s Charles Grassley. Grassley and his fellow Republicans were given full access to ATF documents, Melson, and other key witnesses; and in return, Grassley agreed to release three Obama administration nominees he had been blocking, according to correspondence obtained by Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
    So, is Melson the new John Dean, or is this a prelude to being the fall-guy? At Pajamas Media, Bob Owens considers five possibilities:

    Melson falls on his sword.

    Melson implicates the head of the DoJ Criminal Division, who signed off on a Gunwalker wiretap.

    Melson implicates Attorney General Holder, himself.

    Melson also names Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano.

    Melson does the “full Dean” and implicates Obama.

    For various reasons, Bob considers numbers two and three the most likely, leading to the resignation or even impeachment of the officials involved. Be sure to read the piece to find out why.

    Going a step further, Howard Nemerov makes a plausible argument that Holder and other officials could be charged as accessories before and after the fact to federal crimes. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/‘gunwal...inglepage=true

    Regardless, Melson’s forthcoming testimony promises some summer fireworks.

    http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...d-to-tell-all/


    “GunWalker” was simply a means of demonstrating that U.S guns were fueling Mexican violence so he would appear justified in banning all semi-auto firearms in the U.S. The deaths of a few Border Patrol agents would be an acceptable means to an end.
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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    Family of slain ICE agent says govt won’t release murder details
    By Liz Goodwin National Affairs Reporter | The Lookout – 2 hrs 32 mins ago


    The family of Jaime Zapata, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who was murdered in Mexico, says the federal government won't release key details of his death.

    The Zapata family told the Lookout in a statement through their attorney, Raymond Thomas, that their efforts to find out if guns from the disastrous "Fast and Furious" operation were involved in the crime have been rebuffed.

    "It has been almost six months since Jaime's murder, and as parents, we are anxious to know how and why our beloved son was killed so needlessly," the family says.

    Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) have both taken up the family's cause, asking the FBI in a letter on Friday to answer questions about Zapata's death. They asked whether Zapata was armed at the time of the shooting and whether he was traveling in an armored car.

    Department of Homeland Security Assistant Legislative Affairs Secretary Nelson Peacock answered that the agency has made it a priority to learn exactly how the murder occurred, according to the LA Times.

    In February, Zapata and another ICE agent, Victor Avila, were run off the road in the tiny San Luis Potosi state in Mexico and and fired upon by drug cartel members. The Mexican Army captured the head of the Zetas cartel, Jesus Enrique Rejon, earlier this month, and accused him of orchestrating the murder, though U.S. authorities haven't independently confirmed that charge. Rejon told the Mexican government in a video interview that the ICE agents were in an armored vehicle and that the cartel members didn't realize they were U.S. federal agents when they attacked.


    The Zapata family says it asked the FBI for details about the death in June--and specifically asked if any of the guns the gang members used in the killing were connected to the now-defunct Fast and Furious operation--but have been told that releasing that information could compromise the investigation. Under that program, which had been administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), agents with the ATF sold U.S. guns to straw buyers who then sold the arms to drug cartels. The idea behind the operation was to more effectively track down and arrest members of Mexican-based drug gangs. In December, two of the guns sold in the program were found near where Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was shot and killed, NPR reports.

    Some Democratic lawmakers are now pressing for Congress to pass a bill that would make "straw purchasing"--buying a gun and selling it to someone who isn't authorized to have one--illegal. Gun groups oppose that effort.

    ICE Director John Morton briefly visited the Zapata family in Brownsville earlier this month, The Brownsville Herald reported. He called the family "the salt of the earth" and vowed that his agency would not let the legacy of Zapata's death rest with his funeral. The family expressed "gratitude" to Morton in the statement.

    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...3Rpb25z;_ylv=3
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    Family of U.S. agent slain in Mexico demands to know gun source
    The lawyer for Jaime Zapata's family says U.S. officials refuse to answer questions about whether the weapons used were linked to the Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation



    Jaime Zapata, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, was shot to death in Mexico. Family members are demanding to know whether the weapons used were bought in the U.S. under the now-defunct Fast and Furious operation. (U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement)

    By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau July 17, 2011, 5:27 p.m.


    Reporting from Washington— Five months after U.S. immigration agent Jaime Zapata was shot to death by a Mexican drug cartel, his family is demanding to know whether the weapons were purchased in the United States and smuggled into Mexico under the now-defunct Fast and Furious operation.

    The family complains that U.S. authorities in Washington and Texas have refused to answer crucial questions about the Feb. 15 ambush on a four-lane highway in northern Mexico. "What happened with Jaime needs to come out," the family's lawyer, Raymond L. Thomas of McAllen, Texas, said in a telephone interview Sunday. "And the likelihood that these were Fast and Furious guns is certainly plausible."

    Mexican authorities have announced nine arrests in the high-profile case. Among them was Jesus Rejon Aguilar, a Zetas cartel leader who was captured near Mexico City this month.

    In Washington, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is seeking information on the Zapata slaying.

    Nelson Peacock, assistant secretary for legislative affairs for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the immigration and customs agency, told Issa in a letter Friday that investigating Zapata's killing was a priority. "Like you, the department wants to ensure that his murderers are brought to justice," Peacock wrote.

    Issa and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, are leading a broader investigation into who in the Obama administration approved and monitored the anti-gun-running operation, which was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives field office in Phoenix.

    Started in November 2009, the operation was intended to track U.S. weapons smuggled across the border so that law enforcement could disrupt the cartels' gun-running networks and ease the drug violence in Mexico.

    Instead, nearly 200 of the firearms were found at crime scenes in Mexico. Two AK-47 assault rifles purchased during the operation were recovered after Brian A. Terry, a U.S. Border Patrol officer, was shot and killed in December in Arizona.

    Zapata, a 32-year-old Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent, was based in Laredo, Texas. He and fellow agent Victor Avila were on the Pan-American Highway in Mexico when they were stopped by at least eight men in two vehicles. The Americans identified themselves and the attackers opened fire, killing Zapata and wounding Avila.

    In March, ATF officials in Texas told reporters that one of the weapons believed to have been used in the assault — a Romanian-made AK-47 — was bought in October at a Texas gun shop. The shop purportedly sold 40 firearms that wound up with the Zetas cartel.

    On June 14, Thomas, the Zapata family lawyer, asked the FBI, the U.S. attorney's office and Homeland Security agents for FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration documents on the Zetas cartel and the slaying, and for an inspection of the bullet-riddled vehicle. "Where did the guns come from that were used in his murder?" he wrote. "Who provided the guns?"

    Federal officials said they could not discuss it, he said.

    Thomas said he asked to speak with the wounded agent, Avila, but was turned down. He also wants to know whether Zapata was armed.

    Thomas said Zapata's father was a Vietnam veteran awarded two Purple Hearts, and that several of the slain agent's siblings work in law enforcement. "They are all patriots who have dedicated themselves to protecting our country," he said. "So it's very hard for them to be pushed into a position that the U.S. government is stonewalling them."

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,1003846.story
    Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

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