The Smearing of Fast and Furious Whistleblower John Dodson

"All of these whistleblowers have axes to grind. ATF needs to f--k these guys," and "we need to get whatever dirt we can on these guys and take them down"

David Codrea: Fusion Center gun tracing partnership erects structure on shaky foundation.

It would be instructive to look at the partners in this venture, and to assess the likelihood it will attain the stated goals, or perhaps some unstated ones, and if it does, what that will mean in terms of measurable reductions in violent crime. That they’re patterning themselves on the “successful model…in…New Jersey” ought to raise a red flag or two right off the bat.

Is Obama Introducing National Socialism to the United States?

From the Powerline Blog.

Congrats to Sharyl Attkisson!

She won her Emmy for Gunwalker coverage!

ASSAULTED

534 Backers

$36,990 pledged of $65,000 goal

59 hours to go

Assaulted is failing in its fundraising.

This is unfortunate. I met the film makers at the Gun Rights Policy Conference and the project seems very worthy to me. If you have some extra dough that you can spare, you might want to send it his way.

Another country heard from . . . death wishes from those brave anonymous fans of the collectivist borg.

Got some gratuitous death wishes in comments below:

Anonymous said...

Go, cancer, go! (Not you, Mike--the other cancer).

And this one:

Anonymous said...

You won't have to worry about the world post-Obama re-election, at least not much of it. That cancer is doing its work, huh? How fitting: one tumor puts an end to another.

Give the worms my best, will ya?

October 2, 2012 8:11 AM

2 US Border agents shot, 1 killed, near major drug corridor in Arizona.

Two U.S. Border Patrol agents were shot, one fatally, Tuesday morning in an area in south Arizona known as a major drug-smuggling corridor, authorities said. The identities of the agents were not immediately released, but the shooting occurred at the Brian Terry Station near Naco, Ariz., which is just south of Tucson. The station was named after an agent who was killed in the line of duty in December 2010. The area is considered a remote part of the state and sources tell Fox News that the shooting occurred about 8 miles from the border.

More vignettes of a civilization in breakdown, this time in Detroit.

Black mob hijacks store: 'We own this' Cops respond 9 hours after clerk attacked, say 'hire security'

Got militia?

"Our Afghanistan Policy Ends in Failure."

Jack Kelly is a former Army Special Forces officer who made the leap into another kind of excrement when he became a journalist. He's been a damn fine journalist at that, writing honestly and forthrightly about subjects. I know that because he has occasion to do a story on the militias in the 90s, and he interviewed me, quoting me accurately and treating the subject fairly. Now Jack applies the same instincts to Afghanistan and he's ready to pull the plug.

The war in Afghanistan effectively ended last week. We lost.

The last of the surge troops President Barack Obama sent there were quietly withdrawn. They did not leave in triumph. . .

To someone like me who has a son over there, this comes as no surprise. But I always like to view things from the bright side -- let's bring the troops home now, in time for a little R&R in the Land of the Big PX before they have to go back into action in the civil war that will likely break out after the re-election of Obama validates and accelerates his appetites for more of our liberty and property.

OK, it's California, I get that. But what kind of BS charge is "possession of an inactive grenade?"

Early Halloween Costume Brings Out San Mateo Bomb Squad

“Costumes with very realistic weapons can create fear and safety concerns among the community members, and may provoke a response by law enforcement,” Norris said.

Guess he scared the excrement out of somebody. (Or, more likely, the ATF did it for him.)

3-D Printer Company Seizes Machine From Desktop Gunsmith.

David Codrea: Univision Fast and Furious special corroborates information reported last year.

“There are a couple of minor discrepancies with the coverage, however,” Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Dave Workman noted in a story filed this morning. “One report, headlined ‘5 things you didn’t know about Operation Fast and Furious,’ may apply to the mainstream press, but not necessarily to on-line journalists who have been covering, and exposing, this operation from the beginning.”

Univision: Juarez drug cartel leader ‘El Diego’ was captured with Fast and Furious weapons.

From Matthew Boyle.

Plumbers on the Death Star -- A Moral Inquiry Into Collateral Damage. (And A Cautionary Tale for Federal Contractors in a Time of Civil War.)

From Clerks, 1994.

Randal: So they build another Death Star, right?

Dante: Yeah.

Randal: Now the first one they built was completed and fully operational before the Rebels destroyed it.

Dante: Luke blew it up. Give credit where it's due.

Randal:And the second one was still being built when they blew it up.

Dante: Compliments of Lando Calrissian.

Randal: Something just never sat right with me the second time they destroyed it. I could never put my finger on it-something just wasn't right.

Dante: And you figured it out?

Randal: Well, the thing is, the first Death Star was manned by the Imperial army-storm troopers, dignitaries- the only people onboard were Imperials.

Dante: Basically.

Randal: So when they blew it up, no prob. Evil is punished.

Dante: And the second time around...?

Randal: The second time around, it wasn't even finished yet. They were still under construction.

Dante: So?

Randal: A construction job of that magnitude would require a helluva lot more manpower than the Imperial army had to offer. I'll bet there were independent contractors working on that thing: plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers.

Dante: Not just Imperials, is what you're getting at.

Randal: Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly they'd hire anybody who could do the job. Do you think the average storm trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and white uniforms.

Dante: All right, so even if independent contractors are working on the Death Star, why are you uneasy with its destruction?

Randal: All those innocent contractors hired to do a job were killed- casualties of a war they had nothing to do with. (notices Dante's confusion) All right, look-you're a roofer, and some juicy government contract comes your way; you got the wife and kids and the two-story in suburbia-this is a government contract, which means all sorts of benefits. All of a sudden these left-wing militants blast you with lasers and wipe out everyone within a three-mile radius. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics. You're just trying to scrape out a living.

(The Blue-Collar Man (Thomas Burke) joins them.)

Blue-Collar Man: Excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt, but what were you talking about?

Randal: The ending of Return of the Jedi.

Dante: My friend is trying to convince me that any contractors working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when the space station was destroyed by the rebels.

Blue-Collar Man: Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer... (digs into pocket and produces business card) Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can say that a roofer's personal politics come heavily into play when choosing jobs.

Randal: Like when?

Blue-Collar Man: Three months ago I was offered a job up in the hills. A beautiful house with tons of property. It was a simple reshingling job, but I was told that if it was finished within a day, my price would be doubled. Then I realized whose house it was.

Dante: Whose house was it?

Blue-Collar Man: Dominick Bambino's.

Randal: "Babyface" Bambino? The gangster?

Blue-Collar Man: The same. The money was right, but the risk was too big. I knew who he was, and based on that, I passed the job on to a friend of mine.

Dante: Based on personal politics.

Blue-Collar Man: Right. And that week, the Foresci family put a hit on Babyface's house. My friend was shot and killed. He wasn't even finished shingling.

Randal: No way!

Blue-Collar Man: (paying for coffee) I'm alive because I knew there were risks involved taking on that particular client. My friend wasn't so lucky. (pauses to reflect) You know, any contractor willing to work on that Death Star knew the risks. If they were killed, it was their own fault. A roofer listens to this... (taps his heart) not his wallet.

Works for criminal intruders, too. Of all sorts.

Man eaten by hogs at Oregon farm.

Vertical integration of all law enforcement under the federal command. "The integration of firearms trace data into the fusion centers results in even closer collaboration among federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement."

An attorney forwarded me a copy of the latest Police Chief magazine which included an article by Ross Arends, ATF Supervisory Special Agent and a Fellow at the notoriously anti-gun International Association of Chiefs of Police: "The ATF’s iTrafficking Program: Linking Firearms Trace Data with State Fusion Centers." It was, the "single scariest proposal" he'd read recently.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) have joined forces on a grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice, to study the impact of a collaborative project among the ATF, fusion centers, and local law enforcement to analyze firearms trace data along the northeast corridor of Interstate 95. This article highlights the work that carries forward the ATF’s commitment to improving the collection, the analysis, and use of firearms trace data in investigations.

Mind you, the eTrace system upon which this proposal is based is shot full of chaos and inefficiencies -- multiple traces, administrative traces having nothing to do with crime, etc -- and this proposal would provide trace information to people and organizations who, according to one of sources, "have no business in the law to it." And Arends understands the legal mienfield he is proposing to defeat by evasion:

While the ATF’s policy of not sharing one agency’s trace data with another agency does exist, there are still ways in which multiple agencies can work together using trace data.

Arends concludes:

BJA Grant to the IACP: Examine the iTrafficking Program

In December 2010, the BJA awarded a $250,000 grant to IACP to research and examine iTrafficking to determine ways in which gun trace data could more effectively be included in fusion center intelligence reports and business practice. To date, the project has accomplished the following:

* An advisory group was selected in concert with the IACP Firearms Committee to guide project development and implementation.

* A fusion center survey instrument was circulated to assess the state of practice on crime gun tracing policies.

* The project team is consolidating information from site visits to complete a promising practices document by fusion centers currently collecting crime gun tracing data.

* The project team continues to search for any statutory issues and barriers to impede implementation of a crime gun tracing intelligence sharing strategy.

* A mobile app was designed and distributed by the project team

using the ATF’s Police Officers Guide to Recovered Firearms. Since its launch in January, more than 21,000 downloads have been counted. This app is part of the project’s push to improve firearms tracing.

IACP staff is examining the results of the fusion center interviews and will assess the fusion center surveys once all are received. Finally, IACP staff will prepare and disseminate a firearms tracing intelligence-sharing strategy report that summarizes the review and the evaluation of iTrafficking. This review ideally will be used by fusion center personnel and all state, local, and tribal law enforcement to assist in the examination of firearms trace data used in intelligence products and criminal investigations.

The integration of firearms trace data into the fusion centers results in even closer collaboration among federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement. As fusion centers evolve into all-crime and all-hazards intelligence centers, a focus on firearms tracing and firearms trafficking enhances the collaborative environment. (Emphasis supplied, MBV.) The IACP is looking forward to sharing best practices, educational material, and other information that results from this initiative.

"The integration of firearms trace data into the fusion centers results in even closer collaboration among federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement. As fusion centers evolve into all-crime and all-hazards intelligence centers, a focus on firearms tracing and firearms trafficking enhances the collaborative environment."

That is what this is all about, in addition to sharing eTrace data with people who have no legal right to it -- the vertical integration of all law enforcement with the Feds at the top of the food chain, able to spy on local law enforcement, use them as cat's paws in investigations and escape all blowback if the operation goes south.

David Codrea: Documentary filmmaker releases Fast and Furious preview.

A preview for a documentary in the making titled “Fast and Furious: Under the Radar and Above the Law,” has been released, filmmaker Fleming Fuller announced to the Second Amendment Foundation's Gun Rights Policy Conference in Orlando, Fla., Saturday. This development marks progress toward a goal announced almost a year ago by citizen journalist Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars. Included in the preview is a gripping reenactment of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

YouTube link.

"Killing Is The Solution." Vignettes of a civilization in breakdown.

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night. -- Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach, 1851,

‘Killing Is The Solution,’ Gang Member Tells Walter Jacobson.

“There’s no solution to the violence,” one gang member tells him. “Killing, killing is the solution.”

Jacobson asked the young man if he would kill personally, if he had to.

“I’ve never killed before, but if I had a gun in my possession,” he said.

Jacobson says he has been walking the blocks for many years, but the state of despair never changes – poverty, sticks and stains.

The gang members do not like the state of affairs any more than anyone else.

“We’ve got to eat. We want to. We want money. We want to get fresh, we want fresh J’s almost every day. We want all that,” another young man said.

But where do they get the money they need? The young man answered bluntly.

“Rob, steal and kill. That’s the only way. We didn’t grow up in Beverly Hills. We don’t get it handed to us,” he said.

“We ain’t living in Hyde Park,” added a third young man. The home of the University of Chicago is only a couple of miles away from Englewood – geographically, at least.

But given the state of their impoverished Englewood neighborhood, where is the money they can get?

“Selling drugs,” a young man replied. “In our neighborhood, I ain’t going to lie to you. That’s where the money comes from.”

Some of the young men were brought into gangs as children. Isn’t that pretty young to play gang warfare?

A young man answered: “I chose the gang. I didn’t have to choose anything. I was only 10. My OG (old gangster) gave me everything. But I just went on my own and I chose to get in the gang. We was whipping everybody in the neighborhood. Respect. I was getting money.”

The gang members also said they are at war with the Chicago Police Department.

“The police hate us,” a young man said. “Every time they ride past us, they shoot us down and do all that. Do what you want to do, I don’t care about you all, keep riding. Who are you all? We’re not scare of you all. I’ll fight you too. Take that badge off.”

But he says the police cannot catch them or exact any consequences.

“I laugh at the police,” he said. “They’re a joke to me.”

And where would the young men like to be in 10 years?

One of them replied, “in a mansion, with a lot of cars, and a lot of women.”

Another said, “I just hope I’m still living.”

Got militia?

As college student, Eric Holder participated in ‘armed’ takeover of former Columbia University ROTC office. Yeah, but what does his FBI file from the time period show?

Nice hair.

As a freshman at Columbia University in 1970, future Attorney General Eric Holder participated in a five-day occupation of an abandoned Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters with a group of black students later described by the university’s Black Students’ Organization as “armed,” The Daily Caller has learned.

Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has not responded to questions from The Daily Caller about whether Holder himself was armed — and if so, with what sort of weapon.

Holder was then among the leaders of the Student Afro-American Society (SAAS), which demanded that the former ROTC office be renamed the “Malcolm X Lounge.” The change, the group insisted, was to be made “in honor of a man who recognized the importance of territory as a basis for nationhood.”

Black radicals from the same group also occupied the office of Dean of Freshman Henry Coleman until their demands were met. Holder has publicly acknowledged being a part of that action.

I'll go one little tidbit from the past further on that subject. As this article from the Harvard Crimson dated 17 April 1971 indicates, the FBI was actively searching at the time for informants within the black student associations of the Ivy League schools.

I wonder what Eric Holder's FBI file from the time shows? Was he the subject of an investigation? Was he an FBI snitch? Inquiring minds want to know.

Univision's Expose on Fast and Furious

Link.