Documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle show that at different points in 2010, two Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms divisions - Dallas and Phoenix - had evidence implicating Osorio well before drug gangsters gunned down Zapata and his partner Victor Avila, who survived.
But no one put it all together until agents in Dallas arrested Osorio in February, 13 days after Zapata's death and four months after Osorio purchased the deadly Draco.
Now the case of Osorio, as well as his ex-Marine brother Ranferi Osorio, and their next-door neighbor in the Dallas suburb of Lancaster, Kelvin Leon Morrison, is exhibit A in an effort by congressional Republicans to uncover a Texas version of the flawed tactics used in the Phoenix-based Operation Fast and Furious.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Did agents in Texas let guns 'walk' into Mexico?
Dan Freedman finally finds a non-gun-control meme story.
Jim Ross Lightfoot says: "Indict Holder."
Vince Cefalu writes on CleanUpATF.org:
Many of us in the Law Enforcement community are extremely troubled by the sealing of the Terry prosecution. As we all know, there is very little in the L.E. World which is truly sensitive or classified. No we DO NOT want to give away trade craft. No we DO NOT WANT to give away investigative strategies. However, when the government witholds information related to an extremely controversial and questionable investigation which has resulted in so many abuses and deaths, it is clear that its sealing can only be to secret such abuses. I have not been able to find anyone in Law Enforcement who has seen such an action in their entire career.
That may explain the motivation for the following open letter generated by Congressman (Ret.) James Lightfoot. Countless Congressman, Senators and respected Law Enforcement Officials nation wide, can't all be wrong.
Indict Holder
November 18, 2011
Jim Ross Lightfoot
Northwest of Nogales, AZ
Peck Canyon is a hotbed for illegal drugs and a battleground between illegals coming from Mexico fighting amongst themselves and the US Border Patrol. At 11:15 PM the night of December 14, 2010 the Border Patrol is watching a “rip crew”, (illegals that prey on other illegals moving drugs into the US). The illegal rip crew was in a position to ambush anyone coming up the canyon.
Border Patrol agents commanded the illegals to drop their weapons. When they did not, the Patrol fired at them with beanbags as required by engagement protocol. The illegals fired back with AK-47s and real bullets.
Two agents then responded with one long gun and one pistol.
When the firefight was over, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was dead. An AK-47 bullet had entered his back some 29 inches below the shoulder.
One of the rip crew was wounded. There were no other injuries.
At the scene were three AK-47 rifles, all part of the 2,000 plus guns that the Department of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) under the Department of Justice (DOJ) had allowed to “walk” into Mexico.
Today, one of those rifles is missing; picked up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to protect a “CI” (confidential informant) the agency is working.
A bright, respected, dedicated, well-trained young man, a United States Federal Law Enforcement Agent, dead at the hands of illegal Mexicans using rifles supplied by our own DOJ through ATF.
Do you see anything wrong with this picture?
So much is wrong that it almost defies speech. Everything about this situation rubs against every principle, tenet, belief, ideology or standard that this country stands for.
And, much of what the DOJ and ATF has done and continues to do is in defiance of the law.
Operation Fast and Furious put those weapons in the hands of the Mexican Drug Cartels, deliberately. It was no accident. It was by design.
William Newell, special agent in charge of the Phoenix field office of ATF and William McMahon, the head of western field operations for ATF are the architects of Fast and Furious. They both gave misleading and incomplete information to a Congressional Oversight Committee.
Attorney General Eric Holder has stonewalled the committee to the point he could probably get a job as a stone mason when he finally leaves government.
As a reward for their misleading testimony Newell and McMahon were whisked into ATF headquarters fortress on New York Avenue in Washington, DC to protect them and their pensions.
The number of Members of Congress calling for Holder to resign grows each day. However, this is the wrong direction for this investigation to go. Once Holder resigns with all his government pensions and benefits, he is off the hook.
Holder is one fish where the hook needs to be set, he must be indicted and Newell, McMahon and several others should join him in a courtroom defending his use of a Federal Agency to promote this Administration’s anti-gun agenda while breaking US law in the process.
Foolishness that has gotten two US Federal Agents killed and countless hundreds of innocent Mexican citizens killed and wounded.
Congress, show us you really mean to uphold the Constitution you swore to protect.
Indict these people now.
"Round up the usual suspects."
Faced with the killing of Major Strasser and unwilling to name the shooter, Captain Renault orders his men to "round up the usual suspects."
Which may, or may not, have anything to do with this story: Case of slain border agent's killers sealed in court
Saturday, November 19, 2011
"Fake terror plots, paid informants: the tactics of FBI 'entrapment' questioned." Yeah, but wait until they get a good look at PATCON.
Critics say bureau is running a sting operation across America, targeting vulnerable people by luring them into fake terror plots.
Yup.
NOTE: There has been a change in the situation reported in this space earlier. I will clarify it tomorrow or Monday.
Yup.
NOTE: There has been a change in the situation reported in this space earlier. I will clarify it tomorrow or Monday.
Between the rattlesnake's tail and its fangs. The crisis of legitimacy, the dearth of citizenship, the spectre of civil war and moral responsibility.
The Gadsden flag is a historical American flag with a yellow field depicting a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. Positioned below the snake is the legend "DONT TREAD ON ME." The flag was designed by and is named after American general and statesman Christopher Gadsden. It was also used by the Continental Marines as an early motto flag. It was the first flag ever carried into battle by the United States Marine Corps, during the American Revolution.
The timber rattlesnake and eastern diamondback rattlesnake both populate the geographical areas of the original thirteen colonies. Their use as a symbol of the American colonies can be traced back to the publications of Benjamin Franklin. In 1751, he made the first reference to the rattlesnake in a satirical commentary published in his Pennsylvania Gazette. It had been the policy of Britain to send convicted criminals to America, so Franklin suggested that they thank the British by sending rattlesnakes to England.
In 1754, during the French and Indian War, Franklin published his famous woodcut of a snake cut into eight sections. It represented the colonies, with New England joined together as the head and South Carolina as the tail, following their order along the coast. Under the snake was the message "Join, or Die". This was the first political cartoon published in an American newspaper.
As the American Revolution grew, the snake began to see more use as a symbol of the colonies. In 1774, Paul Revere added it to the title of his paper, the Massachusetts Spy, as a snake joined to fight a British dragon. In December 1775, Benjamin Franklin published an essay in the Pennsylvania Journal under the pseudonym American Guesser in which he suggested that the rattlesnake was a good symbol for the American spirit:"I recollected that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids—She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance.—She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage.—As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her, she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal; and even when those weapons are shewn and extended for her defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal:—Conscious of this, she never wounds till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of stepping on her.—Was I wrong, Sir, in thinking this a strong picture of the temper and conduct of America?" -- Wikipedia.
Jim O'Neill, writing at Canada Free Press, asks if it is "Time to Break Apart the United States?" He begins by quoting Dave Hunter:
“The truth is that there is no compromise possible between Liberty and Tyranny. We have irreconcilable differences with the Progressives, and every attempt to compromise with them, always results in an incremental loss of our Liberty, not to mention our income. Perhaps it is time for a divorce.”
He concludes:
After mulling over the idea of separating America into conservative and liberal areas, what do I think? To be honest, I don’t know. Although I would not (yet) call myself a proponent of dividing up and remaking the United States, I no longer dismiss the notion out of hand. I’m thinking about it — seriously.
No he's not. At least not seriously. To believe that the united States of America can be somehow peacefully disunited by some combination of persuasion backed by a credible show of force on one side or the other is to mistake the enemy we face -- collectivism.
Collectivism in all its various forms cannot tolerate competition within its chosen sphere. It must conquer, or die.
"You are not of the body."
To this end, collectivist systems go to great lengths to spy out those who are "not of the body," to convert, control, or failing that, to eliminate them. They build secret political police agencies like the NKVD, KGB, Gestapo, Stasi, and yes, FBI and DHS. They also build walls to keep people in, to prevent them from voting with their feet. These used to be made of concrete and steel like the Berlin Wall, but these days we are beginning to look at virtual walls created of surveillance cameras, computer databases, voice prints and facial recognition software, all marketed to us on the false premise of "counter terrorism." Thus rises the "soft tyranny."
Collectivists always espouse the cause of peace, but by peace they mean an absence of opposition -- and whether that is accomplished by enforced obedience or the deaths of their opponents is, ultimately, immaterial to them. It is a matter of not the slightest concern to Nancy Pelosi, for example, that the "health care" individual mandate might be resisted by people who view it as a violation of their natural, God-given and inalienable rights to liberty and property. If someone refuses, there are fines for that in the law. If someone refuses to pay Nancy's fine, there are jail cells to accommodate them. If someone refuses the privilege of federal jail time for their principled resistance to tyranny, there are federal SWAT teams -- and their state and local familiars who are "of the body" -- to come and kill your ass for the temerity of refusing the federal leviathan's insistence upon obedience. Of course you will obey, she believes, for the body has said that you will. Your death, if you insist upon it, is in the the interest of the body. It will be done, after all, to further your own "health care."
For Pelosi to admit even the possibility of the acceptance of the successful defiance of even one individual to her diktat is simply not within her world view. The body has said, therefore you will do. There is a reason they are called the "Democratic" party. Unrestrained democracy is simply another form of collectivist tyranny, in practice subject to the will only of its "people's deputies" and commissars, who direct the mob and create its appetites and its victims, for the body.
And yet there are those -- and they are the many who are not the tyrants themselves -- who suckle at the teat of collectivism and call it good. Landru has many willing, happy followers. How, then, shall free men and women live in harmony with them?
You may indeed, after sufficient provocation and depredation on his part, kill the tyrant. But what to do with his followers who, like the Eloi, know only how to be sheep and will trample anyone who wishes them to change?
This is question at the heart of of a post frequent commenter Bad Cyborg left at an article below:
Warrior Class wrote:
"Nevertheless, we must get the general government back into its constitutional box."
OK, and while you're at it you can unf**k a girl, get toothpaste back into its tube and force a genie back into its bottle.
Go back and watch the entire video on soft despotism - all 39 minutes - and then come back to us and tell us how you are going to get all the nominal adults who LIKE being told what they have to do to grow up and suddenly start acting like adults. Then you can tell us how a nation which has spent generations becoming ever more dependent upon federal handouts suddenly develops the skills to live as they did politically in the late 18th century.
Tell us how all this can happen without a whole shitload of suffering and death. Please. Because I see no way for it to happen without civil war.
Bad Cyborg and I do not agree on everything, but here he has grasped the question in a manner far more realistically than Jim O'Neill. BC does not want civil war, he just doesn't see how we can avoid it given the system's crisis of legitimacy which reflects the uncomfortable fact that we have gradually grown into two nations, and are no longer one. We are divided upon the answer to this question:
Shall the government serve the people or the people serve the government?
There is no finessing this question, no agreeing to disagree, if for no other reason than the collectivist locusts must have the fruits of the individualist producers to redistribute to the Eloi who are "of the body" and who sustain their power. Again, collectivism conquers -- incrementally or rapidly -- or dies. Collectivism is not a system that endures defeats, small or large. Successful resistance, any resistance no matter the size, is an existential threat to the "deputies of the people" lest others take heart by the example. Collectivist systems are thus brittle, and far more vulnerable than they look from the outside. This is the essence of the collectivist's fear. That someone may one day spot the humbug of the man behind behind the curtain and call their bloody bluff.
The Founders crafted a political system that depended upon citizens and citizenship. The federal collectivists who now rule define citizenship as a matter of geography -- a matter of passports and, especially, taxable producers. The Founders recognized that ordered liberty could only be built on the foundation of moral men and women, citizens who took for granted that their own self interest depended upon enduring "the fatigues of supporting it."
Citizenship requires effort, which is why there is a dearth of true citizens these days, for we have grown to be a lazy, pampered people, although not in the sense Barack Obama means it. When he talks about "lazy" he means in how we fail to support the government, and especially the interest of the governing class, meaning him and his cronies. For Obama, independent business exists only as a cow to be milked for the benefit of "the people," which is to say, "the government." When they're really desperate, they say it is for "the children." "Fur kinder und Deutschland. Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer."
We're in the present situation precisely because there are apparently no longer enough of us citizens who are willing to "undergo the fatigues." We have been pushed into this corner exactly and precisely because we have not pushed back like the Founders expected us -- indeed, counted upon us -- to.
So, here we are, as Bad Cyborg observes, on the verge -- hating the choices we face, prisoners of a situation not of our own making, but a situation perfectly predictable if you are anything but a deliberate historical amnesiac.
What then shall we do?
The answer is to found in the link between the rattlesnake's tail and its fangs. Ben Franklin was right. The rattlesnake is, within its world, the most moral of creatures. It never strikes without provocation or, importantly, without warning.
Without the tail, the fangs are mere instruments of unexpected violence and aggression. Without the fangs, the tail would be an impotent joke, eminently ignorable by the snake's enemies.
For collectivists more than anyone understand the efficacy and application of force. Louis XIV of France had "Ultima Ratio Regum" ("last argument of kings") cast upon his cannon. Stalin, when informed that the Pope didn't approve of the Soviet occupation of Trieste, cynically observed, "The Pope? The Pope? How many divisions does HE have?"
And while we are not reptiles but human beings, the same relationship between rattle and fangs applies to us. For our struggle is first and foremost one of moral responsibility, lest we become the evil we say we fight. As we would not permit any more free Wacos or Katrinas, we cannot allow ourselves the bloody, self-discrediting folly of a Fort Sumter or an Oklahoma City bombing. Morally, our tail must be loud and insistent, even as our fangs must be hidden but sharp. History shows that only with both can there be a moral yet credible deterrent to tyranny.
As to the rattle, we must fight the political fight, including, perhaps especially, the Gunwalker scandal, even if we believe that such things are failing rear guard actions doomed to ultimate failure. Such efforts highlight the failure of political legitimacy of the current regime by holding in sharp contrast their corrupt and deadly actions against the backdrop of the law and the constitution that they swore to uphold.
As to the fangs, such campaigns also buy time for the rest of us to prepare for the ghastly conflict that awaits the time if and when "the center does not hold." We must, then, be hopeful but realistic, patient but principled, always willing to argue our case until the last moment but yet prepared to resort to arms when we are compelled to use countervailing force against those who would, out of their so-called "good intentions," punish us for our peaceful resistance with state violence.
Those of us on the rattle end of this business can only hope that those responsible for the fangs -- the armed citizenry -- are doing their part to take advantage of the time bought thereby. In any case, it must be done, if we are to stand later before history and our own Maker and say that we were true to His commands and to Locke's thesis of the proper relationship between the free citizen and his government.
"Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence." -John Locke
The "Last argument of Kings" has been tried before in this country and defeated by free armed citizens determined to maintain their liberties but who waited, impatiently perhaps, until the fight was brought to them. And then they finished it.
The question is, can we do it again?
I only know that we must try and that I am commanded by my God to stand for what is right.
I cannot do otherwise. I will do what I can to improve the volume of the moral responsibility of the rattle and the credible deterrence of the fangs of the armed citizenry until God calls me home.
I also know that if enough of my fellow citizens -- those who are indeed citizens and not servants -- did likewise, we wouldn't have to have the "last argument of kings" at all.
I can only hope, and move forward into the storm.
Friday, November 18, 2011
SSI Exclusive: ATF & the Washington Post conspired to violate the Tiarht Amendment. "Big Dog" talks to "Mad Dawg" about Sari Horwitz & Wide Receiver.
"Hey, baby, let's go to Mexico."
On Monday, 13 December 2010, the Washington Post ran a story by Sari Horwitz and James V. Grimaldi entitled "U.S. gun dealers with the most firearms traced over the past four years." It began:
A decade ago, politicians and the press routinely reported on gun stores across the nation that had the most traces for firearms recovered by police. In 2003, under pressure from the gun lobby, Congress passed a law that hid from public view the government database that contained the gun tracing information.
The Washington Post has obtained the names of the gun dealers nationwide with the most traces over the past four years. In addition, The Post has uncovered the names of the dealers, all from border states, with the most traces from guns recovered in Mexico over the past two years.
In these paragraphs, Grimaldi and Horwitz admit up front that their sources have violated federal law, called the Tiahrt Amendment. We now know who at least one of those federal sources that the Washington Post used for that story was -- William "Gunwalker Bill" Newell, Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix Field Division.
In a recording of a telephone conversation obtained by Sipsey Street Irregulars, Newell, who refers to himself as "the big dog" in Phoenix is overheard talking to a Federal Firearms Licensee, Mike Detty, owner of Mad Dawg Global Marketing and a confidential informant for the Tuscon ATF office, about a variety of subjects, including the Washington Post story and Operation Wide Receiver, in which Detty played an integral part.
Although the audio file of the conversation is not dated, comparing internal evidence in the conversation with the references to the Washington Post article, it likely took place on 13 or 14 December 2010. Some relevant excerpts:
Detty: I got a call from Sari Horwitz at the Washington Post.
Newell: Oh, yeah, I saw that article.
Detty: And she wanted my comments and one of the things that she said to me, she said . . . I said, 'You know Sari I don't feel comfortable talking to you at least until I talk to somebody at ATF and see what, kinda, what they want me to do. Chances are that they won't want me to comment at all.' And she said, 'well we've already talked to, uh, ATF in Phoenix,' and I said, 'Well, who did you talk to?' and she said 'Well, we talked to the SAC Bill Newell there, and he told us that you're the one that made contact and that you've been cooperating with ATF. . .'
Newell: No. She's . . . she's . . . she's . . . she's playing the old . . . she's a typical reporter playing the old, uh . . . the old, uh, you know, dropping names, um, no, yeah, he did come to talk to us and what they did is what they did for that story . . . I saw that story today and what they did is that they pull court records, and, you know, there's nothing we can do for them, especially in Arizona and places like Arizona they have open court records and in the federal system once the court records are, you know, once the federal and state court records are filed . . . you know they spent a year doing that story, they go out and they look at all the different court records. I'm sorry she called you, it . . . it . . . it's never my intention for her to call anybody.
Detty: No, no, no, it's just that it . . . it took me off guard and for her to say, 'Well, yeah, you know he told us that you were cooperating' and, and, uh . . .
Newell: No, that's wrong. She's . . . you know, she . . . what, what I said and what she was referring to is she (unintelligible) people from headquarters (unintelligible) and what I said was 99 percent of our gun dealers in the United States cooperate with us . . . she . . . she tried to do the same thing with me. She talked to several SACs on the border. It's typical with the reporters, they'll do this. They'll try to say, 'Well, aren't the gun dealers responsible?' I said, 'listen, if a gun dealer knowingly allows certain things to occur without any ATF oversight, yeah." I said 'but 99 percent of our gun dealers are cooperative. They call us, when, you know, there is something illegal going on or about to go on.' And I said, 'without that assistance, you know, we couldn't make the cases we make for the most part. So that's what she's referring to. I would never, never . . . I mean, this is the first time in 22 years I ever gotten a call like this. You know, she obviously played, she obviously played that very well, which I'm sorry that she did because that was not the . . . you have no obligation to talk to her at all. If a reporter ever calls you, you're under no obligation to talk to her at all.
Detty: Well, again, you know she made it sound like, you know this was being talked about and, 'oh yeah, they won't have a problem with it because I talked to this guy,' and, and I left it at that, and what I told was, I said 'Look, you know, um, whether these guys think I set 'em up or not, um, or whether I'm a greedy gun dealer that doesn't care about what guns are going south,' I said, 'either way you print that, I'm the loser,' and I said, 'Don't attach my name to anything, and don't, um, don't quote me on anything, um. 'cause it'll come back to you.' So today, happily, I was glad to see that my name, even my corporate name, was not mentioned in her article. . .
Newell blaming "court records" for disclosure of Detty's involvement in straw man sales was a red herring. In the Grimaldi-Horwitz story there are only four mentions of court records. Indeed, the bulk of the story involves lists of supposed "bad guy" gun dealers derived from the illegally-leaked trace data -- which could only have come from the ATF -- and their reactions to being listed on the Washington Post's illegal list.
One of them was Carter's Country in Houston, who immediately hired Dick DeGuerin to defend them against the slander. Another was Lone Wolf Trading Company:
Lone Wolf Trading Co. in Glendale, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix, is ranked eighth on the list with about 1,515 firearms traced. Lone Wolf sits in a strip mall, next to Spa Tahiti. Inside, model airplanes hang from the ceiling and the heads of animals adorn the walls. A sign behind the cash register advertised AK-47s for $499.
Lone Wolf has jumped from No. 61 on the 2004 list.
Last year, 12 people were indicted on charges of making false statements in order to buy 17 AK-47-type rifles headed to Mexico. The guns were purchased from seven stores, including Lone Wolf.
Owner Andre Howard could not be reached for comment. ATF officials said they have no indication that Lone Wolf is doing anything wrong or illegal.
Of course not. They're hardly likely to draw attention to their principle source for Fast and Furious weapons going to the Mexican cartels.
Other sources who were interviewed by the Washington Post tell Sipsey Street that they were told by Horwitz and Grimaldi that the ATF headquarters was cooperating with the story. It is not against the law to publish a leak from ATF about trace data. It IS a federal crime for ATF personnel to leak trace data to a media outlet. Obviously the political interests of ATF headquarters and the Department of Justice coincided with the Washington Post's agenda in doing the story based on illegally-leaked data.
In the conversation Newell evinces a great deal of knowledge about the story and indicates that ATF headquarters was on the line when he he talked to Horwitz. It would be interesting to me to subject this tape to voice stress analysis and find out where and about what Newell is lying. Where he begins to stammer is a clue.
Newell: I'm sorry that that reporter called you because she called several people and, you know, there's like four or five reporters that worked on this thing including a reporter in Mexico and they went out and they talked to a hundred people (unintelligible) they talked to a ton of people, they went through court records left and right and you're not the only gun dealer that they called and I said, 'listen,' I said, "I can't stop them from calling' and I said, I told another guy, I said, "You're under no obligation to say anything to these people.' I mean, if they want, if they start say 'no comment' and hang up the phone, I mean, you know, you're under no obligation. If you want to make a comment, then, hey, make a comment, knock yourself out. But if you notice in that story it says . . . she talked to me on the phone for about an hour hour which was a three way call to one in our headquarters and I . . . over and over again I said to all these reporters, I said, 'Listen, most of our great information on firearms trafficking comes from cooperative dealers who don't want a bad name associated with then and that's why we work with the NSSF who do all these campaigns' and so I said, "So, yeah, there are bad dealers. . . there's bad everything. We have bad ATF agents who get caught up doing things they shouldn't do and it happens. It's human nature. . .'
Detty: Uh, huh.
Newell: And I said ninety nine percent of our dealers are cooperative people who give us information and really are under no obligation to do so, but we appreciate when they do.' And of course, I don't know . . . there's some of that in there but of course they kinda leave that stuff off to the side because that doesn't . . . that's not juicy, you know?
Detty: Yeah.
Newell: But, um, I . . .
Detty: And to be honest with you I'd love for them to know the full story because, um, I'm not a bad guy and I've really gone out of my way to, to help you guys . . . I mean I've brought you some good cases, and as a result there's a whole bunch . . . I think probably right now, not counting anything from Wide Receiver, over twenty people in prison right now that deserve to be there. Um, and I would love for that story to be told, and there's just no good way to do that without putting me at risk. . .
Toward the end of the conversation, Detty gets around to asking about why Wide Receiver hasn't produced any prosecutions:
Detty: "You know, I was just curious with, uh, with Wide Receiver, you know, three years ago, I think, the U.S. Attorney here told me they were planning on arresting something like forty people and its my understanding, I think it was, November 10th or November 9th, they made six arrests here in Tucson.
Newell: Right.
Detty: But I haven't seen. . . I check the website daily and I haven't seen a press release regarding that. Is there a reason that you're waiting on that or hoping to make more arrests?
Newell: Yeah, there'll be . . . uh, we're waiting. There's some other stuff going on, uh, that's part of that, and so it'll be a wait, it'll be a bit here. Probably another month or so.
Detty: I was just curious because I, well, I mean, all the time and effort and man hours that went into that one case and I think we had at least two or three air surveillances from my house and there was the 48-hour surveillance all the way out to the border and the 50 .38 Supers and (unintelligible) and all that nonsense . . .
Newell: Right.
Detty: That uh . . .
Newell: Right.
Detty: That would be a case that you would be able to stand up and hold up the headline and say 'look what we did' . . .
Newell: Right. Exactly. Exactly. And, and we plan on doing that, its just the matter that right now there's another thing going on that, if we did that right now we'd would mess that other deal up, so . . .
Detty: Gotcha. Okay.
"There's another thing going on."
We now know that the other thing was Fast and Furious.
And shortly after this phone conversation -- within hours maybe, within days certainly -- Brian Terry encountered the muzzle end of a Fast and Furious Kalashnikov in Peck Canyon.
Addendum: Just before I put this article up this morning, I received this comment from Mike Detty:
I looked at your draft this morning and it is 100% accurate.
I am convinced that Sari Horwitz was accurate when she said that Bill Newell gave her my name as someone who was cooperating with ATF on Wide Receiver. To my knowledge, at this time, there was no other way she could have found my name in association with this case unless she got it from Newell or another ATF agent. It really didn't surprise me since I was exposed as the CI on every other case I worked for ATF.
I first heard of Fast & Furious back in spring of 2010 - though its code name was not mentioned. A field agent told me, "I have no idea on why they are letting so many guns go to Mexico or what they are hoping to do with the information but it makes your case look like small fry," he said referring to the 450 guns that were allowed to walk over the border in Wide Receiver.
Addendum: Some folks are having technical problems accessing the audio file of the entire conversation posted at David's site. When we get those worked out, I will post a notice here and independently so you will be able to verify the transcript.
Finally, I think it is important to note for the record that I did not get the tape from Mike Detty, nor from his attorney, nor from any of his friends. I would, however, like to take this opportunity to thank the Dogtown Rangers, Wiredog Platoon, Communications Intercept Section, SSGT Ralph Aloysius Bear, commanding. (Ralph is Ramsey's first cousin on his daddy's side.) ;-)
Mike Vanderboegh
Praxis: Never Wet coating to become available next year.
I can see all sorts of practical and tactical applications for this.
Spray-On ‘NeverWet’ Coating Could Waterproof Gadgets
Spray-On ‘NeverWet’ Coating Could Waterproof Gadgets
If your congresscritter is not on this list, you might want to ask him why.
I note, with interest, that none of Alabama's GOP so-called "conservative" high and mighty are on this list. Including my own congressman, Spencer Bachus.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
A note to collectivist screed commenters.
Your chances of having your comments deleted goes up exponentially when you refer to me as "Mikey." Just so you know.
The LA Times corrects the Georgia Geriatrics story. (Un)Democratic Underground smells a conspiracy. How many interviews does a "commentator" make?
Don't tell anybody, but I have apparently exercised my formidable mind powers to force the LA Times to post a correction. Caveat lector. (Let the reader beware.)
[For the Record, 10:56 a.m., Nov. 3: An earlier version of this post misidentified Mike Vanderboegh as a Fox News "commentator." Vanderboegh has been interviewed for Fox News stories, but is not affiliated with the news network.]
Ah, but the Undemocratic Underground is not happy. They smell a rat: "Someone convinced LA Times not to describe Vanderboegh as a Fox News 'commentator'"
They ask, "Wonder who would do that?"
ET Awful writes: "He's not a commentator, he's just been asked to comment frequently on issues for money." For the record, I have only been interviewed by FOX News twice and I have never taken money from anybody for an interview my entire life. Period.
I think, however, that this puts the collectivists over there firmly into the "conspiracy theory" camp.
Cue Twilight Zone music.
Stupid Ann Coulter. The crisis of legitimacy cannot be solved by electing one more corrupt and unprincipled bastard.
Romney campaign flag.
Coulter holds nose and annoints Romney.
The mainstream media keep pushing alternatives to Mitt Romney not only because they are terrified of running against him, but also because they want to keep Republicans fighting, allowing Democrats to get a four-month jump on us.
Meanwhile, everyone knows the nominee is going to be Romney.
That's not so bad if you think the most important issues in this election are defeating Obama and repealing Obamacare.
The "mainstream media" are not "pushing alternatives to Mitt Romney." The polls of voters desperate to avoid him are.
This is the same logic that got us Bob Dole and John McCain -- candidates picked by the GOP elite. In Dole's case for the ridiculous reason that it was "his turn."
I'll tell you what "everyone knows" in my neck of the woods. If "Ole Windsock" Romney is the nominee then the GOP will have to contend with a third party. The SOB is stuck at 25% in the polls for a reason, and if the elites (which apparently include Coulter) ram him down the Tea Parties' throats then they will frigging lose with a split vote.
What will that do for the chances of "defeating Obama and repealing Obamacare"?
The thing these people fail to understand is that their entire regime of corrupt two-party oligarchy has been delegitimized by events. The Tea Parties started spontaneously because the GOP elites had failed them. Now the elites want them trust 'em once more?
As I pointed out here "The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it."
We will see if Coulter likes the unintended consequences of Romney being jammed down all our throats. I doubt she will.
The crisis of legitimacy cannot be solved by electing one more corrupt and unprincipled bastard.
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