David Codrea: "American Trigger Sports Network Television hosts pro-gun panels."

Panels discussing the importance of the right to keep and bear arms gathered in Houston over the weekend to participate in the recording of several television episodes for American Trigger Sports Network Television. Including David!

Interesting new ATF internal document generated the day before the 4 February "withdrawn" (lying) DOJ letter to Grassley.

The link for the pdf of this letter is here.

U.S. Department of Justice

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

www.atf.gov

February 3, 2011

MEMORANDUM TO: Special Agent in Charge, Dallas Field Division

THRU: Resident Agent in Charge , Lubbock Field Office

FROM: Gary M. Styers, Special Agent, Lubbock Field Office

SUBJECT: Contact with Congressional Investigators

On February 2, 2011, at approximately 1500 hours, ATF Special Agent Gary Styers was contacted telephonically by Robert Donovan and Brian Downey, representing United States Senator Chuck Grassley and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Downey and Donovan after identifying themselves asked Special Agent Styers if he would be willing to answer some questions regarding the time Special Agent Styers spent on a detail to the Phoenix Field Division, Phoenix Group VII Office. Special Agent Styers said he would be willing to answer questions to the best of his knowledge.

Special Agent Styers was asked if he was familiar with the large firearms trafficking case in Phoenix Group VII and Special Agent Styers said he was. Downey and Donovan asked if Special Agent Styers knew the name of the case and he responded that it was "Fast and Furious". Downey and Donovan then asked if Special Agent Styers knew who the case agent was and Special Agent Styers said it was Special Agent Hope McAllister. Special Agent Styers was also asked who the supervisor of the group was and Special Agent Styers said it was Group Supervisor David Voth. Downey and Donovan also asked who helped Special Agent McAllister, Special Agent Styers said that Special Agent McAllister had a CoCase Agent from hnmigration and Customs Enforcement CICE) as well as an agent from Group VII. Downey and Donovan asked who was the Agent from ICE and Special Agent Styers told them it was Lane France.

Downey and Donovan asked Special Agent Styers ifhe knew what the agents were assigned to do on the investigation. Special Agent Styers explained that a group of agents were assigned to the case and that since the case was in the stage of an active wiretap, some agents were working within the group and others were working at various functions related to the wire. Special Agent Styers further said that he did not specifically know the role of each individual agent.

Downey and Donovan inquired as to the role that Special Agent Styers had in this case and Special Agent Styers advised that he had assisted with some surveillance operations with the case. Special Agent Styers was asked to describe the operations and relayed that one of the operations was a suspected transaction that was to occur at a gas station and detailed agents were asked to cover the transaction. While positioning to observe the suspects, Special Agent Styers and other detailed agents were told by Special Agent McAllister that agents were too close and would burn the operation. Special Agent McAllister told all the agents to leave the immediate area. While the agents were repositioning, the transaction between the suspects took place and the vehicle that took possession of the firearms eventually left the area without agents following it.

Downey and Donovan asked Special Agent Styers ifhe ever saw guns actually go into Mexico. Special Agent Styers said he did not see any firearms cross the border to Mexico. They also asked if Special Agent Styers had worked with any agencies in Mexico, Special Agent Styers relayed that he had not, but had knowledge that other agents within Group VII spoke of communication with other ATF Special Agents assigned in Mexico.

Downey and Donovan then asked if Special Agent Styers had any knowledge that Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) were reporting suspected straw purchasers. Special Agent Styers explained that FFLs were indeed reporting such situations and that Special Agent Styers had numerous contacts with FFLs in the Phoenix area and had also worked inside of an FFL in an undercover capacity, while an individual attempted a large scale straw purchase. Special Agent Styers told Downey and Donovan that in speaking with the FFL holder and owner of the gun shop, he told Special Agent Styers that he had asked ATF to install cameras inside his shop and to have an undercover agent inside on a more regular basis. Downey and Donovan inquired as to what the procedures were and who handled the calls from the FFLs when they reported such suspected transactions. Special Agent Styers told them that he had no knowledge of any special procedures. If the FFLs called during normal business hours, Special Agent Styers assumed that, if they called the office number, their call was handled by the Group Supervisor.

Special Agent Styers also told Downey and Donovan that if the FFLs were calling individual agents within the group, he had no direct knowledge of those calls and what the ATF response was to those reports. However, Special Agent Styers did tell Downey and Donovan that he had heard from within the group that FFLs were calling case agents.

With regards to statistics and reporting, Downey and Donovan, questioned Special Agent Styers as to whether he had any knowledge of "padding of statistics or inconsistent reporting". Special Agent Styers advised them that he had no knowledge of a wide scale effort to skew statistics. However, Special Agent Styers relayed that he did question the Group Supervisor as to why he wanted Special Agent Styers to trace firearms that had not been recovered. Special Agent Styers was assigned to the investigation and provided the ATF Form 4473s, the Firearms Transaction Record, and told to trace said frrearms. Special Agent Styers asked as to why, when ATF has the Suspect Gun Database, which is designed for such firearms that have yet to be recovered by law enforcement. Group Supervisor Voth said he wanted them traced so that if someone else traced the firearms, they would know the firearms were connected to the case Special Agent Styers was assigned. Special Agent Styers relayed that even though he disagreed with the requested procedures, he follow the request of Group Supervisor Voth. Special Agent Styers also informed Donovan and Downey that he asked several agents also assigned to Group VII if they had to submit similar firearms traces and they replied that they in fact also were told to trace all firearms in a similar fashion.

Special Agent Styers was then asked about his general impression of the Fast and Furious case. Special Agent Styers stated that the case had systematically divided and isolated agents from the group. The case agent had solicited the advice of numerous experienced agents, inclucding Special Agent Styers, regarding how to conduct and end the wiretap operations and case overall. Special Agent Styers gave the case agent his honest opinion and advice since Special Agent Styers had worked two wiretap investigations in his career. Special Agent Styers felt that his advice and opinions, as well as other agents' advice and opinions were widely disregarded. Along with other agents within the group, Special Agent Styers explained that he was no longer asked to assist with Fast and Furious and concentrated on his assigned cases and provided necessary assistance to fellow agents within the detail and group.

Downey and Donovan asked Special Agent Styers what he felt was incorrect about the way the Fast and Furious case was conducted. Special Agent Styers explained that first and foremost, it is unheard of to have an active wiretap investigation without full time dedicated surveillance units on the ground. Special Agent Styers relayed that no agents in the group were assigned to surveillance on the Fast and Furious case. Special Agent Styers said that other agencies or task force officers may have been used to conduct surveillance and respond to calls of FFLs, but it seemed that either the case agent or Group Supervisor would poll the office for agents who were available to respond at short notice.

Secondly, Special Agent Styers said that it appeared odd to have a majority of ATF Agents working on a wiretap investigation, who had never worked such a case. Especially, when numerous, permanent Group VII agents and detailers had previous wiretap experience.

Special Agent Styers was provided with contact information for Downey and Donovan and the conversation was ended. Special Agent Styers contacted the Lubbock Resident Agent in Charge, Jim Luera at 1545 hours after the conversation with Downey and Donovan ended, to inform him of the contact. Special Agent Styers was later asked to document the conversation herein and attempted to do so to the fullest extent possible.

Respectfully,

Gary M. Styers

Special Agent, ATF

Next Holder hearing scheduled for 24 January.

Lord willing, and the creek don't rise, I'll be there for what should prove to be the final battle on Holder ridge. And yes, I've heard something, and no, I can't talk about it just yet.

David Codrea's latest, and a reminder. . .

"New York Times stacks deck so Holder can play race card."

Folks,

David Codrea, my partner in sedition to the Empire in the Gunwalker Scandal, only gets paid, what little he does get paid, when you visit his site, National Gun Rights Examiner. He also provides a wider service at his original site, The War on Guns, which does not have a "tip jar" but notes that in lieu of that you can go to his Examiner site. The Examiner system pay him a fraction of a tuppence for every hit. One of the reasons why David and I get so, well, pissed off, at the "authorized journalists" and even so-called "conservative" web news sources such as the NRA who swipe his content without link attribution is that this robs money from David in the only way he has to generate revenue.

The Examiner system is screwed up in so many other ways, but David struggles against them every day to present what he is able to, simply because it is an income stream. My fear, and David has not prompted me to say this, is that after the first of the year David is going to have to take a hard look at what his finances are and simply hang up the blogging to get a job that pays.

That would be a tremendous loss for the cause of gun rights in this country in general, and the search for truth in the Gunwalker Scandal specifically. So remember to always go to his Examiner site to check his posts more than once a day. Help keep David in the fight. We need him.

Alvie D. Zane is on to something . . .

Sustainability is the new lebensraum. The EPA believes it can empower itself to wreck our lives.

Stupid Human Tricks. Bright Idea # 3,546,763. If there is a virus that can destroy humanity, let's play around and make it just for grins and giggles.

Why is this man smiling? Dr. Ron Fouchier, the Dutch dipshit who may have just destroyed humanity.

I can't believe that anybody this abysmally, criminally stupid is Dutch.

I miss another chance to meet Rachel Madcow. Gee, I wonder if my invitation got lost in the mail.

Probably not.

Lebensraum.

Lebensraum German for "habitat" or literally "living space") was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany. In Hitler's book Mein Kampf, he detailed his belief that the German people needed Lebensraum ("living space", i.e. land and raw materials), and that it should be found in the East. It was the stated policy of the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian and other Slavic populations, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate the land with Germanic peoples. The entire urban population was to be exterminated by starvation, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and allowing their replacement by a German upper class.

"After Fast and Furious, I have no choice but to know that they will lie." Darrell Issa on Mexico's Univision Sunday show with Jorge Ramos.

TRANSCRIPT

JR: Jorge Ramos

CDI: Congressman Darrell Issa

JR: Congressman Issa, thank you so much for talking to us.

CDI: Well, thank you, Jorge, for covering this important issue.

JR: Well, let me ask you about Fast and Furious – this past weekend at a congressional hearing, you told the Attorney General that he was to blame for the operation Fast and Furious, and you – and I’m quoting – you said, “that the operation Fast and Furious must go to your desk.” Do you think that Attorney General Holder should resign?

CDI: I think it’s critical, Jorge, that the Attorney General either expeditiously fix this problem, regain the confidence of our partners in Mexico and hold those people who directly did this accountable, or he needs to go and allow somebody else to clean house.

JR: Now, as you know, President Barack Obama told me in an interview that he was not aware nor did he authorize Fast and Furious, and he also told me that the Attorney General didn’t know anything about it. Do you believe President Obama, though?

CDI: Of course, I believe President Obama would believe that, and it may be true, but there’s the whole point. Either you knew and you didn’t act, or you were basically incompetent for not acting and still not acting even ‘til today. And that’s the important thing about Attorney General Holder - here we are, a year, one year today after Brian Terry was gunned down, long after this project led 2,000 weapons go south of the border, and nobody has been held accountable by this Attorney General.

JR: Now, during the interview with President Barack Obama on March 22, he, of course, told me that he had no information whatsoever about Fast and Furious. You have subpoenaed all communication between the Department of Justice and the White House in reference to that interview. Why is that relevant?

CDI: Well, there’s a very limited amount of information we’ve gotten relating to communication with the White House. It was just two individuals. Generally, under our system, we do not have access to communication directly to and from the President, but we basically believe that the President didn’t know about this specific operation. Instead, the President now knows about it, knows that Attorney General Holder has not fixed and cleaned up this operation. Even more so, it is very possible that today we’re still being misled as to the DEA’s involvement in money laundering and their communication with their partners in Mexico. All of these things beg the question of when is the President going to lose confidence in the Attorney General and the Department of Justice.

JR: So probably my question, Congressman, is if you truly believe that President Barack Obama knew about this operation before it was made public? Recently I spoke with Dan Restrepo – as you know, he’s one of President Barack Obama’s National Security Advisors, whose name, by the way, appears in a few of the documents – he told me that he was not aware of Fast and Furious, and that therefore, if he was not aware, it was impossible for him to tell President Barack Obama anything about it.

CDI: Well, Jorge, this may all be true. Again, under our system, our Chief Executive, President Obama, has to hold people accountable when things are done wrong, really wrong, so wrong that people are dying by the hundreds in Mexico, and even in America, people are being gunned down by these weapons. When will he hold Attorney General Holder responsible? When will the Attorney General here hold anybody accountable within the Department of Justice and make those changes? If I were in Mexico today, I would have a very hard time trusting this Department of Justice. They lied about Fast and Furious. They appear to be lying about DEA money laundering. This does not work for our two countries, and that’s what concerns me the most, is that going forward there won’t be confidence in a war on drugs and these cartels, and that’s what we need in order to end the killings, both north and south of the border.

JR: Congressman, as you mentioned, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed about a year ago; ICE agent Jaime Zapata was killed in Mexico on February 15. Are you completely convinced that both deaths are related to Fast and Furious?

CDI: We can’t be sure. We are fully confident that two weapons fired and found at the scene of Brian Terry’s murder were from Fast and Furious. More importantly, Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata, they’re symbols of a war that we’re losing because of bad practices like Fast and Furious. And I think that’s something that today on the first anniversary of the death of Brian Terry, all of us are thinking about much more, that he died because these weapons were let loose. Jaime Zapata may have died because of these or other weapons allowed. We’ve got to get control of the drugs, the money and the weapons. And this administration is a long way from having confidence in any of those.

JR: Yes, you know about Fast and Furious probably more than most members of Congress. Do you - can you confirm if these kind of operations were directed not only from the Phoenix office, but from other field offices?

CDI: We see indications that this policy of loose following or not following, and certainly not enforcing gun laws by U.S. Attorneys, was throughout the southern border. So was there a program as out of control as Fast and Furious? No, it seems to be in a league of its own. But was there a systematic reduction in the kind of enforcement that President Obama was -- sorry -- that President Bush was known for? Even firing a U.S. Attorney for not doing enough to prosecute gun traffickers. That part we know. It’s been reduced and it’s one of the reasons that we in Congress don’t have confidence that this President is serious about stopping the drugs, stopping the guns and stopping the money.

JR: I want to ask you about the money laundering operation reported recently by The New York Times. A spokesperson for President Felipe Calderon told me in an interview that the Mexican Government denies having any knowledge about the DEA money laundering operation. Now, do you think that the DEA agents acted without the knowledge or the permission of the Mexican government?

CDI: You know, Jorge, before Fast and Furious, I would have taken the belief that my government would not lie to me. But after Fast and Furious, I have no choice but to know that they will lie. They will distort the truth. So we’re going to investigate this and find out for sure, but it’s very hard to believe that the U.S. is not slanting the truth when they did so under Fast and Furious.

JR: Congressman Issa, one final question about your investigation. The complaints from Democrats I’ve spoken to, they say that this is only politics; that your real intention is to hurt President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. How do you respond to this criticism?

CDI: Well, I don’t even know whether Brian Terry or Jaime Zapata were Republicans or Democrats. And I don’t know anything about the politics of most of the people involved in this. What I know is that the American people, Republicans and Democrats, have not been told the truth, and had they been told the truth a year ago or nearly a year ago, this investigation would be long over and with much less impact on the President. So my only point is if the President would insist that Eric Holder do his job and do it quickly, this would not be an election year event at all. That’s up to him. I cannot stop investigating. I owe it to the Terry family, to the Zapata family. They need answers and they’re not getting them without our help.

JR: Okay. Congressman Issa, thank you so much for talking to us.

CDI: Of course. Thank you.

JR: Thank you.

This time of year, the lonely war of Eric Fisher Wood comes to mind.

I first wrote of this two years ago, Here: The 65th Anniversary of Eric Fisher Wood's Private War. It is a tale worth repeating.

Eric Holder wants a pass on responsibility for the functional racism of stacking up hundreds of Mexican bodies as an excuse for more gun control in the Gunwalker Scandal because if we try to blame him we're racists because he's black.

Justice Dept silent as Holder charges critics with racism.

Well, of course. What's a few more dead Mexicans in service to the meme, anyway? I mean the Democratic Hispanic Caucus doesn't object, so why should we?

Mark Steyn on "The Gingrich Gestalt."

As fine a dissection as I have read to date.

CBS selectively edits Obama's megalomania.

He's the fourth best president of the United States. More accomplishments in his first two years than anybody but Johnson, FDR and Lincoln. Yeah, Lincoln, the guy who provoked the civil war that killed upwards of 600,000 of his fellow citizens. That Lincoln. Apparently the claim was too rich even for CBS who cut it out of their broadcast version.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by the The Beautiful and All-Powerful Committee to Stamp Out Under-Appreciation of World Class Narcissists.

The Rashomon effect? Or just the complexity of human beings and life? Hero? Villain? Both? An alternate view of "Fed of the Year" Tom Brandon.

The Rashomon effect is the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially different but equally plausible accounts of it. A useful demonstration of this principle in scientific understanding can be found in an article by that name authored by Karl G. Heider. It is named for Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon, in which a crime witnessed by four individuals is described in four mutually contradictory ways. -- Wikipedia.

Readers will recall this story from Thursday: "ATF’s Tom Brandon Named ticklethewire.com’s Fed of the Year." Let me tell you something about this much ballyhooed schmuck. In it, I described the recipient of Tickle the Wire's "Fed of the Year" award thusly:

Much respected? Yes. Even the guys at CleanUpATF.org welcomed him. "A straight shooter"? Well, you be the judge. Sources tell Sipsey Street that right after he was transferred to Phoenix, Brandon screwed up. That is, he took his charge to clean up Phoenix seriously. In the process, he began to follow the leads that the dissident agents of Phoenix Group VII had followed before being pulled off the surveillances of the straw buyers which were leading to the smugglers and money men.

In short order, Brandon was told to back off, say our sources. He continued to push -- until he was summoned to a meeting with the FBI and DOJ higher ups and given the "national security" warning. The FBI paid informant that the ATF agents had unknowingly identified was a "piece of slime, but a protected piece of slime," according to one source. Brandon was ordered to back off and he very meekly did.

I stand by the story, of course, but I am in receipt of an email from one of the ATF whistleblowers who wants to let us know that the story is not all of the picture, from his point of view:

Mike,

You and your sources are entitled to their opinions. I imagine that there are people who may not like Tom Brandon for one reason or another. I'll say this: When Mr. Brandon came to Phoenix, he saw the gaping wound before the scab even began to form. He did his best to fix the problem, and had the balls to tell his bosses at HQ what was going on. He also stood firmly on the train tracks when the train was about to roll over the Whistleblowers. He very easily could have just stood by and watched as so many other SES'ers would have done. I respect Tom, and although I only met him when he first landed in Phoenix, I believe he has more integrity than any leader I've worked for in my career. If, as you speculate Congressman Issa or Senator Grassley choose to speak with him, I'm sure he'd uphold his oath of office and place it above any personal agendas or career aspirations.

It's just my two cents. Merry Christmas to you and yours.

This is not necessarily the Rashomon effect, of course. People, and life, are far more complicated than the convenient but flawed shorthand cartoons we create of it. Rogues can be heroes and heroes rogues, and often are. Our perception of which is which is most often dependent upon when we view them. Brandon folded on the "national security" trump card, but fought for the individual whistleblowers it seems. These are not mutually exclusive actions.

There is a scene in the 1949 film Battleground, about the 101st at Bastogne, where the 3rd Platoon is attacked at dawn at a railway overpass, and appears about to be overrun. Hansan moves forward to get a better shot at the attackers and is wounded. The German volume of fire seems overwhelming, with flashes, bangs and confused shouting in the semi-dark. The veteran Holley loses his nerve and starts to run away, followed by the replacement Layton. Layton doesn't know what Holley's doing, but he only knows that he feels safe around the veteran. Holley, afraid of being a coward in front of the younger man, regains his courage and leads a flanking counterattack that defeats the Germans. At the end of the engagement, it is the Germans who are mostly lying dead and wounded in the snow, crying out in pain.

Hero? Villain? Both?

The answer depends upon when.

Of all the war films made during and after World War II, Battleground was regarded by veterans of that war to be the most honest.

One day we will find out the entire story of the Gunwalker Scandal and then we will know who the villains and who the heroes are. Some, perhaps Tom Brandon, will turn out to have been both.

Battleground

Questions about CDC involvement in the "door-to-door preparedness survey" in Tennessee.

And speaking of the possibility of disinformation, I received a lot of your emails about this: "Door-To-Door Assessment For Disaster Preparedness."

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Whether it's flooding or another severe weather event, emergency officials want to make sure Tennesseans are prepared.

A community assessment will get underway Thursday across Davidson County.

Tennessee has been hit hard with natural disasters --from a devastating flood in May 2010 to several strings of severe storms and tornadoes that ripped through the state in just the last year and a half.

The Metro Public Health and the Tennessee Department of Health will be using a tool designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go door to door and check to see how disaster ready you are.

The door to door assessment will take place from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. It will be in 30 neighborhoods in Davidson County that have been randomly selected to be the target of a door to door assessment.

Saturday will be used as a backup day if the assessments are not completed by Friday.

Participants will be asked a list of 22 questions. They may include:

* What is your primary way of getting information during a disaster or emergency?

* What special assistance might you need from emergency responders during an emergency?

The people conducting the survey will be wearing a t-Shirt with the words CASPER written on the front, which stands for Community Assessment on Public Health Emergency Response.

Naturally, there are folks who believe that it is none of the government's business what you do, or do not, have in your home related to disaster preparedness. I happen to be one of those "anti-government troglodytes." So I was immediately curious about what the 22 questions were. I fired off a request to the CDC and this is what I got back:

The CDC is unaware of a Door-To-Door Assessment tool for Disaster Preparedness, please contact the Tennessee State Department (tn.health@tn.gov) for more information.

Thank you, CDC Media Relations

Hmmm. I have forwarded this to the reporter of the original story and will let you know what I hear back.

"Attorney General Holder Tied to OKC Bombers." Or, not.

A lot of you have sent me this link from American Free Press: "Attorney General Holder Tied to OKC Bombers."

Huh? More than a bit perplexed, I sent out this email to Jesse Trentadue and another man well familiar with the case and the documents:

OK, I haven't seen this in the PATCON material. What am I missing?

I heard back first from the expert:

Mike -- I don't think this is based on PATCON documents at all... pretty sure its' about Roger Moore and FOIA documents Jesse got relative to the 2005 find of explosives cache in Terry Nichols crawl space of his former home in Herington KS... there may be a PATCON connection, but it's not documented (yet). Jesse might have different view, but I don't think so.

Not long after, Jesse Trentadue replied:

I wish it were true, but it is not. I agree with REDACTED, it was probably written out of context. I have no inkling who the author is nor any idea as to his credibility. It was probably cobbled from web information. There is so much out there, including my brother Kenney being John Doe 2 and murdered because of it.

I am working with all of these documents, both those that are strictly PATCON as well as the Trentadue OKC discovery material, which overlap. If none of us know the source of this story, which cites Jesse's FOIA search, then I'm prepared to label it disinformation. The Internet is a tricky place. Caveat lector.

Sipsey Street Exclusive: Obama invokes Catch 22 in the Gunwalker Scandal. "It is good that we have provided for impeachment, for the alternative is assassination."

"Catch-22 states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision the accused violator is accused of violating." Another character explains: "Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing." . . . Yossarian comes to realize that Catch-22 does not actually exist, but because the powers that be claim it does, and the world believes it does, it nevertheless has potent effects. Indeed, because it does not exist, there is no way it can be repealed, undone, overthrown, or denounced. The combination of force with specious and spurious legalistic justification is one of the book's primary motifs. -- Wikipedia, Catch 22.

"Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."

When I wrote "The Stone Albatross: Assisted Mass Political Suicide by Drowning in Mexican Blood. Obama's Decision to Embrace the Horror and Make the Gunwalker Scandal a Centerpiece of His Re-Election Campaign" this morning, I was unaware of two important articles that broke today. The first was an outstanding piece of detective work on the part of John Richardson at No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money, entitled "Dennis Burke And Gun Control." Richardson recounts former US Attorney Dennis Burke's recently revealed Gunwalker emails indicating his penchant for gun control. Then he tells us some stuff that I am ashamed I didn't turn up earlier myself:

It should be noted that Burke is not a newcomer to the business of gun control. In an article in the Arizona Republic about the political ramifications on Arizona politicians for supporting gun control, former Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), a supporter of the Clinton "Assault Weapons Ban", had this to say about Dennis Burke:

DeConcini credits Judiciary Committee staff aide Dennis Burke, now the U.S. attorney for Arizona, for much of the work in developing the ban, which became law during DeConcini's final year in the Senate but expired after 10 years.

Burke also was Senior Policy Analyst for the White House's Domestic Policy Council from 1995 to 1997. This time overlaps with when Elena Kagan - now Justice Kagan - served as its Deputy Director. It was during this time that Executive Orders were used to further extend the ban on so-called assault weapons and to implement the Brady Act. Given his prior work on the Assault Weapons Ban in the Senate, it would not surprise me that Burke assisted in this effort.

Looking at Burke's background and his attitude towards gun rights and those who support them, I see this as even further confirmation that the intent of Operation Fast and Furious from the very beginning was to build support for another so-called assault weapons ban. I just don't think it was coincidental that Operation Fast and Furious was centered in Arizona as opposed New Mexico or west Texas where the U.S. Attorneys have long careers as prosecutors.

Richardson is on to something here. While we know that there other gunwalking operations elsewhere, none seems to have been carried out with the enthusiasm of the Phoenix ATF office and U.S. Attorney's office. We now know that the first face-to-face meeting between William "Gunwalker Bill" Newell, the Phoenix Field Division Special agent in Charge, and White House personnel, including, according to sources, State Department employee and National Security Council adviser Kevin O'Reilly, took place in early March, 2009, right after Eric Holder had his political ass whupped by Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel for advocating another assault weapons ban in public on 25 February. (See "In at the beginning." The State Department & the Gunwalker Scandal. Part 2. The 90% Myth. "I have not backed off" an AWB.

Newell, of course, was the guy on the Southwest Border with the most experience with gunwalking, when an operation in the Bush administration, Wide Receiver, had gotten out hand and Newell was chided by his superiors for screwing up.

If you read DOJ's announcement file on Dennis Burke, you will note that Burke, who had come over with Janet Napolitano to the Department of Homeland Security and became her "senior adviser on border security and law enforcement" was nominated on 14 July 2009.(Burke had been Napolitano's chief of staff when she was governor of Arizona.) He was confirmed by the Senate with unanimous consent on 15 September 2009 -- the month that everyone now agrees is when Fast and Furious began.

On 25 October 2009, Eric Holder announced nine appointees -- one of them Burke -- to the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys. And what is that?

"The Advisory Committee has two functions. It gives United States Attorneys a voice in Department policies and advises the Attorney General of the United States.

In advising the Attorney General, the Committee conducts studies and makes recommendations to improve management of United States Attorney operations and the relationship between the Department and the federal prosecutors. It also helps formulate new programs for improvement of the criminal justice system and the delivery of legal services at all levels.

In serving the United States Attorneys, the Committee coordinates the collective efforts of the United States Attorneys with the divisions and agencies of the Department of Justice, and departments and agencies external to the Department of Justice. It also represents the United States Attorneys with the Department of Justice, other departments and agencies of the government, and occasionally private organizations." -- Wikipedia.

According to the DOJ, "In August, Holder tapped Minnesota U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones to chair the committee, an influential policy-making and advisory body that serves as the voice of the U.S. Attorneys at Main Justice." Jones is now the Acting Director of the ATF. As for Burke, his bio provided to the Senate at that time indicated a slim experience as an Assistant United States Attorney from 1997 to 1999, but otherwise he had been a very political animal. His appointment to both the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix followed almost immediately by the plum appointment to the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys, indicates according to one of my sources "a fair-haired boy, fast tracked for some compelling reason."

It is not that much of a leap to think that such an anti-firearm political animal who had essentially written the original Assault Weapons Ban was put in Phoenix for a "compelling reason" -- Operation Fast and Furious.

That was then, 2009. This is now, on the verge of what is going to prove to be a very unhappy New Year, 2012. And today, the New York Times ran a Charlie Savage interview with Eric Holder entitled "A Partisan Lightning Rod Is Undeterred". It is a piece of work. It is a declaration of war with Darrell Issa, Charles Grassley, the GOP and the American people. In the context of what has happened in the Gunwalker Scandal prior to today, it is as close as one can come to expressing Catch 22 in modern political terms. Obama, through the mouth of Eric Holder, has just declared "We can do anything you can't stop us from doing."

In an interview last week, Mr. Holder said he had no intention of resigning before the administration’s term was up, although he said he had made no decision about whether he would continue after 2012 should the president win re-election.

“I think that what I’m doing is right,” Mr. Holder said. “And election-year politics, which intensifies everything, is not going to drive me off that course.”

. . . But Mr. Holder contended that many of his other critics — not only elected Republicans but also a broader universe of conservative commentators and bloggers — were instead playing “Washington gotcha” games, portraying them as frequently “conflating things, conveniently leaving some stuff out, construing things to make it seem not quite what it was” to paint him and other department figures in the worst possible light.

Of that group of critics, Mr. Holder said he believed that a few — the “more extreme segment” — were motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he served as a stand-in for him. “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” he said, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

Mr. Holder, however, attributed most of the hostility to underlying ideological differences. “I think that people, despite my law enforcement background, view me as taking these consistently progressive stands, and I think that, philosophically, there is a desire to get at that person,” he said. “But I think the stands I have taken are totally consistent with a person who is looking at things realistically, factually.”

There is more, and you should go read the whole thing, but the first time I read it, I said aloud, "Why the sonofabitch is declaring Catch 22." I'm not the only one who thinks so. Readers will recall a source I occasionally refer to as "Alvin Wombat." That nom de guerre conceals the identity of a long-time government employee, a fellow who has watched scandals large and small come and go. When he read the Savage interview with Holder, he was appalled.

After reading the Charlie Savage article in today's New York Times in which he deifies Attorney General Holder and dismisses Fast & Furious and related issues . . . I have concluded that

(1) President Obama is either behind and/or has consented to the Fast & Furious activities, and

(2) President Obama has utterly NO intentions of changing ANYTHING. That is, what's coming down here is President Obama directly signaling F--K YOU, and that the future is only going to get a lot worse, because that's exactly what he wants. The New York Times is nothing but an uncritical syncophantic beacon for the Obama Administration.

It has long been clear that President Obama and Attorney General Holder understand perfectly the motivations behind and what happened regarding Fast & Furious, and the (continuing) breakdown in top ATF leadership. It isn't though there has been any lack of information in that regard, or in their abilities to obtain whatever other information they want. To suggest otherwise is a joke. The only thing left to conclude is that President Obama WANTS this sort of disruption, and that it is only a prelude to whatever else he's got on his agenda. Whatever that is, isn't good.

He added,

"(This) is a political agenda, and can at this point only be interpreted to represent how things are going to (continue) to go down politically in the future. That means even further breaches of and trashing of civil liberties, and a continuation of the march down the road to liberal fascism (how's that for being oxymoronic?). We'll see if the Congress has the balls to intercede."

Catch 22 indeed.

"Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."

Remember, personnel is policy. Burke, Newell and O'Reilly were the personnel and gun control was the policy. The Richardson article confirms what we knew all along, that the Gunwalker Scandal was crafted for the political purpose of justifying more citizen disarmament in the United States by arming murder gangs in Mexico.

The Holder interview is Obama speaking through Holder's lips. This isn't about law, or elections, or any other passe concept. This is about raw power, pure and simple. They can do anything we can't stop them from doing.

So now we know. This is political war to the knife and knife to the hilt. And if the political war fails to dislodge these practitioners of depraved murder for political points, then the only way they can be removed will involve resort to defensive violence on the part of the people. That is what Obama and Holder just told us.

Issa, Grassley and the other elected representatives in the Congress who have asked for the truth about the Gunwalker Scandal should understand this. They should understand that they are now the last threadbare hope of maintaining the legitimacy of this two-party regime. After them, if they fail, comes the deluge. Failure is not an option. Either they enforce the rule of law, or the law of the jungle will devour us all. And they should remember what Ben Franklin is reported to have said at the time of the crafting of the Constitution: "It is good that we have provided for impeachment, for the alternative is assassination."

I don't know about you, but I prefer impeachment. I'm sure everybody else does too.

Ben Franklin, one smart old white guy.

A great soul has crossed over to meet his Maker.

Vaclav Havel when he was a Czech dissident, persecuted by the communist regime.

Vaclav Havel is dead.

As the Washington Post reports:

Václav Havel, a Czech writer who was imprisoned by his country's former communist rulers, only to become a symbol of freedom and his nation's first president in the post-communist era, died Sunday morning at his weekened home in the Czech Republic, the Associated Press reports. He was 75. . .

Mr. Havel was a playwright by profession and a political activist by avocation. The two activities were complementary and each served to gain him a leading place among the dissidents of Eastern Europe who helped bring down the communist empire. His words and deeds resonated far beyond the borders of the former Czechoslovakia, and he was widely recognized for his struggles in behalf of democracy and human dignity.

After being unanimously elected president of Czechoslovakia by the newly free country's parliament in December 1989, Mr. Havel set the tone of the new era in a speech on Jan. 1, 1990, his first day in office. Communism, he said, was “a monstrous, ramshackle, stinking machine” whose worst legacy was not economic failure but a “spoiled moral environment.”

What Pravda-on-the-Potomac doesn't mention, at least in the part of the story that I can see, is that Havel was Europe's most prominent and insistent critic of Barack Obama's foreign policy, or lack thereof.

Vaclav Havel was, warts and and all, a great soul. Beaten and imprisoned, he never lost his humanity nor turned traitor to his principles. Nothing greater can be said of any man.

The Stone Albatross: Assisted Mass Political Suicide by Drowning in Mexican Blood. Obama's Decision to Embrace the Horror and Make the Gunwalker Scandal a Centerpiece of His Re-Election Campaign.

OK, so it's looking like I may lose my uncharacteristic $50.00 bet that Eric Holder will be gone by Christmas. I rested that bet on the logic that Obama wouldn't want the stone albatross of Eric Holder around his neck when he ran for reelection.

And, as Dave Wokman notes here, "During the Republican debate, candidates Rick Santorum and Rick Perry both said Holder should go. They join 57 members of Congress who have also called on Holder to step down." This may be the first significant mention of the Gunwalker Scandal in the presidential campaign, it won't be the last.

And yet, as Workman points out, it is in the GOP interest -- and perhaps the long-term interest of the truth -- for Holder to stay.

John Carlson, writing in the business section of the Des Moines Register, concurs and offers more detail:

At last count, 59 members of Congress want the resignation of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. They should save their energy and watch the faucet drip more.

Holder won’t quit — yet — even though he’s repeatedly lied to Congress and the American people about the disgusting Justice Department operation that sent a couple of thousand guns to Mexican drug cartels. . .

White House and top Justice Department officials continue to have a “What, me worry?” attitude about it. This is because they think they’re smarter than everybody else. If not for the horror their operation caused, it would be fun to watch them slowly figure out they aren’t the smartest ones in every room they enter.

The death count from Fast and Furious guns has topped 300. Holder said the killings almost certainly will go on for years.

His admission didn’t get much attention on the news, but it will make for great television next year when the Republican candidate for president runs commercials showing Obama’s smirking attorney general refusing to give straight answers to simple questions. His dissection of the word “lie” will be shown a dozen times a day. Agent Terry’s picture will remind us of the cost of such a stupid, reckless operation.

Democrat candidates for Congress will tire of being asked about Fast and Furious and they’ll complain to the White House.

This is likely, because it gets worse every time somebody in the administration testifies or makes a statement. Every piece of paper and email is an embarrassment. Not a single piece of information exonerates anybody in the White House or Justice Department, and serious journalists will report each death that comes from one of the guns.

Holder will quit, but not because of pressure from Republicans. Democrats will throw him out to save themselves.

Excellent logic, I thought, since it was my own theory months ago. But now we must ask "when?" Carlson is right to point out that not just the GOP presidential candidate versus Obama but every GOP candidate running against a Dem incumbent will have his own "What did (incumbent X) do to stop the Gunwalker Scandal?" as running. Even the Democrat Hispanic caucus can be attacked from the left in the primaries by other Dems asking why they did nothing when hundreds, thousands of fellow Hispanics were being killed with government guns?

No doubt this is part of the GOP strategy, to drag it out into the election season, but one must wonder why the Democrats are so obviously cooperating in their own demise? The Kevorkian GOP is happy to help, but my sources in DC are perplexed as to why the Democrats are so eager to commit mass political suicide by drowning in Mexican blood. "It makes no sense," said one. The 8 December hearing, he said,

"gave any political commercial scriptwriter enough soundbites for the average American to conclude that Eric Holder was lying through his teeth. All they have to do then is replay the Obama quotes about having full confidence in Holder. . . Nobody up here can figure (Holder's continued tenure as Attorney General) out. . . It's political suicide for an entire party. . . Even the Democratic staffers are openly wondering when the bleeding will stop."

So, in addition to "when?" we must ask "why" Obama and his party seem so determined for their own re-enactment of the Battle of Little Bighorn?

It can't be because they want me to lose fifty bucks.

Chicago Pols, Gangs, how to tell the difference?

Courtesy of John Richardson we have this link to a revealing story, "Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy Alliance," subtitled: "In some parts of Chicago, violent street gangs and pols quietly trade money and favors for mutual gain. The thugs flourish, the elected officials thrive—and you lose."

As John observes, "Is it any wonder that Chicago politicians are so anti-gun? It keeps the honest people defenseless while the gangs who support them remain armed."