"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 Indeed, because it does not exist, there is no way it can be repealed, undone, overthrown, or denounced.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.
11 comments:
Reggie Love, recently departed Obama "aide" MUST HAVE KNOWN ABOUT OPERATION GUNRUNNER. Issa should subpoena him...
http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2011/12/operation-reggie-runner.html
Hey, ATF guys,
The men who head your agency are the types of people who wrote the AWB. These are the types of people who wrote the GCA of '68. These are the types of people who set the unconstitutional precedent with the NFA of 1934. These are the types of people who make policy decisions for you. This constitutionally subversive agenda is the very reason for the existence of ATF.
What type of a man willingly goes to work for an agency, the leadership of which, the philosophy of which, and the agenda of which is a direct violation of the Constitution he is sworn to defend?
You guys still think you work for "A great agency with an important mission..."?
Principled men, moral men, men of good character wouldn't work for such an agency and wouldn't enforce/impose such statutes.
Catch 22? That defines the gun-control concept exactly. They do it because they get away with it. Does THAT describe good men, moral men, or principled men?
Good men, principled men, would be resigning in droves. The fact that you are not resigning in droves says volumes about you.
Some of you call yourselves "Sheep Dogs". I would remind you how truly that moniker fits you. A Sheep Dog's primary mission is to herd sheep. He barks. He snarls. He snaps his fangs at the heels of the sheep, keeping them moving in the direction the Master whats the herd to go. He is the Master's assurance that the sheep will be delivered to the pen on time, to be sheered and eventually slaughtered. What kind of a man thinks that is a really cool job description?
Our founding documents state that the ONLY reason for any government is to guarantee the RIGHTS of Life, Liberty and Property. A usurper, a scoundrel, a subversive, an opportunist proposes the agenda to reduce and restrict honest People's rights as a way to prevent dishonest people from behaving badly. What kind of a man thinks that is a good idea?
Statist thugs create false flag events. Their minions facilitate the effort and help cover it up after the fact. Good men, moral men, when shown evidence of such malfeasance would immediately shout the truth from the highest rooftop. Willing lackeys keep their mouths shut in order to get along. By their silence they facilitate the crime they have sworn to fight. What kind of a man does so willingly? What kind of a man has a hand in such affairs and sleeps well at night?
There is nothing new under the sun. Scoundrels will always plot and scheme. They will always send bullies and thugs to do their bidding.
Good men, moral men, and men of principle, would contact Grassley and Issa immediately and tell everything they know (or suspect). Good men, moral men, and principled men, wouldn't work another day for an agency who's function is the undermining of the Constitution they swore to defend.
Mike talks about Waco rules. I would remind you that after initial gun fight at Waco, the leadership of ATF ordered the field to stop the shooting review because it was creating Brady material. Brady material is evidence which would tend to exculpate the accused. Good men, moral men, and men of principle would have spoken the truth about Waco. Yet, as the lies were stacked on on top of the other, and the cover story got more preposterous, not a peep was heard from the men "in the trenches".
You guys want to be good men, or just wear the facade? Now is your time.
The American public waits to see you show yourselves to be Oath Keepers.
Catch-22 or the old, time worn, "bunker mentality" ? I've live to see it under Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush the second. These people (and their advisors) obviously have never cracked open a history book. Had they of done that, they'd realize Americans are generally more forgiving when you stand tall and fess up right from the beginning. Stonewalling goes against the American grain and just breeds contempt. It must be remembered that this stonewalling on F&F comes at a time when American faith is government is at, or approaching, all time lows!
"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. "
Yeah. About as coincidental as the 3 simultaneous fires at Waco and subsequent missing/misplaced evidence.
Longbow, my hat is off to you sir. I have often wondered how both ATF/FBI special agents sleep at night, given their putrid actions. I have wondered how they could come home from work and look their families in the eye. How could they shave(both male and female agents) while looking in the mirror. One day, every one of them will meet an uncorruptable JUDGE who does not accept perjury, cannot be bought, or intimidated and whose judgement is final.
"This is about raw power, pure and simple. They can do anything we can't stop them from doing."
For more information watch "WACO, the rules of engagement." (Biography channel) Evidently it's no longer a "sensitive" issue.
Promotions for everyone involved and no truth or justice at all, only a cover-up from begining to end.
AND, they got away with it. How's that for empowerment?
That's when the government extended it's middle finger to the American citizen and the constitution.
It's always good to have an alternative.
And invoking the race card, too. A card laid is a card played.
Good thing one can printout targets in black and white, even in living color - no discrimination here!
Note to self: after a successful hunting season, I need to schedule some range time.
If enough threepers do the same, it may serve as a deterrent. We can only hope.
III N TN
Longbow, I agree, your comment was excellent.
It took the death of one of their own to get these whistleblowers to speak up. The deaths, harassment and abuse of ordinary citizens has NEVER been a reason for these Federal agents to speak up. In fact they have all either willingly participated in the cover-up of the ATF's abuses or have been complicit by their silence. Even when the dead included women and children.
Fear of their own mortality due to the guns they allowed to be bought by those supplying the cartels is what drives this. Until they realized they could end up at the wrong end of these guns (instead of the hundreds of Mexicans who have already been killed), they had no desire to blow the whistle.
Sorry, Mike. It isn't useful to deny the truth. And while it has been embarrassing to the Obama administration, they continue to show their disdain for the rule of law by acting as if the Congressional investigation has no force whatsoever - and are proving that to be true.
With each passing day it seems that a new "civil war" and the breakup of the USA is inevitable.
Hard to be impeached when Zero is a foreign born usurper. That's jail time or hang time. The ruling class and judicial authorities are further nullifying the rule of law, everybody knows it.
When a foreign born and allegianced usurper is at the helm, bad things happen. Raila Odinga association, hint hint.
Zero's being challenged on the ballot in Alabama, Georgia, numerous states now. Perhaps he'll actually show prima facie evidence of a HI birth as required? Bwwaahahaaha
In his autobiography, DeConcini goes into quite a bit of detail about his and Burke's involvement in the assault weapon ban legislation.
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