LA Times: "Embassy kept in dark as guns flooded Mexico."

Presaging some of the testimony tomorrow.

Sipsey Street Public Service Announcement: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform seeking certain documents.

A fat old man with a cane outside the Concrete Anal Sphincter of the Universe this morning after he reputedly met with committeecritters.

They are just insatiable, apparently. They have so many they can't keep track of them and now they want more. That's what I hear, anyway. So, if you have any please contact Henry Kerner at 202-225-5074. A nice young man, he is.

Oh, yeah, and they're also looking for experts to properly explain some of the documents they already have. Very mystifying, that.

David Codrea: "‘Project Gunwalker’ T-shirts help raise public consciousness."

What the well-dressed "Hatriot" will wear.

FOX:"Feds Refuse to Explain How Convicted Felons Bought Guns in 'Operation Fast and Furious.'" FBI manipulated NICS to keep the weapons flowing South!

"Well, after today's FOX report, let me tell you how much my career is worth. Just about this much."

I knew this was coming and told the Committee folks about it this morning. This story just broke on FOX.

At some point, the institutional white cells within the FBI who are very protective of their PR are going to throw Robert Mueller in the Potomac and bust the National Security Council, acting like they just found out about Gunwalker.

EXCLUSIVE: In the latest chapter of the gunrunning scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious, federal officials are refusing to explain how two suspects obtained more than 360 weapons despite criminal records that should have prevented them from buying even one gun.

Under current federal law, people with felony convictions are not permitted to buy weapons, and those with felony arrests are typically flagged while the FBI conducts a thorough background check.

However, according to court records reviewed by Fox News, two of the 20 defendants indicted in the Fast and Furious investigation have felony convictions and criminal backgrounds that experts say, at the very least, should have delayed them buying a single firearm. Instead, the duo bought dozens of guns on multiple occasions while federal officials watched on closed-circuit cameras.

Congressional and law-enforcement sources say the situation suggests the FBI, which operates the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, knowingly allowed the purchases to go forward after consulting with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which initiated Operation Fast and Furious. Under the failed anti-gun trafficking program, straw buyers -- those who legally purchase guns and illegally sell them to a third party -- were allowed to buy guns, many of which were sold to Mexican drug cartel members.

Court documents show the breakdown involves suspects Jacob Wayne Chambers, 21, and Sean Christopher Stewart, 28, both of Phoenix. Police arrested Chambers for felony burglary and trafficking stolen property in 2008, a year before he began buying more than 70 guns that ended up in the hands of the Sinaloa cartel. Stewart pled guilty to resisting arrest and criminal damage in 2001 and was arrested on drug charges in 2010. He was also charged with violating an order of protection and a local municipal court issued a warrant for his arrest. Stewart purchased 290 weapons.

"You cannot sanction the violation of federal law by enabling or co-enabling prohibited persons, which includes felony convictions, from purchasing firearms," said Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a former federal prosecutor and a member of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating the botched ATF operation. Gowdy said he would discuss the apparent violation with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the committee.

When asked about the breakdown, Stephen Fischer, a spokesman for the NICS System, said the FBI had no comment. However, ATF Special Agent John Dodson, who worked the Fast and Furious investigation, said NICS officials called the ATF in Phoenix whenever their suspects tried to buy a gun. That conversation typically led to a green light for the buyers, when it should have stopped them.

The apparent corruption of the system concerns Gowdy. "It is unconscionable and goes beyond just being a terribly ill-conceived investigation to bordering, if not crossing, into criminal activity," he said.

The investigation into why these men were able to purchase weapons and this sting operation gone wrong continues on Tuesday. The House Oversight Committee will hold a third hearing, focusing on what was happening on the other side of the border in Mexico.

The former and current ATF attachés to Mexico will testify that their agency never informed them of this operation.

Committee Chair Issa and his colleagues will have their first opportunity to question ATF supervisors who have defended Operation Fast and Furious and the Justice Department’s decisions to committee investigators.

Headed to Capitol Hill this morning with Larry Pratt to discuss important stuff with official people.

I will, however, maintain my irritating irreverence.

Meanwhile, in the Rayburn House Office Building . . .

"Vanderboegh's coming! Hide the emails!"

On a not-entirely-unrelated matter of interest, we provide this factoid:

National Security Council (NSC) functions as the President’s primary forum for discussing national security and foreign policy matters with his senior security advisors, cabinet officials, and closest staff members. Created by the National Security Act of 1947, the NSC has become increasingly influential in policy matters and the daily operations of the nation’s military and intelligence agencies over the past six and a half decades. Although the actions and proceedings of the NSC remain highly confidential, under the guidance of the President, its members regularly address the most pressing issues concerning the national security of the United States.

The President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State are considered to be statutory attendees of NSC meetings, but they are also regularly joined by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Advisor, and other executive officials. The NSC conducts its meetings in the White House Situation Room, and the National Security Advisor’s presence in the West Wing provides the President with direct access to research, briefings, and intelligence related to all aspects of national security. During times of crisis, the National Security Advisor is also responsible for operating out of the Situation Room in order to provide the President and other members of the NSC with regular updates pertaining to the situation at hand.

An interesting concept. Collectivist commentator proposes trying Rupert Murdoch as a "Cultural War Criminal." Judgement at Hollywood and Vine.

You know the other day I was driving to pick up Rosey at work and listening to National Proletariat Radio as I went. The discussion was obsessed, as that arc of the political circle is these days, with the phone hacker scandal in Britain.

Interestingly, a commentator from the United States said that Rupert Murdoch -- whom the other Brit literati were inclined to give a legal pass because the facts did not seem to implicate him personally -- should be tried anyway as a "cultural war criminal."

Now there, I thought, is an interesting concept. Of course who puts whom on trial is dependent upon which side wins the war.

Food for thought.

Why not a remake of "Judgement at Nuremberg," rewritten as "Judgement at Hollywood and Vine."

Works for me.

Met some great folks Saturday at the NRA Firearms Museum. An interesting range teaching a class in "Combat Pen."

Among the folks I ended up going to lunch with was MD blogger Laura who sent me this email today:

Hi there Mike!

First off, I'd like to thank you for being willing to share your birthday with us. Yesterday was a great day, and I'm glad I got to meet yet another awesome bloggerperson.

Now, for the links:

1 - http://www.mdshooters.com/ - they've got the forums mostly locked down, I believe, but there's the link for it

2 - http://www.freestategunrange.com/ - This is the local range that's doing classes like Tactical Pen. They are the ONLY range, to my knowledge, that does stuff like this in Maryland. They're the same people who asked the community what we wanted to see in a range, and they've come through with flying colors. Range fees are competitive without being overwhelming, staff is knowledgeable, membership fees are reasonable, and they provide a bit of a "clubhouse" atmosphere with a pool table, chairs and tables, a soda machine and what will eventually be a snack bar. For a range that's only been open since April, I'm highly impressed. I'll be doing a full writeup once we make our third visit.

3 - falnfenix.blogspot.com/ and topshelfreviews.blogspot.com - the first is my blog, the second is Chris's drink review blog. I can't remember if you had interest in either, but if you do, there's the links. If you don't, 'scool, feel free to ignore. :)

Hope you manage to keep cool during this heat wave, and have a safe trip home whenever you head back!

-- Laura

Bill Conroy at Narcosphere finally tips his leftist hand. He doesn't like the drug war, but he doesn't like the GOP either.

Fast and Furious, he says, is Grassley's and Issa's fault.

Scratch a doper, get a Democrat. Or is it the other way around? We'll see what words he eats after Tuesday.

Are these people insane?

'Super Congress': Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body

Vote for Papoon. He's not insane.

Impromptu press soiree on 22 July at the St. Regis Hotel coincident with a sub-committee meeting of The Coalition of Willing Lilliputians.

From right to left: Chris Scholl, CBS News producer, Larry Pratt, Gun Owners of America, Sharyl Attkisson, CBS News, and on the far left an old fat man with a cane who wandered in. Other participants too camera shy to be memorialized.

The Toldeo Blade is offended that folks think they are deliberately ignoring Gunwalker although they are perfectly willing to admit that they are.

"The Fox News Channel is generally recognized in journalistic circles to be a partisan outfit heavily slanted to the right. Some of its claims about this case are disputed."

Note that this moke ignores Sharyl Attkisson's work at CBS.

Who Added "Christian" and "Conservative" to Norway Shooter's Facebook Page Yesterday?

Darn good question.

Interesting Connections

From CUATF by way of John Richardson: Melson's back door to DOJ hierarchy.

1. Did you know ATF has had an ATF agent at DOJ HQ for 2 years working at the Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General? I didn't, but his name is Mark Michalic, formerly of the Intel directorate (OSII). My source tells me this was a hook up from Jim McDermond, the former Secret Service guy and head of ATF Intel who got sent to be the assistant director of Public and Government Affairs last year. Michalic (my source said he is a good guy and a Waco vet) has been there so long he has worked for or with most of the people on Issa/Grassley's latest demand memo for DOJ emails.

2. Michalic reports to and talks to Melson, Hoover, Sarnacki and Pelletiere as the official and unofficial link to senior management at DOJ and there are LOTS of emails between them.

3. Michalic's wife is Vivian Michalic, the current assistant director for ATF's Office of Management but also Melson's former chief of staff. That directorate controls all of the money, personnel (until recently) and administrative things inside ATF.

So it looks like acting director Melson, breeder of Portuguese water dogs and Captain Crunch stunt double - a guy more in the weeds than any other director we have ever had wants us to believe that even though he had the IP address of surveillance cameras, demanded briefings for he and Hoover weekly, had an AD and former chief of staff feeding him information from AND TO his connection in the DAG's office, that he didn't know what was going on? I think that is bull s###.

re: "Grenadegate." "Worse Than Gunwalker?" Nah, but you are supposed to think so. Caveat lector -- let the reader beware.

Meet Vincent Cannistraro, retired CIA disinformation specialist.

I have been getting a lot of inbound mail about this and this.

Drug cartel sending U.S. weapons to Mexico

EL PASO, Texas, July 13 (UPI) -- A Mexican drug cartel may be smuggling military-grade weapons through El Paso, Texas, and Columbus, N.M., into Mexico, a former intelligence officer said

Phil Jordan, a former CIA operative, told the El Paso Times that the Zetas drug organization might be planning to disrupt Mexico's 2012 elections or use the weapons to fight other cartels.

Jordan, who served as director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's El Paso Intelligence Center in 1995, said the Zetas have shipped large amounts of weapons purchased in the Dallas area through El Paso.

Robert "Tosh" Plumlee, a former CIA contract pilot, told the Times he supported Jordan's allegations, adding that the Zetas have reportedly bought property in the Columbus, N.M., border region to stash weapons and other contraband.

"From the intel, it appears that a company was set up in Mexico to purchase weapons through the U.S. Direct Commercial Sales Program, and that the company may have had a direct link to the Zetas."

Last year the direct sales program was used to provide Mexico with $416.5 million worth of weapons and equipment, U.S. statistics indicate.

A spokeswoman for the El Paso DEA office said the agency does not have any information about the Zetas operating in the border region.

Well, I've got to admit that last is a bit of hysterically funny non-information.

So, yes, thank you, I am aware of the stories.

But, no, thank you, I am not inclined to believe them.

Agendas and disinformation come in all shapes and sizes and from all directions.

"Tosh" Plumlee, upon whom much of the sensational part of this story hangs, has a history of both according to my sources.

And those sources, I have learned from experience, CAN be trusted.

Owen's story headline is: "Worse Than Gunwalker? State Dept. Allegedly Sold Guns to Zetas: It’s a stunning allegation that makes the other gunrunning scandals look like child’s play."

Yes, well, it is supposed to. In fact, it was probably designed to.

I am also reminded of the OKC bombing, when former CIA man Vince Cannistraro announced on the day after that it was all the work of Islamic radicals, when in fact that story served to deflect interest away from Andreas Carl Strassmeier, the "security chief" at Elohim City, Oklahoma who had been provided a Virginia driver's license and Social Security number by CIA man Vincent Petruskie. McVeigh, whoever he was ultimately working for, had evidentiary ties to Strassmeier, the Aryan Republican Army, and Elohim City. Strassmeier, however, was a federal informant, as was the guy who ran EC, the "Reverend" Robert Millar, also known by some as "the Whitey Bulger of the Ozarks."

Long after OKC, Cannistraro, who had retired from CIA in 1991, was floating disinformation about WMD's in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein's ties to OBL and AQ, in support of the agency's (and Bush's) agenda there.

Jordan certainly could be following the pattern of Cannistraro and "Waco Jim" Cavanaugh, two other retirees who serve their former bosses by making allegations and statements that serve a specific purpose. Allegations that, because they are merely "reports" and "intel" whispered by "experts" NOT IN THE GOVERNMENT cannot be verified by inspecting them under oath.

This is not rocket science, although I confess that had I not had the experiences that we had with disinformation such as Cannistraro's during the private investigation of the OKC bombing, I might myself be more easily gulled by such stuff.

As I said, and it bears repeating, agendas and disinformation come in all shapes and sizes and from all directions.

In fact, right now in the Gunwalker Scandal is the perfect time for it, from a certain point of view -- that of the plotters themselves. The credulous WILL get taken in, and confusion will reign. That only serves the cover-up.

As we get closer to the core of the boil that is Gunwalker, you will hear and see more of it. Don't lose sight of the facts as we know them and the essential thing.

"The enemy's gate is down."

Reality Time. “How Can We Not Love Obama?”

Andrew Klavan: Why the country’s Bill Mahers say what they say.

Comedian-commentator Bill Maher has been getting a lot of attention lately for trying to get a lot of attention. He generally goes about this by using sexist hate speech against attractive, powerful, and intelligent conservative women like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, calling them female vulgarisms, for instance, or, as most recently, hosting comedians who fantasize aloud about sexually abusing them. Yet another attractive, powerful, and intelligent conservative woman (gee, there are a lot of those, aren’t there?), Ann Coulter, who is Maher’s friend, feels that these childish displays should be ignored. “I am sick of this show getting so much free publicity just because they use the f-word, the c-word, say something stupid,” Coulter said on FOX News’s late-night show, Red Eye. “All they are saying is, ‘I hate Michele Bachmann,’ ‘I hate Sarah Palin.’ Except they’re saying, ‘I [expletive] hate Michele Bachmann,’ ‘I [expletive] hate Sarah Palin.’ And then conservative blogs and this show say, ‘Oh, they use the f-word,’ and then they get 8 billion times more viewers.”

As so often, Coulter makes a good point. Maher, who is only just so funny and only just so bright and only just so popular, seems rather desperately to be turning himself into a moral Elephant Man in an attempt to draw the gawkers. The dignified reaction would be to walk on by, warning the children not to stare at the poor fellow because he has an affliction, God bless him.

I suppose it would also be self-diminishing to allow oneself to feel frustrated by the fact that the leftists of the so-called mainstream media regularly twist themselves into knots to make conservative speech sound hateful while ignoring the routine and open hatefulness that permeates the speech on their side and theirs alone. Sarah Palin is upbraided as violent for “targeting” congressional districts; Tea Partiers are called racist (often by Maher) for criticizing Barack Obama’s policies; I myself was recently accused of advocating violence toward women after I joked along with a silly video made by left-wing comedian Jimmy Kimmel in which Speaker of the House John Boehner doinked former speaker Nancy Pelosi on the head with the speaker’s gavel. Meanwhile, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews compares Republicans to terrorists, Jon Stewart implies that Michele Bachmann’s husband is a homosexual, and Maher hurls his filth at conservative women, and we’re more or less obligated to turn a blind eye so as not to encourage them.

But with a bow to Coulter’s wisdom, there does seem to me to be one thing worth saying about Maher and the others. Their ugliness seems to be escalating day by day, and with it the dishonesty, distortions, and bullying anger of their mainstream-media fellow travelers. There’s a reason for this, I think. It’s the increasingly apparent failure of Barack Obama. With the notable exception of Osama bin Laden’s execution, the Obama presidency has resembled nothing so much as an episode of Mr. Bean, one slapstick misadventure after another. The stagnant economy, the rising unemployment, the staggering, soon-to-be-crippling debt—hiked more under Obama than under every president from Washington to Reagan combined—these can no longer be blamed on his predecessor but are his to own.

This has to be fantastically humiliating for our left-wing media. If you’ve forgotten what they were like during Obama’s 2008 candidacy—the weirdly sexual thrills up their legs, the unreasoning comparison of Obama with America’s greatest men, the pseudo-religious idolatry—you have only to turn to August’s edition of Esquire to find a representative reminder that has to be read to be believed. It’s a column from Canadian writer Stephen Marche hilariously titled “How Can We Not Love Obama?” and subtitled “Because like it or not, he is all of us.” At one point, Marche writes: “‘I am large, I contain multitudes,’ Walt Whitman wrote, and Obama lives that lyrical prophecy.” And later—and I swear I’m not making this up: “Barack Obama is developing into what Hegel called a ‘world-historical soul,’ an embodiment of the spirit of the times. He is what we hope we can be.”

What might once have been dismissed as an embarrassing lapse into bobby-soxer squealery now has to be recognized as a desperate attempt to keep a dying euphoria alive. Likewise the increasingly low and vulgar meanness of Maher and all his cronies. It may, on the one hand, be the tactic of second-rung celebrities desperate for more attention, but it may at the same time represent the dismay of yet another generation of leftists waking from yet another utopian daydream to find themselves in a disaster of their own making.

23 July is my birthday.

The Scorpion and the Frog is a fable about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature. The fable is used to illustrate the position that the behaviour of some creatures is irrepressible, no matter how they are treated and no matter what the consequences.

Variations commonly include a farmer, youth, turtle, or fox in place of the frog, and a snake in place of the scorpion. The Farmer and the Viper is a specific variant that can be attributed to Aesop. There is also a variation in which the final words of the scorpion are "It is better we should both perish than that my enemy should live." -- Wikipedia.

I am 59 today. A milestone of sorts.

Today, well, yesterday now, I had a meeting with some folks and learned a very interesting piece of the Gunwalker puzzle. All of a sudden, everything clicked into place. Another milestone if it proves to be true.

Tonight, for the first time since the Gunwalker Scandal broke in December of last year, I slept with a borrowed semi-auto pistol under the pillow next to me.

I am not scared for my safety. My fate has always been in His hands.

I am scared that now -- even knowing what we know -- we still might fail.

And we cannot fail, for these people are evil beyond measure. They are, in a very real sense, scorpions who care not who they sting and who they kill.

All for evanescent power.

Say your prayers, folks, The Coalition of Willing Lilliputians is going to need every one of them in the coming days.

And Tuesday approaches.

File this under, "Duh!" DOJ plays shell games with names. Too cute by half.

"Hurrry! Hurrry! Hurrry! Step right up, citizens, and play the new DOJ-ger game of Hide the Scandal Under the Moniker! You THINK Fast and Furious is under this shell? Wrong citizen! Try again. Three guesses for a buck! Who'll try their luck?!?"

DOJ playing shell games with names again.

Meanwhile, Grassley had been trying to link the Fast and Furious guns to the murder of ICE agent Jamie Zapata earlier this year in Mexico.

But a source tells ticklethewire.com that authorities found no link to Fast and Furious in that matter.

Well, of course not. Or as my daughters would say, "Duh, Dad!" Those weapons came from Dallas and a different sub-operation under Gunrunner, not the Phoenix op, Fast and Furious.

And these lying SOBs think they're being cute.

Well, now, isn't THIS interesting?

Unable to sleep after three hours of tossing and turning, found this: You Never Know Where Someone's Allegedly Assembling Guns to Smuggle Into Mexico.

Looking through a stack of federal cases this morning I espied something odd, a file titled USA v. ... well, let's just say an address all of four blocks from my Northwest Dallas house, and a house I drive by at least once a day. A foreclosure, perhaps? A tax issue? Something perfectly benign? No, not really: In the affidavit and application for a search warrant filed last week and unsealed yesterday, an ATF agent says the owner of the house has spent the better part of the past year buying enough AR-15 and 7.62 lower receivers and parts kits needed to assemble a large arsenal. And, of course, the owner of the house doesn't have a license to deal.

According to the agent, ATF investigators were looking at the acquisition and disposition records at a Farmers Branch firearms dealer. The investigators saw that between October of last year and March of this year, one guy had bought through the dealer 15 AR-15 receivers and another 30 7.62-caliber receivers, not to mention all the other pieces needed to put those puzzles together. The owner asked the dude: Why all the orders? The buyer insisted he "was building rifles for target shooting and for his personal collection." Except ...

The ATF agent's affidavit says he learned that in January, another man was stopped by Hidalgo police -- right there on the border -- attempting to smuggle 15 guns into Mexico. Serial numbers on 12 of the guns had been completely obliterated, but three proved traceable -- two, back to the guy buying all the parts and tools.

At which point the ATF agent says he ran the home owner's employment records, which proved nonexistent. "Yet he is able to pay for his residence and for all the gun receivers and kits he is ordering," writes the agent -- including, on May 31, 20 more AK-74 receivers, which he ordered through the same dealer, who this time called ATF agents with the heads-up. And orders kept piling up: four receivers here, 20 there and so on, with a PS90 added to the pile.

At some point, the affidavit says, the owner of the store in Farmers Branch told the buyer to be careful, because the FBI's arresting people at gun shows for selling their own weapons and, besides, selling your personal guns is fine and all, but if you're doing it as a business, well, that's illegal. To which the guy allegedly assembling and selling all those guns said: "It was easier in the '80s."

"There’s no Mister Big in Mexico, there’s no … Iron Pipeline. It doesn’t exist."

Vince Cefalu tells it like it is.

There’s no Mister Big in Mexico, there’s no … Iron Pipeline. It doesn’t exist.

When everybody is screaming terrorism and counterterrorism no one wants to talk to anyone but the FBI. If there’s gunrunning on the border and thousands of guns flowing into Mexico it’s more headlines for ATF.

It’s fame and glory and grabbing headlines.

The mystifying GOP boneless chicken sellout of sellouts continues. The mathematics of sellout: with enough boneless chickens you get 1 dead elephant.

John Boehner and friends at home in the Buckeye State.

From Conn Carroll at the Washington Examiner.

There are three issues heavily weighing President Obama down as he heads into reelection in 2012: 1) the economy; 2) the debt; and 3) Obamacare. The deal Obama is crafting with Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, would appear to completely neutralize issues two and three.

According to The New York Times, Boehner is in negotiations with Obama on a long-term debt deal that would include a trigger for an automatic tax hike in exchange for a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate.

This would be a tremendous deal for the White House on both issues. Obamacare is already law. It does not matter if its estimated costs go up now. By losing the mandate now, Obama jettisons the most unpopular part of Obamacare and kills off a potential Supreme Court ruling against the law. Plus Obama would be able to campaign on a bipartisan deal to reduce the debt, thus neutralizing that issue. Meanwhile, nothing would be done to tackle our nation’s real deficit problems: fundamental Medicare reform. Oh, and taxes would be hiked by trillions of dollars, too.

Its obvious why the White House would love every aspect of such a deal. How it helps Boehner, or the nation’s bottom line, is a complete mystery.

The mathematics of sellout is, however, that with enough boneless chickens you get one dead elephant.