Faster and Furiousness

NoZed Avenger said:
If you're not in favor of it, then stop injecting it into the discussion.

I'd like to make any conclusions about who why and how much jail time people need after an independent prosecution finishes the investigation, and not before it.

Right now, I am willing to say that SOMEONE's ass is in a crack, but I'd rather wait to have actual evidence before worrying about who the finger ends up pointing at.

At the moment, Holder's (and all of Justice, actually) actions after the congressional investigation started concern the hell out of me, but I'd like something tangible before I grab my torch and pitchfork.
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Of course there could have been multiple simultaneous and parallel motivations and "reasons" by groups sort of loosely going along with each other, then it spun out of control. That's putting it in a nice way.

Here's a consideration.

Some time back IIRC before this scandal broke, Obama tried to push through an Executive order for more control on gun sales in the 4 border states. Specifically, it was that dealers would report sales of 2 or more long guns where normally they only do this with 2 or more handguns.

Various pressures convinced him to not do that.

On the surface, that would look like he didn't know about it being us supplying the guns to Mexican gangsters. On the other hand, there is the theory "never let a good crisis go to waste", go ahead and use the extreme violence in Mexico to ramp up firearms regulation here.

Huh?

While at the same time we're making the NICS and 4473 based transactions more strict because of the Mexican violence, ATF agents are instructing gun dealers to let Mexican gangsters' straw purchasers (many of whom would NOT pass the background check) buy the guns without the NICS check at all?

Yes.

So the stricter regulations that were proposed would have ACTUALLY applied to the good guys - not the bad guys.
 
mhaze said:
Of course there could have been multiple simultaneous and parallel motivations and "reasons" by groups sort of loosely going along with each other, then it spun out of control. That's putting it in a nice way.

Here's a consideration.

Some time back IIRC before this scandal broke, Obama tried to push through an Executive order for more control on gun sales in the 4 border states. Specifically, it was that dealers would report sales of 2 or more long guns where normally they only do this with 2 or more handguns.

Various pressures convinced him to not do that.

On the surface, that would look like he didn't know about it being us supplying the guns to Mexican gangsters. On the other hand, there is the theory "never let a good crisis go to waste", go ahead and use the extreme violence in Mexico to ramp up firearms regulation here.

Huh?

While at the same time we're making the NICS and 4473 based transactions more strict because of the Mexican violence, ATF agents are instructing gun dealers to let Mexican gangsters' straw purchasers (many of whom would NOT pass the background check) buy the guns without the NICS check at all?

Yes.

So the stricter regulations that were proposed would have ACTUALLY applied to the good guys - not the bad guys.
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For someone "not in favor of it becoming a politicalized scandal," you seem to be fixated on that possibility.
 
NoZed Avenger said:
For someone "not in favor of it becoming a politicalized scandal," you seem to be fixated on that possibility.
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We may differ in our use of the terms. I think it would be contrary to the serving of justice (and I am with you on thinking long jail time) if it became a dog and pony show like Watergate or Iran-Contra.

Here is a letter from Congressman Issa to Holder sent just this morning.

It's a bit long, but it is rather astonishingly candid and accusatory.

http://michellemalkin.com/2011/10/10/issa-to-holder-you-own-fast-and-furious/
 
NoZed Avenger said:
If you're not in favor of it, then stop injecting it into the discussion.

I'd like to make any conclusions about who why and how much jail time people need after an independent prosecution finishes the investigation, and not before it.

Right now, I am willing to say that SOMEONE's ass is in a crack, but I'd rather wait to have actual evidence before worrying about who the finger ends up pointing at.

At the moment, Holder's (and all of Justice, actually) actions after the congressional investigation started concern the hell out of me, but I'd like something tangible before I grab my torch and pitchfork.
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I predict no one will see any jail time.

And this does not qualify for the $1 million.
 
A Presidential pardon doesn't save one from extradition to Mexico, which could easily be the result of the Mexican government using evidenced gathered in our investigation.

Holder looks like the fall guy right now.
 
mhaze said:
A Presidential pardon doesn't save one from extradition to Mexico, which could easily be the result of the Mexican government using evidenced gathered in our investigation.

Holder looks like the fall guy right now.
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Holder is not going to be extradited to Mexico over this. Nor is anyone else.
 
WildCat said:
I predict no one will see any jail time.

And this does not qualify for the $1 million.
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"Federal official in Arizona to plead the fifth and not answer questions on 'furious'

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ad-fifth-and-not-answer-questions-on-furious/


The chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona is refusing to testify before Congress regarding Operation Fast and Furious, the federal gun-running scandal that sent U.S. weapons to Mexico.

Patrick J. Cunningham informed the House Oversight Committee late Thursday through his attorney that he will use the Fifth Amendment protection.

Cunningham was ordered Wednesday to appear before Chairman Darrell Issa and the House Oversight Committee regarding his role in the operation that sent more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa Cartel. Guns from the failed operation were found at the murder scene of Border Agent Brian Terry.
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Your million might still be at risk. Too soon to say.

My guess is that Congress will give this guy immunity for his testimony in the hopes of going further up the food chain -- assuming the #2 US attorney in Arizona is not the tip of it, and I have to think he isn't.

Still a long road between that and a conviction for anyone, but I am near to convinced that something pretty damn rotten was, in fact, going on and is still being covered up.
 
The "good guys" are going to gun shows and buying up thousands of high powered, high capacity weapons and selling them to Mexican drug cartels. F&F was a tiny drop in this bucket. How many Iraqis did we directly kill to "liberate" them from Saddam? If we can get the Bush admin officials charged with war crimes for that, I can consider putting some charges on the current admin.

CurrentTV had a good investigative report into the gun running at the border and they also interviewed ATF over F&F. Considering how little resources ATF has anymore it's not surprising they fumbled it.
 
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mhaze said:
Who was it that said a little while back that the US Government was working on gun control "under the table"?

Oh yeah.....Obama.
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Interesting how you will spin anything to blame it on Obama. The hatred is palpable.

Now, please either provide convincing, testable, verifaible evidence that the Bush appointees who did this were told to go ahead by Obama, specifically, or admit you had no cause to blame this on Obama.

And, yeah,if I was going to run a rogue operation, I wouldn't tell my boss (Holder) either, until I found out it was going to blow up in his face.
 
daenku32 said:
The "good guys" are going to gun shows and buying up thousands of high powered, high capacity weapons and selling them to Mexican drug cartels. F&F was a tiny drop in this bucket.
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. . . So it's therefore completely OK for the ATF and DoJ to green light rifles and have them bypass the law and get them directly into the hands of criminal cartels to kill hundreds.

Because unless that's your point, whether any of what you say is true or not really doesn't affect the fact that it looks like an organized effort to break the law, arm criminals, and then cover it up has been carried out by our law enforcement agencies.

How many Iraqis did we directly kill to "liberate" them from Saddam?
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. . So it's therefore completely OK for the ATF and DoJ to green light rifles and have them bypass the law and get them directly into the hands of criminal cartels to kill hundreds.

Because unless that's your point . . .

If we can get the Bush admin officials charged with war crimes for that, I can consider putting some charges on the current admin.
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Do we get to charge and prosecute *any* criminals until you get your war crimes trials, or just criminals that you disagree with politically?

CurrentTV had a good investigative report into the gun running at the border and they also interviewed ATF over F&F. Considering how little resources ATF has anymore it's not surprising they fumbled it.
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Lack of resources explains their actions . . . how?
 
NoZed Avenger said:
I don't even want to get into that controversy. Ascribing extra motives above and beyond the massive screw-up that this program generated is unnecessary and runs down rabbit holes that - IMO - don't matter. The major questions in my mind question remain: who authorized this dog's breakfast of a program; how many people and how high uip did that go; was Holder or someone high up in justice directing it; and did any of the people testifying before Congress lied to cover up any of the massive screw-ups involved.
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I would STILL request the conspiracy angle be ignored in this thread.

I think there's enough in this case to justify an independent prodecutor or investigation that is not being run internally by the DoJ given what's come out so far. That's it.
 
NoZed Avenger said:
I would STILL request the conspiracy angle be ignored in this thread.

I think there's enough in this case to justify an independent prodecutor or investigation that is not being run internally by the DoJ given what's come out so far. That's it.
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Well, let's see if your logic makes sense. There is a congressional investigation which is investigating among other details, HOW FAR UP the knowledge and decision making goes. EG, they are investigating the possibility of a conspiracy.

Possibly the other "conspiracy" is the theory that the rationale of giving guns to the bad guys was at least in part to get teeth into anti-gun law in the US. But again, that is under actual investigation, isn't it?

Sounds like you want us to NOT DISCUSS part of what is really going on.

That makes no sense.
 
mhaze said:
Well, let's see if your logic makes sense. There is a congressional investigation which is investigating among other details, HOW FAR UP the knowledge and decision making goes. EG, they are investigating the possibility of a conspiracy.

Possibly the other "conspiracy" is the theory that the rationale of giving guns to the bad guys was at least in part to get teeth into anti-gun law in the US. But again, that is under actual investigation, isn't it?

Sounds like you want us to NOT DISCUSS part of what is really going on.

That makes no sense.
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What I have asked is that that aspect of it not be discussed in THIS THREAD. You can discuss the hell out of it anywhere else -- hopefully, in a thread started for that purpose -- but speculating about the motives of the administration BEFORE the investigation is something I wanted to avoid because it leads almost inevitably to the type of partisan squabbling that has already been put into the thread.

I think there is enough evidence of questionable-to-outright-bad stuff that an investigation is warranted. I think that the possibility that higher ups in the DoJ and ATF were involved means that the investigation should be by an independent agent. Beyond that, I'd like to see what they come up as far as evidence before I go grab a torch and pitchfork.

Given the number of people -- a number of whom appear highly placed in a half dozxen different agencies -- were all in the loop here, It looks like Holder either had to know what was going on or was inept. At the moment, I don't see a third option. But to start in with the "secret gun control" stuff goes beyond the evidence and takes attention away from the fact that law enforcement agencies (plural) appear to have been involved in schemes (plural) to supply guns (VERY plural) to criminals without any plan or hope of tracking them, and then engaged in a coverup, possibly up to and including perjury.

That's pretty $%^%$ serious. Going afield to start in on gun control takes away from the fact that the actual facts suggest that law enforcement agencies have made an organized effort to break the law, arm criminals, and then cover it up. You know, regardless of who appointed them or why that happened, I have to think that is pretty #@$%# serious.
 
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While I ordinarily observe Hanlon's Razor in cases like this involving bureaucratic bungling (" "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity""), this outrageous fiasco really reeks of breathtaking malice and stupidity in equal measure. The administration has stonewalled a variety of investigators into F&F at every turn. Recently a federal judge (an Obama appointee) rejected Obama's invocation of executive privilege concerning his conversations with Holder.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department's public disclosures about its response to the so-called "gun walking" controversy undercut Obama's executive privilege claim.
Story Continued Below"There is no need to balance the need against the impact that the revelation of any record could have on candor in future executive decision making, since any harm that might flow from the public revelation of the deliberations at issue here has already been self-inflicted," Jackson wrote. "The Department itself has already publicly revealed the sum and substance of the very material it is now seeking to withhold. Since any harm that would flow from the disclosures sought here would be merely incremental, the records must be produced."
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Obama arms drug cartels while wanting to disarm law-abiding Americans.
 
WildCat said:
Obama arms drug cartels while wanting to disarm law-abiding Americans.
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Where else are they supposed to get their guns, it isn't like there are gun stores in mexico. Most of the gun come from the legal US market. But clearly trying to stop guns from moving from the legal US market to the illegal mexican market isn't something that should be done. As it is the mexicans who are the ones acting wrong not the gun shops the guns come from so it is all just business as usual and good for our manufacturing sector anyway.
 
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