2nd amendment (3)

 

Ace CBS Reporter Attkisson Nails OF&F and

Obama/ATF Corruption Assailing 2nd Amendment

 

     Just when all appeared lost and it seemed like the mainstream media (MSM) was eternally in the tank committed to supporting an ultra-corrupt Obama administration come hell or highest seas, CBS News shocked us with some actual journalistic backbone!  CBS News, which apparently has a White House informer blowing the whistle on the goings on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, has acquired documents showing that the original intent of Fast and Furious was to crack down on gun ownership and erode honest ordinary patriotic Americans’ Second Amendment rights.  For the third time now the breakthrough in the “Gun Walking Scandal” has come courtesy of one CBS reporter, Sharyl Attkisson . . . .

     While the rest of the MSM has gone out of its way to enshrine every Obama White House lie, red herring and false accusation as Gospel TRUTH, Ms. Attkisson has repeatedly attacked the beast in its lair.   The latest E-mail and other earlier documents obtained by CBS News shows that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using Operation Fast and Furious (whose weapons have already killed at least one U.S. Border Patrol agent and at least 200 Mexican citizens) as a lever to gain tighter gun regulations in the United States.  

     The chronology begins in April of 2009, three months into the new Obama administration.   Claiming that guns sold north of the border in America accounted for 90% of the weapons and 90% of the deaths from drug cartel violence**, Obama made a speech in Mexico alongside Mexican President Felipe Calderon.  The President said, “This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border. So we have responsibilities as well.”   It was about that time that the administration brushed off an old Bush administration program, Operation Gun Runner, which conducted ongoing gun stings to crackdown on illegal arms sales and re-named it “Operation Fast and Furious,”  (OF&F).  And how exactly did OF&F differ from Gun Runner?   Four great differences emerge . . . .

            1)     CBS’s Sharyl Attkinsson put it like this on the Early Show on CBS, “New e-mails that we now have . . . add to some documentation that we already had that show government officials NEVER planned to reveal publicly their role in letting those guns fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels but planned to use the end result to argue for new gun regulations that they wanted, and you can read more about that story on our website, CBSNews.com.”   In other words, where Gun Runner was a real sting that netted illegal arms traffickers virtually immediately . . . OF&F deliberately adopted a “hands-off approach” that allowed its guns to cross the border UNIMPEDED with the goal of using later discoveries of these weapons as compelling reasons to crack down on the rights of legal gun ownership in America.

            2)      Whereas, Gun Runner had targeted all illegal gun sales, OF&F aimed directly at getting its guns into the hands of the Mexican Drug Cartels, the so-called “Big Fish” and did so very quickly instead of carefully building up actionable arrest justification, OF&F was aimed at getting the weapons into illegal hands as quickly as possible period.  The ATF agents on the ground who were shocked by all this, christened the practice “Gun Walking”

            3)    With its emphasis on getting weapons to the cartels, OF&F put much heavier weaponry in these criminals hands.  The never-shrinking violet, Rush Limbaugh, commented upon Attkisson’s revelations this way, “. . . We arranged for thousands of guns, long guns, automatic, semiautomatic, AK-47s, machine guns, bazookas, whatever, to end up in the hands of drug lords, right out of gun stores, gun shops in Phoenix, just walked outta there right across the border into Mexico, into the hands of the drug cartel and the cartel was supposed to do with those guns what drug cartel people do, start using them, bam, bam, you’re dead. They did. Hundreds of people died as a result of these guns being walked out of Phoenix gun shops and others along the border. And in this period of time our border agent got killed.”  Two OF&F weapons were found at the agent’s death site; and later one of the heavier weapons Limbaugh refers to even brought down a helicopter carrying high-ranking Mexican drug officials killing everyone on board.

            4)    Unlike Gun Runner, the folks on the ground quickly became alarmed by what was going on.   Criminals got weapons but then were NOT arrested, what the hell!  Immediately this set off a chain of complaints and whistle-blowing that reverberated all the way to the Administration’s upper echelons, where the Attkinsson E-mails also came from.  Somehow the Obama upper-level muckety-mucks never ever could imagine that the people working for them would be decent, honest folk shocked by such abuse of power and its results, thousands of ultra violent criminals being abetted by the U.S.A.

     What’s the upshot of all this?  Someone in the Obama administration engineered a program where some of the worst criminals in the world get hold of American guns that we just give them, but they (Obama, Holder, etc.) don’t tell anybody any of that. It’s made to look like either the drug cartel could just cross the border walk in anywhere in America and buy all the heavy arms in the world and walk back across the border or  some really rotten Americans could walk into the gun stores, buy those guns, cross the southern border and sell them to the drug cartel. Then everybody would be surprised with the revelation that the guns were sold in America, lots of people would die, and the conclusion according to Limbaugh is, “See, we have got to have more control over guns. Look at what happened here.”  Ms. Attkisson and some heroic whistle-blowers changed all that. 

     Yes, yes, FOXNews has been covering this story like a poodle with a slipper in its mouth for over fifteen months now.  But everyone who understands real journalism expects that from FOX and then despite the facts that like so many other stories this one would be totally ignored by all the MSM.  Real journalism, heroic journalism by CBS . . . that’s something new and wonderful.    Attkisson didn’t just follow FOX’s lead, she dug deep and got her own leads and those leads have been devastating in their effect on the Obama circle-the-wagons efforts.

     Oh, by the way, President Obama’s speech, in that joint press conference with Felipe Calderon in April, 2009, referred to “Gun Runner” by name and said we could “expect some good results.”  This was when the first E-mails with the new name “Operation Fast and Furious” began to show up.  The fact that Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, the ATF and Janet Napolitano’s Homeland Security have all been stonewalling the Congressional Investigation into Fast and Furious tells you everything you need to know about how widespread this Obama corruption goes.  The fact that AG Holder’s second in command, wrote a response to the investigators ten months ago that deliberately misled the investigators tells you where the probable heads will eventually roll from.    After responding to congressional subpoenas with tens of thousands of pages of 100% blacked-out documents expect Holder to be impeached for obstruction of justice.

 

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

 

**  Even counting the thousands of Fast and Furious weapons, current official U.S. government statistics put the actual number at 17% of the drug cartels' weapons originating in America.

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I wrote this article over a year ago and submitted it to and was published by the "Tennessee Patriot", a quarterly publication, in it's July 2010 edition. I hope it gives all TEA Party Patriots food for thought.

 

 

One of the anti-gunners favorite arguments against open carrying (OC) of handguns is

that society will revert back to the old ways of the Wild West, with daily gunfights in the

streets. Heeeelllloooo, do we not already have such events in parts of the country, now?

Gang bangers and drug dealers shooting it out in the streets in turf wars and such already

inundate many large cities. And the crazy thing is that this activity goes on in areas with

the tightest gun restrictions in the nation. Now I find it hard to believe that these antigunners

are so stupid that they haven’t figured out by now that the criminals don’t obey

gun laws. (There’s a reason why they’re called “OUTLAWS”).


The thing is, back in the days of the OLD West; there simply weren’t that many

gunfights in the streets. The stories of such activities were greatly exaggerated by novelist

that needed something exciting to write about that would sell back east. To add to the

distortion of history Hollywood later continued to sensationalize the exploits of various

legendary lawmen, outlaws, and assorted gunslingers. How many ways has the “Gun fight

at the OK Corral” been told? In some of the latest movies, the gun battles are spread

around a livery stable and nearby corral and last around 5 to 10 minutes. In actuality, it

took place in a small dead end alley and was probably over in about 30 seconds after the

first shot was fired. Yes, many of the stories of the old west were terribly exaggerated,

while others were totally made up fiction. If the novel writers had written the truth about

the Old West, they probably wouldn’t have made enough money to buy a train ticket back

east.

And gunfights weren’t something they wanted to get into, willy-nilly. Back then, one

could die from a gunshot wound that today would be considered minor. The skills of the

medical profession weren’t near as advance as they are today. There was no blood bank to

replace what you lost from a wound, Surgery was primitive at best, and infections from

wounds were common as well as often fatal. No, I don’t think shootouts in the streets

were a popular past time.

No, I don’t believe that the anti-gunners are afraid of gunfights in the streets. I think

it’s something else. There was something else about life in the Old West that they dread

like the plague. Something that they cannot control or fight back against. Something that

we rarely see these days in modern society, and the anti-gunners want to keep it that way.

At least the folks that started the whole anti-gun movement don’t want the Old West

ways to return. And these people would be the utopian Marxist who have been pushing

hard for a totalitarian nanny state. Disarming the masses is very important to the cause,

but it’s not what they really fear.


What is it about the Old West Ways that has the anti-gunners and their puppet masters

shorts in a wad? It’s the attitude and character of the people that settled the West during

the 1800’s. The same attitude that led all pioneers of this country to move West as the

Eastern part of the country became more populated. The early pioneers were independent,

resourceful, self-reliant, and full of grit. They had to be! Because they were literally on

their own as they ventured Westward into the wilderness of the Great Plains. They had

little, if any support when they had problems. A family’s nearest neighbor might be 5 or

10 miles away; the nearest settlement or town could be 20 or 30 miles away. That’s a 2-

day trip, one way by horse drawn wagon. (One day on Horseback) There were no grocery

stores so they had to grow their own food and/or hunt it. What ever they needed to work

with they made themselves. Government did little for these people, but that was all right.

They didn’t want governments help, otherwise they might have stayed back east.


The early pioneers that settled the Old West were a tough and rugged lot. They had to

be to survive. The weak didn’t fare so well, many died. Life in the Western Wilderness

was harsh at times and these people that made the decision to brave the rigors of it needed

courage and perseverance to make a go of it. There were no “Welfare” programs back in

those days. No social safety nets for the slackers of society to depend on. If you didn’t

want to work….you didn’t eat. It was that simple.


I think we would be hard pressed to find that kind of independent, self-reliant,

resourcefulness in large quantity these days. It seems that our people have come to

depend too much on government to do for us what we should be doing for ourselves. The

puppet masters of the anti-gunners want to keep it this way. Should the people of the

country start to re-adopt the same independent spirit of the early settlers of the Old West,

those that believe government is the end all of societies ills would be horrified. Their hold

on power over the people would dwindle quickly. The weaker, dependant citizens among

us would have to start fending for themselves, and they don’t want to. In the days of the

Old West, these would have been the people that would have perished quickly, either

from their lack of resourcefulness to make their own way or by the hands of those they

tried to steal from.


No! It’s not so much the return of gunfights in the streets they fear. It’s the

independent, self-reliant, resourceful, and gritty spirit of the pioneers that settled this

country that they don’t want to see return. And having an armed population of such

character is something they can’t control. That would be a fate worse than death to the

power hungry Marxist puppet masters, and their anti-gun followers.


There are still many of us that don’t want the government to do anything for us,

except get out of the way. We don’t want “guvment” to be telling us what to do, when to

do, or how to do. We believe we can figure that out for ourselves, and probably better,

Thank you very much!


So what if this country starts looking like the “Old Wild West” again, with most

citizens carrying side arms on their belts. It worked well in the past; it can work just fine

now. The criminals and power hungry politicians may not like it, but oh well. And if the

independent spirit of the people of that period were to come to life again in present day

society, so much the better. To those that fret about the return of “the Old Wild West

Days” I say SUCK IT UP! Bring on those Good Old “Wild West” Ways!

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http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/fast_furious_gets_hotter_for_holder_wDCoBUrOxYF8r1GobKS89M?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=

 
 
AG Eric Holder lies to Congress’
Oversight Chairman Issa in
Covering-up DOJ Gun Gaffes
 
 
 
          Whether you’re talking about the debt-ceiling “debate” or Eric Holder’s refusal to cooperate with the House Oversight Committee investigation, we’re beginning to detect a pattern here . . .  the Obama administration believes that obfuscation and spin will win!  We'll soon find out if that's true for the economy and for deliberately seeking to undermine the 2nd Amendment . . . .
According to Rajjpuut’s unofficial count:  42 times in the last two weeks, President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, and various other progressive Democrats resorted to the phrase “shared sacrifice” in discussing their attempts to raise the ceiling on the national debt, increase government spending, and expand the size of government. In all 42 out of those 42 occasions the very next words next escaping from the other side of the orators’ mouths were condemnations of the Republicans in Congress, especially those controlling the House of Representatives, for seeking to get fat “on the backs of the middle class.” In addition, Obama also said that it was the public’s worry that the debt-ceiling would NOT be increased that was causing uncertainty in the business community thus hampering hiring and contributing to last month’s rise from 9.1% to 9.2% unemployment in the nation which occurred despite 250,000 job applicants quitting the hunt for work and no longer being counted as “unemployed.” Meanwhile only 18,000 new jobs were created in June while the job numbers from April and May were revised downward 44,000 jobs.
The last claim by the President is absolutely shocking in its disregard for the truth. YES, the business community as a whole and small business owners (the segment of society most commonly attributed for creating new jobs) in particular have certainly spoken repeatedly about uncertainty . . . but it is their uncertainty with regard to Obamacare; new government regulations; energy cost; and more than anything else government spending and government interference in the businessman’s life that has caused them to keep their investment funds on the sidelines. In other words, it is Obama’s policies which are creating the uncertainty (and certainly NOT the Republicans’ attempts to slash government spending, reduce the national debt and dramatically shrink the size and scope of the federal government. The President’s fast-and-loose treatment of the truth, however, only earns second place in the BS Sweepstakes for early July.
By far the most shameless spinning going on right now is that of Attorney General Eric Holder and other spokesmen within his “Justice” Department. First of all, it is now a certainty that Eric Holder has lied under oath when discussing “Operation Fast and Furious” as to when he first learned of and how much he knew about this seemingly rogue operation that deliberately put American weapons in the hands of Mexican drug-cartel operatives and cost at least two American immigration officers their lives as well as potentially the lives of hundreds of Mexican citizens as thousands of American weapons were deliberately sold to drug cartel operatives and then allowed to flow across the southern border into Mexico. Ordinary internet viewers were already reading of the DOJ’s improprieties at least a full seven weeks prior to the time which Holder has stated in sworn testimony to Darryl Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee that he first learned of problems with Fast and Furious.
While pledging openness and cooperation with the Oversight Committee, Holder and his department have submitted countless filings of obstructions to the scope of the investigation. Even when a DOJ paper is turned over to Issa’s committee it is virtually completely blacked out except for the DOJ heading and words like “the,” “and,” “a,” “of” and “an.”  While otherwise claiming privileged communications within the DOJ could not be examined. The seriousness of this matter can be calculated by this simple fact: instead of only the stalwart FOXNEWS organization and New York Post reporting on the issue, just this week (after two months!) even CNN has also begun to cover the story.
This much is certain: Both the DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation deliberately left the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in the dark as to virtually every aspect of Operation Fast and Furious which was known within the ATF as “Project Gunrunner.” Throughout the life of the ill-conceived sting operation, ATF was spinning its wheels investigating people and events that the DOJ and FBI already knew everything about. Meanwhile the DOJ saw to it that American weapons were put into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels and then allowed those weapons to drop off the information grid. Two of those weapons are implicated in the deaths of the two Immigration officers.
While Holder and other bigwigs in the FBI, DOJ, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Attorney’s Office (who conducted all sorts of wire taps that the ATF was never allowed to know about) and even the Drug Enforcement Agency have been zipping lips and pointing shaking fingers at ATF acting director, Kenneth Melson as their hoped for scapegoat; truth has nevertheless begun to pour out. Melson and virtually the entire ATF have been forthrightly providing Issa’s committee with truckloads of information including documents that reveal the ATF’s initial and ongoing reservation for the wisdom of the DOJ initiated operation. Obama and Holder are pressuring Melson to resign and take the fall for the botched operation which Holder appears to have created.
The skeleton of what is now conclusively known points at Holder’s DOJ as plotting to create an embarrassment for the nation’s 2nd Amendment enthusiasts by creating scenarios implying that their shortfalls and enthusiasm for selling and buying weapons were behind much of the Mexican drug cartel armaments. However, rather than legal and normal gun sales leading to better armed drug lords, it is up to now only certain that the DOJ’s interference (while using the ATF as an unknowing stooge) has put guns into the hands of these lawless criminals. Holder is meanwhile doing everything he can to point at Melson and even DOJ underlings as the root cause of the fiasco.
In a letter to Holder released yesterday, Oversight Chairman Rep. Daryl Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley accused the Justice Department of blocking their investigation into the burgeoning scandal (which has resulted in the deaths of at least two American agents and countless Mexican civilians), muzzling the ATF and involving other federal agencies, including the FBI and the DEA, in funding the crackpot scheme.
"The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons, but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities," said Issa and Grassley in the letter.   
"It is one thing to argue that the ends justify the means in an attempt to defend a policy that puts building a big case ahead of stopping known criminals from getting guns. Yet it is a much more serious matter to conceal from Congressthe possible involvement of other agencies in identifying and maybe even working with the same criminals that Operation Fast and Furious was trying to identify."  The following five paragraphs are courtesy of the New York Post article linked above:
Issa and Grassley note in their letter, that had the other agencies shared information with the ATF, "then ATF might have known that gun trafficking 'higher-ups' had already been identified."   Since the identities of the Mexican criminals were known to the feds, precisely what was the point of Project Gunrunner -- and why is Holder so desperately trying to stonewall by withholding hundreds of documents from Congress?
Law-abiding gun owners and dealers think they already know. With the Obama administration wedded to the fiction that 90 percent of the guns Mexican cartels use originate here in the United States -- which they do not -- many suspect that "Fast and Furious" was a backdoor attempt to smear domestic gun aficionados as part of its stealth efforts on gun controlby executive (Presidential) fiat.  "I just want you to know that we're working on it," Obama was quoted as saying to gun-control advocate Sarah Brady in a March speech. "We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar."  Unfortunately for the administration, this one's out in the open now.
Melson testified behind closed doors on July 4, but the country needs to hear him speak -- loudly and publicly. "Let me be clear," Issa wrote to Melson in April, "we are not conducting a concurrent investigation with the Department of Justice, but rather an independent investigation of the Department of Justice."  Exactly. Because this one's not just a domestic issue. A Mexican senator, Rene Arce Islas, told Fox News that he believes whoever is responsible for the monumental, lethal screw-up should be tried not only in America but in Mexico, too.
That's not going to happen, of course. Even if any prominent American officials are implicated, there is zero chance they'd have to face Mexican justice.  But Issa's charge that Holder & Co. are obstructing a congressional investigation is serious. Not even the Justice Department is above the law.
The best way to disinfect the putrid mess that is Operation Fast and Furious is to expose it to sunlight. Let's hear what the attorney general and others have to say in open hearings.  Because somebody's got some "splainin' " to do -- fast, before the American people get furious.
Eric Holder’s involvement is no longer in doubt, if he wasn’t aware of “Fast and Furious” he’s an incompetent and should lose his job; if he was aware (which all signs clearly point to now), he’s stepped way over the line from malfeasance into deep, deep corruption by now unabashedly heading up the cover-up . . . the real questions, given the quote from Obama’s speeches to anti-gun functions are these: How much does Barack know? When did he first learn it? Did he authorize “Fast and Furious” himself?
            It now appears that Obama himself spearheaded this operation. We say that because the Obama administration is choosing to spin the screwed-up “Fast and Furious” results as indications of the need to institute anti-2nd Amendment measures immediately by Presidential fiat. This latest power-grab by the administration is being euphemistically called “new gun safety measures” and will be implemented by Eric Holder’s Justice Department without Congressional input. Presidential press secretary Jay Carney announced today that the “new steps will be made public in the near future.” 
Looking for a sweeping net of proposed benefit, Carney said the purpose of the new laws will be to “prevent another Tucson.” Anti-gun zealots are refusing to notice that incompetent law enforcement by the Tucson Sheriff Dupnik (the one calling within minutes of the shooting for condemnation of the “haters” and implying that the haters included talk radio and FOXNews). Of course, the leftist enthusiast perpetrator Jared Loughner is criminally insane and had dozens of contact situations with the congresswoman he shot (as well as 18 other people including the six who were killed. Dupnik ignored several prior complaints about Loughner including at Loughner’s university.
Carney and others are tying “Project Gunrunner” to the Bush administration. This is false. Gunrunner was a Bush sting on illegal gun purchases wherein the guns were sold and the illegal recipients were immediately arrested in the United States.  Holder deliberately allowed the ATF to believe that Project Gunrunner was just being continued with a new emphasis. As soon as savvy ATF agents on the ground figured out what was going on (no arrests but just following the guns into Mexico?) they were alarmed and protested loud and long . . . several of these whistle-blowers have lost their jobs already. The brilliance of the Obama administration’s “Fast and Furious” is that the guns are now forever lost unless they are found later at crime scenes. Told you it was brilliant!
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
 
 
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