[luke warm]

kenberg, on 2012-June-26, 05:33, said:

From what I have gathered, however, the Republican onslaught cannot remotely be described as an intention to unearth what really happened or what new legislation is needed.

maybe so, but i think they just want to know who wrote the original feb 2011 letter (that was retracted in dec 2011) and what the reason was behind the program... regarding any potential future legislation, i also doubt that's a part of it... the latest brouhaha concerns obama's use of executive privilege, since he's already denied any knowledge (except as he read about it in newspapers) of the program... what privileged information is he protecting, given that profession of ignorance? it's obviously not any correspondence with him

[PassedOut]

Looks like Holder did not know about the gun-walking and had to extract the truth forcibly: In early emails, AG Holder expressed need to get to the bottom of Operation Fast and Furious

Quote

Two of Holder’s emails and one from Cole appear to show that they hadn’t known about gun-walking but were determined to find out whether the allegations were true.

When relying on the technique of gun-walking, federal agents tried to track suspected illicit gun-buyers instead of arresting them. The hope was that the low-level “straw” purchasers would lead law enforcement to major arms-traffickers, enabling the agents to dismantle networks that had put tens of thousands of guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. In Operation Fast and Furious, the tracking effort failed. The operation identified over 2,000 illicitly purchased weapons. Some 1,400 of them have yet to be recovered.

The emails by Holder and Cole followed a hurried assurance by the Justice Department on Feb. 4, 2011, to Sen. Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. No such tactic was used, the Justice Department said in a letter to Grassley. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation to Mexico,” the letter added. The letter was based on incorrect assurances supplied to the Justice Department by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix and by ATF officials.

At the Justice Department on Thursday, spokeswoman Nanda Chitre declined to comment about the e-mails.

After the Feb. 4 letter to Grassley, news stories appeared containing allegations of gun-walking. The Justice Department was awash in conflicting opinions over whether the media accounts were correct.

CBS News ran a story on Feb. 23, 2011. On March 3, CBS followed up, and the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity weighed in with its own online account.

On Feb. 23, aides passed along to the attorney general the CBS story alleging gun-walking, and the attorney general shot back, “We need answers on this. Not defensive BS. Real answers.”

Five days later, Holder asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate.

On March 3, Cole, the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, emailed his staff: “We obviously need to get to the bottom of this.”

Holder was skeptical of any assurances.

“I hope the AG understands that we did not allow guns to walk,” an official at the ATF’s Washington headquarters said on March 10 in an email that Holder’s aides forwarded to the attorney general.

In a response, Holder wrote, “Do they really, really know” that there was no gun-walking?

A day earlier, at Holder’s instruction, the Justice Department had sent out a directive to the field reinforcing a longtime Justice Department policy against gun-walking. The directive said that agents must not allow guns to cross the border into Mexico.

In fairness, I expect that neither Alberto Gonzales nor Michael Mukasey knew about the gun-walking during the Bush administration and would have put a stop to it had they known, just as Holder did.

[luke warm]

PassedOut, on 2012-June-28, 13:48, said:

Looks like Holder did not know about the gun-walking and had to extract the truth forcibly: In early emails, AG Holder expressed need to get to the bottom of Operation Fast and Furious

if that's true, and it well may be, it makes not turning over the subpoenaed documents even more perplexing

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on 2012-June-28, 15:39, said:

if that's true, and it well may be, it makes not turning over the subpoenaed documents even more perplexing

Not if the executive branch is acting to protect a principle. Maybe they have other documents that would be subjected to subpoena if they give ground in this case. And politically, if the courts rule that the Fast & Furious documents must be turned over and they turn out to be innocuous, that will bolster the "witch hunt" theme.

[kenberg]

The principles involved are CYA on Holder's side, Never miss an opportunity to cause trouble on the Republican side. This will be decided by lawyers. Principles are totally irrelevant.

[cherdano]

I think the principle is not to rely on principles when having to deal with a douchebag (Issa).

[luke warm]

kenberg, on 2012-June-28, 18:55, said:

Principles are totally irrelevant.

they usually are

[cherdano]

I wonder when lukewarm's sources will start pointing him to this side of the story. Oh, can't trust those liberal hacks at Fortune Magazine, understand.

[PassedOut]

cherdano, on 2012-June-29, 16:24, said:

I wonder when lukewarm's sources will start pointing him to this side of the story. Oh, can't trust those liberal hacks at Fortune Magazine, understand.

Thanks for the link. That report gives a lot of perspective I hadn't seen elsewhere. Looks like real life mirrors "The Wire" in many respects.

[luke warm]

the facts of the operation are pretty well known... some of the things in that article clearly show why documents were subpoenaed... i'd think everyone would like to know why the DOJ would approve an operation, execute the operation, then refuse to prosecute the operation... what was its purpose? it couldn't have been to track automatic weapons, there were no means in place to track them... it couldn't have been to arrest those who purchased/sold the weapons, no laws were broken

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on 2012-June-26, 15:45, said:

maybe so, but i think they just want to know who wrote the original feb 2011 letter (that was retracted in dec 2011) and what the reason was behind the program... regarding any potential future legislation, i also doubt that's a part of it...

Kind of surprised that you haven't followed up on this topic, what with the report being out and all...

Here's one the key finding in case you need to remind yourself

Quote

Attorney General Eric Holder "did not learn about Operation Fast and Furious until late January or early February 2011 and was not aware of allegations of 'gun walking' in the investigation until February." Though Justice Department divisions send weekly reports to the attorney general's office, "We determined that these reports did not refer to agents' failure to interdict firearms or include information that otherwise provided notice of the improper strategy and tactics that ATF agents were using in the investigation."

http://www.cnn.com/2...ghts/index.html

[luke warm]

just waiting to see if anyone is prosecuted for breaking the law

[andrei]

“I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration. When Eric Holder found out about it, he discontinued it. We assigned a inspector general to do a thorough report that was just issued, confirming that in fact Eric Holder did not know about this, that he took prompt action and the people who did initiate this were held accountable.”
— President Obama during Univision interview, Sept. 20, 2012

[beatrix45]

Watch every episode of 'Weeds', and you will be wiser about this issue.

[luke warm]

andrei, on 2012-September-23, 09:58, said:

“I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration. When Eric Holder found out about it, he discontinued it. We assigned a inspector general to do a thorough report that was just issued, confirming that in fact Eric Holder did not know about this, that he took prompt action and the people who did initiate this were held accountable.”
— President Obama during Univision interview, Sept. 20, 2012

the only trouble with this is, it's largely untrue... wide receiver was in place from '06 - '07/'08 or thereabouts... from wiki "After President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the DOJ reviewed Wide Receiver and found that guns had been allowed into the hands of suspected gun traffickers."

so they disliked wide receiver so much they decided to upgrade it with f & f

[Cthulhu D]

luke warm, on 2012-September-24, 15:40, said:

the only trouble with this is, it's largely untrue... wide receiver was in place from '06 - '07/'08 or thereabouts... from wiki "After President Barack Obama took office in 2009, the DOJ reviewed Wide Receiver and found that guns had been allowed into the hands of suspected gun traffickers."

so they disliked wide receiver so much they decided to upgrade it with f & f

It's pretty clear from the fortune magazine report is that it was impossible to stop the gun runners because nothing they did was demonstrably illegal due to a lack of monitoring systems - why arn't gun sales tracked? - and permissive purchase and resale laws. Why isn't there even a law against arms tracking? What the hell?

[mike777]

Cthulhu D, on 2012-September-24, 22:09, said:

It's pretty clear from the fortune magazine report is that it was impossible to stop the gun runners because nothing they did was demonstrably illegal due to a lack of monitoring systems - why arn't gun sales tracked? - and permissive purchase and resale laws. Why isn't there even a law against arms tracking? What the hell?

why are gun sales tracked





think about it.

You guys seem to miss the entire point or maybe not.

This reminds me of why so many ask why people need huge/super guns to shoot Bambi.

I mean really you dont know?


So many that lived in Asia or Europe in our families lifetimes.
--



I think you miss the point when you say the French dont own guns.

--


yes this is choice America has made when we see Camps in Europe, mass killing in Mexico, mass killing in Africa, and indifference in Asia and most of Europe shrugs and says more money for govt health care.

[luke warm]

Cthulhu D, on 2012-September-24, 22:09, said:

It's pretty clear from the fortune magazine report is that it was impossible to stop the gun runners because nothing they did was demonstrably illegal due to a lack of monitoring systems - why arn't gun sales tracked? - and permissive purchase and resale laws. Why isn't there even a law against arms tracking? What the hell?

my understanding is, there were monitoring systems in place for the precursors to f&f, just not for f&f itself... as for why gun sales aren't tracked, i'm thinking you know why - or at least why the founders thought it a good idea for the citizenry to be armed... see, their experience (and ours, even now) showed that a nation's people have more to fear from their own gov't than any other entity

it all boils down to whether or not a person, or group of people, feel liberty is something to fight (and die) for

[dwar0123]

luke warm, on 2012-September-25, 15:40, said:

my understanding is, there were monitoring systems in place for the precursors to f&f, just not for f&f itself... as for why gun sales aren't tracked, i'm thinking you know why - or at least why the founders thought it a good idea for the citizenry to be armed... see, their experience (and ours, even now) showed that a nation's people have more to fear from their own gov't than any other entity

I find the notion that we are armed as a means to defend ourselves against a tyranny of our own government profoundly flawed on both ends.

On one end, if the US military actually wanted to suppress us, they would have very little difficulty doing so.

On the other end, there is no way the US military would actually suppress us, they are a still a citizen army.

I can actually come up with scenarios were your 'fear' makes sense, but it isn't easy.

You would have to start with something that would at least partially legitimize a permanent declaration of martial law and the subsequent suspension of elections.

Scenarios that I can think of would involve almost the complete collapse of society, such as an outbreak that wipes out 40% or more of the population, wide spread nuclear strikes, the Yellowstone super volcano going up in a big way or a near extinction level meteor strike.

Of course, to many gun carrying, 2nd amendment fanatics, this is probably something they fantasize about.

A tyranny is all but certain and arguable necessary in such a situation, I would rather the tyrant could trace some legitimacy to our democratic origins rather then leave it to the most successful warlord. An outcome that would be more likely with a relatively unarmed general population.

[Zelandakh]

luke warm, on 2012-September-25, 15:40, said:

my understanding is, there were monitoring systems in place for the precursors to f&f, just not for f&f itself... as for why gun sales aren't tracked, i'm thinking you know why - or at least why the founders thought it a good idea for the citizenry to be armed... see, their experience (and ours, even now) showed that a nation's people have more to fear from their own gov't than any other entity

it all boils down to whether or not a person, or group of people, feel liberty is something to fight (and die) for

Given

blackshoe, on 2012-September-25, 09:16, said:

The Founding Fathers were vehemently against a standing army, and set up things in the Constitution so as (they hoped) to prevent such a thing. They failed. Do we need a standing army, or not? If so, how big does it really need to be?

I reckon I could think of a reason or two why the FFs might have felt gun ownership was a good idea. Things have moved on a little since then.

Or, put another way, if I am standing in a field with a government civil servant, a soldier from my country's military, a random American gun owner and a suicide bomber, I promise you I will not feel I have the most to fear from the beaurocrat. Nor the soldier for that matter.

As for liberty, whose precisely? Should a parent have the liberty to feel reasonably safe in letting their child play at their best friend's house without having to worry about whether there is a lethal weapon somewhere in the vicinity? If a child was meant to sleep over but comes home in the middle of the night for some reason should they have the liberty to do this without worrying that they will be mistaken as a burglar and shot? Liberty is often a complex issue. A classic example of that is abortion. It is interesting as a non-American to observe that on many issues where liberty/freedom/choice can be taken in more than one way, Republicans are often only able to see one side and think this is 100% clear. This provides a clear message that often resonates with voters but I suspect is highly detrimental to the political debate as a whole.