Been a while since I put one of these up, and since I start a new job today, I thought it high time to catch people at least semi-up-to-date on Fast and Furious developments:
Posts Tagged ‘Eric Holder’
Fast and Furious Update for November 10, 2011
Thursday, November 10th, 2011
Fast and Furious Updates for October 21, 2011
Friday, October 21st, 2011“So, Mr. ‘You just Took a One Week Break,'” you ask, “where do I go to get up to speed on Fast and Furious, ALA Operation Gunwalker?”
I’m glad you asked.
Perhaps the best place to start is Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea’s six part series, which provides a nice overview, as well as a timeline with links to the related posts:
Now back to our regularly scheduled update, which has been on hold while I did things like Texas Senate Race updates, job interviews, etc. So some of this will be old news to many of you:
(Hat tips: Just about everyone under the Gun Blog header to your right, plus Insta and Ace.)
In Which My Texas Senate and Fast and Furious Updates Converge
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011Former Texas Solicitor General and current senate candidate Ted Cruz calls for a Special Counsel to investigate Fast and Furious. The text of his announcement:
Today, I’m calling for the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate Justice Department corruption in the weapons-trafficking scheme, “Fast and Furious.” The facts require a serious investigation. We cannot trust the Attorney General to “investigate” himself. The grave nature of these allegations—and the appearance of multiple obfuscations and evasions—demand an investigation free of political second guessing from the Obama White House.
The more we learn about Fast and Furious, the more disturbing the revelations are. The public has a right to know who knew what and when. Americans deserve an open, transparent investigation free of political spin. It is clear that this case has now reached a critical point where an impartial investigator is required.
Attorney General Eric Holder has been far from forthcoming in this investigation. Questions about what Holder and his staff knew about the operation, and their repeatedly changing stories, warrant an outside review.
Everyone has the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, but the continual stonewalling in this case has undermined the public trust. That trust can only be ensured by appointing a Special Counsel to review the case.
As part of the Fast and Furious operation, more than 2,000 weapons were provided to Mexican drug cartels as part of a failed attempt to identify weapons smuggling networks. Many of those weapons have turned up at Mexican crime scenes. Two weapons were found at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
And then a link to an email for to join the call for the investigation (and, no doubt, provide a handy list of potential Cruz supporters).
There may be a few national gun bloggers reading this who haven’t heard of Cruz, but that will no doubt change when the issue of National Review with him on the cover hits the stands. This is another example of Cruz getting a jump on his main rival, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, in addressing vital issues for movement conservatives.
Fast and Furious Update for October 11, 2011
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011Either I’m getting a little better handle on things, or Fast and Furious revelations have slowed down just enough for me to keep up.
(Hat tips: Sipsey Street, Say Uncle, and the usual suspects.)
Fast and Furious Update For October 10, 2011
Monday, October 10th, 2011You know, when I started doing Fast and Furious updates, I didn’t realize I’d have to update this daily. But events are moving at a pretty brisk pace:
Finally, not related at all (except also involving guns), but I wanted to point out that Adam Winkler, author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, points out that yes, the roots of gun control in America are racist in nature.
Fast and Furious Update for October 9, 2011
Sunday, October 9th, 2011Updates to the Fast and Furious scandal are coming…well, you know.
(Hat tips: Instapundit, Sipsey Street, etc.)
Fast and Furious Updates for October 8, 2011
Saturday, October 8th, 2011I’ve been following the Fast and Furious scandal for a while, but haven’t been blogging about it much since so many other fine bloggers were on the case. I didn’t want to just post a chunk of text only to add “what Dwight said” or “what Sebastian said”.
However, since I was able to make my own original contribution, and since, despite a few breakthroughs here and there, the MSM still isn’t covering the story, I thought I would add my voice to the chorus and start doing regular Fast and Furious Updates.
If you check Snowflakes in Hell or Sipsey Street Irregulars (who have been one of the leading blogs on Fast and Furious, and who I just added to the blogroll) daily, you’ll probably see a fair amount of things you’re already familiar with, but I’ll also try to have some original bits from time to time.
So, without further adieu, here’s today’s Fast and Furious Update:
If Attorney General Holder had said these things five months ago when Congress asked him about Operation Fast and Furious, it might have been more believable. At this point, however, it’s hard to take at face value a defense that is factually questionable, entirely self-serving, and a still incomplete account of what senior Justice Department officials knew about gun walking.
Holder Goes With The “I’m Incompetent and Let My Subordinates Handle All Memos” Defense
Friday, October 7th, 2011CBS lets Sharyl Attkisson decloak long enough to print Eric Holder’s “I didn’t lie, I swear, I was just incompetent” defense for the Fast and Furious scandal:
Holder says that his testimony to Congress, stating he first heard of Fast and Furious earlier this year, “was truthful and accurate… I have no recollection of knowing about Fast and Furious prior to the public controversy about it.”
In other words: I’m so out-of-the-loop that I didn’t know my underlings were involved in a massive, illegal, and deadly plot to break the law resulting in over 200 deaths. Way to be on top of things, Mr. AG!
Holder maintains he didn’t know about the controversial gunwalking tactics used in the case.
The Sgt. Schultz defense.
The Attorney General says that while he was sent received memos on Fast and Furious, they are “actually provided to and reviewed by members of my staff and the staff of the Office of the Deputy Attorney General.”
The Richard Nixon “I was out of the loop” defense. Didn’t work so well for him either.
As CBS News has reported, the Deputy Attorney General during Fast and Furious, Gary Grindler is now Holder’s Chief of Staff. Documents provided to Congress indicate Grindler received a detailed briefing on Fast and Furious in March of 2010 and made handwritten notes on briefing materials.
However, in the letter, Holder says Grindler “was not told of the unacceptable tactics employed in the operation in his regular monthly meetings with ATF…”
“I now understand some senior officials within the Department were aware at the time there was an operation called Fast and Furious although they were not advised of the unacceptable operational tactics being used in it,” says Holder’s letter.
There’s a word for this sort of denial: it’s called bullshit. Bureaucracies are good at one thing: Following the rules. Even as stupid as some of the cowboys in ATF are, there’s no way some field-level supervisor got the bright idea: “Hey, let’s directly violate the federal laws we’re supposed to enforce! Plus I won’t tell anyone higher up! What’s the worst that could happen?” Doesn’t pass the smell test. You don’t isolate top officials from this sort of info, you make sure they’re in the loop to cover your own ass. Fast and Furious is so far off the reservation that the order for it had to come from way up high. Not necessarily Holder (though that’s a distinct possibility), but someone far enough up the food chain to make such an outrageous order stick. Like Obama.
Plus this:
In his letter, Holder also criticized the House Committee investigating Fast and Furious, saying he cannot sit idly by “as law enforcement and government employees who devote their lives to protecting our citizens be considered ‘accessories to murder’.”
Well then, maybe you should have, oh, I don’t know, provided enough oversight to make sure they weren’t accessories to murder. Shouldn’t be that hard.
There are two possibilities:
A. If Holder knew about Fast and Furious, he’s an accessory to murder, and shouldn’t be Attorney General.
B. If Holder didn’t know about Fast and Furious, then he’s manifestly incompetent, and shouldn’t be Attorney General.
There is no option C.
This Week in Jihad
Thursday, November 18th, 2010Jihad waits for no man, so here’s another roundup of news:
- It takes very special skills to take someone with a sworn confession of involvement in the murder of 224 people, and to bungle the prosecution so badly that you’re only able to convict him on one count of conspiracy. But Eric Holder and the Obama Justice Department are just that special.
- North Korea is reportedly “supplying banned nuclear and ballistic equipment to Iran, Syria and Myanmar. Well, isn’t that just lovely?
- The story of Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, born Carlos Leon Bledsoe, a native-born jihadi who killed a U.S. solider at a recruiting station in Little Rock.
- “Feminist” scholar Lila Abu-Lughod says that honor killings are a consequence of Western colonialism, and that burqas are not at all oppressive to women. Sounds like the type of feminist that would be right at home at WisCon.
- Judges rules that no, cops didn’t violate a Somali’s families rights when refusing to let them put on hajibs during a drug bust. (Whether our time and money is best spent arresting people for possession of khat is a topic for another time…)
- Secretary of State Clinton complains that Europe isn’t accommodating enough to the Religion of Peace. That would be the same Clinton that would be required to wear a burqa in Iran or Saudi Arabia, not the Clinton that could legally have multiple wives; him I figure could get used to it…
- UK student: Support the troops! His Islamic classmates: Support the troops and we will kill you.
- “The scholars are unanimously agreed that a Muslim who insults the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) becomes a kaafir and an apostate who is to be executed.”
- Saudi Arabia and India stepping up military cooperation. Hmmm….
- Quest for Honor is a new documentary by Mary Ann Smothers Bruni about the quest to eradicate honor killings in Kurdistan. It seems to be getting a bit of Oscar buzz.
- And researching that, I came across this site http://www.stophonourkillings.com/, which I hope to take a closer look at when I have more time.
- Toy pig pulled from toy farm because…well, you can probably guess.
(Hat tips: Jihadwatch, MEMRI, Michael Totten, etc.)