“Fast and Furious” – Don’t Blame Holder, Blame Congress and the President(barf alert)

The federal law enforcement operation known as “Fast and Furious” was a debacle that almost assuredly cost the life of at least one American Border Patrol agent. Yet, unlike the standoff and assault nearly two decades ago on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas – a tragedy of epic proportions that claimed the lives of some six dozen civilians along with those of four federal agents – the officials responsible for conducting Fast and Furious actually are being held accountable.

Importantly, however, the systemic problems infecting the one agency deeply involved in both debacles – the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, commonly known as “ATF” – continue to color its activities to this day. In fact, legislation passed in 2005 designed to make the agency more accountable, has never been fully implemented. To this day -- more than eight decades after it was created primarily to fight the menace posed to America by moonshiners and other scofflaws trying to avoid payment of federal taxes on cigarettes -- ATF remains the red-headed stepchild in the federal law enforcement family.

First the good news. As a direct result of an internal investigation of Fast and Furious conducted over the past year by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice (ATF’s parent bureaucracy), undertaken at the direction of Attorney General Eric Holder and released last week, two senior officials at the Justice Department and ATF resigned. The report identified several others for possible sanctions; and the officials in Arizona directly responsible for the botched operation, including the presidentially-appointed U.S. Attorney, had resigned earlier.

The fact that heads rolled as a result of the Inspector General’s report represents unusually clear action by the government to hold accountable individuals responsible for serious mistakes. Holder deserves credit for taking these steps, though he is unlikely to receive many kudos during a hotly contested national campaign. By comparison, not a single federal employee lost their job as a result of the Waco tragedy.

The Fast and Furious report also correctly identifies a number of policy and process miscues that characterized the operation, from its inception in the field to the failure to fully and timely apprise top Department officials of its results and problems.

Now the bad news. ATF remains leaderless and in disarray internally. Ultimately, blame for this continuing and serious problem rests with the two houses of Congress, and with the current President and his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush.

Bob Bar is a horses ass! To conclude that anything that occurred in this investigation was anything other than a full blown cover up to protect Holder and ultimately O’Bumbler flies in the face of reality.

So what, a couple over paid bureaucrats retired early to a lifetime pension and a position as ‘consultants’ with a couple big security firms.! The fact remains that they deign Holder to be either incompetent by virtue of ignorance, or an outright fraud and liar. You choose, he should be held to account at least politically for this stupidity. He should, in all actuality, be charged with manslaughter by the Mexican government., detained and extradicted for trial to Mexico City.

You know, I know and anyone with a functioning brain cell KNOWS that Holder damn well knew and in all likely hood orchestrated this disaster from inception. Probabaly at the behest of O’Bumbler to put our gun laws and our second amendment in a bad light.

Bob Barr is a political Whore...

Back before the pod people invaded his brain.

Here is the letter Bob Barr sent to Patrick Leachy and Arlen Spector.

http://judiciary.senate.gov/resources/documents/upload/010809-BobBarr.pdf

More evidence that Barr is nothing more than controlled opposition.

menace:
Gun Owners of America Opposes Attorney General Nominee

Barack Obama is wasting no time poking a sharp stick in the eyes of gun owners.

The incoming President’s choice for U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, is an anti-gun extremist who has assailed gun owners since his days in the Bill Clinton administration.

Holder, who served as Deputy Attorney General from 1997-2001, supports a 3-day waiting period for handgun purchases, one-gun-a-month rationing, licensing and registration of all gun owners, mandatory so-called smart gun technology, a lifetime gun ban for certain juvenile offenses and regulating gun shows out of existence.

As Janet Reno’s top deputy, Eric Holder was the go to guy on gun control issues. In a 1999 statement, Holder told members of Congress not to cave in to “the special interest that value the cold hard steel of guns more than the lives of children, neighbors and police officers,” and urged them to pass legislation that would have destroyed the gun show industry.

Gun Owners of America members flooded the Congress with postcards and e-mails and stopped Holder’s gun control plan.

In 2000, Holder was instrumental in the Clinton Administration’s effort to strong arm firearms manufacturers into voluntarily accepting regulations that had stalled in the Congress.

In a brazen legislation-by-extortion plot, the federal government filed suit against gun makers but offered to drop the suit if the companies would bow to the administration’s demands.

Again, GOA and its members took the lead in opposing Holder and the Clinton Administration and slowed down implementation of the agreement until it completely went away when Clinton left office.

One company went along with the deal but after intense pressure from gun owners, no others joined the unholy alliance.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, Holder pushed for more gun control and greater restrictions on gun shows, even though the terrorists were armed with box cutters that could be purchased at any hardware store.

Just last year, Holder joined Janet Reno and 11 other former Justice Department officials in an amicus brief before the Supreme Court arguing in favor of the gun ban in Washington D.C.

The Holder/Reno brief also took the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective government right, not an individual right.

GOA and its members have defeated Eric Holder and his agenda in the past, and we need to do it again. The Holder nomination is subject to Senate confirmation in a vote which is set to occur at any time.

Gun Owners of America has asked all members of the U.S. Senate to reject this anti-Second Amendment activist.Now we’re urging gun owners across the country to contact their own Senators and insist that they vote “NO” on Eric Holder.

ACTION: Please use the Take Action feature below to send your Senators a pre-written e-mail message.

http://gunowners.org/activism.htm

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B.S.