Unlike other leftists in the media intent on keeping their distance from Fast and Furious as if from a stench, the ever-optimistic Schultz sees a silver lining to the fatally flawed program (audio) --Posted on 06/22/2012 7:52:17 PM PDT by Kaslin
Rock 'em sock 'em liberal Ed Schultz continues doing his darndest to unintentionally help conservatives by the simple act of opening his mouth and letting words spill out.
On his radio show yesterday, Schultz finally caught up with the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal that's been brewing for 18 months since the murder of border agent Brian Terry (audio clips after page break).
Unlike other leftists in the media intent on keeping their distance from Fast and Furious as if from a stench, the ever-optimistic Schultz sees a silver lining to the fatally flawed program (audio) --
It always takes Americans a couple of days to get all the facts in before they render judgment on exactly just how bogus something is or is not. And I think we're about there on this Eric Holder situation, the attorney general. Now Marco Rubio is the Florida senator saying that, you know, I think he ought to resign. This is all about getting the president. You've got the right-wing jugheads out there and about, trying to tell the head-shaking crowd that really, President Obama is at the center of all of this. He is the one.
He's the, look, I say keep talking about it. This is what the right wing ought to do. Just keep on talk-, because you know what? It keeps the focus off the economy.
Clearly the last place Schultz and other Obamists want voters focused, especially in a tough election year. How odd indeed that Schultz suggests voters turn their attention instead to a scandal that may eventually cost Holder his job.
In an attempt to bring his listeners up to speed on Fast and Furious, Schultz invited Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland, ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on his radio show Thursday.
Alas, Cummings was less intent on clarifying the specifics than he was he was in muddying the waters -- and man, did he muddy them. This post to be updated with clips from his remarks, stay tuned ...
Updated at 5:06 p.m. with remarks from Congressman Cummings --
Introducing the Maryland Democrat, Schultz praised him for speaking with "tremendous clarity" about Fast and Furious -- followed by Cummings doing just the opposite (audio) --
SCHULTZ: When did this all start and who started it?
CUMMINGS: Well, first of all, you know, it started with the, uh, actually it started back in 2006, uh, when there was folks in the ATF, the Phoenix office, uh, that were, uh, in their efforts to help with, uh, you know, the war on drugs in, in Mexico. What they wanted to do was try to, uh, see where guns, when guns came out of the United States and were bought at, bought mainly in the border states and then flowed to Mexico, they wanted to see where those guns, you know, where they ended up. Well, they made a big mistake. They stopped following the guns and, uh, so basically that's what's called gun walking.
In other words, they were watching (them) be purchased at a, a, uh, like a, uh, gun shop and they would see people maybe buying a hundred guns at a time, they would follow 'em, follow 'em to the border. The aim was, they were supposed to follow 'em beyond that but they didn't. So, about 2000, so then, let's fast, fast forward. That was done under the Bush administration. There were several of these programs that were done. And then when the, uh, Obama administration came about, uh, these folks down in Phoenix were still doing this gun running, this gun walking, allowing this gun walking that happened to take place.
So, so, what happened is that, uh, eventually, uh, there was a border agent who was killed about, a little bit over a year and a half ago and his name was Brian Terry. And they found two of these guns that had bas-, walked over the border at the scene of his murder. And we've been trying to, our committee has taken it upon itself, to look into that. That's the background of how this all got started.
Got that? Guns don't kill people, guns walking across borders do. "Tremendous clarity" indeed.
Cummings's account of Fast and Furious and its Bush era precedent, Operative Wide Receiver, bears little resemblance to a far more coherent account from Andrew C. McCarthy at National Review Online. More to follow ...
Updated again at 5:50 p.m. --
McCarthy writing at NRO --
Wide Receiver actually involved not gun-walking but controlled delivery. (emphasis in original). Unlike gun-walking, which seems (for good reason) to have been unheard of until Fast & Furious, controlled delivery is a very common law enforcement tactic. Bascially, the agents know the bad guys have negotiated a deal to acquire some commodity that is either illegal itself (e.g., heroin, child porn) or illegal for them to have/use (e.g., guns, corporate secrets). The agents allow the transfer to happen under circumstances where they are in control -- i.e., they are on the scene conducting surveillance of the transfer, and sometimes even participating undercover in the transfer. As soon as the transfer takes place, they can descend on the suspects, make arrests, and seize the commodity in question -- all of which makes for powerful evidence of guilt.
... To the contrary, Fast & Furious involved uncontrolled deliveries -- of thousands of weapons. (again, emphasis in original). It was an utterly heedless program in which the feds allowed these guns to be sold to straw purchasers -- often leaning on reluctant gun dealers to make the sales. The straw purchasers were not followed by close physical surveillance; they were freely permitted to bulk transfer the guns to, among others, Mexican grug gangs and other violent criminals -- with no agents on hand to swoop in, make arrests, and grab the firearms. The inevitable result of this was that the guns have been used (and will continue to be used) (emphasis added) in many crimes, including the murder of Brian Terry, a U.S. border patrol agent.
... As Sen. Cornyn pointed out, there is a major distinction between Wide Receiver and Fast & Furious. The former was actually a coordinated effort between American and Mexican authorities. Law enforcement agents in both countries kept each other apprised about suspected transactions and tried to work together to apprehend law-breakers. To the contrary, Fast & Furious was a unilateral, half-baked scheme cooked up by an agency of the Obama Justice Department -- an agency that was coordinating with the Justice Department on the operation and that turned to Main Justice to get wiretapping authority.
So much for Obama and crew cultivating better relations with allies and eschewing Bush unilateralism. More to follow ...
Updated again at 6:40 p.m. --
More from Congressman Cummings on Fast & Furious (audio) --
After that (death of agent Terry), Darrell Issa, who you well know, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, began accusing the attorney general of the United States of having known about this gun-running stuff and having been, uh, you know, basically a part of it. Well, and then he began to subpoena all kinds of records. And all of these rec-, and deposing many people. Uh, when he went through all, deposed all these members of ATF and others, he discovered what I just said, that it was a rogue operation that was operated out of Phoe-, out of the Phoenix office of ATF, and that basically the higher-ups, the ones, the folks in Wash-, Washington, in the Justice Department, knew nothing about it. Keep in mind, ATF comes under the Justice Department.
First apologetic meme from Democrats -- this began under Bush and continued unchanged after Obama took office. Second apologia -- this was a "rogue operation" -- thereby exonerating the Obama administration from any responsibility, even though we're told repeatedly that no wrongdoing occurred. Still, why take chances when one can invoke "rogue" phantoms?
More to follow .
What a pig Schultz is.
The word “dickhead” doesn’t even begin to describe this guy.
How about you?
He thinks the economy under obama is doing great, but now he doesn’t want to talk about it?
Just wait until Fast and Furious becomes Obama’s Watergate. Watergate was a church picnic compared to F & F. No one was killed in Watergate; it was a second-class break-in. Just wait until Obama has to resign from office for leading the greatest Presidential COVER-UP since Richard Nixon. Ed Schultz’s head will explode.
Caller: “Ed, it also keeps ‘em from talking about how Obama was born in Kenya”
Fat Ed: “Yeah! That too!”
He’s such a dolt...
This Cummings twirp is a real genius! He is a member of the oversight committee and he doesn’t have the facts straight? How can this man be a part of an oversight committee and not understand what each program was and/or continue to lie about these two *fundamentally different programs.
UGH - I just might puke! I never ever wanted to say that *f word and I just did. God help me!
The economy is not the kind of issue that stays off the front page for long, no matter what distractions occur. Scandals come and go, but sitting at home unemployed goes on and on.
Ed saying he’s happy about F&F is like saying he’s happy he has no money for food because now he doesn’t have to cook.
Does he think no one is smarter than he is, and no one can see through what he’s saying ?
A 15-year old could figure out that Ed is desperate to get attention off of F&F.
Generally, what Dems say is exactly the opposite of what they realy mean.
The ONLY plan the Dems have for F&F is to delay past the election and if Zero is voted out, he can pardon himself and his gang on the way out.
They have no plan for Zero overcoming F&F if he somehow is reelected. Dem Senators (if Dems still have Senate majority) may even capitulate and vote to impeach just to stop his second term, which would be a complete trainwreck for Dems.
Dem powerbrokers have to be hoping that Zero loses in the fall and the blame the Republicans game can be resumed.
IMHO.
“Just wait until Obama has to resign from office for leading the greatest Presidential COVER-UP since Richard Nixon.”
Nixon had the integrity and respect for the office and the American people to resign. The Halfrican Hitler does not.
They will find someone to throw under the bus for this, and Obama/Holder will skate, just like Clinton/Reno and their cartel got away with all of their crimes.
Holder’s impeachment could start the riots that bring about martial law and a suspended the elecion.
Fast and furious was as nefarious as any of Hitler’s false flag operations, and nothing is to evil for this corrupt regime to attempt to stay in power.
He fits ‘Dumb and Dumber’ quite well all by himself.
F&F scandal won’t improve anybody’s economic situation, whether they pay attention to it or not. And you don’t need to tell the general public how the economy is doing, believe me, they know.
To those who did not know F&F before, the new scandal only adds fuel to even more dislike about Obama as candidate in 2008 and Obama as 3 1/2 year president seeking 2nd term. IF they get the correct version of F&F, not the Dem’s meme.
Holder’s impeachment could start the riots that bring about martial law and a suspended the elecion.
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Then I guarantee you, if that happens, there will be an all-out race war. White Conservatives have had it and we will not take it sitting down.
Keep in mind that the markets "should" bottom sometime in the next couple of years and start their climbout from the huge hole that Wall Street excesses and Fed-indulged moral hazard have created.
Whoever is in office during that climbout will benefit, although it will probably take years before any real consumer confidence begins to return.
Keep in mind, too, that the depressing effect that offshoring and outsourcing have had on the U.S. consumer economy since about 1991, with kitten-weak recoveries and long periods of bad employment stats out of DoL, may continue for generations, since we haven't yet felt the full effect of industrial starvation-wage-chasing and labor-market arbitrage.
“He’s a member of the oversight committee and he doesn’t even have the facts straight.”
Some of these bozos have no idea what the Constitution is about. One of them, when asked about the basis for social programs, said the “good and plenty clause” covers it.
Couldn’t believe my ears, but there it was. Absolutely freaking amazing.
IMHO
I pray that there would be a way correct the racism of the media and this corrupt administration. Holder should have already been put away for dismissing the New Black Panther voter intimidation case.
However, the history of Germany in the 30s and 40s show just how bad things get when a world power’s government conspires with it’s media to impose a racist agenda upon the people.
Look what Chuck Schumer thinks the three branches of government are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eEN0sHPKGA
“Look what Chuck Schumer thinks the three branches of government are:”
He is, of course, a brilliant, really-really smart, intensely bright, elite, genetically advanced, Progressive intellectual genius, dontcha know.
/S/
You know the economy must be really bad when they’d rather talk about hundreds of dead Mexicans killed with guns provided by the Obama admistration.
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