Fast & Furious Iran-Contra

Does anyone remember how the Democrats carried on about Iran-Contra?

Here’s a quick refresher:

In order to destroy Ronald Reagan a lot of communist propaganda was written about how the Contras in Nicaragua waged war. The whole thing was designed to blame RR for supplying arms to butchers. That assertion by liberals was false on the face of it. RR was simply not that kind of a man. There’s plenty available for anyone who wants to research the topic.

The bottom line is that some in the Reagan Administration were supplying arms to the Contras in order to overthrow a communist regime in our hemisphere. Hussein & Company gave assault weapons to criminal gangs engaged in the drug trade. My point is this: There’s a helluva difference between Iran-Contra and Fast and Furious.

One final observation on Iran-Contra:

RR was accused of violating the Boland Amendment. That Amendment was introduced by two Democrat congressmen, Edward P. Boland and Tom Hakins, for the sole purpose of protecting a communist government in Nicaragua.

http://www.nytimes.com/keyword/boland-amendment

My point: Democrats write Amendments, memos, executive orders, regulations, and anything else they can think up to protect communism —— then they find ways to advance communism by doing the same things they prohibit others from doing. Example: The Boland Amendment does not apply to Fast and Furious.

In the same vain, Jamie Gorelick’s infamous memo (Gorelick’s Wall) was a critical element in Clinton’s efforts to salvage world communism’s infrastructure. Gorelick’s Wall also gave us the events of 9-11-2001. See the article at this link:

http://biggovernment.com/jdunetz/20...ousing-collapse-is-on-short-list-to-lead-fbi/

Fast and Furious

I’m assuming that the idea for Fast and Furious came from Prohibition era bootleggers shooting it out in the streets of Chicago. The only good thing I can see is that it was designed to help drug gangs kill one another off. That would not be a bad idea if assault rifles were equipped with governors that prevented them from killing innocent non-combatants in the drug wars.

Finally, I doubted that the scandal would go anywhere. Now, I’m not so sure:

Issa: Heads should roll over 'Fast and Furious'
Releases new video demanding someone be 'held accountable' for deadly program
Posted: October 07, 20117:05 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=353153

Here’s the video:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WaOh1ovdBg&feature=player_embedded"]Holder vs White House: Who Is Accountable? - YouTube[/ame]

 

Things are going to get lot hotter for Eric Holder if Congressman Issa has anything to say about it. Here’s the transcript from FNS dealing with Fast & Furious:

WALLACE: Congressman, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

REP. DARRELL ISSA, R-CALIF.: Well, thanks for having me on and covering two of the issues that are causing Americans to lose confidence in their government.

WALLACE: OK. Let's start with "Fast and Furious" in which ATF agents allowed more than 2,000 weapons to be sold illegally to cross the border. They were going to try to track them to catch drug traffickers. They lost track of a number of them. Hundreds ended up with the Mexican drug cartel and two of them ended up at the murder scene of a U.S. border patrol agent.

I want to take you back to May when you had this now famous exchange with Attorney General Eric Holder. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ISSA: When did you first know about the program officially, I believe, called "Fast and Furious"? To the best of your knowledge, what date?

ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I am not sure about the exact date. But I probably heard about "Fast and Furious" for the first time over the last few weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Congressman, I understand that you are going to issue a new set of subpoenas to the attorney general this week. About what?

ISSA: About "Fast and Furious" and basically, at this point, about why are they denying knowing about something that they were briefed on? Exactly when the American people want to know how did it happen? Understand, we didn't start off going after the attorney general or Lanny Breuer or anyone else in justice. We started off knowing that Brian Terry was dead, that a lot of –

WALLACE: The U.S. border patrol agent.

ISSA: The U.S. border patrol agent. And that a lot of weapons have been let to walk.

After that, we started being told things like by the Justice Department designated official that we never let weapons walk.

Now, we have literally e-mails in which they are concerned about so many walking and you said something and I don't mean to correct you -- but to expand. We didn't just have a few not be tracked. The whole program was about not tracking them until they were found in the scene of crimes. And they didn't just allow. They facilitated just one guy buy, one straw buy, over 700 weapons.

WALLACE: So, specifically, what are your subpoenas about?

ISSA: We want to know what and when they knew it. But more importantly, we have to understand -- at what level of the authorization really come? It wasn't an ATF operation. They were part of that. It was a joint operation in which DEA knew more than ATF.

WALLACE: Drug Enforcement Administration. ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

ISSA: And, of course, these are all parts of the Department of Justice. And as we are beginning to see, and we're not talking about Eric Holder at this moment, but the people in the top of justice were well-briefed, knew about it, and seemed to be the command and control and funding for this program. And any law enforcement person who's ever been asked under oath or not under oath comes back and says this wasn't the right way to do it.

Well, when did they know it wasn't the right way to do it and why do they keep doing it?

WALLACE: Are you going to subpoena the attorney general to testify again?

ISSA: The Judiciary Committee in which I also served, that's where that actual question got asked, is -- has invited him to come and clear the record, because, clearly, he knew when he said he didn't. Now, the question is, what did he know and how is he explaining why he gave that answer?

WALLACE: OK. The attorney general sent you a letter Friday afternoon, along with other top officials in both the House and the Senate.

I want to go through some of this push back. He acknowledges that several memos, and here you can see them heavily redacted –

ISSA: This is the way we usually get this, Chris.

WALLACE: -- on these dates were sent to his office as much as 10 months earlier, not the few weeks before he testified in May of 2011. But he says -- and I want to put up his comments from his letter, "I do not and cannot read them cover to cover. Here, no issues concerning 'Fast and Furious' were brought to my attention because the information presented in the report did not suggest a problem.

He's saying I didn't know about this program and I certainly didn't know that we were letting guns walk.

ISSA: Well, I'll take him at his word, but let's go back. He answered before Judiciary Committee, myself, Jason Chaffetz, and others, that he didn't know about it until two weeks earlier. That's just disingenuous on its face.

Very clearly, he had to know when Brian Terry was killed and everyone realized these were "Fast and Furious" weapons, he had to know something serious had happened and that's months before he says he knew. Now, if we assume for a moment he didn't know, the question is, is he competent? If, in fact, a border patrol agent has been murdered, 2,000 weapons have gone, this program has completely gone off of the rails, why didn't he know? And that's probably a more important question for the chief law enforcement. If Lanny Breuer knew, why didn't Eric Holder?

WALLACE: And Larry Breuer, one of his top --

ISSA: One of this top aides who is very involved much earlier on and works in the same office.

WALLACE: OK, Holder points out that top officials briefed you in April of 2010, just around the time that he was first hearing of all of this. He writes and let's put it up, "I'm aware that Chairman Issa has said that he was not briefed on the unacceptable details of 'Fast and Furious.'" In other words, the fact they were letting the guns walked.

Two questions, one: is that true? Were you brief and not told? And second, if it is true, how do you know that he was also not told?

ISSA: The interesting thing is he's quoting a story that he planted, that justice shopped around to the newspaper. But having said that, I'll answer it.

We were looking into the drug problems, we asked for a briefing. We got a briefing, including Kenneth Melson. We –

WALLACE: Of ATF?

ISSA: Of ATF, one of the people that knew about the program but didn't all the other things that he ultimately read in a still sealed wiretap. That when he read the wiretap and understood how much they knew that this was deliberately letting bad guns go to the drug cartel, he became sick to his stomach. So yes.

WALLACE: But my question is -- all right. So, you are saying you were not told about "Fast and Furious" and the gun walking. So, how do you know that he wasn't told?

ISSA: Well, first of all, it was concealed from us by the Justice Department. That briefing, they were not allowed to know what Kenneth Melson later knew and made him sick to his stomach. Let's understand, ATF is running an operation. They're being told guns aren't getting to the bad guys. Ultimately, the whistleblower came forward, when he realized, of course, guns are getting to the bad guys.

This investigation is not about an operation that was supposed to trace guns. This is about Justice Department knowing and this is where the American people have a right to know more, knowing that these guns were deliberately intended to end up in the hands of the drug cartels without any kind of traceability except if you find a gun in the scene of the crime. That is the reason that it is felony and stupid -- and I use the word "felony" deliberately -- program.

This should be criminal to let criminals have thousands of deadly weapons.

WALLACE: I have to point out, because Holder does in his letter, the Bush administration had a similar operation called "Operation Wide Receiver" that also, he says, let guns walk?

ISSA: Well, first of all, Eric Holder came in wanting to indict people from that administration. So, I think his standard of the -- well, other administration did it, too, is not so good.

But understand, from what we discover from "Wide Receiver" and those, by the way, we have subpoenas for those and those documents have not been delivered. Very few weapons, very, very well-traced -- overhead, observation and so on.

What you would think would happen if you let a weapon start to move, you trace it at every step. This was one where they let the weapons go and never looked until they showed up in the scene of Brian Terry's murder.

WALLACE: Some of your Republican colleagues have called for a special prosecutor to look into Holder's involvement. Some have called on Holder to resign.

Do you join either of those?

ISSA: Well, I've always taken the tack that the president picks the people he has full confidence, and the president still seems to have full confidence in Eric Holder -- something I don't share. When it comes to a special prosecutor, Eric Holder cannot investigate himself. Congress is well along the way of investigating this operation to find out what went wrong, who knew it and what we have to do in the future to make sure it can't happen again.

If there's a special prosecutor to look at the narrow issue of top officials who -- and they beat political appointees, that's a separate issue. Our investigation, along with Senator Grassley has to get to the bottom of this sooner, not later, because the American people and people in Mexico don't trust their government right now.

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-n...rick-santorum-challenging-gop-presidential-fr

 

mmm,,Eric Holder;;;

Did not read memos on Black panther case...?

Did not read the new Arizona anti-illegal immigration bill ?

Did not read memo of fast and furious ?

It would seem the public knows more than this ass.....or could he be a LIAR?
Naaaa,,Obama appointed him....

 

To flounder; Nicely said. Allow me to add:

Democrats don’t mind being called liars, but all hell will break loose if they are called stupid.

 

Congressman Darrell Issa is somebody to watch. He is no flash-in-the pan for those of us who think congressional oversight means nailing wrongdoers in government.

Issa came down on ACORN when the Democrats were in charge. See this article:

HUD Report Slams Corrupt ACORN As Funding Ban Set To Expire For Undead Group
Posted By Matthew Vadum On September 24, 2010 @ 4:51 am
In ACORN, Featured Story, Media Criticism

http://biggovernment.com/mvadum/201...s-funding-ban-set-to-expire-for-undead-group/

Now, Issa has a top Democrat, and possibly the president, in the hot seat. Both ACORN funding and the Fast and Furious disaster are legitimate congressional inquiries. Of course, Democrats are spinning the subpoena Issa served on Eric Holder differently:

It didn't take long after the press release for the top Democrat on Issa's Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), to call the subpoena a "deep-sea fishing expedition and a gross abuse of the committee's authority." Cummings referred to the "fact-gathering" mission as a "political stunt."

I have a question for Rep. Cummings. If Issa is on a fishing expedition what did you call Scooter Libby’s persecution?

October 13, 2011
Issa Forges Ahead, Issues Subpoena To Holder, Et Al
M Catharine Evans

The murders of American agents Brian Terry and Jamie Zapata are at the heart of the Fast and Furious maelstrom currently swallowing up Attorney General Eric Holder. In addition to Terry and Zapata, at least two hundred Mexican citizens have been killed with guns traced to the government-sanctioned program. The deadly ramifications of the operation are still unfolding as an unknown number of "walked guns" continues to circulate.

The high body count prompted Congressman Issa, chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to issue a subpoena today demanding that DOJ turn over "all communications related to Operation Fast and Furious, the Jacob Chambers case, or any Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) firearms trafficking case based in Phoenix, Arizona, to or from the following individuals":

Eric Holder Jr., Attorney General;

David Ogden, Former Deputy Attorney General;

Gary Grindler, Office of the Attorney General and former Acting Deputy Attorney General;

James Cole, Deputy Attorney General;

Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General;

Ronald Weich, Assistant Attorney General;

Kenneth Blanco, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

John Keeney, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

Bruce Swartz, Deputy Assistant Attorney General;

Matt Axelrod, Associate Deputy Attorney General;

Ed Siskel, former Associate Deputy Attorney General;

Brad Smith, Office of the Deputy Attorney General;

Kevin Carwile, Section Chief, Capital Case Unit, Criminal Division;

Joseph Cooley, Criminal Fraud Section, Criminal Division; and,

James Trusty, Acting Chief, Organized Crime and Gang Section.

All communications between and among Department of Justice (DOJ) employees and Executive Office of the President employees, including but not limited to Associate Communications Director Eric Schultz, referring or relating to Operation Fast and Furious or any other firearms trafficking cases.

It didn't take long after the press release for the top Democrat on Issa's Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), to call the subpoena a "deep-sea fishing expedition and a gross abuse of the committee's authority." Cummings referred to the "fact-gathering" mission as a "political stunt."

For decades the so-called liberal politicians have been making the "personal political" and defending victims of injustice. Now that they have bona-fide dead American heroes as a result of an overreaching government-approved operation, they cry foul.

So far, the tenacious Mr. Issa has kept the victims' families front and center. He should know that there is no other case as important as this one for the American people.

No doubt Holder will marshal all his resources to stonewall and obstruct the inquiry. Aiding his cover-up, major media outlets have all but blacked out reporting of Fast and Furious despite the fact that the highest law officer in the land has been implicated in a criminal investigation. But no worries -- our judicial system can still prosecute crooks even if the media abdicates its responsibility to inform.

Read more M. Catharine Evans at Potter Williams Report.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/issa_forges_ahead_issues_subpoena_to_holder_et_al.html

 

(*)(*)(*)(*). I give up trying to make any sense out of today's left wing belief system.

Anymore the world doesn't even believe real history, they believe the revisionist stuff of whackjob websites.

No one even knows how to go to a library and pick up a book and read anymore. I go to the library and the kids are always on the computers playing some web game or whatever, when all around them is all the collected knowledge of humanity in one big giant building. Stupidity. Kids these days don't even know what the Dewey Decimal system is anymore.

Everything can be found on the net.. the only problem is.. 99% of it is lies.

 

To SiliconMagician: I’ll go you one better. Most kids only know that Dewey is one of Donald Duck's nephews.

 

I'd like to see this bring the whole administration down. Obamessiah is the most corrupt dishonest president we have ever had. He should be impeached for this.

 

To Pokerface: I like your thinking. Alas, impeaching Hussein ain’t going to happen. The public will be lucky if Holder goes.

 

Impeachment is not a legal process, its a political one. Therefore, the political ramifications of impeaching a President are extremely serious for the side that calls for it. Its just not worth it for anything but the worst abuses of office. If Obama were impeached the screams of racism and kangaroo trial would be never ending.

As long as Democrats have firm control over the mainstream media and can churn out believable propaganda, Obama is untouchable.

 

What happened to objectivity?