Operation Fast & Furious

[r_w]

No offense to you Ichi, but WHY should I care what a comedian / entertainer / loudmouth says about it?

Because when you have lost Stewart, you KNOW it was felony STUPID. 

You really should watch it, he really does nail it. 

[PegLeg45]

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/fired-gunrunner-whistleblower-vince-cefalu-speaks-pjm-exclusive/?singlepage=true

‘Gunrunner’ Whistleblower Vince Cefalu Speaks

Earlier this week, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) sent a letter to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Deputy Director William J. Hoover, insisting on assurances there would be no reprisals against the ATF agents who have chosen to testify about the failed Operation Fast and Furious — the operation Issa has called “felony stupid.”

Just a day later,  ATF Special Agent Vince Cefalu received notice ATF wants to terminate his employment after more than 30 years with the agency. Cefalu is one of the founders of CleanUpATF.org, a message board dedicated to addressing abuses within the ATF. He is one of the most vocal critics of the heads of the organization.

He said the main reason given in the four-page document for his termination is “lack of candor.”

Four years ago, what originally landed Cefalu in trouble was a case called “Road Dog“. In that case, local law enforcement was allegedly using an illegal wiretap — something Cefalu resisted:

    I threw the locals under the bus. … I became the most vocal critic and they got sick of my s***.

He’s since spent four years in a do-nothing job, with ATF managers hoping he’d get the message and retire:

    They put me in a cage, paid me full salary, and hoped it would break me down mentally and I would retire.

Since he did a three-part series of interviews about the problems in ATF with CNN’s Anderson Cooper last May, Cefalu says he’s been given only 122 minutes of work:

    Not GS-13 investigative work either. Changing batteries or filling cars with gas.

Cefalu said he’s suffered persecution in several other ways as well:

    [Acting Director] Ken Melson can’t even respond to a letter from a committee chairman. … I can’t fart in public without being accused of violations. I’ve submitted to seven internal affairs investigations since I blew the whistle. Without an attorney present, I answered every question.

    I’m representing dozens of agents [in greivance cases]. They take me out of play, they take a bunch of these cases out of play.

Cefalu says there should be prosecutions in the failed Operation Fast and Furious case, also known as “Gunwalker.” When asked if ATF had violated the law in this case, he responded:

    Of course if violates the law! They conspired to traffic firearms, you can’t do that under color of law. … There was no intent to follow the guns, this never had a chance of succeeding. It was a failed plan from the beginning.

He also says there is no huge gun-trafficking operation, no “Iron Pipeline” of firearms traveling from the U.S. to Mexico — just lots of buyers who can make a couple thousand dollars selling weapons across the border.

In addition, he has some more explosive allegations: he says the Mexican government was not made aware of the operation, and neither was the U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

And he says people within the Justice Department had to be aware of the operation — contrary to what Attorney General Eric Holder claimed. Cefalu says no one runs a major operation like this without getting approval from their boss.

Despite all of it, Cefalu said he just wants to see the agency he loves cleaned up:

    It breaks my heart, it’s shameful to me.  … I’m afraid the agency will be abolished because of the actions of a few self-serving individuals.

[Rastus]

Cefalu is afraid the agency will be abolished?  Well, he seems to be a lawful guy but I'll be glad if it is abolished and does not return. 

Before we were in such a enlightened and tolerant society anyone black or white could go to the feed store and buy dynamite.  I still have the auger we used to drill under stumps so we could blow them up.  A little dynamite was a whole lot cheaper than heavy equipment for clearing an area up.  After you blew a stump the "good news" bees (hornets) would show up and patrol the area....the biggest danger was staying upwind so that the smoke wouldn't give you a headache.

For those under 50 you may not understand how or even believe that such freedom can and did exist without the house falling down. 

[tombogan03884]

Cefalu is afraid the agency will be abolished?  Well, he seems to be a lawful guy but I'll be glad if it is abolished and does not return. 

Before we were in such a enlightened and tolerant society anyone black or white could go to the feed store and buy dynamite.  I still have the auger we used to drill under stumps so we could blow them up.  A little dynamite was a whole lot cheaper than heavy equipment for clearing an area up.  After you blew a stump the "good news" bees (hornets) would show up and patrol the area....the biggest danger was staying upwind so that the smoke wouldn't give you a headache.

For those under 50 you may not understand how or even believe that such freedom can and did exist without the house falling down. 

My Dad showed me how to set a charge before I started school. He was digging us a new well.
I remember him coming home PO'd one day, (must have been around 1968 ) because the guy at NH Explosives actually wanted to see his Drivers License before he'd sell him a case of dynamite. Back then if you bought a case they threw in the (non electric ) caps free. The only catch was, you could not transport them together, if the caps were in the glove box, the dynamite had to be in the back.

[PegLeg45]

My Dad showed me how to set a charge before I started school. He was digging us a new well.
I remember him coming home PO'd one day, (must have been around 1968 ) because the guy at NH Explosives actually wanted to see his Drivers License before he'd sell him a case of dynamite. Back then if you bought a case they threw in the (non electric ) caps free. The only catch was, you could not transport them together, if the caps were in the glove box, the dynamite had to be in the back.

You could still get dynamite here in 1986 with a 30 day permit (3 sticks will lift a GE fridge a significant amount).
All that changed in the 90's.

[Sponsor]

[CJS3]

Cefalu is afraid the agency will be abolished?  Well, he seems to be a lawful guy but I'll be glad if it is abolished and does not return. 

The ATF was never meant to be a "law enforcement" orginization, anymore than the secretaries working at your local PD are "law enforcement" officials. The ATF became law enforcement to justify increased budgets and pay raises to the "higher ups", untill eventually the ATF became the "higher ups"

Every bureaucratic entity is just like any living organism. They are growing or dying. It doesn't matter if it's private industry or government bureacracy. With no checks and balances they grow out of control, just like cancer.

[kmitch200]

Every bureaucratic entity is just like any living organism. They are growing or dying.

May I suggest RoundUp (mixed on the heavy side) or Chlorine injections? That should bring it under control.

[CJS3]

 

[twyacht]

As I've said,....they fired the whistleblower 1 week after Congressional Hearings for an "incident" in 2005.

It goes ALL the way up.....

http://thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/06/robert-farago/atf-death-watch-25-obama-knew-about-atf-gun-smuggling/

ATF Death Watch 25: Obama Knew About ATF Gun Smuggling
Posted on June 29, 2011 by Robert Farago

“As you know,” President Obama told a press conference today, “my attorney general has made clear that he certainly would not have ordered gun-running to pass through into Mexico.” So Department of Justice Chief Eric Holder would have ordered ATF-enabled gun running that didn’t past through into Mexico?” No matter how you parse it, the President of the United States responded to a question about his knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious with weasel words. The chickens that armed Mexican drug thugs with American firearms—one of which drug thugs shouldered to murder U.S. Border Patrol Brian Terry—are coming home to roost. Clearly, All the President’s Men have prepared President Obama’s defense for a scandal that threatens to eclipse Watergate, with similar results . . .

It’s only a matter of time before President Obama says “Yes, I knew of the ATF program, but I didn’t know that smuggled guns were allowed into Mexico.”

Which is complete and utter horse-shit.

As an ATF agent told Representative Darrell Issa at Congressional hearings on Gunwalker, the Bureau was over the moon about the fact that agency-enabled guns were showing-up at Mexican crime scenes. That’s how the ATF measured their success. There is no way they’d brief the Prez on the program’s progress without sharing the stats. No. Way.

First things first . . .

The President’s comments reveal the White House’s short term Gunwalker strategy: throw ATF Acting Chief Melson and Attorney General Holder under the bus, allow Department of Homeland Security jefe Janet Napolitano to exit gracefully, draw a line under the scandal and call it good.

As Brad would say, nope. If there wasn’t a paper trail between Melson’s mess and his boss (Attorney General Holder) and his boss’s boss (President Obama), Melson would have already taken one for the team. But there is so he can’t.

Melson will appear at Representative Issa’s Gunwalker hearings in July. He will profess the ATF’s good intentions, fail to recall, refuse to surrender key documents (again, still) and then take the fifth. All hell will break loose.

Lest we forget, this is a criminal investigation. Not only did Agent Terry eat ATF-enabled lead, but Gunwalker’s gunrunning violated an international treaty. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is some serious shit. No wonder Obama dodged the bullet at his press conference . . .

    The investigation is still pending. I’m not going to comment on a current investigation. I’ve made very clear my views that would not be an appropriate step by the ATF, and we’ve got to find out how that happened.

    As soon as the investigation is completed, I think appropriate actions will be taken.

Notice the passive construction and verbal tick: “I think [emphasis added] appropriate actions will be taken.” Not “I will take appropriate actions.” Call me an over-analytical nit-picking pedant, but Obama couldn’t promise some Gunwalker clock-cleaning ’cause it’s his timepiece that’s lousy with lethal lint (or something like that).

In any case, this is President Obama’s “I did not have sex with that woman.” If it’s revealed that the president did know about the ATF’s Gunwalker crime gun recovery stats, he will claim ignorance. “I do not recall that part of the briefing.”

And then he’ll repeat his assertion that the greater good—stopping Mexican cartel carnage—is the real issue. Just as he shrugged off questions about violating the U.S. Constitution to unleash helicopter gunships on Libyan troops.

Meanwhile, is there anyone who believes that the Department of Justice submitted all-black documents to Rep. Issa’s investigators to protect the rights of suspected shooter Osorio-Arellanes, the career criminal currently rotting in a Texas prison, or his three alleged cohorts, mysteriously released and deported by the feds immediately after Terry’s murder?

Is there anyone who believes that the Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted all-black documents to Rep. Issa’s investigators to protect the rights of the ATF, DOJ, DHS, DEA and State Department officials who knew about Uncle Sam’s anti-gun running gun running operations?

Of course not. The DOJ is stone-walling for one reason and one reason only: the Obama administration knew about and approved this operation at the highest levels. Including the President of the United States.

I repeat, Barak Obama is up to his eyeballs in Gunwalker. For it was he who stood side-by-side with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and blamed U.S. gun stores for the cartel-related violence bedeviling our number two crude oil supplier. Knowing full well what his people were doing about it.

You could say that Gunwalker was the ATF doing the “‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” routine. No doubt that’ll be the president’s story, at some point. But it’s not true. What did he know and when did he know it? He knew about the recovered guns sometime between his press conference with Calderon and today’s weasel word fest.

Truth be told, President Obama has shown his willingness to sidestep legal niceties when the ends justify the means (e.g. Bin Laden’s assassination, Libya, Guantanamo). In some ways, Gunwalker was a marriage made in heaven, a union between a rogue agency with delusions of grandeur and inadequate oversight and an American president who considers himself above the law.

Sound familiar? And that, friends, is just the obvious part of this scandal. As I’ve said before, U.S. complicity with Mexican drug cartels and corruption on both sides of the border is the cake underneath the icing. No matter. Obama lied and Agent Terry died. There’s more than enough here to bring down the President.

****

Why also is Sen. Harry Reid delaying confirmation hearings for ATF Nominee Andrew Traver,...inside Chicago anti gun buddy,??

Cause this is one HOT potato,....and I hope all responsible fry accordingly....

[r_w]

Harry can't afford to lose any Latino votes and knows it.  That is why he is pushing DREAM now.