Shocker: Another AK-47 Turns Up in Mexico

Guns from the Fast and Furious ATF debacle continue to turn up at crime scenes; this time it's an AK-47 that turned up at the scene of a shootout between Mexican authorities and cartel gunmen.

For their part, the ATF is, well, regretful:

“ATF has accepted responsibility for the mistakes made in the Fast and Furious investigation and at the attorney general's direction we have taken appropriate and decisive action to ensure that these errors will not be repeated,” the bureau said in a statement to CNN.

Really?  Exactly who got fired for this?  What, exactly, does "accepted responsibility" mean?

How many people have been killed by these guns now?

H/T:  Memeorandum

Pelosi Begins to Parrot Hillary Clinton

I've never been a fan of far-left winger Nancy Pelosi, but this just makes my skin crawl:  after accusing Republicans of having an "obsession" with Benghazi, then criticizing Republicans for trying to dig through all the cover-up and subterfuge on Benghazi to get to the truth, she said:

"We certainly have to give the full attention Benghazi deserves, but we cannot let it soak up all of the congressional attention," Pelosi said. "What would be the purpose of that?"

It sounds ridiculously close to "What difference, at this point, does it make?"




(H/T:  Memeorandum)

The Benghazi Dam is About to Break

I watched the Benghazi whistle-blowers testimony this week.  Greg Hicks testified that when he heard Susan Rice blame the terrorist attack on a YouTube video his "jaw dropped."  He couldn't believe it.  My jaw dropped when I listened to Mr. Hicks recount, minute by minute, what happened on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi.  I couldn't believe it.

It was emotional and moving testimony.  He fought back tears and emotion several times.  Reading the transcript of his words doesn't seem to convey the raw wounds Mr. Hicks still carries:



When I heard this testimony, what I heard was a career diplomat deliver an honest account of what he saw and heard that night.  I didn't hear a "bitter" man trying to even a score.  He was there.  

Between the whistle-blower's testimony, and ABC News finally following Stephen Hayes's lead in exposing the revision process of the talking points, Jay Carney was spinning like a top at today's press briefing.

In typical Carney fashion, he blames Mitt Romney for "politicizing" Benghazi while at the same time taking a swipe at George Bush.  Laughable.

What has always interested me, more than the cover-up of a terrorist attack two months before the presidential election, has been the lack of security at the post in Benghazi in the first place.  Why would you entrust security to forces associated with the opposition?  Why was security reduced and why was Stevens's request for more security denied?

Perhaps Mark Steyn sums it up best, his outrage palpable, in talking about Ambassador Stevens:

 I cannot conceive of how empty and dead you have to be inside to put Ambassador Stevens through that, then leave him to die, and all the nonsense we heard about oh, they couldn’t have got there in time? Oh, really? You had, it’s like a football match, is it? It’s like a football game, you’ve got an end time, you know they’re all going to pack up and go home at 5:00 in the morning or whatever? They didn’t know how long it was going to last. They left him to die. 

How empty and dead indeed.  The value of human life doesn't seem to mean much to them.

In all the political spin it is important to remember the human cost.

Word is that more whistle-blowers may be coming forward.  It seems like this story is about to blow wide open.   Let's hope the answers are revealed and the truth comes out in this tragic, shameful event.

"The You Tube Video Was a Non-Event in Libya"

Joe Klein is soooo missing the point.

Via Memeorandum, Klein's latest piece of drek totally politicizes the Benghazi affair and blames Republicans for a) caring about four dead Americans and b) being responsible for the absence of security:

Could it have been the Republicans who consistently voted against funds for increased embassy security? Hmmm…that makes their current carping seem awfully political, doesn’t it? Again, sins of politics are not mortal. But one does wonder why the Republicans tend to fix on issues like this, which are defined by their absence of substance. (I haven’t noticed the Republicans clamoring to spend more on embassy security–which would be a matter of substance, happily embraced by the Administration.But that would require a budget deal, which would give the President a win.)

It's astonishing, really.

In August, after the attempting car-jacking outside of the compound, security staff was drawn down from fourteen to four.

Why?  Funding?  Really?

But that's beside the point, really.  We're talking about four Americans who were left to die, who were basically told, "You're on your own."

If you boil it all down to the basic facts, help was requested and denied.  The cover-up could not be more clear, even to a low-information voter.

As I listened to the testimony today, I was struck by the honest emotion and the solid story of each of the men before the committee.  I was also struck by the very obvious attempt by the Democrats to protect Hillary at all costs.  They were writing Joe Klein's column for him.

Back to Klein:  look at that last statement in the quote above:  the Republicans won't agree to a budget because that would give Obama a win.  Really?  That's the only reason there's no budget deal?  It couldn't have anything to do with runaway spending, Obamacare, and an out of control national debt?  It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that the entitlement state has expanded to cradle to grave care for more people in this country than ever before at any point in history?

People like Joe Klein nauseate me.

Four dead Americans.  Left to die.

That's the point, Joe.  Do you even have a soul?

For analysis on today's testimony, see:

Newsbusters:  Time's Joe Klein Still Bitterly Clinging to Discredited Obama Script on Benghazi
Jake Tapper:  State Department Failed to Understand Dangerous Situation in Benghazi
Washington Times:  Blow by Blow 
Charles Krauthammer:  Cover-up
Wall Street Journal:  Emotional Testimony

And of course, follow Memeorandum for more updates.

"Assets Did Not Move..."

Unconscionable:

On the night of the Benghazi terror attack, special operations put out multiple calls for all available military and other assets to be moved into position to help -- but the State Department and White House never gave the military permission to cross into Libya, sources told Fox News. 

They sat in the Situation Room and did nothing.

Nothing.

Debate Night Distractions

There is much to blog about in the political realm this week; I hardly know where to begin.

I'm stunned by this report from The Hill:

Had the Navy SEALs captured Osama bin Laden, the United States would have tried him in federal court, President Obama said in an interview published by Vanity Fair.

“We worked through the legal and political issues that would have been involved, and Congress and the desire to send him to Guantánamo, and to not try him, and Article III,” Obama said, referring to the federal courts.

“I mean, we had worked through a whole bunch of those scenarios. But, frankly, my belief was if we had captured him, that I would be in a pretty strong position, politically, here, to argue that displaying due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-Qaeda, in preventing him from appearing as a martyr,” he said.

Holy crap, Batman!  I'm just speechless by that.  Federal court?  Seriously? 

Allahpundit isn't buying it for one second:

 Self-serving nonsense, presumably being pushed by O as a bit of election-season candy for the Gitmo critics in his base. See, he still believes in due process, the drone strikes and “kill list” and indefinite detentions notwithstanding.

And on a related note, congressional approval be damned, Obama has ordered the Justice Dept. to move ahead with the acquisition of Thomson son prison in Illinois.  We've been through this.  Andrew McCarthy:

The move is drawing irate responses from key members of Congress, such as Representatives Frank Wolf and Hal Rogers of the House Appropriations Committee, and Pete King, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee. But the question, of course, is whether they will do anything about it. Congress is not without remedies here; it can start slashing money from the Justice Department’s budget and other areas where the administration will feel it. To this point, though, despite serial provocations, they’ve shown no indication of a willingness to do that.

More on that at Memeorandum.

And then, of course, there is the now infamous "race video" which is just disgusting.  Has there ever been a more divisive, race-baiting, class-warfare mongering, pandering president EVER?  Can't think of one.

Oh, and let's not forget about the stonewalling this administration is doing on the Libya investigation.

That's a lot of bad mojo coming out of this administration.  As I said, much to blog about. 

But wait!  There's a debate tonight. 

Yes, I'll be blogging, as will Legal Insurrection (and probably countless others).  I'm not sure why I'm going to subject myself to it, but I intend to try.  Time to dust off my political blogging hat.

The Thugocracy Is Alive and Well In Washington

I know now why I have subconsciously backed off political blogging and have focused on things like estate sales and Oktoberfest.  I just thought it was my mom's illness taking up my concerns, but now I have figured out that it is also the fact that I have given up trying to figure out liberals or save them from themselves.  For a while I thought I could reach a few of them but I can't go up against the legacy media who are complicit in abetting Obama's destruction of America.

Consider the new Fast and Furious bombshell from Univision (link to see video).  

Please take the time to watch that and share it where ever you can.

ABC News is the only one in the mainstream media covering this as far as I can tell:

On January 30, 2010, a commando of at least 20 hit men parked themselves outside a birthday party of high school and college students in Villas de Salvarcar, Ciudad Juarez. Near midnight, the assassins, later identified as hired guns for the Mexican cartel La Linea, broke into a one-story house and opened fire on a gathering of nearly 60 teenagers. Outside, lookouts gunned down a screaming neighbor and several students who had managed to escape. Fourteen young men and women were killed, and 12 more were wounded before the hit men finally fled.

Indirectly, the United States government played a role in the massacre by supplying some of the firearms used by the cartel murderers. Three of the high caliber weapons fired that night in Villas de Salvarcar were linked to a gun tracing operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), according to a Mexican army document obtained exclusively by Univision News.

Yet remember how quickly everyone was to jump on the Trayvon Martin shooting.  Even Obama weighed in on that one.  Pundette:

I guess none of those 14 kids killed or 12 injured looked enough like Obama's hypothetical sons to matter? 

Mark Steyn asks, "How many dead Mexican teenagers does it take to change a light news day?"

One more time.  Eric Holder was complicit in Fast and Furious.  Obama is invoking Executive Privilege and stonewalling the investigation.  What else does he not want us to discover?  And why would anyone vote to keep this thugocracy in office?

Even After a Contempt Citation Holder Still Blames Bush

In response to the vote today from the House Oversight Committee finding him in contempt of Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder has issued a statement.  The statement in itself is indicative of what got Holder in this mess in the first place.

All I could think of as I read it was an ostrich with his head in the sand.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt, as they say.

Let's look at it.  Here's his first paragraph:

“In recent months, the Justice Department has made unprecedented accommodations to respond to information requests by Chairman Issa about misguided law enforcement tactics that began in the previous administration and allowed illegal guns to be taken into Mexico.  Department professionals have spent countless hours compiling and providing thousands of documents -- nearly 8,000 -- to Chairman Issa and his committee.   My staff has had numerous meetings with congressional staff to try and accommodate these requests and yesterday, I met with Chairman Issa to offer additional internal Department documents and information that would satisfy what he identified as the Committee’s single outstanding question.

"Misguided law enforcement tactics" he says.  I'm sure that makes Brian Terry's family feel better. Their son's murder was a result of "misguided law enforcement tactics."  Not only that, but these "tactics" are all George Bush's fault.

He is, of course, referring to the operation "Wide Receiver" but there is a big difference between the two.  Wide Receiver was conducted with the cooperation of the Mexican government while Fast and Furious was not.  In Wide Receiver some of the weapons were fitting with tracking devices.  The operation was much smaller in scale than the estimated 2,000 weapons involved in Fast and Furious and when some of those guns went missing the operation was shut down.  No border agent was killed as a result of Wide Receiver.

For Holder to insist that this is a continuation of that operation is ludicrous.  The oversight of Fast and Furious was non-existent as more and more weapons continued to disappear while agents were directed to look the other way.

But, back to Holder's statement.  Most of those 8,000 documents to which he refers are from operation Wide Receiver - NOT the documents Issa and the committee are looking for.

Next paragraph:

“Unfortunately, Chairman Issa has rejected all of these efforts to reach a reasonable accommodation.  Instead, he has chosen to use his authority to take an extraordinary, unprecedented and entirely unnecessary action, intended to provoke an avoidable conflict between Congress and the Executive Branch.  This divisive action does not help us fix the problems that led to this operation or previous ones and it does nothing to make any of our law enforcement agents safer.  It's an election-year tactic intended to distract attention -- and, as a result -- has deflected critical resources from fulfilling what remains my top priority at the Department of Justice:  Protecting the American people.  

This is ridiculous and is an attempt to make this whole mess seem like Issa's fault.  He's so unreasonable, he has "rejected all of these efforts to reach a reasonable accommodation."  Reasonable?  Holder has had months, months to produce the requested documents.  When you are under subpoena to produce documents, or discovery, you don't get to just choose the ones you want to turn over.

The "unnecessary action" of a contempt citation could have been avoided if Holder had complied with the subpoena.  Contrary to Holder's assertion that Issa simply wants to "provoke an avoidable conflict between Congress and the Executive Branch," it is Holder who brought that action about by his refusal to comply.  Mr. Holder is not above the law.

Holder asserts that "this divisive action does not help us fix the problems" and he's correct that no justice for Terry's family will come as long as he dithers.

AG Holder suggests that this whole proceeding is an "election-year tactic" meant to distract and embarrass the administration.  I would suggest that Holder is the distraction and embarrassment.  Had he provided the documents requested there would be no contempt proceeding and no need for executive privilege which can only serve to push all this to the front of the mainstream media who, so far, had been doing a pretty good job not reporting on Fast and Furious.

Next paragraph:

“Simply put, any claims that the Justice Department has been unresponsive to requests for information are untrue.  From the beginning, Chairman Issa and certain members of the Committee have made unsubstantiated allegations first, then scrambled for facts to try to justify them later. That might make for good political theater, but it does little to uncover the truth or address the problems associated with this operation and prior ones dating back to the previous Administration. 

What "unsubstantiated allegations" does Holder mean?  Brian Terry's murder?  I don't think that's debatable.  Has anyone denied that the weapon that killed him came from the Fast and Furious operation?

While Holder might think all this is "good political theater" he would be better served to appreciate the seriousness of the situation and the gravity of the proceedings.  As far as doing "little to uncover the truth," well, Holder is doing just fine at keeping the truth covered up, with a little help from his boss.

And he again blames Bush.

Next.

“I have spent most of my career in law enforcement and worked closely with brave agents who put their lives on the line every day.  I know the sacrifices they make, so as soon as allegations of gunwalking came to my attention – and well before Chairman Issa expressed any interest in this issue -- I ordered the practice stopped.  I made necessary personnel changes in the Department's leadership and instituted policy changes to ensure better oversight of significant investigations.  And, I directed the Department's Inspector General to open a comprehensive investigation.  That investigation is ongoing, and the American people and Congress can count on it to produce a tough, independent review of the facts. 

He "ordered the practice stopped"?  After how many guns disappeared?  Certainly plenty of them.  As far as what Holder knew and when he knew it, that's almost beside the point.  As head of DOJ the buck stops with him.  Emails and other documents certainly prove that he knew about the operation; the operation was ridiculous to start with.  To let these guns just walk across the border untracked was an exercise in incompetence.

Holder's attempt to have the DOJ investigate itself is too ridiculous to respond to.

Next:

“When Chairman Issa later began his own investigation, I made it clear that the Department would cooperate with all appropriate oversight requests, while still adhering to our legal obligations to protect information involving ongoing law enforcement investigations, legally-protected grand jury material and other sensitive information whose disclosure would endanger the American people or our agents investigating open cases.   

AG Holder says here that he "made it clear" that he would cooperate.  So far, he has not.  He can certainly turn over requested documents to the Oversight Committee without endangering the American people or agents.  It would appear that agents had more to worry about from Fast and Furious than from Holder's cooperation in the investigation.

In conclusion Holder says,

“The American people deserve better.  That is why, I will remain focused on, and committed to, the Justice Department’s mission to protect the rights, safety, and best interests of my fellow citizens and to stand by my brave colleagues in law enforcement.” 

 The American people certainly do deserve better.  And if I was in law enforcement and Holder was standing beside me, I'd duck.

Now all we need is the idiots in the media to start screaming racism and the obfuscation is complete.  Oh, wait...


(H/T:  memeorandum)

A Distraction? Explain that to Brian Terry's family

The White House has denounced Fast & Furious as "a distraction."

Tell that to Brian Terry's family, okay?

Via Roll Call:

With House Republicans set to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking investigation, the White House dismissed the action as a political distraction from the struggling economy. 

“With millions of Americans still struggling to pay the bills, Republicans announced at the beginning of this year that one of their top priorities was to investigate the administration and damage the president politically,” White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement emailed to reporters.

Note: That statement came via e-mail; the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, conveniently did not have a press conference today.  Go figure.

The statement also laments that Congress has not passed a transportation bill or acted on student loan rates, yet fails to mention that the Senate hasn't passed a budget in well over 1,000 days.  And Brian Terry's family has been waiting over a year for justice.

Even more incredibly, the White House is blaming Fast and Furious on George W. Bush.

Pfeiffer dismissed the Fast and Furious fiasco as “a field-driven tactic that dated back to the previous administration” and credited Holder with ending it.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Executive Privilege (UPDATED)

Well this ought to make things interesting.

Eric Holder, unwilling to turn over requested documents, asked Obama last night to invoke executive privilege over said documents.  Thus, "the most transparent administration ever" steps big into a Fast and Furious cover-up.

The vote on contempt is still on.

Contemptible indeed.

Stay tuned for links and updates.  Also stay tuned to Memeorandum where this is now a thread.

Update 1:  Remember, Bush invoked executive privilege six times.  This is how Obama felt about that:



Michelle Malkin has Holder's letter to Obama.

Pirate's Cove:

It does make one wonder what Eric Holder and the Obama administration are hiding in refusing to produce all the relevant documentation. When it comes to government, there is nothing wrong with the saying “if they have nothing to hide, they would produce the documents.” Except when it is national security. 

There's no question that Obama's intervention raises the stakes significantly; if nothing else it will now force the mainstream media to report the story.

More to come.


Update 2:  You can watch the Holder hearing online here.


On Fox, Juan Williams even says, "This looks bad for the White House."  


Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA) speaking in the Holder hearing says "the facts are leading us to very legitimate inquiries."

Update 3:

Twitter reactions:

Update 4:
Wow.  Rep. Quigley (D-IL) says "IF this is about Bryan Terry..."; he goes after gun shows where "mentally ill" people can buy guns.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ):  "I am convinced that holding the Attorney General in contempt is the only way to send a message to this administration" and ones following that nobody is above the law.

Rep. Danny Daivs (D-IL) says the hearing is "partisan and rancorous."  

In a released statement, Sen. Grassley says:

How can the President assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the President exert executive privilege over documents he's supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme? The contempt citation is an important procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances. The questions from Congress go to determining what happened in a disastrous government program for accountability and so that it's never repeated again.” 

And this is now at the top of Memeorandum.

Update 5:

Ann Althouse:

I think a lot of Americans, when they hear "executive privilege" think of Nixon. And, unfortunately for Obama, we've been hearing plenty of talk about Watergate lately, what with the 40-year anniversary of the break-in. Most notably: "Woodward and Bernstein: 40 years after Watergate, Nixon was far worse than we thought." Ironically, that was a mainstream media effort to help Obama.  

But Obama has suddenly chosen to look like Nixon. It must be worth it. And without the documents, we must speculate about what is in them. 

Rush is talking about this, of course, today.  He points out that "the regime" is blaming the Bush administration for all of this, then "why won't they release" the documents?  

Update 6:

A valid point by Victor Davis Hanson:

Would that the Obama administration had cared as much about protecting the security secrets involving the Predator drone program, the bin Laden raid, the operations on the Afghan border and in Yemen, and the cyberwar against Iran as it is does about protecting the unknowns of Fast and Furious. 

No lie.