@43 – Funny, no, that gets blood in the street. The revolutions which have occurred have been largely violence-free. The reality is, if people in America rise up then the Army will HAVE to see them as an armed enemy and act according. It’s a system for crushing dissent.

Houston, we have a problem.

These guys are among the world’s leading fabricators of prison rape and ruined lives, and we’re supposed to get excited because they’ve been caught letting some guns cross the border into Mexico.

That’d be like charging Jeffrey Dahmer, not with murder, but with the crime of impersonating a shochet.

In the end, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the destruction of Andersen really was not necessary, but that was after the fact. Thompson was on a crusade and if throwing innocent people in jail, abusing power, and destroying companies was part of the mix, well, that was just “progress.”

To see him now essentially claiming to be against those things that defined his tenure as Deputy Attorney General is just sickening. If the man had a conscience, he would be begging forgiveness from a lot of people he needlessly destroyed.

The function of the ‘well-regulated militia’ language is to make clear that the “arms” it to which it refers are not just “hunting or sporting weapons”, but rather any and all such artifacts which would be reasonably suitable for use as arms in a well-functioning citizen army. All free persons have the right to keep and bear such artifacts in such manner as they see fit.

Is there anything substantial different from Fast & Furious, that isn’t true of CIA action in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan in the 60′s and 70′s? Is it really better or worse than Iran-Contra? No one suffered consequences for these other activities. Why would we expect anyone in Washington to suddenly catch accountability fever?

America selling weapons to their “enemies” is the political equivalent of getting your hand caught in the cookie jar. I mean sure its bad, and everyone’s gonna be real mad that you got caught, but no ones really getting punished.

“A well regulated milita,” is a nominative absolute. A nominative absolute is a noun phrase that contains a participle and begins or ends a sentence. A nominative absolute phrase has, “diagrammatically” speaking, no connection to, nor impact upon, the rest of the sentence. The rest of the sentence is an independent clause. It in no way limits “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms…”.

Maybe we could ask Ravlich under what authority ATF should have blocked these purchases?

It’s illegal for a gun shop to sell to a “straw purchaser”. That is, it’s ALREADY illegal – existing law.

What happened in these cases was that the stores identified a likely straw purchase, but the ATF told them to sell anyway.

That is, the ATF TOLD the stores to violate EXISTING law.

So yeah, the whole “weak law” thing and “lacking authority” thing is a complete joke.

Just going by what Holder has admitted to Congress (much of it recanting earlier testimony to Congress… that is, he has definitely committed perjury), this is horrendous, no conspiracy theories or political BS required.

Of course, YES, DUH!, there is politics involved. That’s a given. The motives of the group doing the prosecuting do not change the underlying facts, for or against – even if Issa is motivated ENTIRELY by politics and he doesn’t care if it’s true or not, he’s a scumbag politician, but that doesn’t change that Holder, etc, are accessory-to-murder scumbag politicians.

Oh, and one more thing about the Forbes article:

The Mexican government has estimated that 2,000 weapons are smuggled daily from the U.S. into Mexico.

Yeah, 700,000+ a year. Sure. And I have ocean-front property on the Sun to sell you.

The “2000″ claim is approximately how many weapons were trafficked as part of this program TOTAL, not how many per day. Hard to take an article seriously with that kind of stupidity as the lead.

In Michigan: Talking urinal cakes warn you not to drink and drive.

If a urinal cake spoke to me, I’d be checking with the bartender to find out just what he put in my drink.

Yep. The problem really seems to be with the Federal prosecuter end of the affair rather then the ATF…which is a bit of a shock for me. I despise the ATF right up their with the best of them, but if they cannot get approval to make an arrest and seize property…what the fuck are they expected to do?

A US Attorney would typically not sign off on something like this only if they thought the special agents were breaking the law or had an unprovable case. When federal agencies put together stings, they don’t do let a handful of agents just run off and do their own thing. Something on the scope of Fast and Furious generally requires very high signing authority to execute. The sort of authority that can compel cooperation from the rest of the system unless there is a reason not to give it.

“My understanding is the documents about the investigation were handed over, it’s the internal documents relating to the letter that are in question. To be honest, i can’t find an article that clearly lays that out.”

That’s one of the problems with this whole thing. We keep getting everyone’s opinions on the scandal or lack thereof and no facts from these mainstream “news” sources. Just an endless amount of spin from both sides.

“So if Fortune is to be believed, what exactly should the ATF have done assuming they couldn’t get sign-off from the DA? This could have been a completely different scandal if they had gone after the straw buyers. Really seems like a no-win for anyone. Well except for the politicians.”

The ATF blamed “prosecutors and weak laws.” The weak laws bit is interesting as it plays into the right wing’s anti-gun conspiracy theory. This isn’t the only investigation that the DoJ under Obama has really screwed up with incompetence of the law and system. Check out Tech Dirt’s series of posts on Kim Dotcom’s case. They sent a warrant for his arrest and extradition without even putting what claws he is suspected of on it. They handed Australia a warrant for nothing. Them screwing the pooch on this is entirely consistent with the DoJ and ATF’s history.

Personally, I think this whole operation blew up in their faces and Holder and the Obama administration tried to salvage the whole thing by shifting the blame to prosecutors and weak laws and turn this into a gun control issue until the elections. I’m not saying there was an intentional conspiracy. Just this whole thing went sideways on them and the politicians are trying to save their asses. The Republicans smell blood in the water so they attack with their trademark viciousness.

What’s really messing with me right now is that I can’t read an article on CNN.com and take it at their word. That’s mainstream news for you.

Doesn’t have to be – unless Jacksonville is also a podunk – 20 yrs for damaging drywall, and she had a restraining order!

http://www.facebook.com/JusticeForMarissaAlexander

What part of “well-regulated militia” is so damn hard to understand?

Yep. The problem really seems to be with the Federal prosecuter end of the affair rather then the ATF…which is a bit of a shock for me. I despise the ATF right up their with the best of them, but if they cannot get approval to make an arrest and seize property…what the fuck are they expected to do?

As for the claim of exec privilege, Issa is transparently fishing for anything he can get and refused a DOJ offer to allow the committee to examine the documents in closed session (many requested documents have classified sources and undercover officers etc).

Issa wants the controversy and the publicity. This isn’t about the actual investigation at all. It’s all games on our dime.