The Washington Examiner
http://washingtonexaminer.com/
April 17, 2012
Of all the myriad scandals of the Obama administration, there is one, largely ignored by the mainstream media, that could actually be its worst.
That scandal is the operation run from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, under the Justice Department, known as "Fast and Furious," through which the federal government actually encouraged and even ordered American gun shops to sell guns — against the store owners' better judgment — to "straw" purchasers who were funneling guns to Mexican drug gangs while the ATF sat back and watched and did nothing.
As Katie Pavlich shows in her remarkable and eye-opening new book, "Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-Up," the whole scheme was either absolutely harebrained or, as some have more ominously theorized, intentionally designed to manufacture "evidence" for tightening gun control legislation.
Pavlich exposes how extreme gun control measures have been a top political goal for President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and other important leaders within the administration — and she draws the lines that link this goal directly to the implementation of Fast and Furious. Just as importantly, she shows how the administration has shamelessly tried to obscure those links.
The operation resulted in the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and the murder or wounding of some 200 Mexican citizens.
In the operation, there was no attempt to track the weapons sold, and some agents who tried to follow the purchasers were told to stand down. Not only that, but our government kept Mexican authorities wholly in the dark about the operation. Allowing these guns to "walk" into Mexico without surveillance and behind the backs of Mexican authorities guaranteed they would end up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels and only be recovered after crimes had been committed, which is exactly what occurred.
As one ATF agent testified to Congress, "you can't allow thousands of guns to go south of the border without an expectation that they are going to be recovered eventually in crimes and people are going to die."
In their reports on Fast and Furious, congressional investigators concluded that the Department of Justice "had much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it has previously acknowledged." Indeed, Attorney General Holder claimed that he had been unaware of Fast and Furious until a few weeks before May 3, 2011, but it was shown that he had received numerous memos about it much earlier, which he later insisted he had not read.
Rep. Darrell Issa has said that the DOJ has spent more time and resources trying to protect the careers of its officials who knew about the operation than in holding accountable those who were involved. In fact, the evidence shows that the only ones who have been punished are those who blew the whistle on the operation, while those who were engaged in wrongdoing have been rewarded — reassigned or promoted with their pensions still intact.
Meanwhile, the DOJ, according to the committee report, "has blamed everyone except for its political appointees for Fast and Furious." Ken Melson, then the ATF's acting director, said that the DOJ is "circling the wagons to protect its political appointees."
Though Holder told the House Judiciary Committee his office was working "tirelessly to identify, locate and provide relevant information" to Congress, Republican representatives and senators say he and his department have been stonewalling their investigation. Sen. Charles Grassley said that Justice was withholding some 74,000 pages of relevant documents from the investigators.
The ongoing investigation also reveals a disturbing lack of coordination and cooperation among the ATF, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI, all of which are under the domain of Holder's DOJ. One deputy attorney general, upon being confronted with this issue, just casually replied, "We will look into it."
The committee's report said that everyone involved was blaming others: The ATF pointed the finger at the Justice Department for encouraging the operation, and Justice blamed the U.S. attorney's office in Arizona for implementing it. DOJ officials who could have stopped the operation blamed their staffs for not bringing critical facts to their attention. Making matters worse, U.S. attorney's office personnel have taken the Fifth Amendment in refusing to testify before Congress, or the DOJ has prohibited them from appearing before Congress at all.
Katie's book is a real reporter's book, loaded with interviews with inside sources, including conscience-stricken government agents who are appalled by the politicization of the ATF. She quotes ATF agent John Dodson, who says, "I have never heard an explanation from anyone involved in Operation Fast and Furious that I believe would justify what we did."
This book, which is the best reporting yet on the Obama administration's bloodiest scandal — and its most unconscionable one — will make your blood boil. You should purchase and read it.
Examiner Columnist David Limbaugh is syndicated by Creators.
Katie Pavlich, Fast & Furious BS, and Generation Scary
By Doug Giles
http://townhall.com
April 22, 2012
If you’re looking for light summer beach reading then do not, I repeat … do not … buy Katie Pavlich’s disturbing new book, Fast & Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up.
Further, if you want to live undisturbed in Obama la-la-land, you need to put your tennis shoes on and run away from this tome. Indeed, Pollyanna, this book will smash all the windows of your enchanted little cottage and grind your rose-colored Obama glasses into powder.
Fast & Furious parlays into the public arena the scurrilous way the ATF, at the behest of the DOJ, allowed thousands of weapons to get into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. These firearms, in turn—as anyone with even half a brain can imagine—were used to slaughter thousands of Mexicans and to take the lives of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and ICE’s Jaime Zapata.
Now, why would our government agents give thousands of working, untraceable arms to some of the worst SOBs on the planet? Well, we the sheeple were told it’s how the ATF could “know who the bad guys are”—or some crap to that effect.
Hey, wizards at the ATF and the DOJ: If you want to know who the major Mexican dirt bags are who are moving big chunks of weed and mowing down their people and ours with AK-47s, why not use Google versus giving Miguel a machine gun? Por qué?
Most folks, when they take a poke into the Fast & Furious debacle, say, “How can our feds be so stupid?” Which begs the question, was placing thousands of functioning, high-powered weapons in filthy thugs’ hands stupidity on steroids or some twisted scheme with a hidden agenda? Pavlich smelled the latter. The DOJ says it was a whoopsie daisy. Katie thinks they should go sell crazy somewhere else.
Pavlich said “puh-lease” to the 5th amendment-pleading DOJ: “If you’re going to bloviate and obfuscate, Mr. Holder, then I’m going to investigate. And if I find dirt then I’m going to expose you and this massive and murderous crime and cover-up.”
And investigate Katie did, and the gold (or, rather, blood) she found led her to pin the blame on the Attorney General, the Department of Homeland Insecurity and ultimately, the president himself. Katie concluded in her investigations, coupled with the insane lack of media attention and the stalling and bawling by the DOJ, that F&F was not an op that went awry but rather a backdoor grab for our guns that was uncovered when Terry was murdered. FYI to naysayers: Good luck refuting Katie’s conclusions.
Finally, I’d like to praise the 23-year-old Miss Pavlich, the product of a strong and loving dad and a stay-at-home mom—y’know, the kind of mom who “doesn’t work” whom the Left loathes? My tribe and I have been friends with Katie for the last couple of years, and here’s what I dig about her personally and professionally and which other young people would do well to emulate …
1. Katie, unlike the occupunks, believes that America and the principles upon which our nation was founded do not suck. She believes that the U.S.A. deserves our respect and is definitely worth fighting for.
2. Katie picks big fights. BHO, the DOJ and Mexican drug cartels are no small targets, mind you. Go big or go home, boys.
3. Katie is a hard worker and is not a prissy wannabe conservative starlet begging to be fawned over.
4. Katie is a happy warrior. Fighting for justice in this crap-laden culture can be a joy-sucking, hopeless business. Katie’s confident, however, that in time truth will prevail; it simply needs someone to find it, dust it off and declare it without fear.
Katie and other young twentysomethings like her whom I know—including both of my daughters and my son-in-law—represent what I have come to call “Generation Scary.” They are some of the scariest and most fearless young patriots walking this great land, and everybody and their dog who loves this country should get behind them and praise them and promote these young charges wherever the sun doth shine.
Once again, for those who can handle truth in an uncut form, this balls-out book picks no small fight and is definitely worth your time and money.
Watergate … meet #Murdergate.
PS: The DOJ just appointed Media Matters to run interference for them regarding Fast & Furious. You cannot make this stuff up.
