ATF Bottom Feeders Supplying Guns to Mexican Gangs

And yet they blame gun shows. This is the Gunwalker scandal. The ATF is the grease trap of law enforcement.

Source

ATF agent says “Fast and Furious” program let guns “walk” into hands of Mexican drug cartels with aim of tracking and breaking a big case

WASHINGTON – Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.

He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico?

“Yes ma’am,” Dodson told CBS News. “The agency was.”

An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson’s job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen.

Investigators call the tactic letting guns “walk.” In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States.

Sharyl Attkisson’s original “Gunrunner” report

Center for Public Integrity report

Dodson’s bosses say that never happened. Now, he’s risking his job to go public.

“I’m boots on the ground in Phoenix, telling you we’ve been doing it every day since I’ve been here,” he said. “Here I am. Tell me I didn’t do the things that I did. Tell me you didn’t order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn’t happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn’t happen.”

Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico.

ATF named the case “Fast and Furious.”

Surveillance video obtained by CBS News shows suspected drug cartel suppliers carrying boxes of weapons to their cars at a Phoenix gun shop. The long boxes shown in the video being loaded in were AK-47-type assault rifles.

So it turns out ATF not only allowed it – they videotaped it.

Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let go began showing up at crime scenes in Mexico. And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets… the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.

One e-mail noted, “958 killed in March 2010 … most violent month since 2005.” The same e-mail notes: “Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone,” including “numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles.”

Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence in Mexico and on the border. “I even asked them if they could see the correlation between the two,” he said. “The more our guys buy, the more violence we’re having down there.”

Senior agents including Dodson told CBS News they confronted their supervisors over and over.

Their answer, according to Dodson, was, “If you’re going to make an omelette, you’ve got to break some eggs.”

There was so much opposition to the gun walking, that an ATF supervisor issued an e-mail noting a “schism” among the agents. “Whether you care or not people of rank and authority at HQ are paying close attention to this case…we are doing what they envisioned…. If you don’t think this is fun you’re in the wrong line of work… Maybe the Maricopa County jail is hiring detention officers and you can get $30,000 … to serve lunch to inmates…”

“We just knew it wasn’t going to end well. There’s just no way it could,” Dodson said.

On Dec. 14, 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down. Dodson got the bad news from a colleague.

According to Dodson, “They said, ‘Did you hear about the border patrol agent?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And they said ‘Well it was one of the Fast and Furious guns.’ There’s not really much you can say after that.”

Two assault rifles ATF had let go nearly a year before were found at Terry’s murder.

Dodson said, “I felt guilty. I mean it’s crushing. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Sen. Grassley began investigating after his office spoke to Dodson and a dozen other ATF sources — all telling the same story.

Read Sen. Grassley’s letter to the attorney general

The response was “practically zilch,” Grassley said. “From the standpoint that documents we want – we have not gotten them. I think it’s a case of stonewalling.”

Dodson said he hopes that speaking out helps Terry’s family. They haven’t been told much of anything about his murder – or where the bullet came from.

“First of all, I’d tell them that I’m sorry. Second of all, I’d tell them I’ve done everything that I can for them to get the truth,” Dodson said. “After this, I don’t know what else I can do. But I hope they get it.”

Dodson said they never did take down a drug cartels. However, he said thousands of Fast and Furious weapons are still out there and will be claiming victims on both sides of the border for years to come.

Late tonight, the ATF said it will convene a panel to look into its national firearms trafficking strategy. But it refused to comment specifically on Sharyl’s report.

Statement from Kenneth E. Melson, Acting Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives:

“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will ask a multi-disciplinary panel of law enforcement professionals to review the bureau’s current firearms trafficking strategies employed by field division managers and special agents. This review will enable ATF to maximize its effectiveness when undertaking complex firearms trafficking investigations and prosecutions. It will support the goals of ATF to stem the illegal flow of firearms to Mexico and combat firearms trafficking in the United States.”

The Utter Mendacity of the ‘Buy American’ Campaign

Take a look at what these gullible dumbassess over in the Snow White streets of Dallas are doing. No really. They’re emptying their home of anything foreign made. Because an “economist said that if everyone bought America made goods the economy would turn around faster.”

It’s the usual crap about how evil companies are outsourcing manufacturing jobs to third world hellholes and costing America jobs and money. (Seriously, man. You get 12 years of free education, endless community college programs, free education grants, public libraries and state level workforce training centers that are free. If after all that the best you can do is a job that an illiterate peasant living in a dirt shack can do, you have bigger problems.)

theytookourjobsThis is not just stupid. It’s absolutely wrong. Manufacturing in America is at an all time high by every measure except jobs. That’s because we’re really good at being productive, most of it is high-tech, and we have robots. Lots of robots. Robots that haven’t yet gone all SkyNet anyway.

Let me allow someone smarter to point out the obvious:

Ugh. Where to begin? Back in the “golden age” of 1960, when imports were oddities to marvel over in a disdainful way, the per-capita U.S. income was $2,914. In 2009, with imports ubiquitous, per-capita income was $46,411. (Economic Report of the President, 2010, Tables B-1 and B-34). In real, inflation-adjusted terms, even with a U.S. population increase from 181 million to 307 million, per-capita incomes in 2009 were almost triple what they were in 1960 ($42,277 vs. $15,669 in 2005 dollars—ERP, 2010, Tables B-2 and B-34). Oh, if only we could replicate the relative poverty, the limited consumer choices, the inefficient production processes, the massive trade barriers that compelled Americans to buy American, and the uneconomic work rules and wages commanded by once-powerful private sector labor unions. In 1960, before real economic liberalization spawned cultural and social liberalization, Diane Sawyer would never have dreamed of being a network news anchor, if she even dared to entertain the concept of working outside of the home. How can she pine for such an era?

It’s frustrating that so much research refuting the myth of manufacturing decline and supporting the conclusion that U.S. manufacturing is thriving—and is in fact leading the world in terms of value of output—is simply neglected by a media that is more committed to scaring than informing. Today Americans are less likely to find in their homes products manufactured in the United States because U.S. manufacturers have moved on to producing higher value products. American manufacturing isn’t focused on products that consumers find in retail stores, like furniture, hand tools, sporting goods, flatware, draperies, carpeting and clothes. American factories produce more value than any other country’s factories by focusing on producing the highest value products: pharmaceuticals, chemicals, airplanes, sophisticated componentry, technical textiles, and other items often sold directly to other businesses.

I and others have been making these points for several years, as U.S. manufacturing continues to thrive in every metric…except employment. Manufacturing employment peaked in 1979 and has been on a downward trajectory ever since. But that is the point that eludes ABC and everyone else who thinks U.S. manufacturing’s best days are in the past. Making more with less is the goal! That’s how an economy grows! The political imperative of “putting people back to work” regardless of the economic value of that work–remember the so-called stimulus?– spits in the face of economics. The fact that Americans are unemployed speaks to a mismatch of skills demanded and skills available, as well as to a business and regulatory environment that dissuades investment and hiring.

ABC’s proposition that Americans would support 10,000 new jobs by spending just $3.33 more (per year?) on U.S.-made goods obviously fails to consider the jobs lost by switching from imports to domestic or switching from savings (which is just money used for investment, which already supports jobs) to spending. Depriving foreigners of U.S. dollars just deprives U.S. producers of export sales.

STFU, Newt

Newt Gingrich is a fat, opportunistic wanker. He may have a point in this op-ed, but I don’t know because I have no interest in anything he has to say.

newt_legoTwo decades ago he showed promise. And he made some good promises.

But he took that promise about as seriously as your typical Republican does his wedding vows. Now he’s nothing more than the bloated face of go-whichever-way-the-wind-blows empty-suited bloviation, and the last thing people who want to shrink the government need is his cheese stink all over their plans.

Oh good idea — let’s have the guy who lost the last government shutdown battle be the face of the new government shutdown battle.

Seriously Newt…

go-be-fat-somewhere-else

Schadenfraught in Austin: Hoisted by His Own Petard

It’s a truism that almost all government-mandated licensing and regulation is codified not for the “protection of the public.” Almost to a rule, the regulations are pushed by players in an industry to create barriers to entry and to quash competition. This is true whether you’re talking about licensing of hair stylists, interior decorators, medical professionals or whatever.

Almost every function, inspection and quality assurance could be carried out by independent, third-party inspectors — think Underwriter’s Lab. Restaurant inspections, certifications and so on — all could be carried out without the force of law and with greater efficiency. The very image of a city restaurant inspector is a fat guy on the take. Competition would keep those giving out seals of approval honest.

That’s why this case out of Austin is so Schadenfraught.

I Believe the Germans Have a Word for This

| February 11, 2011

Incumbent food truck magnate in Austin develops totally-civic-minded-and-not-at-all-protectionist “health, safety and environmental concerns” over a massive increase in the number trucks that have sprung up to compete with him . . .

. . . demands city council pass stricter regulations of his own industry . . .

. . . now faces a bureaucratic nightmare as his own fleet of trucks can’t pass the regulations he insisted were necessary to protect the public.

Michael Vick: Scumbag, Coward and Wussy

Dallas Hospitals Get Black Out, Super Bowl Parties Don’t

108759718

Hospitals are having their power shut down.

But thankfully Jerry World and all things Super Bowl are safe.

How is this not reckless endangerment? Or at least grade A douchebaggery?

North Texas Fusion Center: It’s As Bad As You Suspect

From Radley Balko at Reason…

Everyone’s a terrorist now.

—————-

Cato’s David Rittgers rounds up cases of terrorist “fusion centers” erring on the side of labeling, well, pretty much everyone, a potential terrorist.

The North Texas Fusion System labeled Muslim lobbyists as a potential threat; a DHS analyst in Wisconsin thought both pro- and anti-abortion activists were worrisome; a Pennsylvania homeland security contractor watched environmental activists, Tea Party groups, and a Second Amendment rally; the Maryland State Police put anti-death penalty and anti-war activists in a federal terrorism database; a fusion center in Missouri thought that all third-party voters and Ron Paul supporters were a threat; and the Department of Homeland Security described half of the American political spectrum as “right wing extremists.”

The ACLU fusion center report and update lay out some good background on these issues, and the Spyfiles report describes how monitoring lawful dissent has become routine for police departments around the nation.

I believe this is the part where right wingers justify including anti-war and environmental groups on these lists, and left wingers justify including Tea Partiers, anti-abortion activists, and Second Amendment advocates.

But I Don’t Want to Be A Pirate ‘Patriotic’

(Headline hint: Seinfeld, puffy shirt)

It’s A Wonderful Internet: If the FCC Had Regulated from the Start

101223_TECH_fccTNThe FCC immediately determines that the lack of interoperability among the online systems harms consumers and orders that each company submit a technical framework by January 1994 under which all online companies will unify to one shared technology in the near future. The precedent for this are the technical standards that the FCC has been setting for decades for AM and FM, and for television. The online services threaten legal action again, and again Congress passes new legislation authorizing the FCC to do as it wishes. The online companies hustle to submit a technical framework. Microsoft wants in on the game, so it persuades the FCC to extend the framework deadline to July 1995. …

In late 1993, AOL and Delphi become the first online services to offer the Internet. The FCC orders both to drop the feature until the FCC’s labs approve it.

“We can’t have the online industry pushing out beta software on unsuspecting customers willy-nilly. Such software could compromise the users’ computers, interfere with other users’ computers, or crash the whole online world,” the FCC chairman says. …

In September 1996, Microsoft, whose biggest individual stockholders are Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Steve Ballmer, who are raising millions for the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign, wins the FCC’s online design shootout.

Microsoft calls its online-unifier “Bob.”

“This award is made purely on the technical merits,” the FCC chairman remarks.

The FCC is particularly enamored of the “back door” that Microsoft has built into Bob, making it easier for police to monitor communications in real time. The commission also applauds Microsoft’s forward thinking because it has incorporated a virtual “V-chip” in Bob. The censoring software is analogous to the V-chip the FCC wants TV manufacturers to build into their sets to block violent and mature TV programming from being viewed by children.

The regulators also love Bob because it has created more “Channels” for police, fire, libraries, city councils, legislatures, courts, and public service messages than the other proposed systems. Bob testers complain that these channels leave little space for the data, information, and communications they expect to find on an online system. One compares Bob to a government designed version of the Yellow Pages, only duller. Another pines for the Wild West days of the unregulated online world when you didn’t have to pay virtual “parking” to your local municipality before you went shopping inside the online mall.


God, I love Jack Shafer.

Soap: The Yardstick of Civilization

Use this. Or he will kick your ass.

Use this. Or he will kick your ass.

As a magazine writer who sees how the sausage is made, I’m acutely attuned to spotting when some politically correct cause is dressed up as a fashion trend.

As Jack Shafer at Slate notes every week — “How does a journalist count? One, two, trend” and “The plural of  ‘anecdote’ is ‘trend’” — journalism is utter crap when it tries to report on trends. But it’s generally naive, lazy crap.

When it’s environmental extremism sold as a fashion trend thing, well, it’s naive crap with a purpose. And there’s nothing more odorous.

Esquire‘s “Ten Reasons Why I Don’t Shower” and The New York Times’ “The Great Unwashed” try to push it as mainly about being natural. The Guardian — twat-fodder for the great pseudo-intellectual left — is a little more honest about why they’re pushing this stink upon us.

There are, of course, environmental benefits. In a bid to reduce his carbon footprint to the absolute minimum, environmentalist Donnachadh McCarthy, 51, limits his showers to about twice a week. “The rest of the time I have a sink wash,” he says. “I believe that I’m as clean as everyone else.” It has helped him to get his water consumption down to around 20 litres a day – well below the 100 to 150 average in the UK.

Look, I don’t care how much water it wastes or that you think have a great natural aroma.

You don’t.

Everyone in the world except me and The Wife (and I’m not too sure about me) smells like sour cheese and feet. I don’t want to get to know your unique scent. No, it’s not enough to give yourself a quick whore’s bath and swipe a lemon under your arm. It’s awful.

Bathing is a relatively new thing in human history? So effing what? So are antibiotics, cell phones and computers. Deal with it and be a little more considerate to your fellow humans.

Smelly, dirty hippie is not the next fashion trend.

Grab some soap and get to work.