Fast and Furious

[David W Pratt]

Where ever you stand on this issue, I learned something amazing from a NYT editorial this am.
F&F ran from 2009 to 2011, I don't know what months, but let's say about 1,000 days,
Holder has turned over 7,600 documents,
and it involved 2,000 guns.
That is 7.6 documents per day, including weekends and holidays and almost 4 documents per gun!
No wonder they lost track of them they were too busy typing and filing.

[Phillip Allen]

I'm hoping we 'remember' this next November

[Ian McColgin]

We should remember the basic story line: How the arms programs were set up during the Bush years but then how Bush and Republicans in Congress refused to appoint a permanent director for BATF resulting in certain field offices getting way out of control; how a brave BATF agent who could not break the news up the administration past the non-extistent director level finally leaked it to the press; and how the Obama administration, while protective of all executive actions including those of the previous administration did not with hold any of the actual story. Like that's how we know about F&F. What the Republicans are fishing for is not evidence of the crimes - they and all others have that - but evidence that after they and the public had it the Obama administration still had something to hide.

[David W Pratt]

The fact that it was started under Bush would make me think Holder would like to expose it, not hide stuff.
And if Issa hasn't found something substantive in those 7,600 dicuments, what is in them?

[Phillip Allen]

Jeeze... I should have known... yet another 'It's Bush's fault'

no matter. I seem to recall hope and change... maybe I misheard and it was actually dope and mange

[Ian McColgin]

I'm more generalized that it's the Republicans fault. There is a cluster who are so against the BATF that they have blocked the appointment of a director. This inevitably leads to a lousy agency filled with waste and idiots out of control. They then point out how it does not work.

I frankly think that BAFT, DHS and a number of these security agencies are bad administration leading to bad policy by whatever administration is in power. The way to deal with that is to upfront deal. The way is not to sabatoge the congressional and executive branches to ensure that citizen rights will be violated.

[Norman Bernstein]

The fact that it was started under Bush would make me think Holder would like to expose it, not hide stuff.
And if Issa hasn't found something substantive in those 7,600 dicuments, what is in them?

You might want to google Issa, and learn about HIS background.... his attempt to project an image of 'righteousness' and 'indignance' is rather humorous, in context.

[Phillip Allen]

I'm more generalized that it's the Republicans fault. There is a cluster who are so against the BATF that they have blocked the appointment of a director. This inevitably leads to a lousy agency filled with waste and idiots out of control. They then point out how it does not work.

I frankly think that BAFT, DHS and a number of these security agencies are bad administration leading to bad policy by whatever administration is in power. The way to deal with that is to upfront deal. The way is not to sabatoge the congressional and executive branches to ensure that citizen rights will be violated.

are you assigning motive?

[Keith Wilson]

. . . are you assigning motive?

One doesn't have to be too paranoid to see a pattern where some in the party that is reflexively opposed to the federal government try to make it work badly.

This was a moderately serious screwup under two administrations. Mr. Issa's grandstanding isn't helping.

[BA.Barcolounger]

The fact that it was started under Bush would make me think Holder would like to expose it, not hide stuff.
And if Issa hasn't found something substantive in those 7,600 dicuments, what is in them?

Issa was informed of the program back in 2009. He didn't say squat about it then.

[Ian McColgin]

We have here two motives coming happily together. The far right cluster has openly thwarted two presidents from appointing a BAFT director because they want the agency to go so bad, destroy so many innocent lives, that it will be eliminated. They are not, by the way, representatives of some booze or tobacco lobbies. And the R's are enthusiastic about doing anything to make Obama's efforts at governance fail.

Just look at the actual documents they claim to be searching for - nothing about F&F itself. It's all about when, after F&F became public, the AG knew it was public. Bahdahboom.

[Durnik]

They are not, by the way, representatives of some booze or tobacco lobbies.

Wait, wait, Don't tell me! Firearms, right? Did I get it, Huh, huh, did I, did I?.. ;-)

Wondering.. how does this relate with "DEA Gently Chastized"

Hmmm...

enjoy
bobby

[Osborne Russell]

What can the Congressional investigation reasonably be expected to produce? What seems to me The Worst was known a long time ago -- that these manuvers were carried out without informing Mexico. If the roles were reversed the American right and maybe even the middle and the left would be calling for sanctions if not war. Surely every American can unite behind the policy that we won't do to others what we don't want done to us.

The other claims, that Obama is selling guns to finance his campaign, get rich, take away your guns and advance world communism, well . . . let facts be submitted to a candid world. Congress has limited resources and it's difficult to avoid the impression that this is merely a way to ensure that they are frittered away, until the Red Army is back in the saddle.

[PhaseLockedLoop]

...Surely every American can unite behind the policy that we won't do to others what we don't want done to us.

I assume this was meant to provoke bitter hilarity.

[wardd]

i wonder which has caused more mayhem, guns smuggled into mexico or drugs smuggled into the usa?

[John of Phoenix]

I'm hoping we 'remember' this next November

You're going to base your vote on THIS? Why don't people like this show up on voter purge lists?

[htom]

7600 pages, not 7600 documents.

This is Obama's program. Bush had a different program.

The big difference was that Bush's program had the knowledge and assistance of the Mexican government, Obama's didn't.

Oh, and no one was killed in Bush's program.

Pesky details.

[Lew Barrett]

You're going to base your vote on THIS? Why don't people like this show up on voter purge lists?

The disclosures so far would seem to indicate that F&F was a bad idea poorly administered and now (unless things have changed since last night when I last read about it elsewhere) being run away from instead of being addressed directly. Still, small potatoes, at best and although a gaff, hardly one of major consequences. Still, I wonder what happened here?

What we really should be discussing is legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana. If the administration wants to move the process forward, that's what it should be selling both in Mexico and here. Time has come to get crime out of this business at the root.