I’m not sure why I missed this at the time – the letter’s dated June 20th – but it’s official: “the NRA will consider this vote in [their] candidate evaluations.” That doesn’t guarantee a contempt charge passing the House, but only because a contempt charge was already guaranteed. For all the loose and charged rhetoric going around, if Speaker Boehner wasn’t going to let Oversight Chair Issa go forward with this it wouldn’t have gone forward, and Boehner wouldn’t have let this gone forward if the votes weren’t there in the first place. What this does guarantee is that a lot of the House Democrats who bitterly cling to their high NRA scores like so many floatation devices are now going to have to choose what’s more important; the President, or their own careers. Jim Matheson of Utah is merely the first to break under the strain (via Hot Air). Seeing who else similarly back-stabs the President tomorrow should be entertaining. Continue reading Reminder: the NRA will score Holder contempt vote.
Tag: justice department
#rsrh An excellent Fast & Furious review.
If you don’t have time to read it, let me summarize: Eric Holder’s Justice Department’s attempts to utterly stonewall Congress’s investigation of Operation Fast & Furious has been done in a fashion that would, if done by any organization not aligned with the Obama administration, result in a series of raids and subpoenas by the Justice Department. The entire structure is rotten, from the top down, and Congress is rapidly approaching the point where criminal contempt citations of top officials (including the Attorney General) will be issued. Historically, that’s the point where the executive branch throws in its cards and goes along with the legislative branch.
But let me add this: I am not actually confident that Attorney General Holder and President Obama realize that they’re over a barrel, here. I know that a lot of people have been impatiently waiting for this story to hit the front page, stinks and all, but good scandals take time to ferment. If Congress is going to issue contempt citations because the Justice Department won’t give up documents, and if the administration lets them go through with it, there is absolutely no way that the media won’t go on a full-court press about the Attorney General being held in contempt by Congress. And before anybody thinks that this will be a net positive for the administration, let me remind you of something: people died because of administration incompetence, and the administration then tried to cover it up. That makes this particular scandal quite a bit different than just about every other Washingtonian scandal of the last forty years.
Shorter Moe Lane: chum in the water.
Via Instapundit.
#rsrh Fast & Furious update. It’s bad.
CBS News has confirmed that ATF Fast and Furious “walked” guns have been linked to the terrorist torture and murder of the brother of a Mexican state attorney general last fall.
That is ‘recall the Mexican ambassador to the USA’ bad. Wars have been started over less – probably not in this case, given the rather lopsided power levels of the two countries involved, but that does not excuse anything. It also answers once and for all just how much Mexican officials knew about Operation Fast & Furious / Gunrunner in the first place; and I cannot imagine that the Mexican government is pleased with us right now. I cannot actually blame them, either.
Background here: the short version is that the US government set up a program where it deliberately permitted firearms intended to be illegally resold in Mexico be resold in Mexico. Naturally, these guns were then used to kill people, including at least one Federal agent (and now, Mexican officials). There is increasing speculation that the overarching goal was to use this situation to justify more stringent gun control laws in the United States.
Heads will roll over this.
Via Say Uncle, via Instapundit.
Moe Lane
150+ Mexicans killed by Operation Fast & Furious?
Bob Owens over at Pajamas Media has done a good job walking through the utter disaster that was Operation Fast & Furious (short version: the US government deliberately let Mexican narco-terrorist groups get their hands on illegally-purchased firearms). But note this paragraph:
The eventual — perhaps inevitable — death of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent killed by criminals armed with at least two “walked” AK-pattern semi-automatic rifles finally shut the program down in December of 2010. The shooting death of an American cop was the final straw for the ATF whistleblower who exposed the program, which may also have contributed to an estimated 150 or more Mexican police and soldier shootings, and many of civilians. Had a whistleblower come forward earlier, all might have been alive today.
Continue reading 150+ Mexicans killed by Operation Fast & Furious?