by Bob Owens discusses his Pajamas Media piece on the hit job done by the Washington Post on Darrell Issa with Cam Edwards of NRA News. Bob is a North Carolina based blogger who also blogs at Confederate Yankee and Bob’s Gun Counter.
Project Gunwalker
Day By Day Cartoon Continues Project Gunwalker Theme
Chris Muir has continued with the Project Gunwalker theme. This is excellent news as his cartoons are seen by many who are not gunnies.
Courtesy of Chris Muir’s Day by Day Cartoon.
Quote Of The Day
From Sheriff Jim Wilson comes this bit of advice via Twitter about worrying too much:
DON’T WORRY, THINGS COULD BE WORSE: You could be Eric Holder hoping that the head of ATF doesn’t snitch you off!!!!
Project Gunwalker Makes Day By Day — Again
A picture is worth a thousand words and cartoonist Chris Muir proves it with this strip on Project Gunwalker.
Courtesy of Chris Muir’s Day by Day Cartoon.
Codrea’s Journalist Guide To Project Gunwalker Hits Fourth Volume
David Codrea, National Gun Rights columnist for the Examiner.com, has been assembling what he calls his “A Journalist Guide to ‘Project Gunwalker'” since the early days of the scandal. It includes all the links to stories by David and by Mike Vanderboegh on Operation Fast and Furious and Project Gunrunner. It was originally intended to point out to the mainstream media just what they had been ignoring.
He has now begun the fourth volume of this guide which presents the stories in chronological order. I have included links below. They serve as an excellent reference guide to the scandal.
Issa Staffer: Project Gunwalker Doesn’t Stop At Ken Melson
This is an interview that Cam Edwards of NRA News had with Matthew Boyle of The Daily Caller to discuss Project Gunwalker. Included is part of an interview with House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa who flatly states that Attorney General Eric Holder will be the last witness called. He goes on to explain that they are taking a bottom-up approach to the investigation and started at the lowest level.
Sharyl Attkisson On Another Murder Linked To Gunwalked AK’s
Sharyl Attkisson reported on-air on the CBS Early Show this morning about 2 AK-47 variants that were found at the scene of a shoot-out between Mexican police and narco-terrorist thugs implicated in the murder of the brother of the former Attorney General for the state of Chihuahua. She also discusses the firing of whistle-blower Vince Cefalu by the ATF as well as the “livesaving” award for ATF Agent Hope MacAllister.
Tone Deaf
The powers-that-be at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are tone deaf.
Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News posted this Tweet a couple of hours ago:
ATF Phoenix case agent Hope MacAllister –headed ATF’s controversial gunwalking op– today reportedly recvd national ATF “Lifesaving Award.”
Today, it was also confirmed by CBS News that “gunwalked” two AK-47 variants were found at the scene of a shoot-out in Mexico between authorities and the suspects in a high profile murder. The murder victim was the brother of a Mexican state attorney general.
CBS News has learned that U.S. officials called Mexico’s attorney general the day before last week’s gunwalker hearing to inform her of the link to the murder.
Mario Gonzalez Rodriguez, the brother of then-Chihuahua’s attorney general Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez, was kidnapped in October.Hooded terrorists surrounding the handcuffed Rodriguez forced him to record a video statement that was widely-distributed in Mexico. His body was found in November.
I don’t know what Ms. MacAllister did to be awarded an ATF “Lifesaving Award” but it sure wasn’t protecting the innocent from the narco-terrorist thugs running much of Mexico. If you helped these thugs become armed, then you are complicit in the murders committed with them. To then get an award on top of this indicates a divorce from reality by the upper echelon in ATF’s Washington headquarters.
“Special Projects”
Mike Vanderboegh pointed out an article in Government Executive that seems to indicate that Ken Melson, Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is digging in his heels about being pushed out of the agency. It surprises me a bit but I assume that his conditions on leaving are not being met by the political appointees in DOJ.
However, what really caught my eye in that article was a statement by Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign, who was opining that ATF’s problems were because they only had an Acting Director.
The fact that no one has been confirmed as ATF director is worrisome to Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “You can’t run an important agency or any agency with just an acting head,” he said. “It makes it hard to launch special projects and crime-fighting initiatives and get support from agents to carry them out. I’m a former mayor, and if we’d had an acting police chief, things would have spiraled out of control.”
Helmke “points the finger at Congress, because they made it a confirmable position, so either confirm someone or restructure the agency,” he said. “The issues in Fast and Furious need to be addressed to find out who’s responsible, but with an acting head, no one’s responsible.”
Ken Melson came on board to head ATF in April 2009. Project Gunrunner did not morph into Operation Fast and Furious until after that. If Operation Fast and Furious was not a special project, then what was it? Or does Mr. Helmke have other special projects in mind such as the Shotgun Importability Study or the Multi-Rifle Sale Reporting Requirement? Perhaps the special project he had in mind was for ATF to find a way to completely abrogate our Second Amendment rights.
As to his specious argument that “no one’s responsible”, tell that to Rep. Darrell Issa and Senator Chuck Grassley who are looking long and hard at the higher-ups in the Department of Justice. Even if Andrew Traver had been confirmed as Director of ATF, I sincerely doubt he would have had the authority to start a project like Operation Fast and Furious on his own without clearance from his DOJ superiors. It involves wiretaps, international borders, and the drug cartels.
Helmke’s comments show just how desperate the Brady Campaign has become if this is the best they can do.