Does Clinton.com Have an NSA Issue?

The Observer observes: Hillary Has an NSA Problem

As I explained in this column in January, one of the most controversial of Ms. Clinton’s emails released by the State Department under judicial order was one sent on June 8, 2011 to the Secretary of State by Sidney Blumenthal, Hillary’s unsavory friend and confidant who was running a private intelligence service for Ms. Clinton. This email contains an amazingly detailed assessment of events in Sudan, specifically a coup being plotted by top generals in that war-torn country. Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from a top-ranking source with direct access to Sudan’s top military and intelligence officials, and recounted a high-level meeting that had taken place only twenty-four hours before.
. . .
Now, over two months later, I can confirm that the contents of Sid Blumenthal’s June 8, 2011 email to Hillary Clinton, sent to her personal, unclassified account, were indeed based on highly sensitive NSA information. The Agency investigated this compromise and determined that Mr. Blumenthal’s highly detailed account of Sudanese goings-on, including the retelling of high-level conversations in that country, was indeed derived from NSA intelligence.

Specifically, this information was illegally lifted from four different NSA reports, all of them classified Top Secret / Special Intelligence. Worse, at least one of those reports was issued under the GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was). GAMMA is properly viewed as a SIGINT Special Access Program or SAP, several of which from CIA Ms. Clinton compromised in another series of her “unclassified” emails.

Currently serving NSA officials have told me they have no doubt that Mr. Blumenthal’s information came from their reports. “It’s word-for-word, verbatim copying,” one of them explained. “In one case, an entire paragraph was lifted from an NSA report” that was classified Top Secret / Special Intelligence.

So,  How did GAMMA compartment info end up in Hillary’s unclassified e-mail?

How Mr. Blumenthal got hold of this Top Secret-plus reporting is only the first question. Why he chose to email it to Ms. Clinton in open channels is another question. So is: How did nobody on Secretary Clinton’s staff notice that this highly detailed reporting looked exactly like SIGINT from NSA? Last, why did the State Department see fit to release this email, unredacted, to the public?

Those are very good questions. The FBI certainly seems to be working hard to answer them. Reports on that effort put the number of agents involved in the investigation at 150, which if true would put it on par with the operation that caught Russian mole Robert Hanssen in February 2001. James Comey might not sit quietly if that kind of effort got shoved under the door at the DoJ if and when the probe results in actionable criminal referrals. Having Comey resign in the fall over such an attempt to quash prosecution wouldn’t do much for Hillary’s electoral chances, no matter how much Obama calls for party unity for his former Secretary of State.

Still, Jazz Shaw is sure we now know that Hillary Clinton will not be prosecuted for anything

With the President being so clearly invested in electing a Democrat in general and Hillary Clinton in particular to continue his legacy, there’s simply no way he would risk putting his thumb on the scale for a candidate who might be essentially disqualified if she had to run the last stage of her campaign from a jail cell. With all that in mind, it’s difficult to conclude anything other than a presumption that Obama knows that Clinton will face no such peril. But how could he know that if the investigation isn’t even finished yet?

It’s a question which is answered rather easily, and it all comes down to Huma Abedin. It’s true that we’ve previously speculated that Huma might be the undoing of Clinton once all of her records are examined, but she also serves as an example of just how far the Obama administration is willing to go to block any damage to Clinton’s historic candidacy. When the Inspectors General turned over an embezzlement case against Abedin for prosecution, the Justice Department promptly dropped it in the circular file as an act of prosecutorial discretion and that was the end of it.
. . .
The game is rigged, folks. At this point even the FBI must be wondering why they’re even bothering with all this work.

Laws are for the little people, and maybe Republican politicians.

Just in case you wanted to look at Hillary's emails on your own WikiLeaks publishes searchable archive of Clinton emails. Of course, clicking on a link to Wikileaks at all may result in being on some secret NSA link.

Taking a step back before the email revelations, Fired Benghazi investigator drops claims about partisan focus on Hillary from lawsuit

It was big news last October when an investigator with the Benghazi committee named Bradley Podliska claimed he had been fired after taking issue with the committee’s partisan focus on Hillary Clinton. Democrats seized on the allegation as proof that the House committee was nothing more than a partisan witch hunt. Today, Politico reports that Podliska’s lawyers have quietly dropped everything about Hillary Clinton from his lawsuit for wrongful termination. . .
. . .
It’s worth noting that there is a strategic motive for Podliska’s lawyers dropping the claims about Clinton now. Deliberations made by the Benghazi committee are protected by the speech and debate clause which gives those involved complete immunity from lawsuits. By dropping the claims about Hillary now, Podliska’s attorneys avoid giving a judge a clear reason to toss out his entire lawsuit (he is left with the claim that he was fired for taking leave to serve the Air Force).

The real question is why Podliska and his attorneys included any of this in the lawsuit in the first place. The speech and debate clause hasn’t changed since last October. Podliska’s lawyers certainly knew then, as they clearly do now, that this was a non-starter in court. Whatever their reasoning, the accusations were a boon to Hillary Clinton and a serious blow to the Benghazi committee just a few days before Clinton’s highly publicized testimony.

With recent revelations that Obama's Fast and Furious guns are still killing people in Mexico, it seems to good time to ask What Does Hillary Know About The Hundreds Murdered With Fast And Furious Guns?

The State Department would have been responsible for coordinating weapon intercepts with the Mexican government as they were when an attempt to catch weapon smugglers was attempted during Operation Wide Receiver during the George W. Bush Administration. No such liaison was apparently established for Fast and Furious under Obama and Clinton.
. . .
We also know that Mrs. Clinton is running for President on a platform of radical gun control. It’s time that we start pressing her on what she knew about Fast & Furious, and what she’s really capable of doing—and who and what she’s willing to sacrifice—in pursuing her radical anti-gun agenda.

You know you're hitting the target when both Team Hillary and Putin are complaining:



What The Onion Looks Like Under the Ownership of a Hillary Backer.”

THE ONION RUNS PHOTOSHOP OF A BLOOD-SPLATTERED MITCH McCONNELL HOLDING ALOFT MERRICK GARLAND’S SEVERED HEAD, while standing on the steps of the Senate.

So just to confirm, Sarah Palin’s printer-registration marks clip art is the end of the world, but The Onion running an image of the Senate Majority Leader holding up the severed head of the president’s Supreme Court nominee? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

And they complain that Trump isn't classy. . .

Super Delegates...to the Rescue (of Hillary Clinton)!



From the media watch Penalty Flag: NY Times Caught 'Stealth Editing' Clintonesque Trash Talk Into Sanders Story. It's who they are, it's what they do, and still, Liberal pundits are experiencing Hillary buyer’s remorse. Even they can only stomach so much kale and quinoa.

Slow and Infuriating

Some interesting developments in the "Fast and Furious" scandal, involving ATF and the Justice Department.

You might recall that the Justice Department under Eric Holder refused a Congressional subpoena asserting executive privilege for records about the program to allow dealers to sell guns to shady characters along the border, allegedly to be able to "track" the guns to "big fish", but in reality, to gin up support for gun control when such guns were found at crime scenes.  Bodies were the intended product. It took long enough, but a Judge rejects Obama's executive privilege claim over Fast and Furious records

A federal judge has rejected President Barack Obama's assertion of executive privilege to deny Congress access to records pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, a gunrunning probe that allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to flow across the border into Mexico.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department's public disclosures about its response to the so-called "gun walking" controversy undercut Obama's executive privilege claim.

"There is no need to balance the need against the impact that the revelation of any record could have on candor in future executive decision making, since any harm that might flow from the public revelation of the deliberations at issue here has already been self-inflicted," Jackson wrote. "The Department itself has already publicly revealed the sum and substance of the very material it is now seeking to withhold. Since any harm that would flow from the disclosures sought here would be merely incremental, the records must be produced."

So, maybe we'll find out how high in the Obama administration the desire for those bodies went.

And speaking of "big fish" and those guns being used in crimes, (and they were, including the murder of U.S Border Patrol agent Brian Terry), one of those guns, a big 50 caliber helicopter hunting rifle, turned up in the hand of none other than Mexico's premier drug lord: ‘Fast & Furious’ rifle capable of taking down helicopter found in 'El Chapo' cache

A .50-caliber rifle found at Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman’s hideout in Mexico was funneled through the gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, sources confirmed Tuesday to Fox News.

A .50-caliber is a massive rifle that can stop a car or, as it was intended, take down a helicopter.

After the raid on Jan. 8 in the city of Los Mochis that killed five of his men and wounded one Mexican marine, officials found a number of weapons inside the house where Guzman was staying, including the rifle, officials said.

When agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives checked serial numbers of the eight weapons found in his possession, they found one of the two .50-caliber weapons traced back to the ATF program, sources said.

 and taking down helicopters is precisely what 'El Chapo' intended.

Federal law enforcement sources told Fox News that ‘El Chapo’ would put his guardsmen on hilltops to be on guard for Mexican police helicopters that would fly through valleys conducting raids. The sole purpose of the guardsmen would be to shoot down those helicopters, sources said.

And while this isn't strictly "fast and furious" it's gun control related, and highly amusing. A number of journalists (or journolisters?) fell for a proposed law to register journalists, modeled on a hand gun registration law: How many journos actually fell into the reporter-registration trap?

Yesterday, a proposal by South Carolina state representative Mike Pitts floated the idea of requiring journalists to register with the state to ensure a responsible approach to the First Amendment. As someone who has more than a passing familiarity with Second Amendment activism, the “South Carolina Responsible Journalism Registry Law” was immediately recognizable as a provocation to the media over its reporting on gun control demands. Unfortunately, a number of journalists showed themselves to be woefully unfamiliar with the gun-rights argument about regulating the First Amendment to match the way gun-control advocates want to regulate the Second Amendment, as could be seen in numerous tweets.

Washington Post reporter Callum Borchers unfortunately took his outrage to print … without actually doing enough due diligence to ask Pitts exactly what he had in mind:

My visceral reaction isn’t printable but can be summarized thusly: This is a naked attack on the First Amendment — you know, the one that says “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” I realize we’re talking about a state legislature here, not Congress, but we’re also talking about one of the nation’s founding principles.
That aside, this kind of law would be completely unworkable. Look, there’s plenty of media garbage out there, but everyone has a different definition of what garbage is. Does anyone want a bunch of self-interested government officials setting the standard?
We register surgeons and pilots and teachers and people in many, many other professions. You can make a coherent case that journalism is a very important profession too, but there’s a reason why journalists have reputations, instead of licenses. They have a fundamental American right to share information, and their audiences have a right to decide whether to believe it or dismiss it. By contrast, no one is entitled to remove brain tumors, fly airplanes or teach third-graders.
There’s also a practical problem: How on Earth would South Carolina’s secretary of state, charged with maintaining the registry, do its job here, anyway? Journalists can’t even define who is a journalist anymore, what with all the bloggers and tweeters posting the kind of information and opinion that used to come only from a highly institutionalized press. Good luck to Pitts when it comes to crafting a legal definition of journalism.
Come to think of it, that’s really the great folly here. What Pitts is proposing isn’t just wrong; it simply can’t be done. There’s no stopping people from spreading the news in a digital society — certainly not with some outdated idea for a registry.

This, as I noted last night, is what is called falling into the trap. National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke springs it:

Which is how the proposal was intended. . .

What is the Obama Admin Hiding in "Fast and Furious" Probe?

"Only" 15,662 documents.

Judicial Watch announced today that it received from the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) a “Vaughnindex” detailing records about the Operation Fast and Furious scandal. The index was forced out of the Obama administration thanks to JW’s June 2012 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequentSeptember 2012 FOIA lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice (No. 1:12-cv-01510)). A federal court had ordered the production over the objections of the Obama Justice Department.
. . .
This is the first time that the Obama administration has provided a detailed listing of all records being withheld from Congress and the American people about the deadly Fast and Furious gun running scandal. The 1307-page “draft” Vaughn index was emailed to Judicial Watch at 8:34 p.m. last night, a few hours before a federal court-ordered deadline. In its cover letter, the Department of Justice asserts that all of the responsive records described in the index are “subject to the assertion of executive privilege.”

The Vaughn index explains 15,662 documents. Typically, a Vaughn index must: (1) identify each record withheld; (2) state the statutory exemption claimed; and (3) explain how disclosure would damage the interests protected by the claimed exemption. The Vaughn index arguably fails to provide all of this required information but does provide plenty of interesting information for a public kept in the dark for years about the Fast and Furious scandal.

Based on a preliminary review of the massive document, Judicial Watch can disclose that the Vaughn index reveals:

• Numerous emails that detail Attorney General Holder’s direct involvement in crafting talking points, the timing of public disclosures, and handling Congressional inquiries in the Fast and Furious matter.
• President Obama has asserted executive privilege over nearly 20 email communications between Holder and his spouse Sharon Malone. The administration also claims that the records are also subject to withholding under the “deliberative process” exemption. This exemption ordinarily exempts from public disclosure records that could chill internal government deliberations.
• Numerous entries detail DOJ’s communications (including those of Eric Holder) concerning the White House about Fast and Furious.
• The scandal required the attention of virtually every top official of the DOJ and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Communications to and from the United States Ambassador to Mexico about the Fast and Furious matter are also described.
• Many of the records are already publicly available such as letters from Congress, press clips, and typical agency communications. Ordinarily, these records would, in whole or part, be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Few of the records seem to even implicate presidential decision-making and advice that might be subject to President Obama’s broad and unprecedented executive privilege claim.

They're trying desperately hard to conceal that "fast and furious" was an fatally failed attempt to try to gin up support for Obama and the Holder Justice Departments attempts to curtail gun rights.

But imagine being the poor judge who has to sort through this all and decide what is being legitimately withheld, and that which is being concealed for political purposes.

Fast and Furious Gun Used in Arizona Shooting

Eric Holder's Top Deputy Resigns Amid Revelation Fast and Furious Guns used in Phoenix Crime

Documents released by conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch—and put forward by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)—show that an assault rifle purchased as part of Fast and Furious was used in a Phoenix-area crime in July 2013 that left two people wounded.

Part of a police report shows the rifle’s serial number, 1977DX1654. Judicial Watch obtained the documents from a lawsuit it filed against the city of Phoenix, Judicial Watch v. City of Phoenix, to get officials to release the documents. Judicial Watch had filed an Aug. 5, 2014, public records request with the city, which it ignored, forcing Judicial Watch to file the lawsuit on Oct. 2.

“Thanks to our lawsuit, Congress has been able to confirm what Judicial Watch already reported—that a Fast and Furious weapon was used in yet another violent crime that terrorized and injured residents of Phoenix,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a Thursday statement:

Our lawsuit against Phoenix exposed how the Obama cover-up of Fast and Furious is ongoing. Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is a mess. It has endangered the public and is engaged in an ongoing cover-up of its insanely reckless Fast and Furious gun-running operation. Judicial Watch appreciates the refreshing diligence of Senator Grassley and Congressman Issa in pursuing the truth about Fast and Furious.

Sen. Grassley and Chairman Issa took that document Judicial Watch obtained and compared it to other documents they obtained from the Fast and Furious investigation to confirm it was indeed bought by a Fast and Furious straw purchaser. They revealed the finding in a Thursday letter to Deputy Attorney General James Cole, the number two highest-ranking official at the Department of Justice who announced his plans to resign the DOJ shortly thereafter on Thursday. Cole said in an interview with The Washington Post that he plans to leave because he wants to work in the private sector, but he did not say it had anything to do with Fast and Furious.

Most transparent administration evah. . .

Oh, and I doubt that Cole's resignation had anything to do with this. That would imply he felt shame about it, and as near as I can tell, the Obama administration is completely incapable of feeling that emotion. It's just rats leaving a sinking ship to find a new job in the NGO/governmental complex while their resumes still have some value.

Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup."

Fast and Furious Turns Slow and Festering

Holder running out the clock on Fast & Furious

One of the first major scandals of the Obama administration may not get resolved until after Barack Obama leaves office — at least, if Eric Holder has anything to say about it. Politico’s Josh Gerstein reported last night on an effort by the Attorney General to keep the issue of executive privilege and Congressional subpoenas from resolution, even after a federal judge ordered Holder and the Department of Justice to submit documents to the House Oversight Committee. If successful, it might push the appeals process so far out that Obama will leave office before Congress can exercise its oversight responsibilities properly:

Attorney General Eric Holder is again asking a federal court to delay the transfer of disputed documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious to a House committee.
In a new court filing Monday night, Justice Department lawyers asked U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson not to require Holder to turn over any of the roughly 64,000 pages of documents to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee until after her rulings can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
“The Department respectfully submits that it would be preferable for the parties, this Court, and the D.C. Circuit — if an appeal were taken — to have any injunctive order await the conclusion of the district court litigation to allow for orderly and complete appellate proceedings,” DOJ lawyers wrote.
Jackson has previously denied DOJ permission to file an immediate appeal, although lawyers for Holder indicated in the new filing (posted here) that they may do so anyway. Any appeal is likely to take months and perhaps more than a year to resolve. If that process does not begin until Jackson rules definitively on the the executive privilege claim President Barack Obama has made for many of the documents, the timeline for the case being resolved could begin to approach the end of the Obama administration.

I’m certain that this outcome would break no hearts at the White House, but it’s ridiculous nonetheless. They have dragged out this process for more than three years — which is more than half of Barack Obama’s time in office.

It's amazing what government can and can't do in 3 years, depending on their motivations.

Holder is also, as we well know, sitting on the DOJ investigation of the IRS abuses.  But in contrast to government malfeasance, Holder seems in a hurry to find someone to hold accountable for corporate fraud:

Holder: Execs accountable for company wrongdoing

The Justice Department sent a warning to major corporations Wednesday, saying it will seek out individual corporate wrongdoers and not just blame the company.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had a clear message for all companies under investigation in a speech that largely focused on financial fraud cases. The government has been criticized for repeatedly reaching deals with large banks and other companies in which they agree to pay massive fines, but few if any corporate executives are charged criminally.

“Despite the growing jurisprudence that seeks to equate corporations with people, corporate misconduct must necessarily be committed by flesh-and-blood human beings. So wherever misconduct occurs within a company, it is essential that we seek to identify the decision-makers at the company who ought to be held responsible,” Holder said in a presentation at the New York University School of Law, according to remarks released by the Justice Department.

Hat tip to Wombat-socho for "Live at Five: 09.18.14."

The Seven Steps of Scandal

As performed by the Obama Administration, and as abetted by the MSM (according to Mary Katharine Hamm).

Step 1: “We’re just finding out about this ourselves and are as appalled as anyone over these allegations. We vow to get to the bottom of this and, if true, right this wrong swiftly and thoroughly. Nothing less than the honor of our nation and our people is at stake, and that will not come to harm on my watch.”

Step 2: “We are investigating ourselves right now to make sure we get to the bottom of this. It’s important that we get all the facts from ourselves, and in the meantime it would be inappropriate for ourselves to answer questions about the investigation we’re conducting on ourselves.”

Step 3: “Didn’t I just tell you we started an investigation of ourselves? Also, we noted our outrage. I cannot possibly make any statements about the very obvious wrongdoing that occurred on our watch until the investigation we’re conducting of ourselves is completed, printed on paper and in my hands. Anything else would jeopardize the integrity of our investigation of ourselves. Is that what you want?”

Step 4: “Only crazy wingers even ask questions about stuff like this. Are you a crazy winger? Do you think it’s a grand conspiracy in which the President of the United States conspired to personally hurt veterans? Do you think that’s an appropriate question to ask?”

Step 5: Wait six months, refer to formerly outrageous scandal as phony.

Step 6: Slow walk investigation and especially the release of requested and possibly incriminating documents for a year or more.

Step 7: “Oh, that ‘scandal’? Dude, that was a year ago. Who’s still talking about that?”

It does have a certain familiar cadence to it.

We're all acquainted with the "12 Steps" of Alcoholics Anonymous and similar groups, but did you know the "13 Question Method)? It's the one to use...

He Read the News Today, Oh Boy

From Ace: Obama's Claims of "Just Hearing" About His Latest Incompetency and/or Corruption "From the News"

Krauthammer notes that Obama's favorite pose is to pretend as if he's just "stumbled upon the presidency," and is both as surprised and as blameless for his own administration's incompetency and corruption as the average citizen.

Incidentally, Jay Carney says he "believes" the President honored his promise to give back 5% of his salary to the government, but he will, naturally, have to get back to you on that.

I read the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph . . .

"Rogue" Unit at EPA Protects Malfactors

We should be getting used to this by now, between Fast and Furious, Benghazi and the IRS scandals, but there's one big difference here. The independent investigation being blocked is not a partisan Republican congressional investigation, but instead, the agencies own watchdogs, the Inspector Generals. 

EPA accused of blocking independent investigations

A unit run by President Barack Obama’s political staff inside the Environmental Protection Agency operates illegally as a “rogue law enforcement agency” that has blocked independent investigations by the EPA’s inspector general for years, a top investigator told Congress.

The assistant EPA inspector general for investigations, Patrick Sullivan, was expected to testify Wednesday before a House oversight committee about the activities of the EPA’s little-known Office of Homeland Security.

The office of about 10 employees is overseen by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s office, and the inspector general’s office is accusing it of impeding its independent investigations into employee misconduct, computer security and external threats, including compelling employees involved in cases to sign non-disclosure agreements.

One of the investigations being blocked is the curious case of  John Beale, the  EPA "Senior Advisor" who convinced the staff that he was an undercover CIA agent working on "climate change issues, and spent years worth of time absent, received bonuses, and charged non-work travel to the agency at first class rates, and claiming disabilities that apparently didn't exist.  His direct supervisor was Gina McCarthy. He was recently sentenced to 32 months in prison.

“Under the heavy cloak of ‘national security,’ the Office of Homeland Security has repeatedly rebuffed and refused to cooperate with the OIG’s ongoing requests for information or cooperation,” Sullivan wrote in prepared testimony obtained by The Associated Press. “This block unquestionably has hamstrung the Office of Inspector General’s ability to carry out its statutory mandate to investigate wrongdoing of EPA employees.”

EPA has become a rogue agency.  Since all human activities have the potential to make changes in the environment, the agencies legislative mandate is pretty expansive to begin with, and with the fervor of true believers that permeate the leadership and staff of the agency, they are always pushing to expand their domain.  Time for my "modest proposal" for political affirmative action on the staff of the EPA (and other politically sensitive agencies).  Fire half the staff and specifically hire conservative republicans to replace them, and allow the two sides to police each other.

EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe was expected to tell Congress that the agency’s employees work cooperatively with the inspector general and support its mission, according to his prepared testimony.

And here I thought lying to Congress was illegal.  Silly me!

Fast And Furious New Twist - Grenade Walking

Grenade used in deadly drug cartel shootout with Mexico police linked to "grenade-walking" scandal

According to a Justice Department "Significant Incident Report" filed Tuesday and obtained by CBS News, evidence connects one of the grenades to Jean Baptiste Kingery, an alleged firearms trafficker U.S. officials allowed to operate for years without arresting despite significant evidence that he was moving massive amounts of grenade parts and ammunition to Mexico's ruthless drug cartels.

The gun battle took place last week in Guadalajara. Authorities say five members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel used at least nine firearms and ten hand grenades against Mexican police. If one of the grenades was supplied with the help of Kingery, as believed, it adds to the toll of lives taken with weapons trafficked by suspects U.S. officials watched but did not stop.

The Kingery case was overseen by the same Arizona U.S. Attorney and ATF office that let suspects traffic thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels in the operation dubbed Fast and Furious. The strategy was to try to get to the cartel kingpins, but it was halted after CBS News reported that Fast and Furious weapons were used by cartel thugs in the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on December 15, 2010. Weapons trafficked by other ATF suspects under surveillance were used two months later in the cartel murder of Immigration and Customs Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico on February 15, 2011.

Grenade parts? Seriously? Was the administration going to try to get a ban on hand grenades as a home defense weapon?

So, how is that investigation into Fast and Furious going?  Is the administration still stonewalling?

ATF Blocking 'Fast and Furious' Book

Cites hurt feelings, not secrecy

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is blocking the main whistleblower in the Fast and Furious case from publishing a book for pay, claiming his retelling of the Mexico “gun-walking” scandal will hurt morale inside the embattled law enforcement agency, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times.

ATF’s dispute with Special Agent John Dodson is setting up a First Amendment showdown that is poised to bring together liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and conservatives in Congress who have championed Mr. Dodson’s protection as a whistleblower.

Their rejection made no claims that the book would release sensitive or classified information or compromise ongoing law enforcement proceedings.

Rather, the supervisors offered a different reason for their decision. “This would have a negative impact on morale in the Phoenix [Field Division] and would have a detrimental effect on our relationships with DEA and FBI.”

The ATF general counsel’s office subsequently sanctioned the decision, all but killing the book project.

Nope, absolutely nothing to hide.

Fast and Furious - The Mistake that Keeps on Killing

Police chief killed with rifle lost in ATF gun-tracking program 

A high-powered rifle lost in the ATF’s Fast and Furious controversy was used to kill a Mexican police chief in the state of Jalisco earlier this year, according to internal Department of Justice records, suggesting that weapons from the failed gun-tracking operation have now made it into the hands of violent drug cartels deep inside Mexico.

Luis Lucio Rosales Astorga, the police chief in the city of Hostotipaquillo, was shot to death Jan. 29 when gunmen intercepted his patrol car and opened fire. Also killed was one of his bodyguards. His wife and a second bodyguard were wounded.

Local authorities said eight suspects in their 20s and 30s were arrested after police seized them nearby with a cache of weapons — rifles, grenades, handguns, helmets, bulletproof vests, uniforms and special communications equipment. The area is a hot zone for rival drug gangs, with members of three cartels fighting over turf in the region.

A semi-automatic WASR rifle, the firearm that killed the chief, was traced back to the Lone Wolf Trading Company, a gun store in Glendale, Ariz. The notation on the Department of Justice trace records said the WASR was used in a “HOMICIDE – WILLFUL – KILL –PUB OFF –GUN” –ATF code for “Homicide, Willful Killing of a Public Official, Gun.”

No word from Preznit Obama on whether or not the Mexican police chief looked like what Obama's son would look like, if only Obama had a a son.

Peter Principle* Still In Effect - ATF Promotes Fast and Furious Figure

ATF leader who oversaw botched sting will run Phoenix office
Move puts him in charge of office known for infamous 'Operation Fast and Furious'

The ATF leader who oversaw a botched undercover operation in Milwaukee will now be in charge of the agency's embattled Phoenix office, where agents allowed more than 2,000 guns to walk into the hands of suspected criminals through the infamous "Operation Fast and Furious."

Bernard "B.J." Zapor will be reunited in Phoenix with Fred Milanowski, another key figure in Milwaukee's "Operation Fearless," where a Journal Sentinel investigation found agents lost government guns, had their storefront ripped off and arrested at least four of the wrong people.

Zapor was in charge of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' St. Paul Field Division, which covers Wisconsin and three other states. In November, shortly after the Milwaukee sting was abruptly shut down, he was promoted to a position in Washington, D.C., supervising eight field divisions.

Officials from the ATF and the U.S. Department of Justice told congressional staffers in April that disciplinary action was under way against Zapor because of the Milwaukee operation. They won't say if Zapor's assignment to Phoenix is punishment.

Punishment would be putting him on patrol on the border on foot with a wool suit, a small canteen, and a paintball gun.  Or a felony conviction for gun running.

*The Peter Principle is a proposition that states that the members of an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success and merit will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence." In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given more authority until they cannot continue to work competently. It was formulated by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle, a humorous treatise, which also introduced the "salutary science of hierarchiology".

A Question for the Charlotte Conventioneers

From Theo's

When in Trouble or in Doubt

Run and hide; throw bean bags as a last resort

First it was confirmed that Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and his elite tactical unit initially fired bean bags at heavily armed dope smugglers. Now comes news that a Border Patrol training video is instructing agents that, when confronted by a shooter they should “run away” and “hide”. Only as a last resort, if they are cornered, should agents get “aggressive” and “throw things” at the perps. Throw things? Really; here’s the site of the largest local of the Border Patrol agents’ union describing the training they’re required to undergo.

I know, that was a pretty lousy rhyme.  The original, which I first heard in "Time Enough for Love" by Robert Heinlein, was "When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout".  I'm sure he stole borrowed it from somewhere else.