At the same time that the Obama administration was celebrating a positive ruling from the Supreme Court about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they received bad news as the Fast and the Furious Scandal escalated with Attorney General Eric Holder being held in contempt of Congress by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. At issue is a firearm interdiction program in Arizona known as Operation Fast and Furious. This article goes into detail about the scandal and demonstrates how the facts have been manipulated in order to throw political hand grenades.
"The Truth About the Fast and the Furious Scandal" by Katherine Eban
Published in Forbes, June 27, 2012
http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fast-and-furious-truth/
Eric
Interesting read. Looks like the all to common situation of people not agreeing and then making rash judgments not based on facts but instead what they want others to think. The three issues seem to be the internal issues of ATF, the ATF's inability to do their job because of laws and then the toxic nature of the "investigation." I'd say they all make you lose a little bit of faith in the American people. How biased is fortune? Clearly this makes it seem like Voth is simply getting thrown under the bus for things basically beyond his control
ReplyDeleteso let me see if you agree to the following facts of the situation as laid out in the article.
ReplyDeleteBrendan Canty [9:02 AM]:
which article?
Mark Chaikin [9:04 AM]:
a. the ATF in phoenix was dysfunctional and didn't agree on how to conduct their jobs b. there are laws in place in AZ that allow for fairly easy access/exchange of guns c. there are laws in place that can make it difficult for prosecutors to approve action against gun runners d. a potentially rogue agent conducted a mission incorrectly that led to "gun walking" in an aggregious form
Brendan Canty [9:05 AM]:
i'm not disagreeing
Mark Chaikin [9:06 AM]:
ok so then here is my opinion on the situation
Mark Chaikin [9:10 AM]:
just like any office environment you are going to have people that disagree on how to do business which is going to lead to sub-optimal decisions, in this case it was a terrible one that led to a death. The republican vanguard that has gone out to crucify holder and obama are out of line. The ATF tried to take action, even on the man who killed the agent and those guns, but were unable to becaues laws in place largely supported by the republican community did not allow them to do their job while simulatenously allowing those guns to be purchased and distributed. This is ap roblem condemned by the very people who facilitated it and not an evil scheme and clear display that obama has no control over his people (i feel it is not hte presidents responsibility to monitor ATF units in AZ nor their actions that are impacted by laws in place). To talk about antagonism this is it in it's purest and ugliest form. As to the with-holding of information i do not support it from any president though this is a artificial problem created by people looking to cause trouble at every turn for obama, this is not something that should ever have gottent ot the level where information was being requested.
Brendan Canty [9:14 AM]:
i obviously disagree in part. has the situation been overblown? absolutely. i agree that it never should have reached this level, but the problems really started when the justice department (holder specifically in house testimony) starting saying that he never had knowledge of the operation and then, well i did, but it wasn't that long ago. it created a doubt and now Congress would like to see all these documents and it's only worse that holder is now insisting "oh.... no.... we'll show you 21 pages of the 7,000 you've requested". obama was not on my radar about this case at all until he went and claimed executive privlege. it's obama who opened himself up to it.
obviously it's not obama's responsibility, but then he has no right to claim executive privilege.
or he was involved and that's probably not right either
i would argue that it's obama's fault that he's been brought into it at all
Mark Chaikin [9:18 AM]:
what i want you to speak to is everything before it got involved with holder...i don't want an analysis on what you think about holder and obama and if they are telling the truth...i know you don't agree with them and enver will
the majority of what i said did not address that
it addressed the fact that what enabled the entire debacle in the firs tplace
as i've said i don't agree with not giving information or documents for review
but lets say he gave them all the data
then what happens?
not a fucking thing
they read them
Brendan Canty [9:19 AM]:
it would be done
absolutely
Mark Chaikin [9:19 AM]:
they carp and they bitch
fingers are pointed
the entire problem goes completely unresolved as people bitch about holder and obama
what i am looking for a discussion about is not data review
but the policies that created the mess
Brendan Canty [9:19 AM]:
this has gotten this far because of withholdling docs
Mark Chaikin [9:19 AM]:
and the hate mongering people that have blown is well out of proportion
Brendan Canty [9:20 AM]:
ReplyDeletei agreed yesterday that there need to be reforms
Mark Chaikin [9:20 AM]:
the problem is the policy and people getting killed
Brendan Canty [9:20 AM]:
absolutely
Mark Chaikin [9:20 AM]:
not withholding documents
Brendan Canty [9:20 AM]:
sure
Mark Chaikin [9:20 AM]:
the problem is this is a polictical shitfest and not and actual conversation
this should be a time to review gun policy...i'm NOT saying a time to cut gun rights but a time to review policy...if pepole choose to keep the same policy that's fine
but then understand there WILL be illegal guns in mexico
and america and mexicans will be killed
you can't have it all
it is realistic to say "we want the right do whatever we want with guns but they can't get to anyone who shouldn't have them"
isn't not is
and the problem is that is not the debate
the debate is withholding documents
which is pointless because EVERY president does it, again i am on your side they shouldn't
but it isn't like that debate is going to get resolved or change a single thing
this is a microcosm of what is wrong with both sides and discussion in general
Brendan Canty [9:23 AM]:
i agree.
Mark Chaikin [9:23 AM]:
instead of focusing on the issues, what really happend it is about who scores points
Brendan Canty [9:23 AM]:
there needs to be gun control, not gun restrictions.
Mark Chaikin [9:23 AM]:
and the republicans or MASS offenders of it
fox news take these storeis and creates a furor
Brendan Canty [9:23 AM]:
and the dems were when bush was in office.
Mark Chaikin [9:23 AM]:
which completely rules out the ability to have rational discussion
i have and will continue to admit democrats do the same thing
but you need to admit that fox news and republicans do just as much
it is irresponsbile and damages our country and our well being
Brendan Canty [9:24 AM]:
i'm going to agree that the gun policy is important, but it's also a very big story when high ranking officials withhold information about a possible mistkae
mistake
A few quick points.
ReplyDelete1. I think Mark is pretty spot-on that things should have never come to this point. It is ridiculous politics at its worst that infects not just our political discourse but also how government agencies are supposed to do their jobs. At the end of the day, all of us suffer because of this. Why bother having the ATF build cases if prosecutors won't go after them? Not to mention the leaks coming out of the ATF -- that is just unacceptable from an agency designed to protect our safety.
2. I am strongly anti-gun. I think it is no coincidence that injuries and deaths from guns are much higher in the U.S. than in almost any other industrialized country. That said, I acknowledge that we're not going to ban guns anytime soon. So let's talk reasonably about what "gun control" or "gun restrictions" mean. For example, I would love to know
a.) Why are gun shows a safe haven where normal restrictions don't apply?
b.) Why do people need to be able to buy and transfer guns in the quantity and frequency that was occurring in Arizona in order to uphold the values of the 2nd Amendment? It seems clear to me that this is FAR more likely to be associated with a criminal element than anything else.
3. The Obama Administration and Holder totally bungled their response to this. They should have set the facts straight from the get-go. As for withholding documents, I think the argument is that these are still ongoing investigations, and as a result, potentially damaging information could be revealed if all documents were made available at this time. If this is the rationale, I think Obama and Holder needed to articulate a timeline when these would be released or at least more clearly explain why this was being held up. But as Mark put it, the document withholding only became an issue because the facts got twisted to turn this whole thing into a controversy.
And as Mark said, this whole thing is just about scoring political points. Is there anyone who thinks that in 3 months our ATF agents will be in a better position to make cases? Or that we'll be doing a better job interdicting guns? It's a sad state of affairs.
Eric