Posted on 12/21/2011 12:13:53 AM PST by neverdem
What Obama administration officials, including the president, knew or didn't know about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' 2009 Operation Fast and Furious has little to do with what they should have known.
Attorney General Holder, Secretary Clinton, President Obama, and Secretary Napolitano each declared that he or she did not know about Fast and Furious until 2011. But what should they have known about a federal program that eventually led to mass murder?
In a 1999 web article on leadership, writer and attorney Jonathan Wallace examined the question of when to hold those in power accountable. He begins with a two-part question: "did he know or should he have known?"
The first approach holds a leader responsible for giving the order, or being aware of an intended action and failing to stop it. The second blames him for failing to ask the right questions or to set the right standards for the organization. Lawyers call the first failing "intent" and the second "negligence".There is a third legal theory which is relevant: that of "absolute liability." Under certain circumstances, the law calls a party to account for a bad outcome regardless of intention or negligence.
The sense that one has responsibility -- without the ability to make things come out right is pervasive in society today[.] ... the panacea promised to people with a strong sense of victimhood is all too often the opposite evil: authority without responsibility.
Later in his essay, Wallace could have been describing the major players in Operation Fast and Furious when he asserts that "authority without responsibility creates monsters."
And if Wallace's analysis applies, demanding the "I won" administration to tell us "who gave the order" is futile and will lead only to boxes of purged e-mails. Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA)...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
very late but noteworthy F&F ping.
“Moonbats - stuck on stupid - always get innocent people killed.”
respectfully disagree... Bats out of hell and willfully criminal...who, by the way, could care less about murdered innocents.
In before dawn.....Ping
“authority without responsibility creates monsters.”
And I vehemently disagree with this. They were monsters FIRST. Only monsters would deliberately create a situation like this knowing full well many innocent people would die because of it, and they did not care. In faact, thy were overjoyed.
Monsters before, monsters now, and monsters forevermore.
Eric Holder: 'Critics Don't Like Me Because I'm Black'
Get a Medical Marijuana Card, Lose Your Second Amendment Rights
The EPA's Unconscionable War on Fracking
Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
Amen to that! They deliberately tried to create a bubble of unaccountability around themselves to carry out their murderous scheme.
Sooo,
Why is the Republican “leadership” basically ignoring F & F?
Holder, Clinton, and obammy were trying to subvert our constitution.
Guess everyone is afraid of being labeled a racist.
Can’t criticize our dear leader now can we?
What a bunch of horse crap.
. . . and that's just the Obama voters.
Pre-meditated, agenda-driven murderers (it didn’t matter who was killed, it only mattered what they were killed with) were monsters (psychopaths) from the get go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tro2U-cezqo
Later in his essay, Wallace could have been describing the major players in Operation Fast and Furious when he asserts that "authority without responsibility creates monsters."As far as voting for president is concerned, the theory of absolute "it happened on his watch" responsibility has to apply. Of course one of the primary ways the AP journalism monopoly puts its thumb on the scale is by applying high standards of responsibility to Republican and no standard of responsibility to Democrats. A Ronald Reagan can, quite properly, verbally "take responsibility" for a serious lapse which happened on his watch when he does not ascribe negligence or malfeasance to his subordinates. He did so in the aftermath of the truck bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon. But when he did, Sam Donaldson asked him if he was going to resign!And if Wallace's analysis applies, demanding the "I won" administration to tell us "who gave the order" is futile and will lead only to boxes of purged e-mails.
But a Bill Clinton can get caught with an opposition research specialist committing felonies on a wholesale basis in the WH basement, without even admitting that he hired whoever hired Craig Livingstone - if indeed he didn't do so himself. No thought, on the part of any journalist, of absolute responsibility then!!!
Basically, journalists, academics, and others who criticize without any bottom-line responsibility for the results of their supposed panaceas are the worst sort to be put in charge of anything. They will promote socialism, which is the ultimate separation of responsibility from authority. And that is monstrous, as the article suggests.
In every country where socialism took root, the lives of individuals were sacrificed in the name of the “group”.
Socialists do not care about their own supporters....just look at our inner cities.
Socialists do not care about private-sector unions...just look at Keystone XL Pipeline.
Socialists do not care about minorities....just look at Elian Gonzalez.
Socialists only care about their own power. This is why they funnel confiscated money to friends who give that money back to the campaign while telling everyone that they care about the environment.
If you put guns in the hands of really bad outlaws, guns will become really bad...and will need to be outlawed.
Free republic is about as close to journalism as you are gonna get in America anymore.

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Holder Plays the Race Card Even Before Election Day (Without it the Left cannot win)
Interesting new ATF internal document generated the day before the 4 February "withdrawn" (lying)
Justice Dept. Insists Holder Wasnt Playing Race Card When He Played Race Card (Video)
Fast and Furious Update: Rep. Issa Tells Holder to Expect More Hearings
Obama Administration Endangered Lives to Justify Gun Control
50 ICE agents to screen jail inmates [To replace Arpaio deputies]
DOJ Names East Haven, CT as Next Violator of Latino Civil Rights
Ariz. authorities dismantle 'extensive' drug cell
"All four principals -- Obama, Holder, Napolitano, and Clinton -- visited Mexico in March and April of 2009. All four raised the issue of smuggled guns, and each in his or her own way vowed to "take the fight to the Mexican drug cartels." All four supported tightening loopholes in existing gun laws and reinstituting the AWB. All four have denied knowledge of a program named Fast and Furious. All four executives in charge should have known what we citizens now know."Obama told Anti-2nd Amendment Nazi, Sarah Brady, "we are working on it...under the radar," and the concerted actions of all four clearly prove that they not only knew of Fast and Furious, but orchestrated it.
This is not a case of "stuck on stupid," but of the radical leftists of the Obama Regime, engaged in a premeditated criminal conspiracy to destroy the 2nd Amendment.
Well said, and absolutely right.
Horrible, but shamefully true.
When those weapons are being used in the streets of America during the race riots they are orchestrating, tell yourselves “it's all about gun control”.
When they put the troops in the streets to stop the violence, tell yourselves “it's all about gun control”.
Just keep telling yourselves “it's all about gun control” they don't intend to take ALL of our rights, just our right to own a gun.
Why was it "all about gun control" for Democrats like Congresswoman Maxine Waters - both before and after the 1992 LA riots?
ARMED Korean Merchants during that riot
UNARMED Reginald Denny during that riot 
You bet your @$$ that for leftist radicals dreaming/plotting for transformation/revolution in America, the God-fearing America-loving citizens ("clinging to their guns and bible") must be disarmed - before their godless anti-American and largely criminal mobs can prevail.
UNARMED Reginald Denny during that riot
If you believe that they will stop with just taking your 2nd Amendment Rights, you are an absolute fool.
Mobs during riots or between riots - ex: "flash mobs" - need no firearms. They depend only on their large numbers willing to use violence & make shift weapons - and UNARMED victims.
Very true. As Horowitz quotes the 60s radical,
“The issue is never the issue - the issue is always the Revolution.”
As with the millions of problem-driven government programs, the goal of the program is never to solve the problem, the goal is always to expand the program and its attendant power and funding.
Yes they do.
They need for the violence to get to a point that Federal troops under the President are put in the streets, not just National Guard under the Governor of the state.
The US government did NOT need to setup private US gun dealers in Fast and Furious, to arm criminals south or north of the border. They DID need Fast and Furious to disarm law abiding Americans.
When Hillary said, “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.” most everybody thought she was just talking about money.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1162872/posts
Salute to FierceDraka, wherever you are.
So where is this big outpouring of demand from the American people for more gun control because of the violence in Mexico?
OOPS! Not there is it? In fact there is a record number of Americans buying guns for the first time.
Once someone is convinced they need a gun for their personal protection, you’re not going to take it away from them by legislation. They would simply vote the SOB that took their gun away out of office and vote someone in that supports their right to protect themselves.
Once someone is convinced they need a gun for their personal protection, you’re only going to take away their right of self protection by force, which is what they are doing.
They need the violence to increase so they can do it.
When you say "close" to journalism, you are implying a high standard that has never been true of journalism. Journalism is reporting on the events that the reporter chooses to discuss. It is not the reporting of all facts, or even all known facts about what happened recently. That would be impossible.It is not objective reporting, because objectivity is unnatural and can only be attempted - and that, only if you are willing to admit that you are only trying, without claiming that you actually are objective. No one can know that he is objective;The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing . . .Any claim of actual objectivity is proof that one is not even trying to be objective.It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity,
and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith
When you say "close" to journalism, you are implying a high standard that has never been true of journalism. Journalism is reporting on the events that the reporter chooses to discuss. It is not the reporting of all facts, or even all known facts about what happened recently. That would be impossible.It is not objective reporting, because objectivity is unnatural and can only be attempted - and that, only if you are willing to admit that you are only trying, without claiming that you actually are objective. No one can know that he is objective;The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing . . .Any claim of actual objectivity is proof that one is not even trying to be objective.It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity,
and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith
When you say "close" to journalism, you are implying a high standard that has never been true of journalism. Journalism is reporting on the events that the reporter chooses to discuss. It is not the reporting of all facts, or even all known facts about what happened recently. That would be impossible.It is not objective reporting, because objectivity is unnatural and can only be attempted - and that, only if you are willing to admit that you are only trying, without claiming that you actually are objective. No one can know that he is objective;The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing . . .Any claim of actual objectivity is proof that one is not even trying to be objective.It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity,
and they very seldom teach it enough. - Adam Smith
But this is going nowhere. I present many facts to support my position and disprove yours. You state your opinion neither presenting facts to support it nor addressing any of the facts I present. The thread is about Fast and Furious and Fast and Furious was about Gun Control. Case closed!
No the case is not closed. F&F is not not about gun control.
If they wanted gun control they had the House, Senate, and Presidency for 2 years and nobody could stop them. The gun control crowd was at an all time high right after the 08 election.
To come up with a plan that increases the number of people opposed to gun control, as a way of getting more gun control, doesn’t make sense on it’s face.
They intend for these weapons to be used, just like in the 1996 election when B Clinton’s buddies the Chinese, were arming up the gangs with full auto weapons to make sure Clinton didn’t leave office.
I listened to an interview with a retired DEA agent on a local radio station and the host asked his perspective on Fast & Furious. He noted that he had been involved in large money laudering stings, nowhere near the potentional direct implications/risks of running guns to a cartel in a sting...and with that they had to get permission from DOJ initially and do quaterly reviews/reports with DOJ. In other words, they had to display that the investigation was a fruitful pursuit or ever more constructive as time passed. That was the hurtle in just facilitating money flow for drug dealers, not putting guns in their hands on the cheap.
If they wanted gun control they had the House, Senate, and Presidency for 2 years and nobody could stop them. The gun control crowd was at an all time high right after the 08 election.
F&F was about appeasing the gun grabber base, especially those who wanted to re-instate a so called "assault weapons ban" and a .50 caliber ban. Those weapons were smuggled for a reason. The gun grabbers were obsessed by them.
Go back to 2006. The rats understood that they were losing on social issues. They started running candidates who were pro-Second Amendment and pro-life where necessary, e.g. Bob Casey for Senator in PA. They took the Congress back in 2006, and they grew their majorities in 2008.
In 2009, when talk about renewing an "assault weapons ban" was proposed by Holder, over 60 pro-Second Amendment rat Congressmen sent Holder a letter to forget about it. It was a no-go if they wanted to keep a majority in the House.
Obama was being threatened by bad ratings by Sara Brady et al. Hence the scheme to do something "under the radar."
IMR 4350, ask yourself, why did the rats not propose any serious gun grabbing bills when they they controlled the Congress from January 2007 until January 2011?
good point (s) LOL Just teasing. Postus Epilepticus. I have had it, too.
All the facts do close the case against the "F&F is not not about gun control" position - for all whose minds are not closed to the facts.
The dems had talked gun control and had gotten the AWB signed into law.
Bill Clinton Mr. Gun Control himself, signed a special waver for the Chinese. They were allowed to bring in anywhere from 100-150,000 SKS rifles. They were so cheap you could pick one up for under $50. If you wanted 250 rounds of ammo with it, about $65.
While the Chinese were bringing in the SKS’s they were also smuggling in full auto weapons for the gangs in LA. The same people that gave us the LA race riots of 1992 all because of those evil republicans and their racism and police misconduct.
In December of 1995, Brian Ross had started dragging out the R King case again.
The Clinton's were also stirring the racial pot at the time with the phony stories of Black Churches being burned with visions of hooded riders through the night. Those evil repubs were such racist, Blacks were going to loose their right to vote and it was going back to Jim Crow.
Let's go to 1998-1999, during B Clinton's impeachment. Hillary had a plan she called “The Scorched Earth Policy” as a way of staying in the WH.
There is a little book out there from the Weather Underground, it's called PRAIRIE FIRE, it gives instructions on how to orchestrate a race riot.
Find an incident, a spark to ignite the flame, ratchet it up to a raging inferno.
The Clinton Justice Dept. was stirring the racial pot with Reno's report on ‘Racial profiling”. The bow-tie freak, Quanell X out of Houston, was running all over the country stirring the racial pot, proclaiming every incident was going to be “the spark to ignite the flame”.
Are you starting to get the picture.
Hillary's “Scorched Earth Policy” was a plan to orchestrate massive race riots throughout the country as a way of staying in the WH.
Even though Clinton hadn't been removed from office, that didn't stop Hillary from trying to implement her plan.
March 20, 1999 AP reporter Martha Mendoza did a report on police misconduct and how they weren't being held accountable, the exact same thing that led to the LA race riots of 1992.
Have yourself a look at what the DoJ is doing right now. Stirring the racial pot with Hispanics by claiming wide spread police misconduct, racial profiling, and voter disenfranchisement.
Whenever the exact same thing happens over and over and over again, it's called a pattern.
This pattern that has been created by the dems is directly from the Weather Underground playbook.
Gun control my butt.
Get a clue what's going on.
And I vehemently disagree with this. They were monsters FIRST.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.)
The dems had talked gun control and had gotten the AWB signed into law.
In the meantime, two of the reasons the rats lost the Congress in 1994 according to Clinton were the so called "assault weapons ban" and the Brady bill for backround checks that morphed into the current NICS system.
--snip--
While the Chinese were bringing in the SKSs they were also smuggling in full auto weapons for the gangs in LA. The same people that gave us the LA race riots of 1992 all because of those evil republicans and their racism and police misconduct.
In December of 1995, Brian Ross had started dragging out the R King case again.
The Clinton's were also stirring the racial pot at the time with the phony stories of Black Churches being burned with visions of hooded riders through the night. Those evil repubs were such racist, Blacks were going to loose their right to vote and it was going back to Jim Crow.
Let's go to 1998-1999, during B Clinton's impeachment. Hillary had a plan she called The Scorched Earth Policy as a way of staying in the WH.
There is a little book out there from the Weather Underground, it's called PRAIRIE FIRE, it gives instructions on how to orchestrate a race riot.
Find an incident, a spark to ignite the flame, ratchet it up to a raging inferno.
The Clinton Justice Dept. was stirring the racial pot with Reno's report on Racial profiling. The bow-tie freak, Quanell X out of Houston, was running all over the country stirring the racial pot, proclaiming every incident was going to be the spark to ignite the flame.
Are you starting to get the picture.
So, where have there been any race riots since 1992? The rats aren't that stupid. Riots and turmoil gave them Nixon in 1968.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009I linked the letter. F&F was a scheme to gin up the statistics so the ATF could get reports of the sales of multiple long guns within five business days. It's just a power mad bureaucracy going off the deep end so Obama could show progress to the gun grabbers and keep the donations coming. The only race riots since 1992 have been in jails and prisons usually between blacks and latinos.Today in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, 65 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Congressman Mike Ross (D-AR), expressed their opposition to the reinstatement of the failed 1994 ban on semi-automatic firearms and ammunition magazines. These congressmen cited numerous studies that proved the 1994 ban was ineffective, and they strongly urged Attorney General Holder to stop his effort and instead focus on the enforcement of existing gun laws...
Here's just a few.
2000- Bush stole the election by voter disenfranchisement. He stole Blacks votes.
2002- Charles Baron at the rally for reparation's for slavery-If we don't get reparation's for slavery there will be scorched earth, meaning race riots.
2004- tried to gin up civil unrest again by comparing Abu Grahab (SP?) prison with the plight of the black man in American prisons
Look at 2006, there was millions of illegals marching in the streets. One little incident could have set it off. It just didn't happen.
2007 Al Sharpton tried to gin up racial protest with the Jenna 6 and the BS “noose” campaign that Blacks were being threatened with lynching.
2009-tried to gin up civil unrest again with the Gates dust up and police misconduct and racial profiling.
Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean they haven't tried.
Are you one of these kooks that believes they're not in the process of trying to gin up civil unrest?
rember the ford pinto executives?
they did a cold calculation of deaths vs correction and concluded the deaths were less expensive than corrections.
If holder were in private sector life, even obama, under current law they would AT LEASE be up for negligent manslaughter.
I guess so. Maybe they learned that burning their own cities down doesn't turn out too well.
People in record numbers, millions of people that never thought they needed a gun before, are now becoming first time gun owners because they see the left is orchestrating civil unrest and they will need a gun for personal protection. Yet you don't see it.
So exactly why do you believe people that never thought they needed a gun before are now in the camp of those that believe they need to own a gun?
With illegal, it's not their city. With the welfare bums, they burn it down and they get something new.
So exactly why do you believe people that never thought they needed a gun before are now in the camp of those that believe they need to own a gun?
It's hard economic times. Many expected crime to go up. Many finally realized the adminstration was hard left. The hard left likes gun control. They won't advocate riots or civil war, IMHO. It's politically stupid.
Such tangled logic defies correction. As "facts" it cites non-riots that one thinks could have been riots and other far flung believes in what one believes others intended - going back to the Clinton years.
And while none of those so called "facts" directly relate to guns, gun policies, the politicians involved in FnF nor the time period of or leading up to FnF, in a closed/disorganized/confused/dishonest mind, they outweigh actual facts relating directly to guns, gun policies and the gun specific statements & actions of the politicians who orchestrated FnF. No point in repeating those actual facts. They can be found in the neverdem & drpix posts to IMR 4350, on this thread.
So once again, "this is going nowhere." "Fast and Furious was about Gun Control. Case closed!"
PS: Thanks for your post on Lieberman Calls for Senate Probe on FnF. Especially on point is the timing of the March 2009 DOJ announcement of new and more aggressive efforts with Gunrunner {FnF} - following only by days their receipt of a letter from 65 Congress Democrats opposing stiffer gun control regulations/laws.
What kind fantasy world do you live in? Back away from the bong. Put down the crack pipe.
Ever heard of the Weather Underground?
There plan was to orchestrate a race war as a path to absolute power. Even going so far as to discuss the extermination on 25 million Americans that couldn't be RE-EDUCATED.
How about La Raza?
There plan IS to start a race war and take back the southwestern part of the US for Mexico or to start a new country.
Black Panthers? Kill whitey and the Jews.
The left has been advocating the violent overthrow of the govt. for over 50 years.
They talk to hear themselves talk. It's a distinct minority on the fringe of the left without any advantage or assets over the majority. What are they going to do? Take over cities that they already control politically? They are outnumbered, surrounded and outgunned with a deficit of infantry training and plenty of white devils behind their lines. If they tried anything, they would have enormous losses. A race war would be a complete disaster for the left.
They have gone too far left already. Why do you think they had such awful electoral results in November 2010? Sixty percent of whites voted for the GOP for the first time. Don't trust me. Here's the 2010 exit poll results. Even though they can't say so outright, they've basically given up on the working class whites, especially Jacksonian Democrats with their energy and environmental policies.
They are trying to build an unstable, upper and lower class coalition among educated elites, single women, homosexuals and black and brown minorities. Asians are already hiding their racial origin on applications because they know they are being discriminated against due to affirmative action quotas for blacks and latinos.
You have now painted yourself into a corner.
There is only one of two possibilities.
1. You’re completely uninformed as to what the left has been up to for over 50 years.
or
2. You’re simply lying.
Regardless of which is true, you’re opinion is now worthless.
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