Newt Gingrich appeared on CNBC last night and argued, with a straight face, that the so-called "Fast and Furious" controversy was part of an elaborate ploy to enact gun control. He wasn't kidding.
As Gingrich sees it, the Bush and Obama administrations deliberately attempted misguided sting operations so there would be deadly gun violence along the U.S.-Mexican border, which in turn would repulse the American mainstream, which in turn would create a demand for gun-control legislation, which in turn would cause Congress to pass gun-control laws, which in turn would cause a breakdown of Second Amendment rights.
Well, you might be thinking, Newt Gingrich is, you know, Newt Gingrich. Surely more sensible and more responsible figures in American politics see this conspiracy theory as ridiculous. But therein lies the point: this crackpot idea is the basis for the "controversy" itself.
Yesterday, when I called the Fast and Furious story "kind of silly," I received a nice note from a conservative reader, asking why I was so dismissive of the "scandal." I believe Rachel's segment last night answered that question extremely well. For those of you who missed the show and can't watch clips online:
"[T]he theory here is the Obama administration [is] being super lax in gun control as a conspiracy in order to be super tough on gun control. What? [...]
"If you care to look, yes, this is exactly as crazy as it seems. This is a very strange and implausible and perhaps impossibly implausibly, cockamamie, make-your-cell-phone-out-of-aluminum-foil thing that has animated the right for more than a year now."
Bob Herbert told Rachel last night, "[T]he idea this had something to do with the Obama administration wanting to undermine Second Amendment rights is madness of the highest order."
And yet, this nuttiness has been fully embraced by many House Republicans, many Senate Republicans, Fox News, Newt Gingrich, the NRA, and some deeply strange folks on far-right blogs and talk radio. To put it mildly, it's disconcerting.
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When is Anonymous going to take a dump on Vanderboegh's website?
They should already have done it by now.
It is appalling, but not out of the norm, for the Issa and Gingrich types to try to politicize an occurrence from years ago, now. The death of the man, or any person doing their job was and is tragic. Some journalists have reported the weapons found were not the same as in the shooting, only at the scene. Some viewers and readers ignore that. And don't think for a minute that the government hasn't been involved in numerous similar operations around the globe, either. F&F had a tragic occurrence that highlighted the operation, but Issa, Gingrich and the like are really overreaching in this one. America has a daily reality show, and its called Congress, just not nearly as entertaining.
ok i had it with o much bull @!$%# coming out of this republican party and fox news. do you know why im in the dessert , why out of a team of 15 there are only 9 of us left. and do you know that arabs called on this war, only because the arabs are not allowed to attack another muslim country.did you know that fox news is control and owned by the biggest moss in arabia. yes is true. did you also know that fox is the only station that is run by the biggest group of jews and arabs to bring down america.and also did you know that michael vanderboegh is trying to become one of the leaders to the group called german youth order where they recruit male kids blue eyes and blond hair only and are preparing them for war against us another civil war but this time instead of uniting states they are trained to eliminate races.so do you want more. senator daniel issa and senator jeff sessions and chuck grassley just has a bbq at senator sessions home in alabama where they spoke about the hate and the movement against our american president and its goverment. they want to take our american goverment down where they can climb and take over and a new order will form in a place use to be call america. if we all don't stop the bull @!$%# and stop being the ignorant people fox think we are we better stand strong against these lies. the government is not taking our guns they are not leading us to the brink of destruction but the republicans will take us and the arabs to a point of no return and im here fighting for the marines and now we all here see the lies and the plan these folks have to destroy our beautiful country. land that we a love. wake up america and i don't usually get involved in this. but trust me when i tell you we are heading for a melt down hold on to your love ones. middles eastern think that americans are stupid and these ass holes just to make themselves richer will throw and brain wash all that will follow fox news. we have to show china and the rest of the world that we are united as we are here at this crazy war we don't see colors we see each other as brothers and the unity is strong.please for the sake of all of us fighting for you to save our country.don't you all become the terrors in america that we are fighting over here.this is what they want to make our nation weak so they can divide us and take over.
United we stand but, not all Arab people are evil just as not all Americans are evil, they can't all be evil. Surely some do adhere to the teachings of Muhamed just as some Americans adhere to the teachings of Jesus. The Boulevard is not that bad. Let not your heart be afraid, don't forget whose really in charge here.
Make Bush and his Attorney General come and answer questions as well as Karl Rove because this is something he did to set up Obama to look bad.This is to stop all this voter purging and illegal blocking voters to vote in November 2012 election to get this clown put in office. It is a mean to steal the election for this stupid dumb as fool Mitt Romney.
This is but one more example demonstrating that the GOP is the most extreme, radical political party in this country in the last century......
I suppose it's okay for old white-haired Republican men to maintain Vaginal control of women in this country, but God Forbid there be any gun control whatsoever. Did you hear my eyes just roll!!!!
News flash: The Obama Administration has been supplying handguns to deranged College and High School students in order to facilitate shooting sprees in order to create a backlash that will create a public outcry to confiscate our guns. Just expanding on the logic of Fast and Furious.
If they truly wanted to get to the bottom of this, call in all the Bush people connected to this. They are not after the truth or even care about this. Purely political. This will backfire on them. If anyone should be held in contempt it is the House of Representatives, for lying to the American people. This has absolutely nothing to do with gun control, but everything to do with trying to smear Obama, because of their pure hatred. These leaders are a disgrace to the human race.
I don't want to seem impatient but when is Newt leaving to that moon colony?
After he drops Charlie off on Mars. I'm going to Venus myself.
All Liberals should now refer to this scandal as 'Fast and Frivolous'. We should demand to know how much money Darrell Issa and the Congressional GOP have wasted on persecution tactics. We should ask him how many teachers, fire-fighters and government employees could have been hired/re-hired to make our lives better, but instead went down the drain for their selfish political interests. Liberals need to STAND UP and expose these fails for what they really are!!
Fox knows their viewers will believe anything, and don't know the difference between politi-fantasy and reality. Maddow said Fox viewers account for less than 5% of Americans. That is true. O'Reilly garners about 1.25% of Americans in his viewing audience if you count his original airing and his rerun. Fox shows garner, generally, about 1% of Americans. 1%, that's it. So reality says that about 99% of Americans don't watch Fox News. That's the actual fact. A person can say that about 95% of Americans don't watch Fox, as Maddow stated and the actual truth is that about 99% of Americans don't watch Fox. About 1/3rd of 1% of Americans watch MSNBC, generally speaking, at best. So..whether it's Fox or MSNBC, almost nobody watches, and all the fallderall between MSNBC and Fox is always a tempest in a thimble, a teeny weeny little thimble. Gobama 2012!
It is apparant that Racheal Maddow has never lost a child. If she had she would not have based her story on a freak side show but would have exposed a government that supplied guns to a country where guns are illegal. Our government did not give hand guns to fearful citizens trying to protect themselves, they gave assult weapons to ruthless drug lords. Drug lords that kill border patrol agents trying to keep them from crossing borders and killing innocent Americans. If the Attorney General and President have nothing to hide why not turn over the documents. We are citizens of this country and we have a right to know WHY our government chose to arm violent criminals with weapons to kill innocent people. THIS IS THE TRUE STORY. If Racheal Maddow really cared about guns in America she would cover the real story of killers rather than brick throwers!!!
Well, Rachel DID sort of insinuate that the Fast and Furious program itself could certainly be debated of it's merit (or lack thereof) but that was not the focus of this particular segment.
I think the reason they are not releasing certain documents right now is not because of something illegal or a conspiracy or anything like that. I think it is probably 60 percent political reasons, and 40 percent national security reasons and above all, I think releasing the documents won't undo anything that has not already been undone, it won't hold anyone accountable who has not already been held accountable, these documents probably would serve no purpose at all except be fodder for the right wing to manipulate and distort every sentence to try and turn it into something huge.
So given that hypothesis, what reason would they have to release them? Is it the politicians fault that most of America buys into BS news reporting and the conspiracy theories of bloggers? If the right wing can just take this information, manipulate it into some huge conspiracy and scandal, and then voters respond to that and it can swing entire elections based on false, crap information, then why wouldn't BOTH sides be hiding stuff like this all the time (and both sides do). Really, our broken politics is entirely the fault of the voters because we vote based on crap and are too lazy to do our own thinking and research - so they give us crap, and hide things, and act shady and don't work together and don't get anything done.
Ask George Bush, it was his program. Ertic Holder stopped the program when he heard of it, and now he doesn't want to release the names of the informants who testified as to the folks who are gun runners. He doesn't want these informants to be wiped out by Mexican drug gangs or American drug and gun runners. Folks on the right just don't care and want to feed the informants to the wolves, Right wing folks are simply oblivious to reality and are hyped on Fox delusion all the time. Folks on the right have obvious problems with the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, and believe anything that is anti Democrat. Right wingers are generally mean spirited, crooked, unprincipled, delusional, non thinking, racially oriented, over medicated and paranoid folks, in my opinion. Right wingers, imo, are clearly and simply incapable or rationality in general and will never, ever know the difference, or care. Right wingers are simply incoherent, generally speaking. .
Again, you focus on conspiracy. This is about a government that went too far. Everyone needs to answer for this from the top down, not just the yes people. If your son had died you would understand how passionate a mother's grief for our fallen border patrolmen and the innocent victims which were and still are being taken from us by a government policy that SUPPLIED the assult weapons to the madmen of another country. How can you take this so lightly! I don't care which party is to blame, I only want ALL the people responsible to answer for this. Show us the documents so we can know that EVERYONE involved has answered for this atrocity!
Well, I understand your point but if the intention was to use this operation to find and convict drug lords, but things just went wrong and nothing illegal was done, then nobody is going to be answering for any crime, releasing documents will just reveal names of informants and agents who were just doing as they were told.
If the purpose is to make sure Government agencies are not acting so incompetently in the future, I think that point can, is, and should be made with the information we already have.
It the purpose is to prosecute and get revenge on the people who made the mistakes or who were merely acting under orders, again, I am not aware of anything that was done that was illegal so people won't be prosecuted anyway and you are left with a situation where you have some sensitive information with informants names on it that will ultimately serve no valuable purpose.
I don't take it lightly and I don't think you are wrong to want people to be held accountable but I think it is just a very sad fact about our system that it would be very difficult to find anything to prosecute... Same thing happened with our financial system when it collapsed, nobody was held accountable because nobody technically did anything illegal.
Does that mean that I think things should be that way? Absolutely not.
A message to reveal5...your words are empty and self-serving. If you stood at your childs graveside watching his coffin being lowered in his grave you would not waste words on name calling, you would be asking who approved the policy that killed your child.
Reply to JoshL's comment to "Mother's Grief". Two wrongs do not make a right! As a recently retired Supervisory Special Agent who was actually involved in approving operational plans for federal law enforcement programs, I know there is no way in hell that an operation of this magnitude could ever be initiated without approvals from the highest levels of the US Dept. of Justice. You may be correct that the Bush Administration should never have initiated the program, but their was nothing to prevent the Obama Administration from stopping it when it became clear things were getting out of hand, and there is no evidence to show that Holder ever did anything to stop this program. Ask yourself this simple question, if Holder is refusing to release the documents to protect the identity of US informants, why doesn't Holder just redact (remove) any information in the files which would identify the informants. This is done in FOIA reports all the time. No, he has provided the Congress with less than 10% of the files requested for an obvious reason. Ask yourself why Holder would appoint a US Attorney (who was a campaign $ contributor to Obama's election) to handle the investigation? If you want to know the truth, and the truth will set you free, a special neutral independent prosecutor (not a friend of Holder or Obama or the Republicans) needs to be appointed to show the Obama Administration does not have any bias which would be an impetus for a potential coverup. If they do not appoint an independent unbiased prosecutor to investigate these facts, they look no better than Nixon in the Watergate scandal. A scandal which did not even involve the death of a US federal officer and thousands of Mexican citizens! Left wing extremists who refuse to question authority and see a political conspiracy hiding behind every corner are no wiser than Right wing extremists who do the same. Just like those Right wing extremists who failed to question Nixon.
That is exactly why Eric Holder put a stop to it,( he is also a humanitarian) maybe thats' why Issa is mad. Maybe this is just an extended version of Rubber and Glue part B.The Republicans are now trying to outsmart themselves since they can't outsmart anybody else.No wonder Rachel got sick and has cocktail parties she's stressed out, poor girl.
Finally, someone is responding that knows what they are talking about. I did not know about redacting names from files but that would have been a perfect solution for the President and Holder. Why not provide the files with the names of the informants removed so we know who was behind this program of guns and death? This shows that they could have provided the files so why can't we ask for the TRUTH????? I ask Racheal Maddow to do the real story and help reveal to her listeners what assult guns in the wrong hands provided by the government is doing to victims and their families.
While it appears that simple redaction would alleviate Issa's temper tantrum, in this case it is a false appearance. Further, some here are completely missing the central point in what documents Holder isn't releasing and why he cannot release said documents ... the documents Issa's giving himself a stroke over are documents that could very well jeopardize ongoing investigations if released. Thus, releasing said documents to Issa for his infernal, waste of time pissing match is ... illegal:
"More importantly, there is a very good reason why DOJ has not turned over every single document Issa seeks — those documents could undermine countless ongoing criminal investigations. Many of the documents Issa seeks are confidential materials concerning open investigations. Such documents are not subject to congressional subpoena because revealing them would also reveal “strategies and procedures that could be used by individuals seeking to evade [DOJ's] law enforcement efforts.”
Moreover, as President Reagan’s Justice Department warned in the 1980s, the Constitution’s separation of powers prevents such documents from being revealed to Congress because of the risk that the legislature could “exert pressure or attempt to influence the prosecution of criminal cases.” The Constitution separates lawmaking from enforcement because the framers feared that combining the two would be “the very definition of tyranny,” yet Issa seeks to erode this understanding as well."
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/30/473567/issa-escalates-anti-holder-witchhunt-with-draft-contempt-of-congress-citation/
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/06/13/498521/five-things-to-know-about-the-house-oversight-chairs-witchhunt-against-attorney-general-holder/
A good explanation of Executive Privilege:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/06/20/503031/fact-check-executive-privilege-does-not-apply-exclusively-to-presidential-communications/
Well, it's just Newt being Newt. You know how it is for a reactionary ideologue who looks like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
All I can say is Thank God my daughter and her fellow campaign workers down here in Florida are working as hard as they are to make sure that President Obama gets reelected. If Mitt Romney is elected we can all kiss our lives as we know it goodbye. If we are jobless we will stay jobless and if we are working we probably wont be for long after hes elected. Go Team Obama!
Rachel: You're forgetting the scientific principle of PARSIMONY- the simplest explanation is probably the most accurate.
Psychotropic medications can work so well that patients think they're cured, stop taking the meds, and go crazy again. You're saying that individuals who walk upright, have opposable thumbs, and use human speech, are manifesting the mental processes of jellyfish- no, of demented jellyfish. Too complicated! Round them up, take urine or saliva samples, adjust their medications, and they'll be fine again. Simple, comforting; if only it were true.
I am so over this snivelling punk Issa. Go. Away.
Response to VFeinstein: As a former federal supervisory criminal investigator who has testified in numerous federal trials, I find your contention that over 90% of the files cannot be released for security reasons to be unfounded, if not rediculous. Over 80,000 documents were requested, and only 7,600 were returned to Congress in over one year. You and the general public, obviously do not realize every federal case has numerous administrative files containing information about supervisory approvals which contains no information about sources and methods, and if they did, that specific information could be redacted. I agree with you that any document which contains information which would disclose sources or methods of operations which would even possibly disclose the identity of informants or current operations should invoke Executive Priviledge and be protected. Your statements have a foundation in truth, but I know from previous on the job experience there is no way that only 10% of the files do not contain that type of information. In addition, I know it would be a laborious process (but one which would be justified in view of the significance of these events) to go through the efforts of redacting any information which discloses sensitive sources, but I find it incredulous that after that process only 10% of the files could be disclosed. What the Congress if looking for is who approved the operations, they do not need to know any information about sensitive sources of information or operations. It is my understanding that Holder still has not advised who authorized this fiasco to continue during the Obama Administration. I hope that President Obama is not directly involved in this, but it sure looks like Holder is keeping the American public in the dark for some unknown agenda. This is not the transparency our President promised when he ran for office.
I think that the largest problem here is I can find NO INFORMATION in order to contradict my winger compatriots wealth of information. Every site I find with the Google is a right wing information clearing house.
Obviously something went wrong with this operation. Can anyone tell me why we /shouldn't/ be upset about this 'gun-walking' plan and it's obvious lack of accountability. There wasn't a whistle-blower for nothing.
The right might be frothing about this, but I want some facts, and so far the only source I can find is wikipedia.
I think Rachel does a disservice to the conversation by focusing on the fluffy part instead of the real issue: how did this go so wrong, and who is responsible, and whose heads should roll.
I want a clearing house of info on this, and all I can find is right wing rantings.
When I watched this segment last night, the first thing that went through my head is: We have medicine for that. It is always dangerous to diagnose mental illness from a distance, but the gentleman from Alabama sounds like he has paranoid schizophrenia. As for Newt, his mother had bipolar disorder and he was severely abused by his stepfather. No wonder he is delusional. If there was less stigma about mental illness, some of these people might be helped.
The second amendment refers to state's militias not to any citizen. Just read it and you will understand that a strict gun control legislation would not be unconstitutional at all
You know I will have to answer for this if I say it the wrong way but this whole thing is about one factor RACE. I am not saying every single GOPer is racist but the majority of them are they don't like anyone who appears to be brown living in and or being a success in the USA. What is happening to the president and to Eric Holder is the same thing that most Black men in the south have to endure when they get jobs with any type of clout. They are placed under constant scrutiny and are always seen as the enemy. The theory that they came up with about Obama's plot to take away their second amendment right is complete bullstock. I wonder why is it that no one has said anything on the right about Mittens restricting gun laws in his private Gov's term, and none have noticed that Obama has relaxed gun restrictions in the U.S.
I have been targeted several times on different jobs in the south once I would reach a different level than I was expected to reach. There would always be some type of investigation to see if I was involved in some type of foolishness that caused the company to loose money or to inhibit production that is why I always, like president Obama played by the rules.
I would never break any kind of rules or make any racial or offensive statements to anyone at all even in a joking manner. I was also careful to be very transparent with management in any changes I would make even though I had the power to do so on my own without asking because I knew that if I made any kind of mistake any kind of human error it would be the end of my job at either place. Its funny how in America any Black man that goes to work at any job worth having has to go to work scared and have his heart beating a thousand miles an hour because he is afraid that this could be his last day at work because someone in the good ol boy network has a cousin or a son that needs a job and they want to make sure he gets them in where they are to keep him under a watchful eye. I know this isn't always the way it is. Sometimes its just good people working together making things work for the better for everyone involved but its those 2 times out of ten that the GOPer's in the workplace decide that whats brown shall be pushed down and the cream shall rise to the top. What really baffles me though is this. I don't know what medical condition it is that keeps people on the left from being this way with the extreme hatred and the scare tactics but I must have been born this way as well because I can't bring myself to hate them like they hate me. I can't bring myself to condemn them to poverty and despair like they would have me live in instead I find myself praying for them to have abundant productive lives and healthy children. I don't know if its our Christian roots or a something in the water that liberals have ingested but we tend not to be vicious or hateful and it seems in this climate that's exactly what we need to learn how to be.
I just have one question...why is it so hard for you all to question the actions of Obama and his administration? I get on these blogs daily and see so many of you defending Obama for his drone wars...although Bush was evil for it...defending Obama on his secretive dealings with everything from Healthcare to Fast and Furious...but if Bush or any other republican did the same thing you would be ALL OVER THEM. Okay actually I have 2 questions...if Obama had nothing to do with F&F and Holder had nothing to do with it, why hide behind executive privilege? Why are you all so content to just take a politicians word for it that every thing is ok? You are sheep, wake up. If it was bad for the republicans, it is just as bad for a democrat. We have a duty as American Citizens to hold our elected officials (repub or dem) responsible for their actions. The government works for us. We don't work for them. We put them in office and are just as responsible when they mess up if we don't hold them accountable. Just saying it is a silly frivolous story does not make it so. Their are legitimate questions that have been asked and not answered. Be a reporter and ask the damn questions quit being a puppet. I had gained some respect for Maddow, but she is losing it quickly again.
Jaques...the Constitution states that right to keep and bear arms shall NOT BE INFRINGED. Which means it is unconstitutional to pass any gun law restricting what guns you may own, what license you must have, how long the barrel can be etc etc etc. If you are a law abiding citizen you have the NATURAL RIGHT to bear arms. PERIOD. You don't need permission from the government.
Perhaps Ms. Maddow forgot to mention that the Fast & Furious/Gun control link is actually a story CBS News (not FOX) has been investigating:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57338546-10391695/documents-atf-used-fast-and-furious-to-make-the-case-for-gun-regulations/?tag=re1.channel
Fast & Furious/Gun control link is being investigated by CBS News, so perhaps it has more credibility the Maddow admits:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57338546-10391695/documents-atf-used-fast-and-furious-to-make-the-case-for-gun-regulations/?tag=re1.channel