Liberal Media Assault on the Facts of Fast and Furious
Friday, June 29, 2012 at 6:45AM by Bonzer Wolf Former Clinton Campaign staffer Katherine Eban is an investigative reporter who wrote The Truth about Fast and Furious, an article that appeared in Fortune magazine on Wednesday. Eban regularly contributes to progressive magazines. She appeared with the smiley face of liberal fascism, Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC to spin F&F for the Obamanation.
Eban lost all credibility when she said that ATF didn’t allow guns to walk to Mexico. Holder has admitted that happened and apologized for it, saying it won’t happen again. ATF has admitted they intentionally let guns be exported to Mexico and the acting Director resigned.
Of course Maddow, Eban and the entire left wing main stream media are touting this biased, factually incorrect magazine article as the truth about F&F. There’s no need for a Congressional investigation because Eban has given us the facts?
Eban says that in 2009 the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) promoted Dave Voth, then age 36, to Group Supervisor and assigned him to Phoenix where he headed up Group VII, one of seven new ATF groups along the Southwest border tasked with stopping guns from being trafficked into Mexico’s vicious drug war. 
It is true that ATF Group Supervisor Dave Voth’s mandate was to investigate gun smuggling from Arizona to Mexico. He immediately had a problem because the export of munitions, including small arms, is regulated by the Department of State. State has a memo of agreement with Homeland Security Investigations and the Bureau of Industrial Security, not the ATF, to investigate ITAR violations. ATF is authorized to investigate the illegal IMPORT of munitions into the United States.
The U.S. Department of State controls the export of all defense articles and related defense services from the United States. From a practical standpoint, this includes (but is not limited to) the export of firearms, ammunition, night vision equipment, space craft, aircraft, and avionics equipment.
The the U.S. International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR) requires that all American manufacturers be registered with the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC).
“Any person who engages in the United States in the business of either manufacturing or exporting defense articles or furnishing defense services is required to register with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. For the purpose of this subchapter, engaging in the business of manufacturing or exporting defense articles or furnishing defense services requires only one occasion of manufacturing or exporting a defense article or furnishing a defense service. Manufacturers who do not engage in exporting must nevertheless register.” 
ITAR defines the term “defense articles.” Defense articles include non-automatic and semi-automatic firearms, as well as barrels, cylinders, receivers, and frames for firearms. Manufacturing of defense articles triggers the ITAR registration requirement. Under the ITAR regulations, an after market barrel manufacturer would be required to register with the U.S. State Department, even though no manufacturing license would be required from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
It’s true that straw buyers buy guns from licensed federal firearms dealers (FFL) in Arizona and sell them to representatives of the Mexican drug cartels, who than illegally smuggle the guns into Mexico. But Ethan fails to mention that thousands of guns going to the Mexican government via U.S. State Department approved legal sales, slip through the notoriously corrupt government’s hands and end up in the hands of the drug cartels.
Ethan writes in Fortune that , “The Mexican government has estimated that 2,000 weapons are smuggled daily from the U.S. into Mexico. The ATF is hobbled in its effort to stop this flow. No federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking, so agents must build cases using a patchwork of often toothless laws.”
Do the math. 2,000 guns a day, would amount to 730,000 guns a year. According to the National Shooting Sports Federation, less than 11 million guns were sold in the U.S. in 2011. Ethan is claiming that almost 10% of guns sold in the U.S. ended up in Mexico in 2011.
There goes her credibility. Ethan is promoting the “we need more gun laws” message of the Brady Bunch gun grabbers. Ironically, that was the reason the Obama Administration approved Operation Fast and Furious. The Obamanation wanted the guns to walk so the administration could institute more gun regulations, restrictions and laws.
A straw purchase is a purchase wherein an agent acquires something for someone who is unable to purchase the goods himself. In the context of United States federal gun laws, a straw purchase is defined as any purchase from a dealer holding a Federal Firearms License where the buyer conducting the transaction is acting as a proxy for another person.
The law does not distinguish between someone who is purchasing on behalf of a person who legally cannot purchase or possess a firearm, and one who is not. In the United States, straw purchases are a felony violation of the Gun Control Act of 1968 for both the straw purchaser (who can also be charged with lying on Federal Form 4473) and the ultimate possessor. Both felonies are punishable by up to ten years in the prison.
The truth is, we live in a Constitutional Republic. Congress represents we the people. Congress has established a large number of federal programs administered by agencies within the Executive Branch. Through this process of a broad delegation of authority to the executive Branch, Congress has helped create a vast Federal Bureaucracy.
The relationship of Congress to the Executive Branch today must therefore be seen in terms of its relation to this Bureaucracy, as well as its relation to the Presidency. In order to gain some control over the operations of the various agencies which had been established within the Executive Branch, Congress in 1946 began to develop a series of structures and procedures designed to oversee the Bureaucracy.
This process generally came to be known as congressional oversight. Obama obviously believes that he is above oversight. Obama believes in rule by Executive Order. He also believes that Executive Privilege grants him totalitarian authority.
We the people disagree. It’s the duty of Congress to represent the voters while supporting and defending the Constitution against all enemies. In 1995 as an outspoken gun grabber, Eric Holder publicly said we needed to “brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.”
Holder does not support the Second Amendment, is spite of what he says now. The ATF which is a Justice Department agency was allowing thousands of guns to be exported without licenses to Mexico. The program resulted in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and HSI agent Jaime Zapata who were murdered by guns in the ATF straw buyer database.
Operation Fast and Furious was deliberately designed to undermine public confidence in the Second Amendment. Obama has already used Fast and Furious data to force an illegal gun registration scheme upon law abiding citizens in four border states, including Texas.
Obama likes to say, “We can’t wait for Congress to act!” when he imposes his will on the American people through Executive Orders.
While performing legal oversight, the House of Representatives got tired of waiting for Holder to act and by providing documents named in a subpoena that was issued in October 2011. The House voted yesterday to hold Eric Holder in criminal contempt.
This is the beginning of a long process that will be drawn out past the November elections. Look for Congressional committees to call witnesses and subpoena documents in the near future from both the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State as the contempt citation winds its way through the courts.
We will not forget agents Terry and Zapata. The Administration and ultimately the President will be held accountable. We will not be intimated nor race baited into silence.
When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn’t deal drugs.
When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent.
When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don’t own a gun.
Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet.
– Lyle Myhr
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