"Good news, mein Fuehrer. We've indicted the Poles for war crimes."
This has to take the cake for chutzpah.
Pay close attention to the end of Holder's remarks as he urges tougher laws against "gun traffickers who help funnel weapons to dangerous criminals".
Is he talking about Operation Fast and Furious, perhaps?
What a hypocrite!!!
If you don't know the difference between proposing legislation and indicting an individual, you had no business being in the DEA. Of course I'm sure you do know the difference, but you can't miss a chance to snap and snarl at Eric Holder.
ReplyDeleteI can’t figure out if this is irony, ignorance, or arrogance, or maybe some combination thereof. A number of administration officials, including Holder, have no problem with banning possession of the dreaded semi-automatic, military lookalike, so-called “assault weapons” by law-abiding U.S. citizens, while at the same time, and also simultaneously, seem to have no problem with furnishing exactly the same guns to foreign drug cartels, with the resulting murders of hundreds if not thousands of Mexicans and at least one, maybe two, Federal agents.
ReplyDeleteGary--while we are, I believe, pretty much in agreement on most issues, I must differ on the “assault weapons ban”. I agree that probably no individual “needs” to have such a firearm; howsomever, neither do we have, as examples, an actual “need” to vote, nor to exercise our First Amendment right to free speech by posting on blogs, nor to have an abortion. We do not die or get went to the joint if we do not exercise these rights, and a whole lot of people seem to get by very well without doing so. Seems to me that rights are generally exercised at the option of the individual, and that responsibility and accountability accompany that exercise.
We already tried such a ban and it was apparently unsuccessful/ineffective in reducing gun violence. Major crime rates, including gun crime, were already declining prior to the 1994 Federal assault weapons ban, most probably due to many States allowing CCW and other gun-favorable practices by their citizens, as well as “truth-in-sentencing“ accompanied by better enforcement and stricter penalties. Crime rates similarly continued to decline during the 10-year life span of the ban. If the ban was effective, it seems to me that gun crime rates/violence involving assault weapons would have increased when it expired in 2004. That did not happen, and in fact they have continued to decline from then until the present. So much for banning.
Such actions are usually at least potentially, if not actually, “back-door” mechanisms for future confiscation. As I believe I recall, that actually happened some time back in CA. A law was passed requiring the licensing/registration of certain assault weapons. Law-abiders did so. Crooks normally do not attempt to, and for that matter are actually and really not required to, register their guns, since that violates their Fifth Amendment right against “self-incrimination”.
So what happened in CA when another new law was subsequently passed making some/all of those previously registered weapons illegal, the only people who had to turn them in were the law-abiders who had registered them in the first place. The bad guys got to keep theirs.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeletePart of the reason you and I disconnect so much is that you take my ironical semantics-or is it semantical irony? and take it so literally-then throw in some irrelevant historical piece from thousands of years ago that doesnt connect with me.
As for differences, do you know the difference when a man who was in charge of an operation that allowed thousands of assault weapons to go across the border into the hands of the cartels and be used in some 300+ murders calls for tougher laws against people who facilitate the transfer of weapons to dangerous criminals?
As a DEA agent, I never could arrest someone for being a total hypocrite, but I can sure point it out.
Elwood,
ReplyDeleteI respect your opinion keeping in mind that the 2nd Amendment was passed to protect the people from a tyrannical govt, and today that would include these kinds of weapons. I had thought that our democracy was resilient enough to prevent a tyrannical govt from coming to power. Now it is questionable.
It is the tyrannical government that bothers me. We have witnessed a shift in our Republic, from democracy to hypocrisy and maybe the support of a President who maybe a traitor. Obama considers Michelle his most valuable advisor and she admitted that the first time she respected America is when her husband became the American President. Obama took the oath of office today, to protect and preserve the U.S. Constitution, but he does exactly the opposite with his executive privilege and by-passing Congress. He makes war without Congress, defies the law of the land with his stance on immigration (his Dream-Act) as he allows the border to become an open field for terrorists to cross, ships assault weapons to Mexico, aids and abets the Muslim Brotherhood who vow to destroy America, runs up a deficit by creating a huge central government to rule by regulation (6000 in three month periods of time), hires dishonest and corrupt government servants in his service (think EPA), and supports a U.N. which wants to wipe-out our soveriegnty.
ReplyDeleteAll this gets a pass by a mainstream media that would make the old U.S.S.R. and Stalin cheer.
Squid
Saw Siarlys’ post on this after I did mine. Intentionally or otherwise, he apparently does not see the disconnect with a man who himself facilitated the transfer of assault weapons to dangerous criminals calling for tougher laws against others who do exactly the same thing, while at the same time scapegoating and whitewashing to protect some of those who did. That’s good work if you can get it, which he apparently can.
ReplyDeleteJust to pick on Siarlys a little bit more, I don’t believe I have EVER heard anyone else say, particularly without specifying why, that he could comfortably vote variously for a Democrat, a Republican, a third-party candidate, or a socialist for President. I don’t know if that shows a lack of commitment to principles or what, but it sure seems strange to me. I normally vote Republican, but have occasionally voted for a Democrat or Independent at the local level. It is highly unlikely that I would ever vote for a third-party guy, particularly given the current crop of doofuses, and I could NEVER, NEVER, under any circumstances, vote for a socialist, no matter what.
As I believe I may have mentioned before (and forgive me if I did), but to me, Siarlys is something like that old blind hog who still manages to find an acorn occasionlly. Seems to me, though, that much/most of the time he has his head stuck either in the sand or in the nether/distal orifice of his alimentary canal.
As to tyrannical government here, at one time I would also have thought it was nigh impossible. Now I am not so sure after all. I have previously described how Bill Clinton seriously tried to figure out a way to circumvent the constitution and have a third and/or fourth term. We will never know for sure, but if the Bush/Gore squabble in 2000 had not been resolved by Inauguration Day, I believe it very possible that we could have seen Clinton refuse to step down until it was settled.
Call me paranoid, but I have this sneaking little suspicion that if something similar in scope would be happening at the end of Obama’s second term, he could very well be the first President in our 200-plus year history to fail to engage in the peaceful transfer of power. Probably won’t happen, but he and certain individuals in the U.S. sure appear to me to be at least possibly ripe for it.
elwood, you're paranoid. Everyone else around here is just whining sour grapes, but you're paranoid, because you actually believe it.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that my political disposition doesn't compute for you reflects that you think in the limited categories of American party politics, and I think outside the box. As for socialism, I doubt you have any idea what the word means, but I would cheerfully vote for Eugene Debs, were he able to arise from the dead and run again. You, perhaps, would not, and you have the privilege of the secret ballot to vote your mind, not mine or anyone else's.
I could try to one-up you on anatomical analogy, but I am content to leave that hobby to you. You seem to have initmate familiarity with the organs whereof you speak.
Gary, when you suggest that the Attorney General of the United States should be indicted on several felony counts, I do indeed credit that you mean what you say, not that you are playing semantical fantasy games, ironic or otherwise. I'm not aware that the DEA, or the laws of the United States, or the office of Attorney General of the United States, go back thousands of years. Have you been looking this up on Wikipedia?
Finally, there is a huge difference between allowing contraband to moved under surveillance, and actively marketing the contraband for personal profit. This operation was badly bungled, but incompetence is not a felony.
The administration's proposals in guns alone is like banning airplanes after Pearl Harbor. I think enforcement of current existing laws regarding registration and even closing loopholes would be better than trying to disarm the people, practically all of them, law abiding free people.
ReplyDeleteYou were right to point out this hypocrisy. This administration tends to say one thing and do another.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteWe can start with perjury-multiple counts every time he testified before Congress, he lied on F and F.
So you say... so you have always wished... but there doesn't seem to be much to it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, perjury is not weapons trafficking, cold comfort to someone convicted of either charge, but highly relevant to the facile analogy you have attempted here.
Siarlys--just because everyone is out to get me does not necessarily mean that I ma paranoid about it, does it??
ReplyDeleteOut to get YOU, elwood? I thought you said they were out to get POWER. You've never struck me as a power broker, nor offered yourself as such.
ReplyDelete