Screw the news,

much nicer things to study

You can't fix stupid: it burns down its own house and then

yells 'Racism!'
(yes, it's from a satire site, as I have been reminded a couple of times; just got around to adding it)
We have as our prime example a arsonist, racist and stupid bastard named Tyler Jackson.

According to a report in the Ferguson Post-Gazette, 32-year-old Tyler Jackson threw a Molotov cocktail into a window not realizing he was setting ablaze his own residence. The home, which was empty at the time, subsequently burned to the ground.

“It was dark. I got all turned around. I thought it was a 7-11 or something,” he told the newspaper.

Which, of course, would excuse it: "I thought I was burning down some poor bastards business and putting his employees out of a job, not my own house!"  There, fixed it for you, you dirtbag.

Oh, of COURSE he called for help:

Witnesses describe Jackson shouting expletives after he realized what he had done. He then tried to put out the flames himself with a garden hose, but eventually called 911 and asked the fire department for aid.

“They told me they were too busy with other fires to come help,” he lamented. “I couldn’t believe it. I mean we pay these people’s salaries! What do you mean you’re too busy?

“A black person’s house burns down and suddenly you’re ‘too busy’ to put the fire out? This is what racism in America looks like.”

Let's see... you're
Trying to burn down a business that had not a damn thing to do with what you're 'protesting',
Set fire to your own house,
And because the fire department is tied up fighting all the other fires your dirtbag protester compatriots have set, it's 'racism' that they won't drop everything else to put out the fire YOU SET.
Right.  Sure.

Chances of this admitted arsonist being put in jail: zero.  Chances of him getting welfare and so forth: probably about 1. 

Jackson and Sharpton and Holder and Obama should be happy, this idiot is partly of their making, and they got what they wanted: someone who can burn down his own house and blame it on whitey.

And this is why Earl doesn't get invited to the house much...

"EARL!  STOP THAT!!"

District of Columbia PD: equivalent to a third-world bunch of uniformed clowns

constantly on the take.  Or just plain stealing.

D.C. police have made plans for millions of dollars in anticipated proceeds from future civil seizures of cash and property, even though federal guidelines say “agencies may not commit” to such spending in advance, documents show.

The city’s proposed budget and financial plan for fiscal 2015 includes about $2.7 million for the District police department’s “special purpose fund” through 2018. The fund covers payments for informants and rewards.

Theft under color of law. Run by thieves pretending to be lawmen.

Had some questions about the Berdan-primed cases and primers,

so here goes:
Quick history: Berdan priming was developed by Col. Berdan of the US Army back in the 1800's, Boxer priming was developed by Col. Boxer of the British Army in the same time frame.  Yet we wound up using Boxer, and the Brits wound up using the Berdan system.

Both have the same basic construction: a metal cup filled with a impact-sensitive compound which, when crushed between the cup and anvil by the firing pin impact, will flash, said flash traveling through the flash hole(s) into the main body of the case to ignite the propellant.

The big difference is the anvil: in Boxer primers(on the right)

the anvil is a piece in the primer cup(cup, compound, anvil), the cartridge case has a single flash hole in the center of the primer pocket, and the legs of the primer contact the floor of the pocket to the sides of that.  Berdan primers have the cup, compound, and a sealant or in this case layer of foil to seal it, and the anvil is part of the cartridge case,

in the center of the primer pocket, with two small flash holes on opposing sides.

With Boxer cases the depriming is simple: the resizing die usually has a depriming rod that, as you resize the case, punches out the fired primer.  Can't do that with Berdan, have to use a separate tool(yes, there are other ways, I'm sticking with this less-messy one).

Here's the RCBS Berdan depriming tool I picked up years ago, just in case:

The piece on the left is a handle, insert into the case so you can hold onto it.  The other has a claw to hold onto the rim, awl to puncture the primer, and handle.  The awl is adjustable in length, more on that later.  The tape is because there's nice non-slip knurling on the handle, and because of my hand/arm I've been using a piece of pipe as an extension; protects the knurling and keeps the pipe from slipping off.

Insert handle into case, hook claw onto the rim,

and set the awl point into the firing pin dimple in the primer.

Add pressure until awl punctures and claw body is flat against the case head.

Lever handle down, and the awl should lever the primer out of the pocket.

Now we come to the adjustable length of the awl: if it's too short, it'll tear through the primer cup instead of levering it out and leave it in the pocket.  If it's too long, you can damage the anvil, anything from a 'Crap' like this

to damaging it badly enough to trash the case(this one's probably useable, but borderline)

After this loading these is just like Boxer cases: resize, prime, and so forth.  You have to remove the depriming rod from the die before resizing; if you don't you WILL damage the rod.

These Berdan large rifle primers are slightly larger in diameter than the Boxer(.215" vs. .210 by my caliper) but work in my Hornady priming tool with no problems, and it seats them nicely.

So that's the process as I'm doing it.  The big problem is finding Berdan primers, especially now since these are Russian-made, and we're a bit at loggerheads with the Russkies right now.  I picked these up at a show from these folks:
J&N Supply
3261 S. 124 Rd.
Flemington, MO  65650
417/253-4200, 417/298-3635
JNSupplyllc@yahoo.com 
So far I've found them to work in Swiss 7.5x55, Yugoslav 7.62x39, and now the SA 7.62x51 cases.

Worth it?  Depends.  I had a lot of those beautiful Swiss cases I hated to dump in the recycle bucket, and it's worth the extra work to be able to use them.  On the 7.62x39 and 7.62x51, I just like knowing that I can reload them if need/want to.


The only other way I know of to deprime these is hydraulically.  Which basically means 'Make a ram that JUST fits into the case mouth, fill the case with water, set it over something that has a hole under the primer, insert ram, whack with mallet'.  Hit hard enough and the hydraulic pressure will shove water through the flash holes and push the primer out, probably while spraying water on you.  Yes, I've tried it; I prefer this method.

One more piece of history: over time there had been a total of seven different sizes of Berdan primers used in different countries.

You would have to pay me to go out today

to anywhere other than a grocery store or restaurant, or desperate need for something.

No, I do not consider "I WANT IT FOR THAT PRICE!" to be desperate enough.


I think the mornings' discussion will center on this brainless PC-at-any-cost fool.  Who has somehow stayed ambulatory and breathing long enough to get into a college.
Senior Oliver Friedfeld and his roommate were held at gunpoint and mugged recently. However, the GU student isn’t upset. In fact he says he “can hardly blame [his muggers].”
“Not once did I consider our attackers to be ‘bad people.’ I trust that they weren’t trying to hurt me. In fact, if they knew me, I bet they’d think I was okay,” 
...
“Who am I to stand from my perch of privilege, surrounded by million-dollar homes and paying for a $60,000 education, to condemn these young men as ‘thugs?’” asks Friedfeld. “It’s precisely this kind of ‘otherization’ that fuels the problem.”
Got that?  Recognizing that armed robbers are, well, ARMED ROBBERS is 'otherization'.  Noting that thugs who use weapons and fear to steal are thugs, well, that makes YOU the bad guy.

Jesus wept.  These people really are fucking insane.


Speaking of insanity,
When it comes to Department of Defense doctrine on military treatment of detained persons, “unlawful enemy combatants” are a thing of the past. That term has been retired and replaced by “unprivileged enemy belligerents” in a new revision of Joint Publication 3-13 on Detainee Operations, dated November 13, 2014.
Because word games are more important than, say, ROE more concerned with winning than with making the enemy happy.

And now back to data more to my taste

Short data burst for the ladies

below the fold

Let them get away with blocking roads and tunnels,

and this is what you get.
Anarchists plotted on Wednesday to disrupt the Thanksgiving Day Parade — feeling emboldened after cops allowed them to run free on major roadways like the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway, The Post has learned.

“The police aren’t going to arrest us and they are not going to shoot us,” an organizer who calls himself “Magiq” boasted to a group of two dozen rabble-rousers at a Union Square planning session Wednesday night.
Why?  Because Comrade Mayor de Blasio thinks blocking major roads and screwing other people lives around = 'free speech'.
But de Blasio is on the record saying free speech trumps keeping thoroughfares moving.

“I think the First Amendment is a little more important than traffic,” he told the New York Observer in September after the People’s Climate March.
Sooner or later this special treatment is going to wind up blocking fire trucks and/or ambulances, and somebody's going to wind up dead because of it.  And they should go after Comrade Mayor for it; if he's too stupid to see the danger of allowing protesters to block roadways, he's too stupid to be in that office.

'disengage from the interview', which actually means

"Shit, I let the truth out, I need to get out!"
“Yeah, we support the violent protesters,” the individual responded, contending the rioting was a form of “communal self-defense.”

After Joseph asked whether the man supported those burning down Ferguson businesses, the individual abruptly chose to “disengage” from the interview.

Things to be thankful for...

right now I'll go with redheads

I know what the 'A' in ATF is supposed to stand for, but

I think the actual word is 'Assholes'.  Jeez.
Badly run operation, apparently no care for losses, or security, damage the building, don't pay the rent, and then
...When he tried to collect, they didn't pay up. In fact, an ATF lawyer warned him that if he kept asking for the money, it could be seen as harassing federal agents.
Security?  What's that?
One item that was just left lying around in the store after the robbery for anybody to pick up and read-- it was there when reporter John Diedrich walked through-- was a secret ATF document listing the names of undercover agents, their undercover vehicles from several law enforcement agencies in Milwaukee.

And it's not the only place they did this crap.  But they're Dedicated Federal Agents and if we don't support them no matter what, the terrorists and somebody unsavory will win.  Or something.

Yes, it's Thanksgiving, but I wanted to get this up anyway.

And have a happy Turkey Day

Just because

No thank you, the little bastards are annoying enough now

Yeah, I like the good stuff too

Tab clearing

If this is true, both Obama and the governor need their ass kicked.


If you thought meat and fat were better for you than man-made fats and carbohydrates, looks like you're (again) proven right.


Yeah, the stepdad is a real piece of work.  And other bullshit being pushed/you're not being told about Ferguson.


So what else are they playing games with in this inquiry?
But a controversial Committee report asserts the CIA did not make “unauthorized” arms shipments to the Syrian rebels,...
My, doesn't that make questions spring to mind?


Damn.  If true, makes the mess even uglier.


Translation: "This mess is REAL unpopular, I need to put some space between it and myself!"


The Lightbringer admits he violated the Constitution.  This better be in every court case and every Congressional action.

An experiment was made

Few years back, before the price went through the roof, I picked up a couple of battle packs of South African .308 ammo.  Good stuff, though Berdan primed.

Got to wondering if those Berdan primers I'd picked up would fit, so deprimed and resized some brass I'd saved, and tried them; fit perfectly.

Loaded up twenty rounds with my standard cast-bullet practice load for such cartridges, and tried them this morning.  Worked perfectly.

That makes 7.5x55 Swiss, Yugo 7.62x39, and now that .308 that will work with them.  Makes me glad I saved that stuff.

"Yeah, it's expensive and a lot of degrees are worthless, but

you've GOT to go to college!"

I notice no note is taken of how you'll pay off those horrendous student loans while slowly working toward a place where that degree might actually pay off.

Also,
As a result, the demand for well-educated workers in the United States seems to have peaked around 2000 and fallen since. But the supply of well-educated workers has continued to grow.
Considering a lot of graduates aren't capable of actually DOING anything, just how 'well-educated' should they be considered?  Especially if the degree is in '(fill in the blank) Studies'?

Gee, how about knocking off the 'You're only well-educated from a college degree' and acknowledge there are a LOT of vital and well-paying jobs that require an education in actually DOING SOMETHING(welder, electrician, carpenter, just keep adding to the list) as opposed to spending five years in a college building up debt and getting the proper leftist agenda?*

Of course, these are jobs that clowns like this generally look down on because you get dirty and sweaty doing them.  Which, actually, is another point in their favor.



*Yes, I know engineering and medicine and such require higher-level training; that's not the classes I'm talking about and you know it.

If this shit doesn't count as 'with malice', what does?

“The Times “had no qualms whatsoever about publishing almost all the information needed for Officer Darren Wilson’s enemies to track him and his wife down at home,” John Nolte writes at Big Journalism, noting that “This malicious move by the New York Times has not gone unnoticed by Ferguson’s protesters,” as the International Business Times reports:

But printing his street name in the nation’s most influential newspaper on the day the grand jury is expected to hand up a decision on the indictment could reignite interest in — and awareness of — the location, and some critics worry that it could result in protesters descending on his home. Slate even went a step further than the Times, publishing an article featuring a photo of the modest, red-brick house on Monday.

Yes, the bastards are evil.  They damn well knew what this would lead to, which means they WANT it to happen.

'Journalists'.  Fucking dirtbags.

A: So the Obama Administration is worse than that of Nixon,

B: I don't know if anything other than a lot of IRS clowns in prison can ever make anyone trust the bastards again.
In a shocking revelation, the Treasury Inspector General has identified some 2,500 documents that “potentially” show taxpayer information held by the Internal Revenue Service being shared with President Obama’s White House.
...
The disclosure follows the agency’s recovery of 30,000 “lost” emails from former IRS executive Lois Lerner, the central figure in the IRS-Tea Party scandal.

Cause of Action said the latest finding renews their “concerns about the decaying professionalism of, and apparent slip into partisanship by, IRS's senior leadership.”

Ya think MAYBE?

Cross the greenies in any way

and they'll go after you.

And chickenshit politicians will bend over for them.
...A number of environmental campaign groups, led by Greenpeace, wrote to the new EU Commission President Jean-Claude -Juncker urging that Professor Glover be sacked because of her ‘one-sided, partial opinions on the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture, repeatedly claiming that there was a scientific consensus about their safety’.
'scientific consensus', where have we heard that before...

Of course they want licensing and bans and metal exams;

it's what they do.
For the second time this year, a self-identified Navy veteran yesterday proposed strict gun control measures including licensing, 80 hours of training for a concealed carry permit and an ammunition tax of ten cents per cartridge to pay for all of that, plus mental health screenings for gun owners every five years when their licenses are renewed.
And part of his reason for registration:
But VanDiver argues, “Before you tell me how I am violating your rights by proposing a record of gun owners, note that the constitution does not say that you have the right to bear arms and not tell anyone.”
"If it's not explicitly allowed, it is forbidden!  And the government must know what you have and what you do!"  Yeah, sounds like a socialist.  Say, the East German kind.

And from Connecticut:
Unsurprisingly, a report released Friday by the Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate prioritizes placing the blame for the “Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School” on ownership of firearms, with particular emphasis on the semi-automatic kind that can accept standard capacity magazines.


Verdict came in in Missouri, officer not charged; usual suspects hardest hit.
Well, hardest except for the people whose businesses have been looted and/or burned, and the people unemployed because of it, and the people beaten.

Yeah, you stupid bastards, this is doing a LOT of good.


Speaking of stupid bastards, one of the reasons I seriously worry for American troops in Iraq and A'stan.  Again.  Because you know damn good and well that they'll be stuck with ROE just as stupid as this.  Because better dead/crippled/wounded US troops than someone have their outrage sparked.

Not long ago I mentioned a Turk Mauser I'd bought,

and here's the story.

Had two great-uncles, one who served in the Navy in the Pacific(diver) in WWII, the other in the Army, 2nd Infantry from somewhere in France until the end.  Neither talked about it, but Ray did have something he brought back from Europe: a German sniper rifle*. 

I found out about this one day when we were visiting the grandparents, Grandpa and Ray took it out to shoot(hadn't been out of the cabinet in years, apparently) and adjust if needed.  Their target was a board with some 16p nails driven in set about a hundred paces away...

Never got to shoot it myself, but that locked into my mind that someday I wanted a Mauser to mess with.  Over time I bought a couple of books on home gunsmithing, and thought about it more.

Back in the late 80's/early 90's there was a HUGE amount of milsurp firearms and ammo coming on the market, and I had a chance to buy a Turkish Mauser, at the cost of about $60.  I ordered, it came in, and I began the process of cleaning the old gunk off and deciding what to do. 

It wasn't coated in grease, but there was a lot of old crud soaked into the wood; once wiped clean the bore turned out to be beautifully bright with sharp rifling.

After cleaning, took it to the range to try with some 60's German ball.  Which grouped, at best, about 6-8" at 100 yards.  Which was underwhelming, even for steel-case surplus.

Crap.  Think about it.  A-HA!  Steel cleaning rod, the crown might be damaged!  Since I was planning on this being a target/hunting rifle shortening that looong barrel wasn't a problem, but this was my first try at such**.  So I only cut about 1/2" off, just a touch in front of the front sight, used the disc sander to square it, and the drill & screw method to clean up the crown.  Back to the range.

Success!  Groups shrunk by a good half, which was hugely encouraging.  So now, knowing the barrel was good, came the modifications.  Which worked out over time to be
Shorten the barrel to 25".
Clean the barrel and action as well as could, and blue.
Fit a ramp and blade front sight.
Do some work on the trigger.
Clean and modify the stock.

The stock turned out to be some quite pretty wood with the gunk cleaned off/out, so I cut the forend to appropriate length and put a piece of walnut on the end as a cap,  squared the butt and fitted a recoil pad, and oiled the wood.

Decided to take the step of bedding the barrel and action, with a variation from the general instructions: I found some suitable tape to put over the barrel starting a few inches in front of the receiver ring before coating everything with paste wax as resist(keeps the bedding compound from gluing everything together) and putting in the compound, which I ran all the way out the forend to seal it.  Once it was cured, pulling the tape meant the barrel was free-floated, which I'd read was the way to go.

I was sweating blood during this process, as the idea of finding out I'd missed some spots with the wax and finding myself with a one-piece stock/action was terrible.  But it worked.

The trigger work was very carefully polishing the engaging surfaces of sear and cocking piece.  Didn't take much, which is good, because I'd read of people screwing the angles up and needing new parts.  Which at the time I had no real idea where to get or how much if I messed them up.  This one, happily, had just a bit of drag to start with, so a light touch with a fine stone did it.  We won't talk right now about my inability to leave things alone.

The bluing was done with Oxpho Blue from Brownells.  I ran a line through the barrel and hung it between two posts, cleaned it half to death to get the surface ready, and swabbed away.  Not a shop-level color, but I was happy.

So put it all together and tried it, And It Was Good.  Thing shot beautifully, especially when I was able to pick up some commercial(Federal and Remington) ammo.

The really scary thing was I tried to bend the bolt handle down.  I rigged up some steel blocks in the vise to hold and support the bolt, used my acetylene torch to heat, and hammered it down.  Yes, I should've found a oxy-acetylene torch, or taken it to a gunsmith to have a new handle welded on. 

Now you can talk about me being unable to leave things alone.

Later, I decided to remove the rear sight, and put a Lyman receiver sight on(I'd discovered Brownell's, among other places).  Which was done, and which I liked.  I did not take the rear sight base off, which came in handy when I decided to scope it.  Being a bit concerned with drilling on the receiver I decided to try a B-Square mount with a pistol scope.  Which worked pretty well, with a Simmon 2X scope.  Yes, if I decide to re-do this I'd remove the sight base, and drill & tap the receiver for bases.  Although I'm more likely to get a variable-power scope, as I rather like the forward-mount setup.

Let me not forget the sling swivels, which led to a slight problem.

I installed them before doing the bedding.  Once that was done I reassembled everything and put the front swivel in(nut was in the stock so it wasn't going ANYWHERE, and I'd put a piece of masking tape over it to keep the hole from being plugged), and went to the range a few days later.  And found it was stringing shots horribly: they were all in a very tight horizontal, but every shot hit a little higher.  After a certain amount of quiet swearing and feverish thought(quiet because the kids were along), I figured I had somehow missed some high spot in the stock, so after got home took it apart.

Some of you are probably nodding your heads.  I found a small lump right above the swivel.  Apparently the bedding was just pliable enough still that when I screwed the swivel in, I'd pushed up that little pimple.  Which was just high enough to put a little pressure on the barrel.  Which grew greater with each shot as the barrel heated and expanded, thus causing each shot to go a bit higher above point of aim.  A little careful sanding took care of that, and the stringing went away.

One other thing I did: there's a transverse hole in the front of the trigger guard, and having read about hooking the sling there for shooting, I found that if I ground that area a bit thinner, I could hook a detachable swivel there, then polish and re-blue.

About a year later, I put a Timney trigger on.  Why?  Because.  That Mauser trigger(I've had a fondness for two-stage triggers ever since) was, after the polishing, a smooth, clean piece of work, but I decided to do it anyway.  So it was installed, and that was the last; the rifle's been as-is ever since.

*Never heard the story, but knowing how he could shoot, he probably popped the sniper and kept the rifle
**Yes, I know lots of people cringe at changing an old milsurp.  Deal with it.

Well, if I were Finland,

I'd be worried about Russia too.  Though if they think most of Europe would do any more for them than  they did for Ukraine, they're fools.

The worries aren't helped by this more recent history, either:
One of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest ex-advisers has claimed that the ex-KGB agent ultimately wants to reclaim Finland for Russia.

Andrej Illiaronov, Putin's economic adviser between 2000 and 2005 and now senior member of the Cato Institute think tank, said that "parts of Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States and Finland are states where Putin claims to have ownership."
...Illiaronov admits that Finland is not Putin's primary concern at present but, if not stopped in other areas of Eastern Europe, the issue will one day arise. Russian troops are currently massing on the eastern border of Ukraine, following Russia's recent annexation of Crimea.
Marja, keep safe

If you're thinking about a AR build,

Brownell's has stripped receivers for fifty bucks.


In other news, so far I've contacted two barrel makers about getting a AR-10 barrel in .30-30; no luck.  I haven't spent much time on this, need to contact some other places.

Yeah, Utah wants the law changed so badly

that a whole 400 signatures of 20k were from people in-state.  Some mandate, huh?


Also from Miguel, one of the likely side-effects of The Lightbringer ignoring his oath:
We might be seeing the bottoming out of the crime descent. Perhaps one more year, then maybe a leveling off one or two more years…and then it will pick up steeply. And it will be blamed on us again instead of the creators of the deed.

If you haven’t bought your long guns, do so. Maybe a couple of extra sidearms on the open market. Lots of extra magazines. But above all, buy ammo like there is no tomorrow. And learn to reload too & stock up on reloading supplies.
We already refer to Obama as the best gun salesman ever, and he's not done.


If a private citizen had an 'accidental discharge' like this, NYPD would've thrown them in jail and the prosecutor would be planning to throw them in prison; but this was by a NYPD officer, so it's just a sad accident...


And one more from 'Sorry Excuse for Law Enforcement' category:
Perhaps an even more disturbing reality is that nearly 30 percent of these dog shootings in Buffalo were carried out by one man. The unidentified officer has shot 26 dogs, killing 25 of them, in just the last three years.

This level of PC idiocy is...

Wonder if this includes having an opinion on female genital mutilation by protected species?    And obviously this means women get no opinion on male culture, or is there an exception for that?

Found on a Michael Williamson thread of Bookface.

A serious error in the victim selection process

Whole story here

Another university loses its ass over this 'accused equals guilty' crap

Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania has settled a lawsuit brought by a student accused of sexual assault, admitting the school acted unfairly in charging the student.
There will be more.  And, sooner or later, some guy who's been screwed out of a job or something is going to go after damages.  That'll be fun.


A court case dealing with LE and stingray.  And this time the documents came out.
According to the Charlotte Observer, the records seem to suggest that judges likely did not fully understand what they were authorizing. Law enforcement agencies nationwide have taken extraordinary steps to preserve stingray secrecy. As recently as this week, prosecutors in a Baltimore robbery case dropped key evidence that stemmed from stingray use rather than fully disclose how the device was used.

The newspaper also reported on Friday that the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s office, which astonishingly had also never previously seen the applications filed by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD), will now review them and determine which records also need to be shared with defense attorneys. Criminals could potentially file new claims challenging their convictions on the grounds that not all evidence was disclosed to them at the time.
A: Isn't it unethical and/or a crime to lie to a judge to get a court order?
B: This isn't the NSA trying to hide stuff from the chicoms or Russians; this 'dump the evidence so we don't have to testify how we got it' stuff is crap.
C: If the prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence to hide this stuff, that IS a crime.  And they should be prosecuted for it.

Worse still, local cops have lied to courts (at the direction of the United States Marshals Service) about the use of such technology. Not only can stingrays be used to determine a phone’s location, but they can also intercept calls and text messages. While they do target specific phones, they also sweep up cell data of innocents nearby who have no idea that such data collection is taking place.
Perjury.  And the MS TELLING them to commit perjury?  More crimes, for which they should be prosecuted.

So Holder's not only a liar, he's an incompetent. And most of the press

so far in the tank I'm surprised they could pipe in enough air.  Not just disgusting, but kind of amazing.
1. Send a letter to the Hill explaining what happened. Put in context the amount of information you get every week, say that you don’t recall reading those bullets or being aware of Fast and Furious at any time before early this year, but in any event, you certainly weren’t aware of the gun walking aspect of it until the news broke earlier this year (at which point you took immediate steps to have the IG investigate, etc.). This needs to happen tomorrow. In fact, it should’ve happened today. The last time your credibility was directly questioned was whether you had disclosed all of your amicus briefs — the story started to break on a Thursday night, and we made people stay up all night compiling information so we could get a response out by 1 pm or so on Friday.
Because telling the truth was never an option.

If I were you, I would want answers from the entire team (Cole, Reich, on down), on why the Department let Issa decide what to do with these memos. The whole point of the review is to find things like this and come up with plans for dealing with them. It should have been obvious that these memos were going to be a huge target, and instead of just handing them over, the Department should have put them out to reporters on its own terms, instead of letting Issa do it. Give them to lssa at the same time you give them to the press with an explanation that takes the air out of the balloon. And if the answer is we owe it to Issa to give him this stuff first — well, that’s obviously ridiculous.
Because following orders from Congress to turn the stuff over, well, are you kidding?

On the incompetence front,
[Attorney Gen. Holder email below said he doesn't usually bother to read briefings sent to him directly by his top advisers, including mentions of Fast and Furious long before he said he'd heard of the case.]
“Sigh. Can I see the 2 reports mentioned below- sure I didn’t read them. I rarely do. The February e-mail shows that was my first real F/F knowledge.”

p. 338
[Holder email addressing, specifically, the briefings sent to him by National Drug Intelligence Center adviser and Criminal Division chief]
“I generally don’t read those.”
So we're supposed to believe that something this major was happening, with multiple agencies involved, with violations of federal law, violation of an international border, and 'I never read that stuff'?  Really?  If false, they were working on their cover story; if true, he's an incompetent bastard.

Remember the various Democrats almost bragging that they hadn't read the Obamacare bill, "We don't have time for that, are you serious?" crap?  Looks like they got their inspiration from the top.