Ref Project Gunwalker, one hell of an admission

LA Times confirms guns used in the gunfight where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed came from sales being 'monitored' by ATF.

From Hardy: The spin is now -- this happened because we didn't have enough resources to do more. In other words, "give us more money and we won't ____ up again."
Yeah. Because it was lack of money that was behind this. Sure.

More from Codrea:

[A] former ATF agent told FoxNews.com on condition of anonymity that ATF Headquarters allowed guns to cross the border, for the reason that ATF wanted to glean more intelligence about who would come to possess the guns and what regions of the country they would end up in.

Naturally, ATF spokesmen are dismissing allegations that guns were intentionally allowed to go across the border. I have come to understand they aren’t supposed to do that with large quantities of firearms the same way they might with a small quantity of drugs. Too many things could go wrong.
Gee, ya think maybe?
Also,
A source who has been providing information that has consistently panned out in the ongoing “Project Gunwalker” investigation is claiming that Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, Lanny Breuer, was party to the decision to overrule the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive’s representative to Mexico. Former attaché Darren Gil reportedly advocated informing the Mexican government of gun monitoring operations that resulted in “Project Gunwalker” allegations, and has since resigned his post, one sources say is now to be filled by current ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge William Newell.

Mike Vanderboegh at Sipsey Streeet Irregulars has posted a detailed background on Breuer along with his analysis of this latest allegation. Might this new allegation help explain why whistleblowers would want to avoid normal Department of Justice channels and seek Congressional protections?

If you want to go through all the Examiner pieces on this, go here.


From Sipsey Street,
Jeff Knox laid it out this way:

"There are actually four separate but connected accusations against ATF officials:

First, that they intentionally arranged to have hundreds of firearms "walked" across the U.S. border into Mexico.

Second, that they instructed U.S. gun dealers to proceed with questionable and illegal sales of firearms to suspected gunrunners.

Third, that they intentionally withheld information about U.S.-sanctioned gun smuggling from the Mexican government.

Fourth, that one of the guns ATF allowed or helped to be smuggled into Mexico was involved in the death of Agent Terry."

I would a fifth: that ATF, FBI, DHS and DOJ officials are covering up the true circumstances of Project Gunwalker, the decision not to inform the Mexicans, and the death of Brian Terry by threatening whistleblowers and others to remain silent "or else."
I'd suggest scrolling down from the top at Sipsey Street; lots of links and information, and on page 2(currently) is his take on the involvement of Breuer.

Another 'Why are anti-gun activists so violent'

situation is pointed to.

Note this part:
This time last year I had a gun, and a silencer, and a plan.
Now, I have to wonder: did Mr. Holthouse buy the gun legally? Did he fill out the paperwork and get his Federal license for the silencer and pay the transfer tax?

If he did, is BATFE investigating this murder plan? If not, is anyone going to investigate and find out if he still has the silencer stashed away somewhere. For that matter, if he didn't, he's admitting that all the gun-control laws he's so in favor of didn't do squat to prevent him from illegally obtaining a silencer for the purpose of committing murder. But he thinks there oughta be a law banning you from having a standard-or higher-capacity magazine.

In North Carolina sits a clown named Kevin Lacy,

their DOT's State Traffic Engineer. Who should be removed from that position and kicked out the door for this crap.
The N.C. Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors, a professional licensing agency, is investigating an allegation in December against David N. Cox by Kevin Lacy, the Department of Transportation's state traffic engineer.

Lacy said an eight-page traffic analysis submitted by Cox on behalf of a North Raleigh neighborhood group appeared to contain "engineering-level work" done by someone not licensed as an engineer.

Cox and the North Raleigh Coalition of Homeowners' Associations offered the study in a failed effort to win state approval for new traffic signals at two intersections on Falls of Neuse Road. The city of Raleigh will start work this spring to widen a 1.3-mile stretch of Falls of Neuse.
"Be involved in your government! But if we don't like what you say or how you say it, we'll screw you over."


"Screw the rules, let's take care of him." In all the best ways.



David Cameron has criticised "state multiculturalism" in his first speech as prime minister on radicalisation and the causes of terrorism.

At a security conference in Germany, he argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism.
Used to be that if you immigrated to a country you learned the language and obeyed the laws and became a citizen of that country; then MC became the thing and Britain(and us, and Europe) is paying the price. And, of course, the usual suspects are screaming "How dare you!" Including wityh this bit of bullshit:
Luton Labour MEP Richard Howitt, a keynote speaker at the counter-rally to the EDL demo in Luton, added: "The attack on multiculturalism surrenders to the far-right ideology that moderate and fundamentalist ideas cannot be distinguished from each other, and actually undermines respect and co-operation between peoples of different faith.
Dumbass, we can- and could- distinguish between those things; you did not want people to be allowed to do so, because it would hurt what you were trying to do. So you have sections of major cities where non-muslims can't safely go, and the police won't go unless in teams, and British laws aren't enforced if it might upset the muslims running the areas. And idiots like you want to make it even worse.



It was reported that Alternet, Soros’ Media Matters, and other progressives staged a conference call this afternoon where they mapped strategy to defend Planned Parenthood from the choices Planned Parenthood staffers made on tape.
...
The majority of the call was spent discussing ways to discredit Rose because of her funding. They surmise that some group which donates to her pro-life magazine is a group donated to by a group given money by the Koch Brothers. So says people who just cashed a $1 million-dollar check from George Soros.

For the sake of argument, assuming that the Koch Brothers (I had to Google them to see exactly what it is they do and how their name isn’t pronounced like the sobriquet for phallus but rather, the soda) were as ubiquitous in activism as George Soros is publicly, the greatest irony has befallen our senior fellows who hate big business and personal wealth so much: they are willing pawns in a battle between frillionaires. This alone virtually precludes any other potential criticism of their actions. George Soros is the only billionaire allowed. See, they hate personal wealth when it isn’t made out in $1 million dollar increments to their organizations.




I have to admit, might've been me as a kid


And more of Nanny Bloomberg's 'Do As I Say, Not As I Do' crap:
When Mayor Bloomberg came into office there was just one executive cook at Gracie Mansion to make the VIP feasts.

Today there are three - costing taxpayers a whopping $245,000 this year.

And despite the big spending cuts the mayor has ordered across every city agency, too many cooks won't be spoiling the broth at the city-owned mansion.



And that's all I've got time for right now. It's sunny, it's up to 24- almost yesterdays high- and have to run out for some stuff.

Well, it has seemed Obama wanted to screw over every ally we had;

this just kind of makes it blatantly official.
Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week.

Defence analysts claim the agreement risks undermining Britain’s policy of refusing to confirm the exact size of its nuclear arsenal.

The fact that the Americans used British nuclear secrets as a bargaining chip also sheds new light on the so-called “special relationship”, which is shown often to be a one-sided affair by US diplomatic communications obtained by the WikiLeaks website.

Details of the behind-the-scenes talks are contained in more than 1,400 US embassy cables published to date by the Telegraph, including almost 800 sent from the London Embassy, which are published online today.
...
Although the treaty was not supposed to have any impact on Britain, the leaked cables show that Russia used the talks to demand more information about the UK’s Trident missiles, which are manufactured and maintained in the US.

Washington lobbied London in 2009 for permission to supply Moscow with detailed data about the performance of UK missiles. The UK refused, but the US agreed to hand over the serial numbers of Trident missiles it transfers to Britain.
Screw over allies on missile defense to make Putin happy, now this is in the open; no telling what all else Obama & Co. have done to polish up the commies.

To the moron in the Lincoln Navigator

'Starting to move' does not mean 'hit the gas!' when you're driving on packed snow. And until you figure that out, you're going to stay in that spot.

It should be noted

it's bloody snowing again.

Mike Vanderboegh’s Gunwalker Letter to Mexican Consul General

about Project Gunwalker; read it. I'm going to borrow two sections: first, from one of the shops involved,

"Let me tell you something about Carter's Country. They have been co-operating with ATF from the get go," says attorney Dick Deguerin who represents Carter's Country owner, Bill Carter.

Deguerin says the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms asked Carter's Country to complete transactions, even when sales people strongly suspected the weapons were headed to Mexican drug gangs.

"They were told to go through with what they considered to be questionable sales. They were told to go through with sales of three or more assault rifles at the same time or five or more 9 millimeter guns at the same time or a young Hispanic male paying in cash. It's all profiling, but they went through with it," said Deguerin.

The second, which ought to have the Mexican government screaming bloody murder(if they weren't already),
You should know that one ATF employee, Darren Gil, the ATF attache in Mexico City, tried to do the right thing. Though he was kept out of the "intelligence loop" by Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix, Arizona office, William D. "Bill" Newell, my understanding from other ATF agents who have now been contacted by Senator Grassley's office, is that Mr. Gil, when he learned by informal communication channels that this was happening, clashed with SAC Newell over whether your government should be notified. Newell insisted that there would be no notification of the appropriate Mexican authorities. Mr. Gil, I am told, did not take the word of a mere SAC when such an action involved possible violations of treaty and formal understandings between our two governments, contacted his superiors in Washington, D.C. In a meeting that I am told included the Deputy Attorney General, Deputy Director Melson of ATF and various subordinates, it was decided to keep the government of Mexico in the dark. Mr. Gil, in return for his honest attempt to prevent an effusion of blood as well as an international incident, was forced into retirement and did so on 31 December of last year. Here, in words of an experienced ATF street agent, is what I was told on 17 December 2010:

"Darren Gil, former attache to Mexico is an honest and honorable guy. He was forcefully removed from Mexico without warning in November in large part because he wouldn't sit silent on these matters. He will tell the truth if asked by competent authority. He retired Dec 31 because of all this."

And who is replacing Gil? Why, Newell, who was right in the middle of the mess, of course. Which, with information about what happened coming out, is either arrogance of a really amazing level, or some of that stupid Ebenezar spoke of.

And, just to add to the pressure, the family of BPA Terry is looking to sue the feds over their actions. You just know that there are a bunch of people with knowledge of the ins & outs of the BATFE project having stress-induced cases of the runs at the idea of being subpoenaed in this mess, by Congress or by the lawyers for the family. Not to mention the people at Justice(most misnamed in the case of these bastards) who were/are directly involved.

Words of wisdom from Ebenezar

"He's Black Council,", I said.

"Or maybe stupid," Ebenezar countered.

I thought about it. "Not sure which is scarier."

Ebenezar blinked at me, then snorted. "Stupid, Hoss. Every time. Only so many blackhearted villains in the world, and they only get uppity on occasion. Stupid's everywhere, every day."

From Changes

Further idiocy from Scotland:

"We have a new law you must observe. But we won't tell you how to obey it."

First, this being a crime

is pretty damn silly.

Second, you leftist jackass, 'muslim' is not a race.

*Rrriiiiinnnnggg, rrriiiinnnngg,**

'Hello?'

'Hi honey. This is Daddy, is Mommy near the phone?'**

'No, Daddy. She's upstairs in the bedroom with Uncle Paul.'

Brief pause

'But honey, you haven't got an Uncle Paul.'

"Oh yes I do, and he's upstairs in the room with Mommy, right now'

Brief pause.

'Uh, okay then, this is what I want you to do. Put the phone down on the table, run
upstairs and knock on the bedroom door and shout to Mommy that Daddy's car just pulled into the driveway.'

'Okay, Daddy, Just a minute.'

A few minutes later the little girl comes back to the phone.
'I did it, Daddy.'

'And what happened, honey?'

'Well, Mommy got all scared, jumped out of bed with no clothes on and ran around screaming.
Then she tripped over the rug, hit her head on the dresser and now she isn't moving at all!'

'Oh my God!!! What about your Uncle Paul?'

'He jumped out of the bed with no clothes on, too. He was all scared and he jumped out of the back window and into the swimming pool. But I guess he didn't know that you took out the
water last week to clean it. He hit the bottom of the pool and I think he's dead.'

Long Pause

'Swimming pool? ........... Is this 486-5731?'

'No, I think you have the wrong number........

Starting with local stuff, last night the town of Grove

in northeast OK hit 13 below, and it's currently -9. Which just flat sucks. Here it's a whole +7.

National stuff, hmmm... GE, that used to be run by one of Obama's appointees, gets big benefit from an exemption to new EPA rules. Yeah, Hope and Change, folks.


Insty says Canada needs a serious free speech movement; it also needs a bunch of Human Rights Tribunal clowns to be introduced to tar and feathers.


This will get even more interesting:
The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater drilling after the Gulf oil spill held the Interior Department in contempt Wednesday, and ordered the federal agency to pay attorneys' fees for several offshore oil companies.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman chided the department for its "dismissive conduct" after he overturned the agency's decision to halt any new permits for deepwater projects and suspend drilling on 33 exploratory wells after the Deepwater Horizon blast, which killed 11 workers and triggered the massive spill.

After Feldman overturned the government's moratorium in June, the agency issued a second nearly identical suspension.

"Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government's contempt of this court's preliminary injunction order," he wrote.


Colonel Dinnalsyn would love this:
the pic and the weapon both(pic courtesy Theo)


When the media and Democrats
A: Give this as much coverage as they have lies about the tea party and
B: Condemn these people and their words as loudly and openly as they bitch about conservatives,
THEN I'll consider that they actually mean they want to take the nastiness out of political arguments.


Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack doesn't care if your engine is trashed, as long as he's giving subsidies to a 'green' industry:
The existing 10% ethanol-blend gas has problems, but the good folk at Popular Mechanics are concerned about what happens when a few drops of water get into the fuel tank when E15 is used:

How does water get into the fuel tank? It’s possible that water dripped into the tank at the gas station or ­refueling depot, or a stray raindrop or snowflake made its way into your tank or jerrycan, but most water infiltration is from condensation. As the temperature in a tank changes, air has to be vented in and out or the tank will bulge or split. Incoming air carries moisture. When the H2O in the gas gets above a critical percentage—its saturation point—all of the water and alcohol drops out and settles into the bottom of the tank. This is what chemists call phase separation; the various components of the fuel are no longer a homogeneous mixture.

Water in your fuel is bad and more ethanol in fuel can make this a real problem, especially for drivers in regions that experience large temperature variations – but that’s not the only issue with E15. Heat is a problem too. Ethanol burns hotter than regular gas and that’s bad news for your expensive catalytic converter:

General Motors biofuel implementation manager C. Coleman Jones said that the increased ethanol levels caused problems in at least half of the engines tested. E15 made engines run hot, compromised catalytic converters and even damaged cylinder walls. Jones added that E15 could leave motorists stranded on the roadside.

The new EPA-approved gas blend is bad for cars of a certain age, but that is just the beginning of a list of problems with ethanol:



Bishnu Shrestha, the Gurkha with the big knife and testicles, is being decorated. And rightly so.


The DBD comment on Valerie Jarrett:


Ref the Obamacare ruling the other day, sweet words:
Vinson brought down the whole house of cards when he found that a) the coercive "individual mandate" that would have required every citizen to purchase health insurance was unconstitutional and b) that without the mandate, as the administration itself argued, the law would be unworkable.

"Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void," he wrote.


The People's Republic of MA: Live Free or There indeed.


I'm now going to let the Security Staff out to defile the snow some more, and get the end of the driveway cleared. Hopefully, I'll be back.

Ref the 45th ID patch

Yesterday I sent to the 45th ID museum and asked if they'd heard anything about such a change occurring; this morning they advised have heard of no such thing. So hopefully the troop who said this was passing on nothing more than a rumor.

Oh HELL yeah!

From WotC, and I hope Kaylee smiles at him for this

Project Gunwalker is hitting the big time

Fox is reporting on it.

From this, Holder is in it up to his ears. And plans to stonewall and argue and probably declare he and ATF are somehow protected from being called before Congress on this.

Actually, if you've got time, go to Sipsey Street and just start working your way down; lots and lots of posts and links on this mess.

The Democrats may be trying to tack McCarthy's magazine ban

bill onto a FAA appropriations bill. MAY be; nobody is sure.

Since I mentioned the Security Staff earlier,

In the front yard
and using the driveway for a playground
"It's MY birdseed! Back off!"

And that hat & shemagh combo
Only problem with it for me is that if I cover my nose I wind up with the glasses fogging.

It's gotten all the way up to 15. It's kind of amazing, at this temp, how much melting you can get on the driveway when you combine residual heat from the warm days with sun being able to hit the concrete. Sublimation as well. Which is why I wanted to get as much cleared as I could, so this would clear the rest.

Really cold temps and really high winds

do not play well with windmills.

From a link in the comments,

Eric Sharp, another "I'm a gun owner

BUT-" clown.

Among the reasons I'm so glad some of my ancestors

got the hell out of Britain:
A SENIOR police officer has warned of the potential difficulties and costs of introducing licensing for air weapons in Scotland.
There are an estimated 500,000 air guns in the country, and all, except for the most dangerous, are unregulated.

Tom Ewing, the temporary Assistant Chief Constable for Fife Police, said any move by the Scottish Parliament to licence such weapons would have a "definitive impact" on police resources.
Not 'this is a bad idea', not 'this won't stop criminals', just "Hey, you'll make it difficult for us if you pass this!"