Guns Given to Drug Cartels Enough to Arm a Marine Regiment

This is not necessarily a new development so much as it is an entirely new perspective when it comes to the number of guns that our Justice Department placed into the hands of drug cartels. We hear that more than 2000 weapons were allowed to 'walk' into Mexico after being purchased by straw purchasers. At this point, that is not speculation; it is fact. To put that in context, however, imagine arming an entire Marine regiment. That's what was done with Operation Fast and Furious with one tiny exception. Instead of arming a Marine regiment, the DOJ armed the Sinaloa cartel.

Katie Pavlich has an excellent piece on this at Townhall but first, take a look at this excerpt from the Declaration of Independence:

He (King George) has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

As you read Pavlich's piece, keep that in mind but insert 'merciless Drug Cartels' where 'merciless Indian Savages' was written in 1776:

“These guns went to ruthless criminals,” Carlos Canino, ATF Acting Attaché to Mexico said in testimony on Capitol Hill Tuesday regarding the scandal-plagued Operation Fast and Furious. “It’s alleged that over 2,000 guns were trafficked in this investigation. To put that in context, upon information and belief, the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment has approximately 2,500 rangers. That means that as a result of this investigation, the Sinaloa cartel may have received almost as many guns that are needed to arm the entire regiment. Out of these 2,000 weapons, 34 were .50-caliber sniper rifles. That is approximately the number of sniper riles a Marine infantry regiment takes into battle.”

The Department of Justice proposed a southwest border strategy in October 2009 to combat Mexican cartels, with final plans for the operation now known as Operation Fast and Furious coming in January 2010. The new “strategy” included multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Agency, ICE, the IRS and the FBI. This operation entailed ATF agents watching straw purchasers buy hundreds of high-powered weapons and allowed them to go back or “walk” into Mexico, with a goal of “tracing” them back to cartel leaders. As Americans learned in the second hearing about this operation on June 15, guns were lost, not traced, and now a cover-up has begun.

“The Acting Director of the ATF, in a transcribed interview with investigators, has said that the Justice Department is trying to push all of this away from its political appointees. That is not the response this committee, Congress and the public, should expect from the ‘most transparent administration in history,’” Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said during opening statements. “To date, President Obama has been keen to talk about who didn’t know about the program and who didn’t authorize it. These answers will not suffice. The American people have a right to know, once and for all, who did authorize it and who knew about it.”

The motive behind this Operation continues to befuddle everyone who thinks it was a stupid idea. To this day, the ATF agents who blew the whistle are at a complete loss when it comes to trying to make sense of it. When a nation's most powerful agencies and departments intentionally place guns in the hands of those who would do us harm, the only thing that makes sense is the unthinkable.

Read it all.

Video: Alan Colmes Debates Robert Spencer about Norway Shooter

With one exception in this exchange, talk show host Alan Colmes was way out of his league with Robert Spencer when it came to the debate about Anders Behring Breivik's manifesto quoting Spencer 64 times. Spencer is simply too much of an expert in the area of Islam. He had his facts ready to go at practically every turn. You know you've gotten the better of Colmes when you get him to move on to another question and Spencer did that quite a bit. The one time he didn't was when Colmes asked him if he agreed with a quote from Pamela Geller about Obama being born in Kenya and how he converted to Islam while in Pakistan. Spencer did avoid answering that one.

However, perhaps the best answer he gave was when Colmes challenged him on the Ground Zero mosque being a 'victory mosque.' Spencer immediately brought up the Dome of the Rock, which was built on the site of the Jewish Temple. Shortly thereafter, Colmes moved on.

On a scale of 1 to 10, Spencer gets a 9.5.

Via MediaIte:

Did Former ATF SAC Implicate White House in Fast and Furious?

In the latest round of House Oversight Committee hearings into Project Gunrunner's Fast and Furious operation, the testimony of former Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Phoenix Field Division, William Newell definitely won the 'train wreck' award. The premise that he answered honestly is beyond laughable. In fact, one of the Committee members became so frustrated that he made a three Stooges reference and said he felt like he was looking for Larry. Even if you accept the premise that Newell was telling the truth, that means he is so unbelievably incompetent that he had no business being a SAC.

As compelling as it was to watch Newell try to spin out of the corner he was boxed into, there was actually something bigger to come out of the hearing. It had to do with e-mails sent by Newell that Committee Chair Darrell Issa had in his possession. Those e-mails went directly to the White House.

Via CBS News:

At a lengthy hearing on ATF's controversial gunwalking operation today, a key ATF manager told Congress he discussed the case with a White House National Security staffer as early as September 2010. The communications were between ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix office, Bill Newell, and White House National Security Director for North America Kevin O'Reilly. Newell said the two are longtime friends. The content of what Newell shared with O'Reilly is unclear and wasn't fully explored at the hearing.

It's the first time anyone has publicly stated that a White House official had any familiarity with ATF's operation Fast and Furious, which allowed thousands of weapons to fall into the hands of suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels in an attempt to gain intelligence. It's unknown as to whether O'Reilly shared information with anybody else at the White House.

Congressional investigators obtained an email from Newell to O'Reilly in September of last year in which Newell began with the words: "you didn't get this from me."

You didn't get this from me but Newell may have unwittingly implicated the Obama administration in a scandal that involves the murder of two federal agents and countless numbers of Mexican civilians.

The levee is squeaking.

Read it all.