Thread: Are you "Furious".

The "Fast and Furious" debacle has been going on for a year now.

In short, the ATF went after several gun stores in Arizona saying that they were allowing "straw" purchases of guns that they knew were going across the border. The gun stores blew the whistle saying that yes they knew the guns were being purchased illegally, but were allowing the purchases because they were cooperating with the ATF program to track guns across the boarder.

Regardless of what the ATF's motives for this were, the fact is that they didn't track any of the guns as they were supposed to. Thousands of guns went across the boarder, hundreds of Mexicans were killed and a couple of the guns turned up at the murder scene of Brian Terry (a US boarder agent).

Several ATF Supervisors of this program have been _promoted_ out of the state. A House Panel has been trying to get the truth out of Eric Holder for many months. They want to know what he knew and when he knew it. Holder has been caught in several lies already and a letter from Holder's office about the project has been proven to be false. The committee has subpoenaed many documents and what little they have gotten has been redacted so heavily it makes the process a joke.

Now Obama is claiming Executive Privilege on the documents. This happened within minutes of a Contempt of Congress vote. Many lawyers have chimed in with opinions saying that Obama can't do this unless he is directly involved and Executive Privilege is not to be used to hide criminal activity. This has ignited a firestorm right across party lines.

Congress clearly has the power to ask these questions.

Do you think Fast and Furious was illegal or just ill conceived?

Is Obama hiding criminal behavior or just protecting national interest?

Should Holder go to jail for Contempt of Congress? This is the first time a Chief Justice has ever been accused of contempt.

I don't know enough about it, but luckily that won't stop me from voicing my ignorant opinion.

I don't think it was illegal, nor ill concieved. I think it was poorly executed.
I think Obama is protecting national interests.
Was Holder single handedly responsible for the entire operation, who just happened to be incompetent/overworked/understaffed/budget restricted,etc? Seems a bit simplistic to blame one man for an operation of this scale.

This isn't the first or last time the government has allowed illegal activities to happen in order to gain better insight into how to more effectively stop the acitivities. It's a very successful strategy, that I support. It's a shame they weren't able to devote the poper amount of resources or intellect in order to pull it off. But I'd say for this one big failure, there's probably about twenty+ success stories we'll never find out about.

Obama is protecting a friend. And abusing powers vested to him with such action. Both he and Holder are anti- Second Amendment, as given by their records and speeches. This was conceived as a way to con Americans into giving up their God-given Right to Bear Arms.

Holder should be held in Contempt. The President should be investigated for abuse of powers, and the ATF should be cleaned up from the top down.

First of all this operation was conceived and started during the Bush administration. The present administration actually stopped the operation once it became aware of it.

it's just one of many federal law Enforcement Operations over the years that are started out of good intentions but along the way something goes wrong.

The only difference here is the Republicans are using it for political purposes.

My understanding is the wacko right wing media is trying to turn this into some ridiculous secret plot by the present administration to take away peoples guns.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

First of all this operation was conceived and started during the Bush administration. The present administration actually stopped the operation once it became aware of it.

it's just one of many federal law Enforcement Operations over the years that are started out of good intentions but along the way something goes wrong.

The only difference here is the Republicans are using it for political purposes.

My understanding is the wacko right wing media is trying to turn this into some ridiculous secret plot by the present administration to take away peoples guns.

I'm going to have to see proof of the statement that this was started by Bush. The investigation has been going on for a year and the Bush connection was only reported by the media yesterday. The media has been trying desperately to ignore the whole thing. Until recently it was only covered by Fox. If it was really started by Bush, the rest of the media would have said so, a long time ago, and loudly.

If it was really a Bush operation, Holder wouldn't would have been trying so hard to deny the whole thing.

Do you think Fast and Furious was illegal or just ill conceived?

This has been a source of contention for me for quite some time. The farther we move away from fundamentals -> the more trouble we seemingly get into. Why would anybody sworn to uphold the law forgo a law in order to get a "bigger" fish? The concept is asinine to me.

It's the same in business. Why would anyone create a derivative of a derivative when the first derivative wasn't collateralized well in the first place?

It feels to me that we are creating band-aid solutions upon band-aid solutions. I am not a libertarian but sometimes i feel we move so far away from fundamentals that we end up getting what we deserve.

I understand derivatives are sexy and can make money but for whom? The public lost big time. I know getting the big guys running guns is important but that effort saw one of our own killed and countless foreign nationals.


Was it "illegal?" No I don't think so - but it should have been. Was it "ill conceived?" You bet!

Originally Posted by earcutter

Was it "illegal?" No I don't think so - but it should have been. Was it "ill conceived?" You bet!

Allowing illegal purchases of guns was legal? Allowing people to carry illegal guns to Mexico was legal?

Even if the first two were legal, lying about it to Congress was certainly illegal and they have Holder dead to rights on this one.

Originally Posted by Crotalus

Allowing illegal purchases of guns was legal? Allowing people to carry illegal guns to Mexico was legal?

Even if the first two were legal, lying about it to Congress was certainly illegal and they have Holder dead to rights on this one.

Don't get me wrong! I agree with you 1000%!!! And on all counts! As I said, it should be illegal but some people, or rather agencies are given a certain amount of immunity to "lesser laws" in order to "create a bigger good."

I don't like it - > and hence my "back to fundamentals" comment. But that's the power the American public has entrusted to some agencies is all! I would be Pissed!

Here here to "crotalus". For Obama to invoke executive privilege on this, this F&F operation must lead straight to the Oval Office. Throughout his entire administration, his conduct is approaching darn near criminal. This is nothing more than the left's attempt to in act more draconian anti-2nd Amendment measures and what is the result of it.

Deaths on both sides of the border, Mexican civilians and the death of BP agent Brian Terry. Where the hell is justice for Mr. Terry and his family?

This operation may have begun in the latter days of the Bush Administration but it was escalated under the Obama Administration. Orchestrated by Eric Holder and the UnJustice Department under direct order of Obama.

It's funny how the winds on all these rant threads tend to blow from the starboard...