Republican ‘Sons-A-Bitches’ Going Soft On Gunwalking, Says Blogger Mike Vanderboegh Who Broke ‘Fast & Furious’ Scandal...
Hair on Fire Listen ti Mike's interview on my radio show from March 2011...
Guest: Mike Vanderboegh Of the Sipsey Street Irregulars about this criminal action by ATF and the Obama Administration. Do you know about the Project Gunrunner.... more
EXCERPT FROM INTERVIEWSource
The former militia man turned gun rights blogger is angry because he thinks the Republican “sons-a-bitches” on the House Oversight Committee put on the “ultimate display of public limp dickery” during a Thursday hearing in which Attorney General Eric Holder testified about ATF’s botched Operation Fast and Furious.It was Vanderboegh who in late 2010, following the death of border patrol agent Brian Terry, published the first hint that the federal government told gun dealers to sell semi-automatic weapons to suspected “straw purchasers” they believed were buying them for drug cartels.
Donations from readers of his Sipsey Street Irregulars blog helped him fly out to Washington, D.C. this week for the hearing. Sporting a homemade press pass in a badge holder branded with an NRA logo, Vanderboegh watched from behind the press table as Republicans grilled Holder about what he knew when about the flawed operation in which agents lost track of about 2,000 weapons, many of which have been found at crime scenes in Mexico.
Vanderboegh wasn’t impressed.
“You know what the Republicans just did? They sold out every mother’s son who put their life and career on the line to try to bring this truth out,” Vanderboegh told TPM. “Another display like this and people will forget the whole thing.”
So why did Republicans, at least as far as Vanderboegh is concerned, back off? He suggested it could be as simple as the FBI blackmailing the speaker of the House.
“I submit to you that it is entirely possible that the fix is in,” Vanderboegh told TPM. “It could be as simple as a picture of something like John Boehner with a sheep, you know. Because they’ve done that before. The FBI blackmails people routinely. They always have.”
Few who witnessed Thursday’s four-hour hearing would accuse Republicans of going soft. Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY) asked Holder “how many more Border Patrol agents would have had to die” for him to take responsibility. It was a question Holder said was “beneath” a member of Congress. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) narrated a PowerPoint slideshow of decade-old Holder quotes on President BIll Clinton’s controversial pardoning of Marc Rich and questioned his record of being truthful to Congress, a display which Holder said was “among the worst things” he’d ever seen on the Hill. Rep. Mark Walberg (R-MI) compared Holder’s handling of Fast and Furious to the way late football legend Joe Paterno handled the Penn State sexual abuse scandal.
But Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) did ease up a bit on the his previous rhetoric about Holder’s roll in Fast and Furious, saying he “never accused [Holder] of having personal knowledge” of the “gunwalking” tactics used during the operation, instead focusing his energies on why the DOJ wouldn’t turn over certain categories of documents the Justice Department maintains were privileged.
It’s not entirely clear where the investigation goes from here. Both sides have taken predicable positions: A Republican report blamed officials at DOJ headquarters while a Democratic reportsaid the local ATF and U.S. Attorney’s office were at fault. As for solutions, Republicans are calling for officials, including Holder, to resign or be fired, Democrats are pointing out that there’s not even a law that specifically bans gun trafficking. More
