On Whistle-Blowers

I guess that they're only heroic when the implicate (and/or make trouble for) Republicans.

Facts Pertaining to Fast and Furious

1) Not only did the ATF allow guns to be sold to straw purchasers, they totally encouraged it. And we know this because of the emails that were sent by concerned gun dealers to ATF supervisor, David Voth, his reassuring responses to these emails, and the fact that the ATF even went as far at to VIDEOTAPE THESE PURCHASES.............2) Katherine Eban, the woman who wrote this now infamous Fortune Magazine piece, is a Democrat, a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer, a frequent contributor to progressive magazines, and a regular spinner for Mr. Obama on MSNBC.............3) The ATF has admitted that they engaged in gun-walking and the acting director had to resign because of it.............4) There have been MANY whistle-blowers who've spoken out on Fast and Furious. Mr. Dodson just happens to be the only one who has decided to take it public.............5) Thousands of guns go to Mexico via the State department every year through legal sales.............6) Only 20-36% (depending on the study) of all guns in Mexico can be ever traced back to the United States, not the "over 90%" figure that the Obama administration has cited. Most of the guns in Mexico in fact are purchased via the black market from Russia, China, South America, and from Mexican soldiers who've defected.............7) Eban lied about the ATF not having the capacity to track guns. Ten million dollars from the stimulus package alone was available and Eban even went as far as to debunk herself. She said that the ATF didn't have a data base for tracking these weapons and a couple of pages later claimed that the ATF had tracked the weapons in the Terry killing back to Fast and Furious (duh!).............8) Fast and Furious is the name that the ATF itself came up with. Sharyl Attkisson from CBS News, Darrell Issa, and conservative bloggers had absolutely nothing to do with naming it.............9) Eban claims to have interviewed some 40 people, but in the text of her "story" she quotes only one retired IRS agent and Voth.............10) Eban goes out of her way to smear the whistle-blowers and resurrect Voth.............11) There was no attempt by ATF to interdict the sold weapons. None.............12) Emails from Mr. Voth show that the ATF and DOJ both had full knowledge of what was going on in Phoenix.............13) The reason that there was "no evidence" was because the ATF refused to put the straw buyers under surveillance, didn't use tracking devices on the guns, and kept the Mexican authorities completely in the dark.............14) ATF agents in Mexico repeatedly asked the people in Phoenix to stop the program because of the bloodshed and the fact that the cartels were snapping up so may of the weapons.............15) According to CBS News's investigation, the approval for Operation Fast and Furious went all the way up to the Justice Department.............16) The rationale for Fast and Furious (again, according to CBS News) was basically to see where the guns showed up, make a strong case, and then attempt to take down a major cartel (not, as the Republicans have paranoiacally hypothesized, to strengthen gun laws).............17) Eban claims that it was Dodson who allowed the guns walk (this after she says that there wasn't any gun-walking). The fellow was fingering himself, apparently.............18) If is wasn't for whistle-blowers like Dodson, we would have never found out about Fast and Furious and it would probably still be in effect.............19) Chairman Issa claims that there are wire-taps which implicate the DOJ and Attorney General Holder specifically. Maybe he's bluffing, but maybe he isn't.

On Republicans from the Past and Whether They Would be Accepted by Today's Republican Party

1) Dwight Eisenhower - no.......2) Jerry Ford - no.......3) Howard Baker - no.......4) Lowell Weicker - hell no!......5) Ed Brooke - no.......6) Jacob Javits - no.......7) Stewart McKinney - no.......8) Nelson Rockefeller - no.......9) Richard Schweiker - no.......10) Alan Simpson - no.......11) John Heinz - no.......12) William Cohen - no.......13) Jim Jeffords - no.......14) Warren Rudman - no.......15) William Weld - no.......16) Margaret Chase Smith - no.......17) Nancy Kassebaum - no.......18) John Danforth - no.......19) John Anderson - no.......20) Millicent Fenwick - no.......21) Harold Stassen - no.......22) Wendell Willkie - no.......23) Thomas Kean - no.......24) Fiorello La Guardia - no.......25) Jim Leach - no.......26) Mark Hatfield - no.......27) John Chaffee - no.......28) Bob Packwood - no (and, no, not because of his groping of women).......29) Christie Todd Whitman - no.......30) Chuck Percy - no.......31) Chuck Hagel - no.......32) George H.W. Bush - no.......33) Tom Ridge - no.......34) John Lindsay - no.......35) Ronald Reagan - maybe.......36) Bob Dole - maybe not.......37) Barry Goldwater - no (a liberal on social issues, he would have been driven to the libertarian side).

And the Moral of the Story ISSSSSSSSS.........

Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be Presidents who appoint their bestest buddies to be Attorneys General....or cowboys....or douche-bags.

On the Odds of Former Florida Congressman, Alan Grayson, Ever Being Elected President of the United States

They're about the same as a transvestite orangutan parachuting out of the sky with the winning lottery ticket, a 6-pack of Bud Light, the secret formula for Coca Cola, and key information as to the whereabouts of Amelia Earhart.

To All of Those Who Said that the Muslim Brotherhood Would Never Come to Power in Egypt

What say you now?

Note to Rachel Maddow 3

I think that you may have totally jumped the shark on this one, dude; trying to blame Operation Fast and Furious on the Bush administration. I mean, come on, man! Anybody who even knows a little about this story knows that it was hatched solely by the Obama administration (or at least by the ATF during his tenure) and that, while, yes, there may have been a similar program during the Bush years, the two plans weren't even remotely identical...................................................................................................a) Operation Wide Receiver (the Bush initiative) wasn't even a quarter the size of Fast and Furious. b) Operation Wide Receiver wasn't even a gun-walking policy (a policy that had NEVER once been utilized prior to Obama). It was a controlled delivery policy (a plan in which the ATF attempted to keep track of each and every weapon)  in which a lot of the guns had radio tracking devices and in which few of them ever made it all the way to Mexico. c) Operation Wide Receiver was conducted with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Mexican government. Operation Fast and Furious, not so much. d) Operation Wide Receiver was shut down the very first instant that any of the guns fell off the grid. Operation Fast and Furious was only shut down when two of the guns showed up at the murder scene of Brian Terry. And e) the body count. Far more Mexican citizens have been annihilated by Fast and Furious (between 200 and 300 it is estimated)......................................................................................................I mean, I know that you're a hard-core partisan Democrat and all but you're really starting to act a lot like Hannity lately. Please, dude, knock it off.