FORTUNE Magazine Questions GOP Fast and Furious Narrative

I was going to flip a coin to decide whether or not to write about the Supreme Court RATS – an acronym a progressive blogger from Daily Kos invented for the veritable barbershop quartet Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia have become since the four of them almost always singing in harmony – until I read this account of Fast and Furious by FORTUNE magazine writer Katherine Eban, who reviewed over 200 documents and interviewed 39 people involved in the botched ATF operation.

Ordinarily, I would see this as another one of those tit-for-tat efforts that was meant to take the sting out of the assertions of Justice Department malfeasance. Since the House Oversight Committee and Congressional Republicans have all but convicted Holder and the Obama Administration of wrongdoing, even though they, by their own admission, have not seen all of the evidence, many on the left have been trying desperately to bring some sense of proportion to the charges being leveled against the attorney general and the president.

Quite simply, there's a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn.


Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies. Fortune reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct knowledge of the case. Several, including Voth, are speaking out for the first time.

The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal

FORTUNE Magazine Questions GOP Fast and Furious Narrative | Resurgence | Big Think

Senator Cornyn, Eric Holder Is Not Your Nigger

 I have had enough of all these holier than thou cracker-ass cracker Republicans who think the Attorney General of the motherfucking United States of America has nothing better to do than come to Congress every week like he has been summoned to the motherfucking principal’s office for another round of in-school suspension.

Eric Holder is not your nigger.

Three years of this professional level of assholery from you and the rest of the right wing crackheads who call themselves Senator and Congresscritter has damned the future of your grandchildren, Senator Cornyn, but you and the rest of the “send the nigger lawyer packing by any means necessary” peanut gallery you pal around with can’t see that.

Eric Holder is not your nigger.

He is not going to play the role of the servile coon you and your ilk fantasize about, not going to bow or scrape or say “yassa Boss”, and he damn sure isn’t going to smile in your face and tell you what you want to hear. This man has testified NINE MOTHERFUCKING TIMES ON THE SAME MOTHERFUCKING TOPIC and you chump change, "wish this were Whitewater" motherfuckers want to act like Holder is holding out on you?

Eric Holder is not your nigger.

He is a grown ass man who has probably forgotten more shit than you and the top five members of your staff combined can remember, but you wouldn’t know that, because you can’t believe that even now black people who rise to the top in America have to know their shit backwards and forwards. Unfortunately for you, the shit he knows backwards and forwards is the law of the land, the same one you have to obey like everybody else. So what is this about, really? Because from where I sit, and white folks with good sense sit, and every Latino in the country who is not motherfucking Cuban sits, this looks like you can't make the president do what you want, so you will abuse your subpoena authority with the next ranking black man in the Obama administration.

Eric Holder is not your nigger.

If a bomb were to drop on the headquarters of the RNC and the bubonic plague devoured you and all your wrong wing GOP Know Nothings in the Senate and the House tomorrow it would be too late, because you and your ilk have fucked your grandchildren and your great grandchildren’s futures as surely as if you and your co conspirators were all named Jerry Sandusky.

How dare you and your compatriots paralyze our nation in the name of political retribution and then proclaim that you are the only ones who are equipped to save the republic? The entire country is going to pay for these last three years of Republican obstructionism OF EVEN NORMAL EVERYDAY GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS for decades to come. Eric Holder is the nation’s top cop. He has more important things to do than come down to Congress every month to indulge your white supremacy fetish.

If you don’t get anything else from this missive, Senator Cornyn, or whichever member of your lily-livered staff reads this, all you need to remember is one motherfucking fact - Eric Holder is not your nigger.

 

Sean Yoes And Kris Broughton Talk Politics Tonight At 8 On WEAA

I will be on the radio tonight at 8:00 pm EST with Sean Yoes, senior reporter at The Afro American, sharing my opinions on the unofficial kickoff of the presidential election season. Yoes is the host of "The WEAA/AFRO First Edition", an hour-long political talk show on Baltimore's NPR affiliate WEAA-FM (88.9 FM), which airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m.

Normally, I can give a preview of the conversation when I post these announcements, but today is going to be potluck - Sean and I talked so fast about so many things it is hard to remember where one topic began and another ended. We started out talking about the recall election in Wisconsin and how much impact the victory by Scott Walker and his Republican allies might have on the presidential election and the conversation developed from there.

In any case, it will be an entertaining half an hour.

You can click this link and push the "Listen Live" button at the top of the page to hear the show.

Enjoy!

Sean Yoes And Kris Broughton Talk Politics Tonight At 8 On WEAA | Resurgence | Big Think

Will President Obama Go Hard In The Paint Until November?

 

Mr. President, yesterday I told WEAA radio host Sean Yoes that I would write you an open letter challenging you to cut a re-election promo where you look directly into the camera say “I go hard in the paint.”

I know this may sound like an unseemingly request, Mr. President, but you do special promotional ads for Latino voters, don’t you? If you’re still skeptical, maybe you should consider the viral effect of such a statement. Think about it – the reality is, more people watch ESPN than CNN.

Mr. President, many of your loyal supporters out here in the public are feeling neglected. We read the papers. We know you have a lot on your plate. But for a lot of us, we need to hear it from your lips that you are ready to “go hard in the paint” for the next five months.

Because the guys and girls at your campaign headquarters in Chicago, despite their stellar ability to come up with niche market campaign ideas for your rainbow coalition of supporters, aren’t adequately conveying this picture. Getting ten emails a day from your wife Michelle and Joe Biden and your various campaign managers may be informative, but it is not inspiring.

Intellectually, I can understand the argument your brain trust is trying to make – that there are really only eight states (North Carolina will revert to red) that will be in play this fall, so why waste your manpower on needless rallies and flag waving exercises – but what your campaign advisors are missing is the need for your umpteen millions of volunteers to have a visceral level of involvement in some kind of campaign activity.   

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AT BIG THINK

Will President Obama Go Hard In The Paint Until November? | Resurgence | Big Think