I have been waiting since 1973 to find out what was going on during Watergate, and this will fill in the remaining blanks, at least I hope it will.
It is interesting to note that Watergate was a point where the media split into Nixon loyalists, the forerunners to the modern conservative media (Roger Ailes who runs FOX NEWS was a Nixon guy during this time period), and everyone else, what Sarah Palin calls the Lame Stream Media.
Also interesting, the pro-Nixon media began by heaping accusations of bias and disregard for the truth against Woodward and Bernstein. This was the point at which the fanatically loyal to Nixon media split from the Lame Stream.
This is also the foundation for my mistrust of the conservative media, who got nearly everything wrong in Watergate while Woodward & Bernstein got nearly everything right. The Lame Stream, true to form, were too timid to take on the aggressiveness of the Nixonites yet knew that a lot of what they were saying wasn't true. They just weren't sure that being correct in print would save them from the wrath of the conservatives, so they were slow to cross them, a pattern that is still reflected today, from WMD, to ACORN, and so on, the Lame Stream either knows better or suspects, but won't say anything until someone else establishes the facts for them. They are just too lame to take on aggressive liars.
Fast and Furious ...
Again (and Again) you don't have to go back 40 years to find abuses of power and coverups in high places .. I am not sure why there is no outrage over this .. I fear that some people don't care because of who is abusing power and trying to cover it up in this case.
As the many threads I have posted about this .. your are AMAZINGLY silent on this topic, why is that? Do you see it as a vast right wing conspiracy .. that selling guns, death of federal agents, drug running and interfering with another country is a trivial thing?
What led to 'Project Gunwalker'?
Associated Press reporting on the Gunwalker ( Fast and Furious ) scandal has been sporadic but fair. However, not many newspapers around the country have picked up the AP 19s stories on Gunwalker, apparently because they would rather cover up than expose scandals that originate in the Obama administration
Good article by Pauline Arrillaga. Except for this: by 2009, 90% of weapons recovered were found to have originated in the US.
2,000 or so guns were purchased and likely taken into Mexico unobstructed during the Fast & Furious debacle.
When and how did the other 20,000 US weapons make their way to Mexico?
"of the 29,284 weapons recovered in Mexico in 2009 and 2010 and submitted for tracing, 20,504, or 70 %, came from the US.
If there is money .. you can buy just about anything .. and with the illegal drugs - Mexico has a LOT of money.
We got your Hezbollah - Islamic ties
US gun pics
I've read that approximately 1/2 of the weapons come from the US ... and the other 1/2 from China, and Europe. I would suspect that some of the guns were sold legally from the US .. and many illegally.
This site says In truth, the vast majority of drug cartels 19 U.S. weapons come from mainstream manufacturers via 1Cofficial channels 1D (corrupt military and police) or from foreign sources, in large shipments flown straight into Mexico from Eastern Europe, China and elsewhere. We are doing nothing to stop that trade. Nothing.
An scary and impressive video of a grenade launcher too.
It's disingenuous crap like this getting posted as fact that has me up in arms, so to speak, and why I question the math in the articles you cited.
Who is to say how many and where it came from ... I don't think the Mexican gangs are being very open about where they are getting their guns .. legally or illegally, the US govt certainly isn't being open about it either. What people should be upset about is that a congressional committee is trying to find out more about it .. and is being stonewalled by the DOJ .. that is not made up - it may not be discussed to much - you be the judge on why it is not more of an issue. Who knew about this failed program, at least one federal agent was killed, and no one is fessing up on the particulars. Actually there have been some testimony that said the WH knew about this (I have posted links) and that with such a large program, spanning several federal agencies, it would be really hard to think that the top man at the DOJ - Eric Holder did not know more about this program than he is letting on.
Yeah .. yeah - it is good that the files are being opened up on Tricky Dicks shenanigans ... there is foul play afoot now though and that is being ignored.
I posted an article the other day on "Obama's growing gun problem" which is about this issue.
But I see no moral equivalence between this covert operation and Watergate. In, Watergate, you may recall, President Nixon was using illegal methods on a massive scale (the illegal campaign money alone was $100 million in 1972 dollars). He was cheating to win an election he was going to win by a large margin anyway.
This Mexican gun thing is an operation either so brilliant that I can't understand it, or more likely so stupid that it begs belief. In any case it is pretty clear that the Feds were trying to get the bad guys not to help them.
The White House should just let the chips fall where they may, to use a Watergate era expression, but White Houses never seem to do that.
You are absolutely right. Trying to catch the badder bad guys, not help them.
A big effing issue I have is the differnece between 20,000 or 30,000 guns these asshats say that Obama (his administration, therefore him personally) allowed to walk into Mexico and the actual number of less than 2,000 that were unobstructed since this program began in 2009. Disingenuous much?
Everyone is right here. Progressives are usually, rightly, disconcerned about anything that happened in the past that may have a negative effect on the present political climate, like Bill Ayers for example. However, progressives are highly and rightly concerned about the Nixon event that happened in the past.
Big_T
Hah .. we can't even get the DOJ to cooperate with a Fast & Furious investigation right now .. shoot most of the dang media sources treat it still think it's all about a car movie.