Sandy Hook shooting - MSNBC reports that AR-15 rifle was left in the car

Editor's Note: Straight up reporting before it was necessary to blame the shooting on an AR-15.

Professor James F. Tracy on KPFA

KPFA

"Sandy Hook: Unanswered Questions" with Professor James F. Tracy. Discrepancies in media coverage; coroner's press conference; political fallout.

Guns and Butter - January 9, 2013 at 1:00pm

Click to listen (or download)

When Should You Shoot a Cop

The very politically incorrect truth about the Second Amendment

No Guns for Negroes

Part I

Part II

Blogger Creates Interactive Map of Employees of Paper Which Published Names and Addresses of Pistol Permit Holders

Newsbusters
Tom Blumer

In response to Gannett's Jounal News headquartered in White Plains, New York publishing an interactive map containing the names and addresses of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland Counties (previous related posts are here and here), blogger Robert Cox at NewRochelleTalk.com (HT Instapundit) has produced an interactive map at a post entitled "Where are the Journal News employees in your neighborhood?"

It contains names, addresses, and various forms of Internet presence. Some of his narrative follows the jump:

The map indicates the addresses of all Journal News Employees in the New York Tri-State area. Each dot represents an individual Journal News employee -- a reporter,  editor or staffer. The data does not include freelancers — reporters or photographers — which can be hired without being an employee. Being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location is a responsible reporter or editor, just that they are a reporter or editor.

Data for all categories is included, but certain information is not available on an individual basis.
To create the map, Talk of the Sound submitted Google searches for the names and addresses of all Journal News employees in the New York Tri-State area. By state law, the information is public record.

To the inevitable objection that Cox has gone over the top, I would suggest that the Journal News obviously started this nonsense -- and if they didn't anticipate that blowback such as this might happen, they should have.

Sorry, Journal News, but you can't just walk all over the privacy rights of thousands of individuals and families and endanger everyone in your reading area in a blatant attempt to, by your own admission, capitalize on a school shooting tragedy -- gun owners who might see their weapons stolen and non-owners who can now be considered "soft targets" -- while automatically assuming that there will be no consequences.

The Sandy Hook School Massacre: Unanswered Questions and Missing Information

Global Research
Prof. James F. Tracy

Inconsistencies and anomalies abound when one turns an analytical eye to news of the Newtown school massacre.

“[My staff] and I hope the people of Newtown don’t have it crash on their head later.” –Connecticut Medical Examiner D. Wayne Carver II, MD, December 15, 2012

Inconsistencies and anomalies abound when one turns an analytical eye to news of the Newtown school massacre. The public’s general acceptance of the event’s validity and faith in its resolution suggests a deepened credulousness borne from a world where almost all news and information is electronically mediated and controlled. The condition is reinforced through the corporate media’s unwillingness to push hard questions vis-à-vis Connecticut and federal authorities who together bottlenecked information while invoking prior restraint through threats of prosecutorial action against journalists and the broader citizenry seeking to interpret the event on social media.

Along these lines on December 19 the Connecticut State Police assigned individual personnel to each of the 26 families who lost a loved one at Sandy Hook Elementary. “The families have requested no press interviews,” State Police assert on their behalf, “and we are asking that this request be honored.[1] The de facto gag order will be in effect until the investigation concludes—now forecast to be “several months away” even though lone gunman Adam Lanza has been confirmed as the sole culprit.[2]

With the exception of an unusual and apparently contrived appearance by Emilie Parker’s alleged father, victims’ family members have been almost wholly absent from public scrutiny.[3] What can be gleaned from this and similar coverage raises many more questions and glaring inconsistencies than answers. While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place—at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described.

The Accidental Medical Examiner

An especially important yet greatly underreported feature of the Sandy Hook affair is the wholly bizarre performance of Connecticut’s top medical examiner H. Wayne Carver II at a December 15 press conference. Carver’s unusual remarks and behavior warrant close consideration because in light of his professional notoriety they appear remarkably amateurish and out of character.

H. Wayne Carver II has an extremely self-assured, almost swaggering presence in Connecticut state administration. In early 2012 Carver threatened to vacate his position because of state budget cuts and streamlining measures that threatened his professional autonomy over the projects and personnel he oversaw.

Along these lines the pathologist has gone to excessive lengths to demonstrate his findings and expert opinion in court proceedings. For example, in a famous criminal case Carver “put a euthanized pig through a wood chipper so jurors could match striations on the bone fragments with the few ounces of evidence that prosecutors said were on the remains of the victim.”[4] One would therefore expect Carver to be in his element while identifying and verifying the exact ways in which Sandy Hook’s children and teachers met their violent demise.

Yet the H. Wayne Carver who showed up to the December 15 press conference is an almost entirely different man, appearing apprehensive and uncertain, as if he is at a significant remove from the postmortem operation he had overseen. The multiple gaffes, discrepancies, and hedges in response to reporters’ astute questions suggest that he is either under coercion or an imposter. While the latter sounds untenable it would go a long way in explaining his sub-pedestrian grasp of medical procedures and terminology.




With this in mind extended excerpts from this exchange are worthy of recounting here in print. Carver is accompanied by Connecticut State Police Lieutenant H. Paul Vance and additional Connecticut State Police personnel. The reporters are off-screen and thus unidentified so I have assigned them simple numerical identification based on what can be discerned of their voices.

Reporter #1: So the rifle was the primary weapon?

H. Wayne Carver: Yes.

Piers Morgan Sets Level of Discourse Advocating Gun Control

Gun Inconsistencies in Sandy Hook School Mass Shooting...

UK Protests Gun Ban - Who will ban guns next?

Massive Psy-op? Obama Can Ban Guns By Himself – And He Will

The Daily Bell

Even without Congress, Obama could act to restrict guns ... Unburdened by re-election worries and empowered by law to act without Congress, U.S. President Barack Obama could take action to improve background checks on gun buyers, ban certain gun imports and bolster oversight of dealers. Prospects for gun control legislation intensified in the wake of the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, as more pro-gun rights lawmakers said on Monday they were open to the possibility while Obama and three cabinet members met at the White House to discuss the subject. – Reuters

Dominant Social Theme: Gun control is necessary now. Too much blood has been spilled.

Free-Market Analysis: We would be all for gun control except for two things: It doesn't work and it seems to be part of what we call directed history. The goal is to reduce the ability of individuals to fight back against world government.

There is almost no doubt more "controls" are on the way. This Reuters article explains how and why. Reuters is a bought-and-paid-for mouthpiece of the power elite, in our view. So when Reuters publishes an article like this, we pay attention.

The thrust of the Reuters article is that President Barack Obama has plenty of power within the executive branch to curtail the purchase and usage of firearms. The article also points out that because Obama has won a second term, he doesn't have to make so many political calculations.

Here's some more from the article:

Having just won a second four-year term, Obama does not need to fear alienating voters who favor gun rights and he could press ahead without lawmakers on fronts where federal law enables executive action ...

His administration has the power to issue executive orders or new rules, options that Obama is likely to consider in combination with possible new laws.

The National Rifle Association, the largest U.S. gun rights group with 4 million supporters, relies largely on its ability to influence lawmakers in order to block legislation.

Obama's appointees at the U.S. Justice Department have been studying ideas since the January 8, 2011, shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and 18 others at a public meeting. Giffords survived but six people died.

Christopher Schroeder, who ran the Justice Department's review, said it looked at possible legislation to send to Congress as well as action the administration could take itself.

"You always look at both, because if you can do it administratively it's certainly a less involved process," said Schroeder, who has since returned to a professorship at Duke Law School.

Many of the ideas have to do with the background checks that licensed gun dealers run on potential buyers.

Critics say the system has holes because it does not include all the data it should on those ineligible to buy guns. The FBI, which runs the system, could incorporate more data from within the federal government - using evidence of mental incompetence, for example ...

It is not clear what changes to the background checks would have prevented the mass shooting in Newtown, because the killer appeared to have used weapons his mother bought legally.

Other proposals for executive action by Obama include sharing information with state and local law enforcement about possibly illegal purchases; maintaining data on gun sales for longer periods to help with investigations; and restricting the importation of certain military-style weapons, as President George H.W. Bush did in 1989.

County Police Chief Recommends Arming School Personnel

CBS


St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says it is time to talk about arming civilian school personnel following Friday’s massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, comparing it to arming airline pilots after September 11, 2001.

“I see it no differently,” he said. “Pilots have been armed now for many many years, we’ve not had another hijacking and the issue is, for the bad guy, he doesn’t know which airplane he’s getting on, if the pilot is armed or not.”

Fitch said the killing will not be stopped by legislation or laws. “If there’s somebody that’s really hellbent on doing something like this, they’re not going to care what the law is.”

The chief is adamant about his plans but realizes his calls for arming school workers will be met with resistance.

“We touched on this issue with heroin problem with schools. When we first were talking about the heroin problem in St. Louis, many of the school officials ran and they just hid out, they said ‘nope, we don’t have a heroin problem in our schools,’” Fitch said.

“They started to find out some of the students were involved in this and some of the students were dying of heroin overdoses. It forced them to have this discussion and to take action, inviting us into their schools to talk about the heroin problem in St. Louis.”
Concerning the possibility of gun control, Fitch said “it’s just not going to happen,” and called for an increased focus on mental health instead.

“One of the first thing governments tend to cut back on in tight times are mental health services,” he said. “We know this individual has a mental health history in Connecticut, we’ve seen that in all the school shootings, and additional resources would be helpful.
But, last resort, somebody’s got to take action and they got to do it quickly.”

Lanza, Bloomberg, Obama, Guns, Psychiatic Meds and Mass Hypnosis: The TV Script

Joe the Philosopher
Jon Rappoport

Mayor Bloomberg is leading the charge to take away guns in the wake of the Newtown child murders. The pressure is on.

Apart from grandstanding, which Bloomberg knows how to do, this is all about deflection from the main event: the killer himself.

Last night, I watched network coverage, wherein, of course, the anchors were in Newtown, standing on the street, “trying to make sense of the whole thing.”

If they’re so interested, along with the public, in figuring out why Adam Lanza killed all those children, you would think, with their enormous resources, they would find out who Lanza’s doctor-psychiatrist was in five minutes and ask him about his patient.

Of course, that’s sacred ground. Patient-doctor confidentiality.

Except the patient is dead.

So much for the networks wanting to know who Adam Lanza really was. It’s all a sham. They just want to keep asking the question over and over, pretending to be in the dark about the whole thing.

They want to “deepen the mystery” and emphasize how futile it is to get into the mind of a killer. They’ve got that rap down. They use it every time one of these mass murders happens.

They know about the psychiatric-drug connection to murders and suicides. But they won’t say the magic words. They’ll just keep biting their tongues.

And “out of respect for the victims,” the drug companies aren’t running ads anywhere near this media coverage. Translation: the companies don’t want to encourage the public to make the connection between meds and murder.

Prozac, murder. Zoloft, murder. Paxil, murder. Ritalin, murder.

Bloomberg is playing the shill for new gun control. He’s the point man of the moment, insisting “the president do something meaningful” right now. It’s an orchestrated little play.

“Let’s ask Michael Moore what he thinks.”

“Oh good, Rupert Murdoch is weighing in against guns.” Yes, he’s providing the “balanced” in “fair and balanced,” so people stop associating FOX News with “right-wing gun advocates” for a few hours.

And the Boston mayor is chiming in, too.

Meanwhile, the public is under the spell of mass hypnosis. Can’t stop watching the tube. Never stops to think, “Hey, why don’t they put Lanza’s doctor on the screen and have him talk about his patient?”

There are other elements of this mass trance. People bolster their belief that what happens in life is out of their hands. “See, it’s just like I thought. We have no power. I have no power. All we can do is grieve and try to heal. Light a candle.”

Notice another odd thing. No one in the tightly bound Newtown community is saying, “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this. We’ve got to find out what this killer was.” If they are saying it, you’re not seeing it on camera.

The people of Newtown can find out in an hour who Lanza’s doctor was. They can march right up to his office or house and knock on the door and tell him to come out and talk.

Why don’t they do it?

They’re still in shock, yes. But they’re also in a hypnotic state, when it comes to doctors. Don’t question the high priest in the white coat. He lives in a different sphere from the rest of us.

Ignorance=grief=healing=being a good citizen.

Here’s a phrase you’re hearing all over the tube from politicians and officials. “We have to come together.” What the hell does that mean? I even heard the police chief say it, in reference to “resolving what happened.” Garble. Pure garble.

No, “coming together” means giving up. It means abject helplessness. It means, above all, no outrage.

Have you see one person on television express outrage?

The Horror of the Connecticut Shooting and the Tragedy of Unresolved Massacres

The Daily Bell

These are the innocents of America's Dunblane — each smiling face a heartbreaking plea for the nation to give up its guns. President Barack Obama has declared he will use "whatever power" he has to prevent shootings like Friday's rampage by Adam Lanza happening again. In a powerful speech last night at an evening vigil in Newtown, Connecticut, he suggested he is considering a radical move to ditch America's historic right to bear arms in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. Obama said: "Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? "Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?" – UK Sun

Dominant Social Theme: Precious children are horrifyingly dead. So let the right to carry arms in the US expire as well.

Free-Market Analysis: It is almost impossible to write about the horrible shooting in Sandy Hook because of the age of the little ones who were shot. One wants to weep looking at so many innocent faces of now-dead children.

But what if the narrative is a false one? What if there is more to the story than what we've been told?

The shooting in Columbine, Colorado so many years ago marked the seeming beginning of a new kind of massacre. And massacres there have been since Columbine.
But when one looks at the Columbine massacre, one finds surprisingly that questions still linger.

Just query Columbine and "massacre questions" or "Columbine mystery" ... or some such.
You'll find lists of statements by eyewitnesses swearing there were more shooters than the two young men who were finally killed.

You will find statements that law enforcement officers were at the scene and acting in odd ways that actually ended up enhancing the mayhem. And why are the bodies of the shooters still on display on the Internet? Who makes these decisions?

There are even videos of the shooters killing themselves but like the mutilated body of Osama bin Laden, these appear to be fake. One is apparently an independent movie that was made about the killing. But people are confused into believing that a film is actual footage.

The intensity of the kinds of massacres has increased. And cries to regulate guns in the US have gone up commensurately. Here's some more from the article excerpted above:
The President has come under pressure to bring in strict gun control laws after Lanza murdered 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School. 

Obama said: "No laws can eliminate evil from the world — but that can't be an excuse for inaction. 

"Surely we can do better than this. If there is even one step we can take then we have an obligation to try. 

"In the coming weeks I will use whatever power this office holds in an effort to prevent more tragedies like this." 

His emotional speech set up a battle with the pro-gun lobby in the nation as he prepared to fight for new laws. 

The President added: "This is our first job — caring for our children. That's how as a society we will be judged. 

"Are we really doing enough to keep our children safe from harm? 

"If we are honest with ourselves the answer is 'No, we are not doing enough'. And we will have to change." ...

Horrified anti-gun campaigners said America's citizens MUST now abandon their centuries-old right to bear arms in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. 

They begged President Obama to bring in strict gun control laws immediately to stop maniacs like Lanza having such easy access to weapons. 

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was scathing about Obama's pledge for "meaningful action" on gun control. 

He said: "Calling for meaningful action is not enough. We need immediate action. We've heard rhetoric before." 

The killers are always almost all the same: Young white men who are pleasant but bland loners. In this case the shooter is said to have had obvious emotional problems.

The idea of some is that such crazies should be stopped via gun control. If they cannot get guns they cannot hurt people with them.

Of course, in Britain where guns are virtually banned there has been a subsequent increase in knife crime and battery. And in China there have been reports of numerous horrifying knife attacks on children in schools. People will hurt each other if they are motivated to do so.

But these massacres are something else. Who picks up a rifle and shoots little children? And why?

And why are there always questions lingering after "official" investigations?

Like 9/11 itself, we would urge that the authorities or other interested parties reopen the Columbine investigation to answer lingering questions about that tragedy. There are literally hundreds of individuals who registered their conviction as eyewitnesses that more than two shooters – youngsters – were involved.

The debate in the US is usually constrained. The rhetoric quickly resolves itself into a debate over gun control.

Conclusion: But maybe people are asking the wrong questions and coming to the wrong conclusions ....

Portland Mall Shooter Stopped by CCW holder, Media lies by omission

The New Defense Bill May Give Veteran's Affairs Right To Deny Vets Gun Ownership

Business Insider

Courtesy of Maine State Police

GUNS, GUNS, GUNS!!!

Now that I have your attention…

The new Defense Bill, which has a fight going due to the desire of a few politicians to, get this, protect Veterans’ rights by amending the bill.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, in all its glorious wisdom, believes in having the right to place the names of Veterans who are said to be of a certain mental state into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. This prevents anyone whose name is in the database from purchasing a firearm anywhere that conducts background checks. Furthermore, it prevents those who live under the same roof of that Veteran from owning or purchasing a firearm, as well.


There are several layers worth of stupid to peel back on this one.

First, here’s the most common argument for this kind of legislation: “hey, I’m all for gun ownership, but if someone is ruled mentally incompetent, they shouldn’t be allowed that responsibility … ”  While that may seem reasonable on the surface, it’s a flawed premise for multiple reasons.

One, who judges whether a person is mentally incompetent or not? It’s one thing to have a trained psychiatrist make that claim; it’s entirely another for a counselor to put down “PTSD” on someone’s chart and have that end up in the bureaucratic black hole of the VA—a system that can’t process your claim in any reasonable amount of time but you can bet your a** they will fast-track your file to a background investigation unit.

Two, if a person is ruled incompetent by a psychiatrist, shouldn’t he or sh
e, perhaps, just maybe, have a say in it? We have these things called “courts” you see…

That is exactly what Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) is fighting for currently. He wants Veterans to have their day in court before their “fundamental right given under the Constitution” is taken away, and is proposing amendments to the Defense Bill providing for that very thing.

But that’s not how things are now. Under the current system, a Veteran can lose their right to own a firearm simply by receiving a PTSD diagnosis and having it handed over to the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) or their name placed in the national criminal database. And therein lays the bigger issue in this topic that needs to be addressed.

I don’t care how psychologically troubled a veteran is; I don’t care if they can’t tie their own shoes anymore; I don’t care if they can’t pay their own bills; I don’t care if they can’t feed themselves; I don’t care if they are being fed from a tube or if they are in a wheel chair:


NONE OF THESE THINGS IN ANY WAY MAKES THEM CRIMINALS.

This, my friends, is why any discussion on this topic is completely flawed from the beginning—the very fact that there is a “criminal database” that someone’s name would go into prior to them ever committing a crime is demonstrably wrong on both the ethical and Civil Rights levels of government. The idea that a Veteran—someone who has sacrificed for their country—would be labeled as a criminal for doing nothing other than that sacrifice is an injustice, to be sure. Yet somehow, when concerning the topic of the Second Amendment, that injustice is seen as perfectly reasonable.

After Obama win, U.S. backs new U.N. arms treaty talks

Louis Charbonneau

(Reuters) - Hours after U.S. President Barack Obama was re-elected, the United States backed a U.N. committee's call on Wednesday to renew debate over a draft international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade.

U.N. delegates and gun control activists have complained that talks collapsed in July largely because Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney if his administration was seen as supporting the pact, a charge Washington denies.

The month-long talks at U.N. headquarters broke off after the United States - along with Russia and other major arms producers - said it had problems with the draft treaty and asked for more time.

But the U.N. General Assembly's disarmament committee moved quickly after Obama's win to approve a resolution calling for a new round of talks March 18-28. It passed with 157 votes in favor, none against and 18 abstentions.

U.N. diplomats said the vote had been expected before Tuesday's U.S. presidential election but was delayed due to Superstorm Sandy, which caused a three-day closure of the United Nations last week.

An official at the U.S. mission said Washington's objectives have not changed.

"We seek a treaty that contributes to international security by fighting illicit arms trafficking and proliferation, protects the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade, and meets the concerns that we have been articulating throughout," the official said.

"We will not accept any treaty that infringes on the constitutional rights of our citizens to bear arms," he said.

U.S. officials have acknowledged privately that the treaty under discussion would have no effect on domestic gun sales and ownership because it would apply only to exports.

The main reason the arms trade talks are taking place at all is that the United States - the world's biggest arms trader accounting for more than 40 percent of global conventional arms transfers - reversed U.S. policy on the issue after Obama was first elected and decided in 2009 to support a treaty.

'MONTHS AWAY' FROM DEAL?

Countries that abstained included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Belarus, Cuba and Iran. China, a major arms producer that has traditionally abstained, voted in favor.

Among the top six arms-exporting nations, Russia cast the only abstention. Britain, France and Germany joined China and the United States in support of the resolution.

The measure now goes to the 193-nation General Assembly for a formal vote. It is expected to pass.

The resolution said countries are "determined to build on the progress made to date towards the adoption of a strong, balanced and effective Arms Trade Treaty."

Jeff Abramson, director of Control Arms, a coalition of advocacy groups, urged states to agree on stringent provisions.

"In Syria, we have seen the death toll rise well over 30,000, with weapons and ammunition pouring in the country for months now," he said. "We need a treaty that will set tough rules to control the arms trade, that will save lives and truly make the world a better place."

Brian Wood of Amnesty International said: "After today's resounding vote, if the larger arms trading countries show real political will in the negotiations, we're only months away from securing a new global deal that has the potential to stop weapons reaching those who seriously abuse human rights."

The treaty would require states to make respecting human rights a criterion for allowing arms exports.

Britain's U.N. mission said on its Twitter feed it hoped that the March negotiations would yield the final text of a treaty. Such a pact would then need to be ratified by the individual signatories before it could enter into force.

The National Rifle Association, the powerful U.S. interest group, strongly opposes the arms treaty and had endorsed Romney.

The United States has denied it sought to delay negotiations for political reasons, saying it had genuine problems with the draft as written.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)

Report: Fast and Furious a product of DOJ ‘deliberate strategy’ laid out by Eric Holder, other senior Obama officials

Daily Caller
Matthew Boyle

The latest congressional report on Operation Fast and Furious found that the gunwalking-program-turned-scandal was the result of a “deliberate strategy created at the highest levels of the Justice Department aimed at identifying the leaders of a major gun trafficking ring.”

The report is the second installment in a three-part series from Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Sen. Chuck Grassley and House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa.

That “deliberate strategy,” congressional investigators argue, sprang from “a series of speeches about combating violence along the Southwest border” that Attorney General Eric Holder delivered shortly after taking office.

“Although [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] ATF did not officially open the Fast and Furious investigation until the fall of 2009, the groundwork for the strategy that would guide the operation began shortly after new leadership took control of the Department of Justice nine months earlier,” the report reads. “On February 25, 2009, just one month after Attorney General Eric Holder took office, he gave a speech noting the danger of the Mexican drug cartels, focusing on the Sinaloa cartel in particular.”

On Feb. 25, 2009, Holder said the drug cartels “are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision” and, under his leadership, he promised “these cartels will be destroyed.”

A little more than a month later, on April 2, 2009 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, congressional investigators say Holder “gave further insight into the department’s new strategy for combating these dangerous cartels.”

“He spoke about the development of a prosecution and enforcement strategy with respect to firearms trafficking, noting that the ‘administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels,’” the report reads. “In particular, the attorney general said that the Justice Department was committed to adding ‘100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest Border’ and that Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) would add ‘16 new positions on the border.’ Most importantly, the attorney general noted that there must be ‘an attack in depth, on both sides of the border, that focuses on the leadership and assets of the cartel.’”

Shortly after that April 2, 2009 speech by Holder, congressional investigators say “a Firearms Trafficking Working Group was formed.” Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, the head of DOJ’s Criminal Division, led the working group. It was tasked with “exploring and recommending proposals to enhance law enforcement efforts to curb firearms trafficking, focusing specifically on investigation, interdiction, training, prosecution, and intelligence-sharing.”

Later, on June 30, 2009, congressional investigators say Deputy Attorney General David Ogden argued that the border between the U.S. and Mexico was the “front line” to fight firearms trafficking. The report lays out how Ogden “also said that ATF and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would sign a new agreement to ‘ensure coordination between the departments on firearms investigations.’”

Then, on Aug. 19, 2009, that working group presented its recommendations to Holder in a memo. “The recommendations section of this August 2009 memo included many of the previous public comments by Attorney General Holder and Deputy Attorney General Ogden,” the congressional report says of that memo.

“The document went on to recommend “intelligence-based, prosecutor-led, multi-agency task forces,’” congressional investigators write. “It suggested that under its new model, ‘we develop priority targets through the extensive use of intelligence,’ which would allow it to ‘build cases, coordinating long-term, extensive investigations to identify all the tentacles of a particular organization.’”

The Untold Story Behind The "Fast and Furious" Scandal

ABC

Watch More News Videos at ABC |

2012 Presidential Election | Entertainment & Celebrity News

Who are the human faces of the U.S. government's botched "Fast and Furious" gun-walking operation?

Often lost amid the rancor in Washington are the stories of dozens of people killed by guns that flowed south as part of the undercover operation, and later slipped out of view from U.S. officials. Univision's Investigative Unit (Univision Investiga) has identified massacres committed using guns from the ATF operation, including the killing of 16 young people attending a party in a residential area of Ciudad Juárez in January of 2010.

Univision Univision's TV Special On The Fast and... View Full Size Additional guns, previously unreported by congressional investigators, found their way into the hands of drug traffickers across Latin America in countries such as, Honduras and Colombia, as well as the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. A person familiar with the recent congressional hearings called Univision's findings "the holy grail" that Congress had been searching for.

Get the full story on "Fast and Furious" on a special edition of Univision's "Aquí y Ahora" (Here and Now) this Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT (6 p.m. Central), which will be aired with closed captioning in English.

Fast and Furious official MIA in order to avoid testifying

Gather
Robert Flynn

William McMahon supervised the
Phoenix-run Fast and Furious program.

The Fast and Furious Scandal is taking a new, sinister twist as one of those at the center of the botched gun-running scheme has been conveniently given a job by Obama-ally J.P. Morgan, far outside the borders of the United States. William McMahon, former ATF official and one of those responsible for the botched operation that resulted in the death of an American border agent, is not only reportedly collecting $100,000 annually for "security" services to the politically connected banking giant, but is also still receiving his ATF paycheck. With the invoking of Executive privilege by the Obama White House, and now this new shocking revelation of a political protection racket, is it possible that the Obama White House is digging itself into an even deeper hole?

McMahon, who may well be prosecuted for perjuring himself during the recent Congressional hearings into the notorious operation that allowed thousands of assault weapons to cross the border into Mexico, has been given a "job" in the Philippines. Critics claim that this move has been made in order "to prevent him from exposing further criminality among higher-ranking officials." Many other high officials have invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during hearings in Congress; however, McMahon made statements that now appear to have been outside the realm of truth.

This obvious attempt to scurry a potentially damaging witness out of the country is a disgusting show of contempt not only for the rule of law, but for the American people as well. The Obama administration, if responsible for this travesty of justice, may have tarnished the office of Presidency forever. And with the incompetent and possibly criminal McMahon getting a fortunate job with J.P. Morgan, the home of many current and former Obama supporters, as well as the largest recipients of taxpayer money gladly doled out by the Obama White House, it gives ammunition to those who cry foul.

In fact, critics will almost certainly claim that the President of the United States appears to have had one of his politically connected banking giants give McMahon a job outside the country so that he could not testify to how much the President was personally involved in the scandal.

Whether or not this is true, the American people deserve better. The Presidency was once a proud and honorable position, one to be admired and dreamed of attaining, but the current occupant has soiled the office with his corruption and immorality. How far has the United States sunk that the President is accused of having witnesses hidden outside the reach of American law?

America cannot survive as the greatest nation on Earth if it continues to elect morally bankrupt socialists who will stop at nothing to destroy this nation's greatness. America must find a way to return the honor to the Presidency, and not have it sullied with plots that seem to come from a film-noir mystery. Both the country and its people deserve better than what they have now, a President that seems to be at the center of the Fast and Furious Scandal and racing toward his own Watergate moment.