The Wandering Minstrel

Late developments in the Fast and Furious investigation may lead to a massive ATF reorganization or perhaps it will be disbanded. We can only hope.

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It has been a very busy day for us and now it’s time to turn on the tube, open a beer and watch the Thursday evening college football game. In the absence of a daily post, please enjoy the M16 and AR15 below.

So, it would seem that the fact suppression comes directly from the oval office. From Investor’s Business Daily (via The Patriot Post):

New documents reveal the Department of Justice lied to Congress and show how U.S. officials bought guns with tax dollars and then made sure no one stopped their transfer to Mexican drug cartels. The funneling of thousands of American guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels in the operation known as Fast and Furious was not a botched sting operation or the result of bureaucratic incompetence. It was not designed to interdict gun trafficking, but to facilitate it. We now know that it involved not just the use of straw buyers, but also agents of the federal government purchasing weapons with taxpayer money, ordering the licensed dealers to conduct the sales off the books, then calling off surveillance of the gun traffickers and refusing to interdict the transfer of the weapon or arrest the people involved. … A two-year-old C-SPAN video shows Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, who would resign nine months later after less than a year’s service, telling reporters at a Justice Department briefing of major policy initiatives to fight the Mexican drug cartels. ‘The president has directed us to take action to fight these cartels,’ Ogden began, ‘and Attorney General Holder and I are taking several new and aggressive steps as part of the administration’s comprehensive plan.’ Ogden said the administration’s plan, at the president’s direction, included the ATF’s ‘increasing its efforts by adding 37 new employees in three new offices, using $10 million in Recovery Act funds and redeploying 100 personnel to the Southwest border in the next 45 days to fortify its Project Gunrunner,’ of which Operation Fast and Furious would be a part. … Fast and Furious should spark our pursuit of the truth, even if the trail leads to the Oval Office.

The Better Half and I had to go out among ‘em this afternoon. Every couple of weeks or so, we venture away from the security of our little desert enclave to head to the greater Phoenix metro area in order to do some shopping for provisions not available in our small town. We brace ourselves for the inevitable traffic and congestion and head southeast.

Another phenomenon, which seldom fails, is the presence of idiots on the road. This guy (whose face I fuzzed up in the photo) was texting or using some sort of handheld device while driving - in motion no less.

Now, I’m libertarian enough to deem laws against this sort of activity unnecessary in the hope that sanity and common sense will prevail. In California, this moron would be committing an illegal act. Also in California, there still are just as many dudes like this guy talking on cellphones or texting. As we involved in Second Amendment Rights know, laws don’t stop idiocy.

I just hope that this guy made it home today instead of texting his way directly to the scene of the accident where an innocent person(s) could be involved at best or injured at worst.

A word about General Electric . . .

From an email I received from a former colleague:

General Electric is planning to move its 115-year-old X-ray division from Waukesha, Wis., to Beijing. In addition to moving the headquarters, the company will invest $2 billion in China and train more than 65 engineers and create six research centers. This is the same GE that made $5.1 billion in the United States last year. but paid no taxes-the same company that employs more people overseas than it does in the united States.

So let me get this straight. President Obama appointed GE Chairman Jeff Immelt to head his commission on job creation (job czar). Immelt is supposed to help create jobs. I guess the President forgot to tell him in which country he was supposed to be creating those jobs.

If this doesn’t show you the total lack of leadership of this President, I don’t know what does. Please pass this information to others and think about it before you buy a GE product.

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Yesterday when we attended Smithsonian day at the local museum (free admission this day only) I expressed my displeasure with this sign on the door and said that I would only attend whenever it was free admission and we would not patronize the gift shop. It is a very nice museum with a very bad policy.

The Better Half took some ideas from one of the Food Channel chefs and whipped up this wonderful chicken/zucchini/asparagus fettuccine Alfredo. Excellent meal for watching football! And healthy too. Clickable image.

While we were waiting for our decadent meal at Screamer’s yesterday, we saw some flyers on the counter. One was for the CCW class we took last month and another advertized upcoming gun shows. I was going to write the information down, but taking a picture was so much easier. Clickable image.