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Tonight on @Univision: Fast and Furious

UPDATE: Follow-up post here

Univision continues to do the work the US media has renounced:

Ed Morrissey:

The Obama administration clearly hoped that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General report on Operation Fast and Furious would be the last word on the scandal. which has been tied to hundreds of deaths in Mexico and the murders of two American law-enforcement officials. However, a new report from Univision to be broadcast tomorrow, previewed here by ABC News, may put the issue back on the front pages. One source called Univision’s findings the “holy grail” that Congressional investigators have been seeking.
…
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.

On Univision, 7 pm ET tonight, with English-language subtitles.

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Smart diplomacy: Fast and Furious ‘poisoned’ Mexican public opinion of US – UPDATED

The Mexican ambassador to the USA was speaking at a Democrat-sponsored event to promote tighter gun laws in the USA:
Mexican official: Fast and Furious ‘poisoned’ public opinion of US

“Fast and Furious has poisoned the well-spring of public opinion in Mexico as it relates to the cooperation and engagement with the United States,” Sarukhan said.

“It does put a lot of strain on the huge strides that we’ve achieved with two successive administrations in the United States,” he said.

Mexican Ambassador confirms early citizen journalist reports amidst media spin

The Mexican ambassador to the United States told a Capitol Hill forum that his government was “kept in the dark” about U.S. government-condoned and abetted “gunwalking” operations, and also questioned the intent behind Operation Fast and Furious, The Los Angeles Times is reporting today. Appearing before “the New Democrat Network…a center-left think tank and advocacy organization, and the New Policy Institute, one of its sister organizations,” Arturo Sarukhan’s claims raise questions as to why major news outlets like The Times are just now getting around to reporting on information raised in this column and on the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog back in January, 2011.

I’m not sure that they were firsts; Bob Owens has been on top of this story for well over a year.

UPDATE: I checked with Bob Owens, who confirmed that they were indeed breaking the story, but also stated, “If it wasn’t for these two guys, we wouldn’t know half of what we know.”

Bob has the three most basic questions about the gun-walking plot:

  1. Who conceived this radical departure from normal law enforcement practices? Who conceived an operation requiring the deaths of hundreds or thousands of Mexican nationals for its success?
  2. Which Department of Justice officials saw that Operation Fast and Furious needed hundreds or thousands of firearms to be given to the cartels and recovered at the scenes of crimes, knew that the crimes in question were likely to be murders of Mexican nationals or U.S. citizens along the Mexican border where the cartels operate, and approved the operation anyway?
  3. Knowing that Operation Fast and Furious could be the political and criminal albatross that drives away moderates and Latino voters and destroys his chances of winning a second term, why does President Obama refuse to appoint a special prosecutor or to call for Eric Holder and his direct reports to resign?

Unless and until those questions are unequivocally answered, Mexico-US relations will not improve. Unfortunately, Sarukhan is playing into the hands of the very people who flooded his country with assault weapons.

Fast and Furious

wasn’t “botched.” It was meant to do everything that it did — except get found out. The goal was to create a climate of opinion that favored gun control, and it’s ironic to see Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) still trying to put it to this use.

Oh, the Dems will continue to do so, for as long as they can get away with it.


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The Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

LatinAmerARGENTINA
Argentina launches naval campaign to isolate Falkland Islands
Argentina has launched a naval campaign to isolate the Falkland Islands that has seen it detain Spanish fishing vessels on suspicion of breaking the country’s “blockade” of the seas around the British territories.

Falklands warning
The Government would be well advised to pay heed to the distant sound of sabre-rattling in the South Atlantic.

Argentina flirts with Iran as West watches nervously

The Year in Argentine Beef – 2011

Cristina “8 y ½”, in Spanish.

BRAZIL
The Anointed
Can a former political radical lead Brazil through its economic boom?

BEING THERE: SÃO PAULO

COLOMBIA
Today’s Video: Rolling for Peace

CUBA
The Tehran, Havana, Caracas axis in Latin America

Darsi Ferrer is a Cuban human rights hero

Fireworks off the coast of Cuba

GUATEMALA
Police Bust Guatemala-Jordan Sex Trafficking Ring
Guatemala has announced the dismantling of an international human trafficking ring that lured young Guatemalan women to Jordan, where they were forced to work in prostitution.

HONDURAS
City building
Hong Kong in Honduras
An ambitious development project aims to pull a Central American country out of its economic misery. Can it work?

LATIN AMERICA
Iran Tries to Gain Sway in Latin America
Tehran Fosters Economic, Military Ties In Region, Raising U.S. Terror Concern

Morning Bell: Iran Conducting Anti-U.S. Operations in Latin America

MEXICO
Mexico – Rising Natural Gas Superstate?

Threat to Elections?

ATF Emails: Hey, Let’s Use These Long-Gun Sales We’ve Demanded Gun Shop Owners Sell To Cartels To Justify Cracking Down on Long-Gun Sales

A FAST & FURIOUS STATE OF MIND

Gunwalker goes “legal” … again

Mexico, a Country in Crisis, Needs a Fix the Size of the Marshall Plan
When a member of the Qaddafi family wants to make your country his new home, you know things are rotten. But Mexicans knew that already. They also know that the corruption, murder, and economic failure they live with won’t be cured by government posturing and a useless ‘war on drugs.’

Iran in Mexico and the Caribbean: Building a Strategic Trampoline towards the US

PANAMA
Panama’s jailed ex-ruler Noriega ‘to return Sunday’
Panama’s jailed former ruler Manuel Noriega will be extradited from France to his homeland on Sunday, Foreign Minister Roberto Henriquez says.

PERU
Peru’s Top Indigenous Leader Says Industry, Traffickers Behind Shaman Slayings

PUERTO RICO
1 of Puerto Rico’s most-wanted fugitives arrested in Dominican Republic

Christian Nieves playing cuatro,

VENEZUELA
A preview of October 7, 2012 (or how fascism does not lose elections)

Barbarians at the Gate: Chavista Hordes Set Fire to UCV’s Aula Magna Over Election Loss

The week’s posts,
Heritage on The Iranian Threat
CITGO’s Santa’s coming to New Jersey!
La amenaza Iraní
Moneywalker, too?
Israel Accuses Iran of Introducing Terrorism in Latin America With Chávez’s Support UPDATED on 12-9-11
Fortuño for VP, and the Constitutional question
Fast and Furious documents dumped last Friday afternoon UPDATED

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Brian Terry killed by Mexicans armed by F&F hunting for U.S. Border Patrol

Ace has the link,
Armed illegals stalked Border Patrol
Mexicans were ‘patrolling’ when agent was slain, indictment says

Five illegal immigrants armed with at least two AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifles were hunting for U.S. Border Patrol agents near a desert watering hole known as Mesquite Seep just north of the Arizona-Mexico border when a firefight erupted and one U.S. agent was killed, records show.

A now-sealed federal grand jury indictment in the death of Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry says the Mexican nationals were “patrolling” the rugged desert area of Peck Canyon at about 11:15 p.m. on Dec. 14 with the intent to “intentionally and forcibly assault” Border Patrol agents.

At least two of the Mexicans carried their assault rifles “at the ready position,” one of several details about the attack showing that Mexican smugglers are becoming more aggressive on the U.S. side of the border.

According to the indictment, the Mexicans were “patrolling the area in single-file formation” a dozen miles northwest of the border town of Nogales and — in the darkness of the Arizona night — opened fire on four Border Patrol agents after the agents identified themselves in Spanish as police officers.

Two AK-47 assault rifles found at the scene came from the failed Fast and Furious operation.

Agent Terry was killed by a gun provided by the US government:

In the Terry killing, two Romanian-built AK-47 assault rifles found at the scene were identified as having been purchased in a Glendale, Ariz., gun shop as part of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) failed Fast and Furious investigation.

Fifty-one Congressmen and Senators have requested that Eric Holder resign. Why hasn’t he?

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Mexico: Sinaloa’s top hit man hoarding #FastAndFurious weapons

Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, the “top enforcer” in Ciudad Juarez for the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world, had this in his basement,

Fast and Furious weapons were found in Mexico cartel enforcer’s home
Guns illegally purchased under the ATF operation were found in April hidden in violence-plagued Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, court records show. (emphasis added)

High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF’s Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.

In all, 100 assault weapons acquired under Fast and Furious were transported 350 miles from Phoenix to El Paso, making that West Texas city a central hub for gun traffickers. Forty of the weapons made it across the border and into the arsenal of Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, a feared cartel leader in Ciudad Juarez, according to federal court records and trace documents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Torres Marrufo is still out there, somewhere.

Apparently the weapons purchased in Phoenix, Arizona, made their way through Texas,

Three months into the program, El Paso began to emerge as a hub, perhaps the central location, for Fast and Furious weapons. On Jan. 13, 2010, El Paso police stumbled upon 40 firearms after following a suspicious dark blue Volkswagen Jetta that backed into a garage at a local residence, according to federal court records.

At about that time, the Justice Department’s No. 2 figure, directly under Attorney General Eric Holder, was being briefed on Fast and Furious,

Documents recently turned over by the Justice Department to Congressional investigators indicate that then-Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler received a detailed briefing on Fast and Furious more than a year and a half ago.
“Deputy Attorney General” is the Justice Department’s No. 2 figure, directly under Attorney General Eric Holder.

Grindler moved from Deputy Attorney General to a spot as Holder’s chief of staff last January.

The briefing Grindler attended was on March 12, 2010, six months into ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed thousands of weapons on the street in an attempt to track down Mexican drug cartels. Portions of the documents are redacted.

In handwritten notes about Fast and Furious that are not all legible, Grindler writes about “seizures in Mexico” and “links to cartel.” He also noted “seizures in Mexico” on a map of Phoenix, the home base for Fast and Furious, and Mexico locations where some guns ended up. And Grindler made notations on a photograph of several dozen rifles.

Holder continues to deny any involvement.

The bigger issue is, why is there no special prosecutor appointed yet?

UPDATE
Linked by Scared Monkeys. Thanks!
Linked by Sister Toldjah and Public Secrets. Thanks!

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Holder received at least 5 Fast and Furious memos

Big Government (emphasis added):

Senator Chuck Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa today said that Attorney General Eric Holder received at least five weekly memos beginning in July 2010, including four weeks in a row, describing the ill-advised strategy known as Operation Fast and Furious. The memos were to Holder from Michael Walther, the director of the National Drug Intelligence Center.

The Attorney General told Issa during a House Judiciary Committee in May 2011 that he had just learned of Fast and Furious a few weeks before. Yet, on January 31, in a previously scheduled meeting, Grassley personally handed him two letters about Fast and Furious. Grassley and Issa said they find it very troubling that Holder actually knew of Operation Fast and Furious much earlier, and in greater detail than he ever let on.

The memos specifically said that the straw buyers were “responsible for the purchase of 1500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug trafficking cartels.”

ATF_10-04-11_Holder_memo_docs

(full screen here).

Is CBS silencing Sharyl Attiksson?

Meanwhile, the new ATF director wants people to “calm down”. No one needs to “calm down”; what’s needed? A special prosecutor.

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Fast and Furious: The map

ATF Fast and Furious: New documents show Attorney General Eric Holder was briefed in July 2010

New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July 2010. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress.

UPDATE,
Doug Ross has the memo.

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Found in the Fast and Furious documents today…

CBS News:

Among the documents produced: an email in which ATF’s Newell sent the White House’s O’Reilly an “arrow chart reflecting the ultimate destination of firearms we intercepted and/or where the guns ended up.” The chart shows arrows leading from Arizona to destinations all over Mexico.

Newell email (09.03.10) (pdf)
Arizona Gunrunner Impact Team chart (pdf)

In response, O’Reilly wrote on Sept. 3, 2010 “The arrow chart is really interesting – and – no surprise – implies at least that different (Drug Trafficking Organizations) in Mexico have very different and geographically distinct networks in the US for acquiring guns. Did last year’s TX effort develop a similar graphic?”

The O’Reilly mentioned is White House National Security Staffer Kevin O’Reilly.

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