Gunwalker, Agitated.

Today, Radley Balko mentioned Gunwalker, and I didn't recall his having done so before.  I thought it might be useful to, well, agitate a bit about that.  (Balko would be a great asset to have for Gunwalker reportage, given his following with libertarian types and his current employ by, of all things, The Huffington Post.)  So, responding to an upstream comment, I did.

"Got another source for the BATFE documents? CBS News doesn’t have a great history with government documents."

Yes. 

It's true that CBS has a pretty crappy history with a lot of things--just like all their peers.  That's why when a Sharyl Attkisson actually begins reporting a story in the tradition of watchdog (vs. lapdog), it sticks out like a sore thumb.  I could hardly believe it when I saw her first F&F story myself, but she continues to act like a real reporter, despite intimidation attempts and plenty of empty ridicule.  She's far from perfect, but I'm actually impressed.

If anyone here wants to follow the F&F story, go to the people that Attkisson got it from:  the whole thing got its start when street agents at ATF (writing at the site cleanupatf.org) actually approached bloggers Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea as whistleblowers.  Now the irony in this origin is a rather complete story unto itself, as Vanderboegh and Codrea are, ah, not exactly what you'd call fans of ATF, nor particularly of Congress.  Nonetheless, they were deemed honest enough by the field agents to wind up the preferred conduits between their own feared management, mainstream media and what have now become Congressional investigators.

Mike and David have been churning out the "Gunwalker" (F&F) content pretty much full-time for almost a full year now, and there is a lot of it.  To my knowledge they have been supported in every claim they've yet made by both the whistleblowers and the paper evidence they have produced, and have started to weather just the sort of telltale retaliatory and harassment attacks and smears that you would expect when there's real fire to go with the smoke.

Mike and David are certainly quirky, and way too direct for mainstream sensibilities, but they are the real deal.  You want the full story on Gunwalker, you go to them.

(To Radley:  methinks this is a story worth picking up.  If you check it out for yourself, I don't think you'll be disappointed.)

Now Balko's a busy boy, and I'm not exactly expecting him to take my suggestion, but I do think it would be worth his time.  And it would sure help Mike and David in their efforts, which despite all that's happened, could easily get disappeared by the increasing number of professionals in that field who really do want this whole ugly mess to go away.

Got sack?

Was reminded of this Grigg classic upon hearing news that the Previous Occupant (hock, spit) is cancelling his visit to Geneva on fears that the Swiss may actually arrest him on torture charges.  (Presuming that threat is indeed credible:  thank you, Switzerland, for being willing to do one of those jobs that Americans won't.)

On the other hand:  that's a lot of sound and fury, but how big is the sack, really?  Would the Swiss apply the principle equally if the Current Occupant (hock, spit), who has already, in the words of Arthur Silber, "doubled down on every single policy" of his predecessor (including but by no means limited to torture, assassination, and secrecy) that he and so many of his supporters decried so loudly and for so long, were to set foot in the same place?  Not the ex-tyrant--the current one.  The one with the drone army (and isn't that just a multi-entendre term?), the Big Red Button, 24/7 command of the Legions, and the fanatical support of all those who love empire more than liberty.

Now THAT would be worthy of a William Tell award.

Please, go read the Grigg article, and share it with people who need to know.  It was magnificent then, and it still is today.

Neeh...Do-Over!

Oh, for fuck's sake:

Under fire for losing track of weapons that turned up at crime scenes along the Southwest border, the Justice Department has taken the extraordinary step of formally withdrawing an inaccurate letter about the episode that it sent to Congress earlier this year.

Wow, wouldn't it be nice to be one of the Untouchables, to be able to whine "do-over!" in the middle of an ongoing investigation...to be able, when confronted with massive evidence of actual criminal wrongdoing (and literal proof of perjury), to simply "withdraw" your earlier testimony and offer up a different story?

Shit, the jokes just line themselves up, don't they?

• Maxwell Smart:  "Would you believe..."
• Groucho Marx:  "Those are my principles.  If you don't like them, I have others."
• Mark Twain:  "The truth is the most valuable thing we have.  Let us by all means economize it."
• The jailers of Yellowbeard, when at the end of the latter's prison sentence he asked if he would be set free:  "Well, yes...or, rather, no.  You see, when we sent you to jail twenty years ago, we really didn't expect you to live that long."
• The Grim Reaper, when asked if the previous deal (best two out of three) would now have to be the best three out of five:  "Damn right!"
• Garden-variety politicians:  "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

(Please feel free to submit others if you like.  The pickins is rich.)


And yet this is inevitable, isn't it?  It comes right along with that "legitimate monopoly on force" deal with the devil.  These are, after all, the same people who have been manufacturing their own (murderous) reality to achieve their political goals;  it should not surprise us that they would also move to manufacture their own exoneration within a legal system that, hell, they wholly own anyway.

Still, jeez, the sheer chutzpah is absolutely astounding.  I hope every juror in America sees this play for what it is.  It can only erode faith in the system, and at least that's something.

Don't worry, guys.  We get your damn message.

Here's one in return:

Seriously.


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* Hat tip to Vanderboegh.

Your irony overload for the day.

Palantír?

The company that sells their supercharged eavesnooping analytics system to the Feds (never to be used against us, of course, what are ya, an extremist?) is called Palantír?

What is this, some secret psy-op designed to get students of irony to have spontaneous aneurysms?

Or hell, maybe the reference just naturally draws the tyrants like flies to a blacklight.  Hey, that's it:  someone should develop a total-surveillance system (all your brainwaves are belong to us) and market it under the straightforward name Eye of Sauron.  Anyone wanna bet that the Beltway set would so much as bat an eye before spending your money on it?

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Hat tip to Mike Vanderboegh.

'What if,' indeed.

Yes, the following came from the Faux News folks.  You're a thinking human;  ignore that and consider the content on its own merits.

I admit, even I have to willfully filter out all the gratuitous production paeans to the Founders' minarchy, but again, that's just applying a proper noise filter to get better signal.  You're doing that all the time anyway, right?

The power of this piece isn't in any one thing that Napolitano says;  hell, sadly, nothing there is new.  What works about this, instead, is the breadth of the listing in a single delivery.  Even for those of us whose faith in the political process is slightly dimmer than that of the late Frank Chodorov, it's still all too easy to get mired just in one or two fronts in the State's war on all of us, and forget just how breathtakingly comprehensive the overall assault is.

Consider sharing with those who need to know.  Hell, I could envision this being aired at parties, where contestants would tally up a count of the things mentioned in this segment that started happening within their lifetimes...

Quotes.

Radley Balko:

• Cop shoots at unarmed man, arrests unarmed man. Unarmed man somehow still charged with “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.”
• 5-year-old arrested, zip-tied at the hands and feet, and charged with battery on a police officer.

Joel Simon:

"I've been waiting for years for the staff of The Onion to just throw up their hands and give up trying to keep up with reality. In a world with such absurd people in it, what use is satire?"

Voltaire:

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Personally, I still think the Voltaire quote may need to be updated to:

Those who want you to believe absurdities, have already committed the atrocities.

Props to Sam Wolanyk...

...for putting together the following admirable resource.  Observe:

Now it's not exactly a secret that I've got no faith in appealing to the same system what gave'n us the problem in the first place, for any sort of redress.  No faith at all.  And realistically, let's face it:  most of the energy expended in trying to "work within the system" is pluperfectly entropic.

And yet, I cannot help but admire the dogged attempts of a few truly exceptional people, to till at the windmills nonetheless, unapologetically, directly, and with class.  Right now, my gold standard for that practice is Mike Vanderboegh's and David Codrea's amazing work to keep the Gunwalker Scandal alive despite the Establishment's best efforts to make it go away.  Here, I see the same sort of direct "I see you" approach in Wolanyk's effort to educate participants, and the breadth and scope of his content is outstanding.  (I'll choose to forgive him the teeth-gnashing "sheepdog" reference and any other transgressions that only hardcore non-aggressors would spot anyway, because this hits so hard on so many important points.)

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Hat tip to Yih-Chau Chang, Oakland Gun Rights Examiner, for clueing me in to the video.