ATF Death Watch 58: I’m Shocked! Shocked!

Coming to us from the “Reap What Ye Shall Sow Department,” Richard Serrano and the LA Times reports that more guns from the Epic Fail known far and wide as “Fast and Furious” have turned up at eleven more violent crime scenes. In the U.S. That’s in addition to the starring role played by ATF-enabled firearms in the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. And the possible connection of Gunwalker guns with the death of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata. Talk about them chickens comin’ home to roost, eh? Here’s looking at you, kid!

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ATF Death Watch 41: A Rolling Stone(wall) Gathers No Melson.

Those that do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
                                                – George Santayana (1863–1952)

We can learn a lot from history. If only we pay attention, that is. But the Obama Administration seems Hell-bent for leather to ignore all the lessons they coulda/shoulda/woulda learned, had they just been paying attention to the end of the Nixon Administration. Case in point, you can’t expect to hang someone out to dry without them turning stool-pigeon and singing for the grand inquisitors. Word is now trickling out about the testimony of ATF’s Acting Director, Kenneth Melson. Testimony that would indicate that AG Eric Holder has, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, got some ‘splainin’ to do…

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ATF Death Watch 40: Come On In! The Water’s Fine!

You just knew this was gonna happen. Here we’ve been focusing on the ATF lo these many weeks. And now the shockwaves emanating from Fast n’ Furious are rippling out to other alphabetic agencies in the ObamaNation. Think the ATF could get in this much trouble and screw up this badly without some big-time help from it’s sister-agencies? Think again, because reports are starting to surface that the FBI is neck-deep in kimchee, right along with our friends from the ATF&E (and sometimes Really Big Fires). And here at TTAG, we’re not too big to say “I told you so.”

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ATF Death Watch 23: Circle the Wagons, Shoot the Virtuous

The ritual executions have begun inside the hallowed halls of the ATF, where the echos of jack-booted thuggery reigns supreme. FoxNews reports that ATF whistleblower Agent Vince Cefalu was served with his notice he’d been nominated to the history team last week, a move which Cefalu says is “politically motivated.”

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ATF Death Watch 21: You Know You’re Toast When The Libs Start Mocking You.

With a tip o’ the TTAG cap (available in the TTAG Store for a reasonable $19.95 + S&H) to founding TTAG Armed Intelligentsia member Bill Montgomery (who we all wish would send us some chapters in his serialized adventure yarn), from whence comes this political cartoon, featuring everybody’s favorite Attorney General since Antonio “Speedy” Gonzales, Eric Holder. (Gotta love those run-on sentences, eh, RF?) Yep, and when the barking dogs of the Liberal media starts a-howlin’ outside your door, you know things are not going well for the home team.

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ATF Death Watch 20: Hell No, I Won’t Go!

Forget what we said earlier, about ATF Acting Head (case) Kenneth Melson going gently into that good night. Apparently, he’s circled the wagons, barricaded himself in his bunker, and put out a call to Ava Braun. That’s right, campers. The embattled head of the Agency Most Likely To Commit A Crime In The Name Of Justice is standing firm. Kind of like a captain, going down with his ship, only in the ATF version, Melson is the one with his hand on the scupper plug helping the ship to go down around him.

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ATF Death Watch 17: CNN Reports Melson to Resign Under Pressure

Well DUH. I mean, yes, TTAG did report on this likelihood last week, but it’s not like you’d have to be psychic to figure this one out. Melson’s resignation was every bit as obvious (and every bit as not-funny) as a Gallagher routine with a watermelon. Even with Melson essaying the role of the stunt melon . . .

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ATF Death Watch 15 – And Another One Rides the Bus

ATF acting head Kenneth Melson: "Nothing to see here...move along now." (AP Photo)

The Wall St. Journal is reporting this AM that, according to the proverbial “unnamed sources,” BAFTE (and sometimes Really Big Fires) acting director Kenneth Melson will be joining the history team sometime within the next week or so. Melson, who’s been taking his title of “acting” head a wee bit too seriously since April of ’09, will be thrown under the bus by the ObamaNation, in the hopes that his ritual sacrifice will calm the bloodlust in Congress and Stop All Those Difficult Questions They Keep Asking. As if.

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ATF Reshuffles the Gunwalker Deck.

Ah Spring. That time of year when a senior ATF agent’s thoughts turn to CYA. And so it is with little surprise that we report to you, gentle reader, that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (and sometimes Really Big Fires) summoned all the head cheeses to D.C. for a circle-the-wagons confab earlier this week. We can now report that what spooked the ATF spooks was a report that the Phoenix office Special Assistant Agent in Charge, George Gillett, is cooperating with Senator Charles Grassley’s investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. Or the Gunwalker Project. Or whatever they’re calling it this week inside the Beltway. (My guess would be “Operation Step in a Steaming Pile,” but that’s only a guess.)

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