Interesting bit from geoffB, in re: the “Washington Insider” update to this post.

From geoff:

Two new things popped up on the “Fast and Furious” investigation which lend some credibility to his idea that Holder will be gone before long.

There was another operation in Indiana, “Gangwalker”, supplying guns to gangs.

The apparent purpose of the operation was to lend the thinnest veneer of truth to the 90-percent lie spread by Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and Hillary Clinton from the very beginning of the Obama administration. It makes sense only as a plot to manufacture evidence for the punitive gun control laws that Obama has championed his entire political career. Indeed, even after Gunwalker was exposed, the number of U.S. guns in Mexico, many of which were put there by the actions of the government itself, was still brazenly used as the excuse for ATF long gun reporting requirements currently being challenged in courts.

Likewise, what Codrea has dubbed as “Gangwalker” appears to be another attempt to provide guns to criminals in order to generate more gun crime and then more calls for gun control.

The biggest difference between the two operations at this early date only seems to be that Gangwalker is a purposeful attempt to create the deaths of American citizens in order to pursue the administration’s fanatical anti-gun agenda.

American deaths, for political gain.

Think about that claim for a minute, and what that would mean.

Operation Fast and Furious (and the suspected operations in Texas and Florida) was reprehensible and more than likely calculated to raise the level of violence in Mexico, sacrificing the lives of law enforcement officers, soldiers, and civilians in order to pursue a policy goal. It wasn’t until an American agent died that whistleblowers finally arose and cried out. It was as if Mexican lives meant less than American lives … and in this sick political calculus, maybe that was exactly the mindset.

But if Gangwalker is what it appears to be, then we are staring down a president, attorney general, secretary of Homeland Security, and key members of the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security gone entirely rogue.

Then there is a new twist in the “Gunwalker” saga with there being IEDs and full auto weapons supplied and the confessed supplier being let go.

The WSJ reports today that federal authorities are now investigating why the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix — the same office that oversaw Fast and Furious — released Jean Baptiste Kingery after he confessed to providing military-style weapons to the now-defunct La Familia Michoacana drug cartel.

Kingery, who was arrested and released in June 2010, confessed to manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) using grenade components from the U.S. He also admitted to helping the cartel convert semi-automatic rifles into machine guns. Mexican criminal organizations are increasingly using these military-style weapons as the cartels’ escalate their wars against the government and one another.

Despite Kingery’s confession, and over loud protestations from the arresting ATF officers, the U.S. Attorney’s office let Kingery go within hours of his arrest.

Plus this little added item.

The Arms Export Control Act is the same law that brought down the architects of Iran-Contra, officials who facilitated the illegal sales of weapons to Iran and to Nicaraguan rebels (Contras) during the Reagan Administration.

It’s a critical piece of legislation, especially for the ordinary American, who’s usually the one wearing the boots when they hit the ground in bad places. Americans have a hard time with the notion that the bullets, guns, missiles, tanks, and other military hardware the enemy may be using to kill their sons and daughters in the military may have been ‘made in the USA.’

Here’s how it’s supposed to work. The Arms Export Control Act prohibits US arms merchants and defense manufacturers from selling lethal weapons and sensitive or dual-use technology to people who may want to use those weapons and technology to fire back at US citizens—at the military, law enforcement agents, and more and more often, a lot of just plain Americans who routinely miss those signs 80 miles inland on the US side of the Mexico-Arizona border warning tourists to go no further–Mexican gunmen on the prowl.

US weapons cannot be sold and shipped to countries that support terrorism, or nations, states, groups, or other entities deemed unfriendly to the United States.

Los Zetas and US weapons

I’d say Mexican cartels, especially the violent assassination squads that comprise Los Zetas, fall into that category, wouldn’t you?

Even more importantly, the Arms Export Control Act is, in fact, a servant to Article Three of the United States Constitution, which defines the act of selling weapons to those who would ‘levy war against the United States’ or ‘giving aid and comfort to our enemies’ as treason. No kidding. Treason.

If a US law enforcement agency wants to involve itself in the sale of weapons purchased from US gun dealers for export purposes–sales that may be part of an legitimate enforcement or military operation–that agency, let’s say ATF, must apply to the State Department for an exemption from the licensing requirements normally imposed on the commercial sale and export of such weapons. If an enforcement agency or military entity intent on running a covert op involving the export of lethal weapons does not obtain the necessary exemptions from State, for–listen carefully–each weapon or bundle of weapons purchased, that agency or military purchaser has committed a crime. Consider. ATF sent more than 1700 weapons across the border into Mexico–that could translate into 1700+ violations of the Arms Export Control Act.

If Holden goes, Obama’s Justice Department shield — the “fire wall,” as others have called it — is greatly weakened.

In the end, though, the problem is systemic, and unless and until Obama is not only defeated but is replaced by a classical liberal / constitutional conservative with a reformer’s will, the bowels of our bureaucracy — a very real shadow government, operating through the production of ever more rules and regulations, and acting beyond the reach of voters and temporary politicians — will still be riddled with an activist, leftwing cancer that will go dormant during “off” administrations, only to resurface at the beck and call of the next “progressive” President and Congress.

Getting rid of Holder, then Obama, and following up with investigations into corruption and cover-ups within the Justice Department is a very small start. The next President and Congress, should the GOP be so fortunate as to regain power, simply must aggressively sell a severe restriction on the bureaucratic state to voters — and refuse to back down to the inevitable demagoguery the left-wing Democrats will use to protect their structural political advantage, itself becoming something of a permanent fixture of what was once supposedly a representative republican form of government.

Bachmann, Palin, and Cain are the only candidates and potential candidates I believe are both capable and willing to carry out such a excising of the Nanny State’s primary and entrenched defenses.

The fact is, it will take a kind of anti-establishment political outsider. Gaining the Presidency is a start, sure. But it’s not enough — and it matters who we entrust with the job.

We really don’t have the option of kicking the can down the road much longer — and to those who believe the endgame is merely regaining the Presidency and control of Congress by putting up the most “electable” candidate, with the resultant lower taxes and proposed “compassionate conservative” edge fixes to entitlement programs (which, after media pressure and Democrat spin will likely stall), I ask, as I’ve done for several years now, is it really better to win and, in so doing, lose more slowly? Or is it best to put up a real classical liberal / constitutional conservative candidate, provide a stark contrast between that vision of America and the one being offered up by establishment politicians (of both parties), and, having made our best pitch, let the chips fall where they may…?