Sarah Palin tries to convince the handful of subscribers to her internet channel that they have influence and forced the former head of the ATF to step down.

Click look of self satisfaction to play video.

"Well you sure made a difference for the 2nd Amendment, and you're still making a difference. Just weeks after your public comments and your public outrage caused the ATF to back off their ridiculous ban on a popular kind of rifle ammunition, the ATF director is stepping down. And now Congress is taking a look at ways to shrink the ATF’s authority. Good! That’s your influence! Like every branch of government, the ATF, if it exists at all, should exist to protect constitutional rights, not to violate them. The Second Amendment protects private gun ownership, and it also protects the right to own ammunition! It’s pure common sense. But I suppose it takes a federal agency stocked with lawyers to ignore common sense, ignore the Constitution, and really overstep its bounds.But they don't always get what they want do they? The government doesn't always win. You can make  difference. You are making a difference."

Yeah probably not.

First off B. Todd James, the former head of the ATF, is leaving to fill the newly created job of disciplinary officer for the NFL. A job that you have to know is going to pay a HELL of a lot more money than his ATF position.

Secondly, as Wonkette points out, the ATF is NOT a "branch of  government." It is a law enforcement agency, like the FBI or the CIA.

Thirdly the bullets that the Obama administration wanted to ban is ammunition for the AR-15 that can pierce body armor and place law enforcement personnel at risk while doing their jobs. What kind of a law abiding citizen would want or need those anyhow?

Fourthly nowhere in the 2nd Amendment does it say that citizens should have access to EVERY KIND of weapon, nor EVERY KIND of ammunition. When the amendment was ratified they had muskets for fuck's sake!

And lastly, who in their right mind would actually believe that the morons who send Palin their couch seat money each month had ANY impact on this decision to drop the push to ban those AR-15 bullets or Jones decision to take a better job?

No the reason that the bullet ban did not go through is because the NRA got their members to flood the agency with e-mails and phone calls, and the NRA contacted their butt boys in the Congress and told them to stop this bill or they would not longer let them give them blowjobs in the broom closet.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, that Palin and her handful of paint chip eating morons did had any affect whatsoever.

But hey I get it. One way to help yourself feel relevant, is by convincing the dipshits hanging around you that you make them relevant as well.

The Truth about Fast and Furious. Update!

 Courtesy of Fortune:

Quite simply, there's a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn. 

Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies. Fortune reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct knowledge of the case. Several, including Voth, are speaking out for the first time. 

How Fast and Furious reached the headlines is a strange and unsettling saga, one that reveals a lot about politics and media today. It's a story that starts with a grudge, specifically Dodson's anger at Voth. After the terrible murder of agent Terry, Dodson made complaints that were then amplified, first by right-wing bloggers, then by CBS. Rep. Issa and other politicians then seized those elements to score points against the Obama administration, which, for its part, has capitulated in an apparent effort to avoid a rhetorical battle over gun control in the run-up to the presidential election. (A Justice Department spokesperson denies this and asserts that the department is not drawing conclusions until the inspector general's report is submitted.) 

"Republican senators are whipping up the country into a psychotic frenzy with these reports that are patently false," says Linda Wallace, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service's criminal investigation unit who was assigned to the Fast and Furious team (and recently retired from the IRS). A self-described gun-rights supporter, Wallace has not been criticized by Issa's committee. 

The ATF's accusers seem untroubled by evidence that the policy they have pilloried didn't actually exist. "It gets back to something basic for me," says Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). "Terry was murdered, and guns from this operation were found at his murder site." A spokesman for Issa denies that politics has played a role in the congressman's actions and says "multiple individuals across the Justice Department's component agencies share responsibility for the failure that occurred in Operation Fast and Furious." Issa's spokesman asserts that even if ATF agents followed prosecutors' directives, "the practice is nonetheless gun walking." Attorneys for Dodson declined to comment on the record. 

For its part, the ATF would not answer specific questions, citing ongoing investigations. But a spokesperson for the agency provided a written statement noting that the "ATF did not exercise proper oversight, planning or judgment in executing this case. We at ATF have accepted responsibility and have taken appropriate and decisive action to insure that these errors in oversight and judgment never occur again." The statement asserted that the "ATF has clarified its firearms transfer policy to focus on interdiction or early intervention to prevent the criminal acquisition, trafficking and misuse of firearms," and it cited changes in coordination and oversight at the ATF. 

Irony abounds when it comes to the Fast and Furious scandal. But the ultimate irony is this: Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal.

 As has been mentioned numerous times before, by news agencies that are NOT Fox New, this is nothing more than a witch hunt, and yet another attempt by the rabid Right Wing to create a conspiracy out of virtual thin air in as they desperately try hang a scandal around the neck of President Obama, because in their black little hearts they just "know" that one must exist.

By the way I encourage you to read the entire article as it does an incredible job of revealing to what depths these Republican assholes will go to in order to smear this President.

Update: As usual Rachel Maddow has done an exemplary job of explaining this case in very simple  language.  If you want to understand this issue better then click here for further clarification.