(CBS News) — Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation “Fast and Furious” to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.
In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the “big fish.” But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called “gunwalking,” and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. (more…)

It is after 5:00pm

Remember the video we posted earlier in the month.?   2-J’s announcing his new objective to march on Gun Shops.

Well, apparently the first shot-at-it didn’t go too well for team 2J’s. (more…)

WARNING – If you are prone to big picture avoidance, or if intellectual honesty makes you uncomfortable, this is not the thread for you.
However, if you are open-minded, well versed in the consequential multi-dimensional politics of our time, and aware that little – if anything – ever happens in the abstract, then perhaps you might enjoy digging further.
There is a big picture here;  a big uncomfortable picture, and in fairness to everyone it needs to be discussed in the brightest sunlight.
To begin I will acknowledge that some TreeHouse members are/were slightly or perhaps even more than moderately annoyed at the level of focus placed upon the Trayvon Martin case by our refuge.  Indeed, it is has been a quite extensive and time-consuming endeavor, not by mere happenstance or by dismissive intention, but more by necessity. (more…)

MSNBC Panel Explodes As ‘Gun Owner’ S.E. Cupp Battles Gun Control Advocate  (Via Mediaite) MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner’s panel delved into gun control issues on Thursday which set off a heated yelling match between New York Daily News columnist S.E. Cupp and Dan Gross, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

The panel became tense when Wagner opened with a discussion about proposed New York State legislation that would encode shell casings on bullets to more easily track those guns used in crimes. Major gun lobbies have opposed the legislation and at least one gun maker is threatening to pull their operation from New York if the bill passes. (more…)

Texas Independence Day

March 2, 1836

By Elvis Chupacabra
.

When I was a mere lad, Texas Independence Day was celebrated in schools with patriotic songs, readings of the Declaration by schoolkids and grave lectures on our role as Texans by our teachers. Even the Mexican kids participated, because anyone who’d read the  hallowed rolls of the Alamo and Goliad dead knew that there were plenty of martyrs with Spanish surnames. We also knew of Lorenzo de Zavala and Juan Seguin, both Texian heroes of the Revolution.

It was understood by the youngest of us that Texas went from being just the mostly empty northern part of the Mexican state of Cohuila-Texas to the independent Republic of Texas with the signing of this document. Like the beloved United States, from whence the spirit -and some would say impetus – of revolution had come, we won our right to be free through the force of arms, wielded by brave and bold men. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the despot which our Texas Forefathers overthrew was ever bit as evil and prone to predations as Britain’s George III. His one saving grace, that he invented that most American of oral fixations, chewing gum, was more than off-set by his cruelty and duplicitous nature. The self-proclaimed Napoleon of the North, he boasted an army well-officered and well-equipped that had spent the past couple of years putting down rebellions in Mexico. It wasn’t just the Texians who longed for the return to a government who respected the liberal Constitution of 1824.  (more…)