Ted Cruz accuses Obama of trying to "take advantage" of Sandy Hook massacre

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Teabagger Ted Cruz, first-term Republican senator from Texas, has emerged as one of the most loathsomely extremist members of what is overwhelmingly a loathsomely extremist party. And like any "good" Republican extremist, he's taking it upon himself to block any and all gun control efforts, and of course to use any and every occasion to attack the president:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) responded to President Barack Obama's latest call for action on gun control Thursday, launching criticism at the White House and promising to do everything in his power to stop the administration's push for stricter legislation.

"It is saddening to see the president today, once again, try to take advantage of this tragic murder to promote an agenda that will do nothing to stop violent crime, but will undermine the constitutional rights of all law-abiding Americans," Cruz said in a statement. "I am committed to working with Sens. Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, and Jim Inhofe -- and I hope many other colleagues -- to use any procedural means necessary to protect those fundamental rights."

Cruz also blamed the Obama administration for contributing to the gun violence it is now attempting to address.

Yes, you know, your "fundamental" right to own weapons of mass destruction that can do things like this, and to be able to acquire them without background checks, and to be able to do so within a gun-obsessed culture that glorifies gun violence, without effective law enforcement to go after criminals (Cruz blames the Obama administration, but it is Republicans, backed by the NRA, who have stripped the ATF of what it needs to do its job to enforce gun laws).

And of course it isn't just Newtown. It's Aurora, it's Oak Creek, and it's Tucson. It's Columbine. It's the mass murders that become media sensations and historical events, even if nothing is ever done about them, and it's the murders that don't because there are just so many of them, day after day after day. And it's so much else, including all the gun violence since Newtown.

Ted Cruz is a despicable right-wing ideologue with an agenda of extremism. But on this as on so many other issues he's solidly in the mainstream of the Republican Party, and he and his wretched party will continue to do all they can, no doubt successfully given the dysfunctionalism of American government, to block even the most mild (and even the most popular) gun control initiatives.

No fast, no furious

By Mustang Bobby

Fortune magazine, that bastion of liberal bias and anti-capitalism (except it's anything but), reveals that there's no there there to "Fast and Furious":

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.

Memo to Darrell Issa: Your fifteen minutes are now up. Thank you for playing our game. We have some lovely parting gifts for you, including your very own home lobotomy kit.

By the way, if you're waiting for the rest of the media to pick up on this report from Fortune, go stand over there next to the folks waiting for Mr. Godot. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)