Renegade

Friday, September 4, 2009
Cleaning up the ATF’s Augean stables?

In Greek mythology, Augeas was the King of Elis and was best known for his stables, which housed the single greatest number of cattle in the country and had never been cleaned — at least until the time of the great hero Heracles. (Also known as Hercules.) In the Fifth of the Twelve Labors of Heracles, the Greek hero was given the task of cleaning out these Augean stables in a single day. Unlike Heracles’ previous tasks, this was intended to be both humiliating and impossible, since the livestock were immortal and divinely healthy, thus producing an enormous quantity of cow pies.

In the tale, however, Heracles succeeds in cleaning the stables by rerouting the rivers Alpheus and Peneus to wash out the excrement. This made Augeas furious because he had promised Heracles one-tenth of his cattle if the job was finished in one day. Angry beyond reason, he refused to honor the agreement, and Heracles killed him after completing the tasks and gave his kingdom to Augeas’ son, Phyleus, who had been exiled for supporting Heracles against his father. However, the success of his labor was ultimately discounted because the rushing waters had done the work of cleaning the stables, not Heracles, and because the hero was paid. In any case, the cows kept dumping.

I thought about old Heracles, when a good friend sent me a link to this.

From the website:

Managers, Counsel, Internal Affairs and staff of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (BATFE or “ATF”) have repeatedly given false testimony, concealed substantial waste, fraud and abuse, abused their lawful authority, and waged systematic campaigns of reprisal against their own employees that dare to speak out. This website is intended by members of the ATF community to promote restoration of integrity, accountability and responsibility to ATF’s leadership, and regain the trust of the American taxpayer.

www.CleanUpATF.org is a non-profit organization dedicated to returning integrity, accountability and decency to the management of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE or “ATF”).

In recent years, ATF management has become widely and officially known for corruption, self-service, and at times, overt incompetence. Moreover, ATF managers at all levels routinely retaliate or discriminate against employees who make good faith attempts to address significant cases of flagrant abuse, unlawful acts, waste of taxpayer resources, etc. Managers often use the threat or actual imposition of unfounded disciplinary actions, Internal Affairs “investigations”, punitive transfers, and other flagrantly unethical measures to suppress dissension and subvert legitimate complaints about serious abuses.

In the last two years alone, there have been nearly 400 employee complaints. In an organization with only about 5,000 employees, that is a huge drain on resources and adversely impacts the agency’s ability to pursue its purported mission of locking up bad guys. Many experienced and skilled field agents spend so much time just trying to cover their rear ends against trivial, bureaucratic internal policies and arbitrary management actions, that they have little time to actually enforce the nation’s firearms and other laws.

Recently publicized cases have involved malicious and carefully orchestrated management campaigns to smear, discredit, and professionally destroy agents who have repeatedly risked their lives for ATF and the public, solely in reprisal for the filing of legitimate complaints. In some instances, management has gone so far as to implicitly accuse agents of firebombing their own homes, without the slightest shred of evidence, while refusing to adequately investigate the actual criminal suspects, all for the sole purpose of harassing and cowing ATF’s own people into quiet submission.

The Bureau’s leadership has also miserably failed or even deliberately refused to meet its responsibility to protect highly decorated undercover agents from documented threats of murder, rape or other acts of reprisal against themselves and their families by some of the most vicious criminals on the planet.

All of these factors substantially degrade BATFE’s ability to accomplish its authorized missions, and constitute an inexcusable misuse of taxpayer resources.

Now, this may strike many of my readers as ridiculous. One called it, “Just like being a shop steward representing concentration camp guards — he’s still a guard. Who cares if he has a bitch with the camp commandant? Why would we want to support somebody who just wants to make an unconstitutional agency more fair and efficient?”

Well, I’ll tell you why. The fact of the matter is that WE, all by ourselves, are not ever going to get oversight hearings into ATF misconduct in cases like David Olofson’s or Doug Friesen’s. Not on our own, not by ourselves. It ain’t happening.

And, I will concede that it may well be too late for any hearings to have a material effect on events. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

And these guys are in a perfect spot to shine a light on the cockroaches who run ATF — the SES, Senior Executive Service. “Waco Jim”? SES. Little Jimmy Vann (alleged named by an ATF secretary because of the size of his member) of the agency’s national counsel’s office? SES.

So here’s what I urge you to do. If you have a congressman or congresswoman who is on any oversight committee, whether they are Republican or Democrat, forward these damning allegations by field agents against the SES crooks to the congresscritters with the demand that they look into these charges. Don’t editorialize. Don’t criticize the agency’s mission. Keep it short and simple. You want the taxpayer’s dollars protected and spent wisely. You want these agents’ complaints looked into.

Take Bart Stupak, for example. That Michigan Comgressman who represents the UP and some of the “thumb,” tries to stay on the NRA “A” list (and yes, I hear your groans, but what matters in this case is not his purity but his utility).

To quote from his website:

Within the Commerce Committee, Stupak serves as the Chairman of the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee (commonly referred to as “O&I”). Throughout 2006, as the top Democrat on the Subcommittee, Stupak helped spearhead investigations into high-profile issues like online child pornography, security breaches at U.S. nuclear labs, the 2006 Hewlett-Packard pretexting scandal and the BP pipeline rupture at Prudhoe Bay. Stupak’s law enforcement background and his work as an attorney make him uniquely qualified to chair the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, a position he obtained in January of 2007.

So why can’t Bart investigate the ATF? Hell, their alleged justification for all their operations is “interstate commerce,” right? But don’t stop with Bart. Write your congresscritter. Adopt these agent’s cause, at least for one letter. For if THEY are able to get an oversight hearing, some GOPer may be able to slide in a panel on Olofson, Friesen, et al., meaning WE get an oversight hearing too.

Remember this, you ideologically-pure warriors. Your cockroach enemy hates the light, ANY light.

So shine it.

It may be that the ATF’s Augean stables can never be cleaned. Probably not. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a few particular turds who badly need flushing in and of themselves.

Mike
III

So why is speed a problem? Well, all the evidence says that it’s not the speed itself that’s the issue; it’s the difference in speeds. But speeding is reckless you say? Hardly! Speed is not the enemy on a motorcycle. In fact, up to a reasonable limit speed is your friend.

A proficient motorcyclist knows that sometimes the State Prescribed Speed Limit is not the safest speed for a motorcycle. My dad always wanted me to have enough power to get out of the way, whether that involved a 70 mph traffic knot with a lot of trucks involved, or the 15 mph curve that just rides safer at a higher speed. The trained and experienced guy – or gal – in the seat usually has a much better idea of what’s “safe” than some suit sitting in a office in the capitol.

Of course, without experience AND training, the speeding rider is an accident waiting to happen. How many times have you heard, “I had to lay’er down”? If you’ve had even just the basic rider training you know that rubber will always stop you quicker than the side of the bike scraping on the road. As a community, motorcyclists have come together and embraced the need for training. We know we’re vulnerable. So here’s the problem: the privilege of driving a car has become so ubiquitous in North America that people consider it a right. Some states allow 15-year-olds to drive! And they don’t all require driver training to get a driver’s license.

Even scarier! As a community motorists don’t see the necessity of driver training. So for the half-blind, sleepy, untrained motorist it’s open season on bikers. Elmer Fudd is in every car, and we’re Bugs Bunny. Am I making sense? The bottom line is that if you’re a trained and experienced rider, it’s not about speed. It’s the difference in speed between you and Elmer Fudd that counts. So if you see that big old yellow Honda of mine crawling up your tailpipe, lay over, and let me pass. I promise I won’t get in your way.

“DUCK”

The other day my son and I were at work; he brought his Pit Bull pup with him, a beautiful little dog with a map of SC, in white on its side, which the name Dixie came from. Anyway, this one day we had something Dixie wanted; she was relentless, she had to have it. I tossed it to my son, she ran to him, jumping up on him begging for it; my son, Ricky, tossed it back to me and here she comes back, eye’s glowing and head strong in getting it. It was fun for a while playing with Dixie for a while, but she is a dog and we soon ignored her and went back to work.

Lets tear this little story apart; lets say Ricky and I are the house and senate and that the object of interest (a bone) is a bill that has been introduced on the floor of either the house or the senate. Ah man, can one see what I’m getting at yet; oh yeah, the house or senate starts tossing this bill around like a bone; the people run from one to the other lobbying, oh I mean begging, for or against the bone/bill; the public at large has now lowered themselves to the IQ of a dog. After a while of this the senate and house go back to work ignoring the begging. You have seen this happen many times with bills/bones that are designed to raise monies for the state coffer’s, taking from the mouth of the children, putting people deeper into poverty when they haven’t did anything wrong morally to anyone or their property.

This is Democracy folks! How can a civilized nation of people let themselves be animals? Where are the morals of the people? Do we have any, any longer? Are the people happy being pinned up and turned loose to chase a bone?
We have been given a constitution with all the power in our possession to stop this; the sad fact is the people do not want to be above a dog, they would rather someone else be their master and take responsibility for them; they are lazy, not wanting to learn how to use the constitution to defend themselves in a court of law.

Folks, we have helmet laws, ATV laws, Seatbelt laws and many more, by the hundreds, that violate YOUR personal and private property rights in direct violation of the power given to us in this document, the CONSTITUTION!
Here is a for say bill; it will from now own be totally against the law to go out on your private property and urinate behind a bush or tree. Think about a bill such as this, it’s the same as all the other bills I have mentioned above. Look at what it will lead to; law enforcement wanting to set up cameras to catch violators, in effect violating your rights. You say THEY CAN”T DO THIS, but they have, all in the name of safety under a democracy that you have been tricked into; lowering your moral standards to that of animals.

Today there are many websites that show one how to use the courts in standing on the guaranteed civil rights and freedoms you hold in the constitution of the United States. Will the people wake up and learn how to fight or are they content in being a slave to the minority/majority?

MANDATES

Over the past few years I have read all about cell phones and how studies compare them at the same level as drunk driving. This may be so, but as a biker with no protection from the elements, but our own conscious of our surroundings as we chose to take on the dangers of riding, doesn’t it seem that if one is scared to ride they should sell their bike and by a cage?

There are a lot more things to worry about than cell phones, besides you can see someone using a cell and with a little common since you keep an eye on them while riding around them. This hazard is visible but many others are not and the ones that are not are the ones that kill most riders.
One of the unseen hazards is the fact that many bikers do not know how to ride from lack of experience or training. Look at the stats; 75% of deaths in SC are biker error but some want to pick out one action and damn everyone in the state with mandates against it because they are scared. How about the three hundred pounder that has half of a chicken stuck in their face driving down the road; or like the other day I pulled up behind a dude that had his steering wheel camouflaged with the news paper! I see these things while riding and protect myself from them, you never know what action is going on in another humans life at a given moment.

I live on Sampit River, the world record shortest fresh water river, with snakes, alligators and other varmints that are everywhere; even when I go out of the house in the morning I have to keep a keen eye out for the dangers of the environment I live in. Just yesterday I sat on the porch with the family and can’t count how many snakes crossed the driveway; should I run and get legislation passed to wipe out all these dangers I chose to live with? That would be a joke and I would probably be the laughing stock of the general assembly. Hey I choose my environment and I live with it so what is the difference? I am not scared of the choices I have made but I keep a keen eye open for the hazards that can kill me; this includes riding.

There are many more hazards that we cannot control, except but by being alert, that will kill you; for those that want to mandate everything that you are afraid of, to be against the law, stay home, sell your bike and build you a shelter that will protect yourself; Myself, I don’t need any mandates making even everyone a law breaker. The only way to fix stupid is to get stupid to look at stupid in a mirror but until then, just like with all the other hazards such as snakes, gators and falling tree limbs, we have to learn to live with it to stay alive.

One more thing as I close; look at all the other mandates that have made even you a law breaker and ask if they work; If you study them you will answer no; all they do is grow the state coffers, people are still getting killed. Do the Freedom Fighters stand for Freedom of Choice or does that line just sound good so as to get people to stand with you? When one starts lobbying for a mandate then one has made himself a hypocrite; sitting on a fence and jumping off it on the side that sounds good. The laws are already in the books, they just need to be enforced, but I guess people are brainwashed into thinking we need new ones making even themselves a lawbreaker.

Have the MRO’s turned their backs on Freedom also?