Tag Archives: Attorney general

The History Behind The Decision Not To Charge Hillary Clinton With Mishandling Classified Information

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We are at a critical point in America–we have lost the concept of equal justice under the law. However, we did not get here overnight, and the characters involved are simply acting in ways they have acted in the past. It is time to clean house in Washington and see if we can replace the current elites with people who love America more than they love their own personal advancement.

World Net Daily posted an article yesterday that gives an amazing amount of insight into how Washington works and the characters involved in the latest Clinton scandal. I would strongly suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article, but I will try to summarize the article below.

The article reports:

In 2004, Comey (James Comey, FBI Director), then serving as a deputy attorney general in the Justice Department, apparently limited the scope of the criminal investigation of Sandy Berger, which left out former Clinton administration officials who may have coordinated with Berger in his removal and destruction of classified records from the National Archives. The documents were relevant to accusations that the Clinton administration was negligent in the build-up to the 9/11 terrorist attack.
…Curiously, Berger, Lynch and Cheryl Mills all worked as partners in the Washington law firm Hogan & Hartson, which prepared tax returns for the Clintons and did patent work for a software firm that played a role in the private email server Hillary Clinton used when she was secretary of state.

…After Attorney General John Aschroft recused himself in the Valerie Plame affair in 2004, Comey appointed as special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who ended up convicting “Scooter” Libby, a top aide to then Vice President Dick Cheney, of perjury and obstruction of justice. The charge was based on the accusations of Plame and her former ambassador husband, Joe Wilson – both partisan supporters of Bill and Hillary Clinton – that Libby outed her as a CIA agent.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller’s 2015 memoir strongly suggests Fitzgerald improperly manipulated testimony and withheld crucial evidence in obtaining a conviction against Libby in his 2007 trial.

…When Dukakis was defeated, Berger returned to Hogan & Hartson until he became foreign policy adviser for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992.

On March 28, WND reported Lynch was a litigation partner for eight years at Hogan & Hartson, from March 2002 through April 2010.

Mills also worked at Hogan & Hartson, for two years, starting in 1990, before she joined then President-elect Bill Clinton’s transition team, on her way to securing a position as White House deputy counsel in the Clinton administration.

According to documents Hillary Clinton’s first presidential campaign made public in 2008, Hogan & Hartson’s New York-based partner Howard Topaz was the tax lawyer who filed income tax returns for Bill and Hillary Clinton beginning in 2004.

In addition, Hogan & Hartson in Virginia filed a patent trademark request on May 19, 2004, for Denver-based MX Logic Inc., the computer software firm that developed the email encryption system used to manage Clinton’s private email server beginning in July 2013. A tech expert has observed that employees of MX Logic could have had access to all the emails that went through her account.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton nominated Lynch for the first of her two terms as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, a position she held until she joined Hogan & Hartson in March 2002 to become a partner in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group.

I’m sure you get the picture. Washington needs a major housecleaning. Our justice system is seriously compromised and needs to be cleaned up and staffed with people who believe in equal justice under the law. I suspect our Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves.

 

 

A + B Equals Whatever You Want It to

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The following quotes (from ABC News) are taken from James Comey‘s statement concerning the Hillary Clinton investigation:

After a tremendous amount of work over the last year, the FBI is completing its investigation and referring the case to the Department of Justice for a prosecutive decision. What I would like to do today is tell you three things: what we did; what we found; and what we are recommending to the Department of Justice.

…I have so far used the singular term, “e-mail server,” in describing the referral that began our investigation. It turns out to have been more complicated than that. Secretary Clinton used several different servers and administrators of those servers during her four years at the State Department, and used numerous mobile devices to view and send e-mail on that personal domain. As new servers and equipment were employed, older servers were taken out of service, stored, and decommissioned in various ways. Piecing all of that back together—to gain as full an understanding as possible of the ways in which personal e-mail was used for government work—has been a painstaking undertaking, requiring thousands of hours of effort.

…From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.

…The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional e-mails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported or were connected to the private e-mail domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government e-mail accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including high-ranking officials at other agencies, people with whom a Secretary of State might naturally correspond.

…Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.

So what do we know?

  1. The exclusive use of a private server was against the rules. Permission was never given for that use. It is also interesting that Mrs. Clinton never made it clear that there was more than one server.
  2. Hillary Clinton did not release all of her emails (and lied–saying she did).
  3. FBI Comey said today that there were times when Hillary’s private server could have been hacked.
  4. The investigators reported that 110 emails in 52 email chains were determined to contain some form of classified information at the time they were sent, contrary to statements made by Hillary Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton has avoided an indictment, despite the fact that she obviously broke the law. This is a really sad day for American justice.

Move Along, Nothing To See Here

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Hot Air posted an article today about the airplane meeting of former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

The article reports:

Reporter Christopher Sign of ABC 15 in Phoenix, AZ appeared on The O’Reilly Factor Thursday night to talk about his scoop involving that secret meeting between former President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Watch the entire interview below. Sign lays out how the story developed and then he leaves this little nugget:

“The former president steps into her plane. They then speak for 30 minutes privately. The FBI there on the tarmac instructing everybody around ‘no photos, no pictures, no cell phones.’”

Seems as if they might have been trying to keep this meeting under the radar.

The article further reports:

Finally, let’s stop focusing on the fact that this meeting was inappropriate because Clinton’s wife is under investigation by Lynch’s Justice Department. I mean, that’s bad, but it’s actually letting Lynch and Clinton off the hook a bit. By focusing on the appearance of conflict because Hillary Clinton is being investigated, we are willfully overlooking the very real conflict in the fact that Clinton himself is under investigation, as the Grand Poo-bah at the Clinton Foundation. (Fox News)

The day after the meeting the Justice Department announced that it was going to delay the release of correspondence between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s four top aides and officials with the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Holdings, a closely allied public relations firm that Bill Clinton helped launch. The delay is 27 months–well into a Hillary Clinton presidency if she is elected.

Nothing to see here, move along.

This Is Ridiculoous

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I realize that there is a small group of people in America who oppose the Second Amendment. Some of them understand it, but don’t understand the reasoning behind it, and some simply have no idea why it is there. Occasionally it is somewhat amusing to watch the gyrations of the people who oppose guns.Today Hot Air posted a really good example of people going over the edge on the subject.

The article reports:

Three dozen online retailers will no longer be able to sell realistic-looking toy guns, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Tuesday.

Schneiderman reached a settlement with 30 online toy gun retailers who sell their products through Amazon.com. The third-party retailers have sold over 5,000 imitation toy guns in New York, and they are illegal because they did not meet state safety standards, he said.

“When toy guns are mistaken for real guns, there can be tragic consequences,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “New York state law prohibits the sale of imitation weapons that closely resemble real guns.”

…We may not be able to put the actual criminals in jail at a reasonable rate, but by golly we’re going to stick it to those toy retailers. The 30 or so retailers are paying fines which total more than $27K. (That’s on top of his move back in August when he nailed Amazon, Kmart, Sears, Wal-Mart and ACTA for $300K, so if nothing else the state coffers are getting fatter.) If these scofflaws want to peddle their dangerous wares in the Empire State in the future they will have to be colored “white or bright red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink or purple.”

I realize that occasionally mistakes are made, but I refuse to believe that toy guns are a major part of any gun problem. However, you notice that this new law will provide money for the state. The law serves two purposes–it pleases a certain political group and it provides money for the state. Unfortunately, it does nothing to deal with criminals with guns.

Spending Money We Don’t Have On Something We Don’t Need To Do

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On Monday The Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama plans to restore funds for prisoners to get Pell Grants for college.

The article reports:

The plan, set to be unveiled Friday by the secretary of education and the attorney general, would allow potentially thousands of inmates in the U.S. to gain access to Pell grants, the main form of federal aid for low-income college students. The grants cover up to $5,775 a year in tuition, fees, books and other education-related expenses.

Prisoners received $34 million in Pell grants in 1993, according to figures the Department of Education provided to Congress at the time. But a year later, Congress prohibited state and federal prison inmates from getting Pell grants as part of broad anticrime legislation, leading to a sharp drop in the number of in-prison college programs. Supporters of the ban contended federal aid should only go to law-abiding citizens.

Shouldn’t Congress be the group to make this decision? The goal is to educate prisoners so that they can get jobs when they leave prison. The theory is that an educated prisoner is less likely to return to prison. That is the theory, but it seems to me that this is another example of rewarding bad behavior. What about the middle-class families struggling to pay for their children’s education? Shouldn’t we make more money available to them rather than to prisoners?

The article reports:

Stephen Steurer, head of the Correctional Education Association, an advocacy group, said two Education Department officials told him at a conferenceearly this month the agency was moving to restore Pell grants for prisoners and allow many colleges and universities to participate. Money from the grants would directly reimburse institutions for the cost of delivering courses in prisons rather than go to prisoners, Mr. Steurer said.

“It will be substantial enough to create some data and to create enough information for some evaluation,” said Rep. Danny Davis (D., Ill.), who is co-sponsoring a bill with Rep. Donna Edwards (D., Md.) to permanently restore Pell grants for prisoners.

Let’s let Congress vote on this bill–it shouldn’t be done by the President.

The Creeping Bureaucracy Of Washington

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Andrew McCarthy posted an article today at National Review Online about the recent events involving police that have gotten so much publicity. Mr. McCarthy’s theory is that Eric Holder has inserted himself into these events not because they are civil rights issues, but because he can use these events to exert federal power over local law enforcement.

The article reports:

Civil-rights investigations in Ferguson and Staten Island? No, what denizens of St. Louis and New York City ought to be worried about right now is . . . the crime wave overtaking Seattle.

If you don’t understand why, then you probably thought Obamacare was about covering the uninsured. Like its health-care “reform” campaign, the Obama Left’s civil-rights crusade is about control — central control of state law enforcement by Washington.

The deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York are each tragic in their own way. But in neither is there a federal civil-rights case to be had. To think otherwise, you have to be getting your advice from Al Sharpton — the huckster confidant of President Obama and Attorney General Holder.

So what has happened in Seattle that should have us all concerned?

The article reports:

Seattle is another of the big cities that has been targeted by the DOJ. It has been under a consent decree since the Justice Department targeted it in 2012 for a “pattern or practice” of violations, allegedly including “subjecting individuals to excessive force” — in particular, “using excessive force against persons of color,” and “escalating situations and using excessive force when arresting individuals for minor offenses.”

…Meanwhile, Seattle has been making announcements, too. It seems crime in the Emerald City has been skyrocketing since the Justice Department came in to, er, help. Homicides up 21 percent, car theft up 44 percent, aggravated assaults up 14 percent, and so on.

Welcome to Change: produced and directed by the Obama Justice Department and coming soon to a town near you.

Although I agree with Andrew McCarthy that what is happening in Ferguson and Staten Island is about control, I also think there is another purpose. One of the characteristics of the Obama Administration has been to create division between different groups of people. The ‘war on women’ was an attempt to create division among the sexes, the so-called ‘problem of income inequality’ was to create class warfare, and the focus on the two unfortunate deaths in law-enforcement situations undermines the authority of the police and can also be used to create racial division and tension. Unless Americans wake up and realize that they are being manipulated by a Chicago thug, we are in for a really ugly next two years.

Have We Forgotten That Actions Have Consquences?

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It is a shame that Michael Brown is dead. It is also a shame that a policeman was injured when Michael Brown attacked him and that because of racism on the part of some Americans, that policeman will never be seen as justified in defending himself against Michael Brown.

Michael Brown did three things that were consequential. First, he committed a minor robbery from a store. Second, he chose to walk down the middle of the street, drawing attention to himself. Third, he attacked a policeman. (The press conference last night stated that the Grand Jury had evidence that Michael Brown attacked Darren Wilson.) All three of these actions had consequences.

The Daily Caller reported late last night that Eric Holder has stated that the Justice Department‘s investigation of the incident is not over yet. Why? What are they looking for? Does Attorney General Holder believe that it is acceptable to attack a police officer? Or rob a store? Does Attorney General Holder believe that policemen have the right to defend themselves? Would Attorney General Holder be as concerned if Michael Brown had shot Darren Wilson with Darren Wilson’s gun?

The article quotes Attorney General Holder:

“Though there will be disagreement with the grand jury’s decision not to indict, this feeling should not lead to violence,” Holder said. “It does not honor [Michael Brown’s] memory to engage in violence or looting.”

Michael Brown’s memory? One of the last acts of Michael Brown was to rob a store. He only robbed something small, but he robbed a store. I am sure Michael Brown had many positive traits, but he made some very foolish mistakes and paid a very high price for them. He should be held up as an example of what not to do–not as a helpless victim.

 

Protecting The Rights Of American Businesses

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The problem with having a President and a cabinet that lack hands on business experience is that they lack hands on business experience. The quote “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” is attributed to Thomas Jefferson although it is not found in any of his papers. Regardless of who said it, the quote is accurate.

In its Saturday/Sunday edition, the Wall Street Journal posted an editorial about the nomination of Loretta Lynch as U.S. Attorney General. Ms. Lynch is currently in charge of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. She has been busy there.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Evidently Ms. Lynch didn’t read that part of the Constitution, and unfortunately, she is not the only government official who did not read that part. As of late, prosecutors have been using civil forfeiture laws to confiscate private property and use the money gained to shore up state and municipal budgets. One example of this in Ms. Lynch’s district is the case of Jeffrey, Richard and Mitch Hirsch. In 2012 the federal government drained their bank account of $446,651.11. The bank account was used for deposits from Bi-County Distributors, a company the brothers have run for 27 years. The company stocks convenience stores in the region with candy and snack food.

The editorial explains:

According to the federal government, the brothers came under suspicion because of the frequent small deposits they made in the bank. Under federal law, banks are required to report cash deposits of more than $10,000 at a time to the Internal Revenue Service. Frequent deposits beneath the $10,000 threshold can also trigger federal scrutiny on suspicion the depositors are seeking to evade federal oversight for crimes like money laundering or drug trafficking.

The Hirsch brothers run a small business that deals in small amounts of cash, a fact that the government surely noticed, since they were never charged with a crime. But more than two years after the government grabbed the hundreds of thousands of dollars, none of it has been returned. According to the Institute for Justice, which is representing the family in a lawsuit, the government has also denied the Hirsches a prompt hearing on the forfeiture, putting it in violation of the 2000 Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act.

Ms. Lynch’s office brought in more than $113 million in civil actions between 2011 and 2013. Unfortunately, these cases have spread across the country. Between 2003 and 2011, annual payments from forfeiture went from $218 million to $450 million.

Many small businesses deposit small amounts of cash at various times of the day. Some do it out of fear of theft, others because that is the way their computer bookkeeping systems work, and others because that is how the timing of their office staff works. A small company I worked for at one point made one deposit a day, but since their computer program could only handle twelve checks on one deposit slip, it appeared to be multiple small deposits.

The editorial in the Wall Street Journal suggests that when Ms. Lunch gets her nomination hearing, someone should ask her about the Hirsches.

 

An Interesting Perspective On The Coming Amnesty

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On November 16, The Wall Street Journal posted an editorial entitled, “The Missing Immigration Memo.” The editorial asked if President Obama has sought or received written legal justification from the Attorney General or the Justice Department‘s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) for his coming Executive Order on amnesty.

The editorial points out that on previous actions such as drone strikes or targeting U.S. citizens abroad, the President asked the OLC for advice on the boundaries of Presidential authority.

The editorial states:

It’s possible Messrs. Obama and Holder haven’t sought an immigration opinion because they suspect there’s little chance that even a pliant Office of Legal Counsel could find a legal justification. Prosecutorial discretion is a vital legal concept, but it is supposed to be exercised in individual cases, not to justify a refusal to follow the law against entire classes of people.

White House leakers are also whispering as a legal excuse that Congress has provided money to deport only 400,000 illegal migrants a year. But a President cannot use lack of funds to justify a wholesale refusal to enforce a statute. There is never enough money to enforce every federal law at any given time, and lack of funds could by used in the future by any President to refuse to enforce any statute. Imagine a Republican President who decided not to enforce the Clean Air Act.

The President and the Democrat party need to realize that the President’s actions have resulted in the decline of the Democrat party. Do they really want a Republican President who operates under the precedent of this sort of power grab?

Seems As If Everyone In The Executive Department Has A Pen And A Phone

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CNS News reported today that Attorney General Eric Holder is about to take aim at laws that do not allow convicted felons to vote. Wonderful. Three days ago Eric Holder announced that the U.S. Justice Department will recognize same-sex marriages in all legal matters, even in states that forbid it. What he is saying is that the Justice Department will overrule the votes of the people in the states that do not allow same-sex marriage.

The article reports:

Holder said state laws that bar felons from voting are “not only unnecessary and unjust, they are also counterproductive” because they perpetuate the “stigma and isolation imposed on formerly incarcerated individuals,” increasing the likelihood that they will commit future crimes.

Such “outdated” laws have a “disparate impact on minority communities,” he said, suggesting that this is, at heart, a civil rights issue.

Of the 5.8 million Americans who cannot vote because of current or previous felony convictions, 2.2 million are black, Holder noted.

These people are not allowed to vote because they are convicted felons. They are not guilty of misdemeanors–they are convicted felons. They are not being denied the right to vote because of anything but their conviction. They could be pink with purple stripes, and if they had not committed a felony, they would be allowed to vote. This is about committing a crime–this is not about race. Hopefully the Attorney General will not try to make it about race, although the last sentence quoted might be an indication that he plans to.

I would not be opposed to allowing a convicted felon vote after he had been out of prison for twenty years or so and if he had stayed out of trouble during that time. However, I am opposed to simply allowing all convicted felons to vote after they have been released from prison. I would also see this decision made by Congress rather than just done by the Justice Department with the stroke of a pen.

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Lawyers Are Revolting Against Attorney General Holder

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Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article about a letter the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys sent Holder three days ago. The letter was in reference to the Attorney General‘s support of the Durbin-Lee bill, which would overturn the current mandatory minimum sentences not only for marijuana violations but for all drug offenses, including major and repeat trafficking in heroin, meth, PCP and other extremely dangerous, and often lethal, drugs.

The article quotes the letter:

We believe the merits of mandatory minimums are abundantly clear. They reach to only the most serious of crimes. They target the most serious criminals. They provide us leverage to secure cooperation from defendants. They help to establish uniform and consistency in sentencing. And foremost, they protect law-abiding citizens and help to hold crime in check.

The Justice Department under Attorney General Holder has a history of ignoring laws and practicing unequal justice. Hopefully, if this law is defeated, the Justice Department will continue to do its job in accordance with the current law.

Putting drug dealers back on the streets more quickly does not help our society in any way.

 

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Another Story About Telling The Truth

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I really think that the people in our government have an obligation to be honest with the American public except when national security issues are truly at stake. That may be a minority opinion, but it is my opinion. Right now there are a number of scandals floating around the Obama Administration, and the problem with most of them is that the government overreached and then tried to hide what it did.

One of those scandals is the snooping against Fox News reporter James Rosen. The snooping was outrageous–even to the point of going after the phone records of Mr. Rosen’s parents. Well, the plot thickens…

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reported today that evidence shows that Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress.

The article reports:

Last week, under relatively friendly questioning from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) about the Department of Justice seizure of Associated Press phone records, Johnson asked about the potential to prosecute reporters under the Espionage Act of 1917.  ”You’ve got a long way to go to try to prosecute the press for publication of material,” Holder responded.

Later, though, he returned to the topic unbidden, emphasis mine (at the 5-minute mark):

In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. This is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy.

The article explains the problem:

As it turns out, Holder not only heard of it, he personally approved it.  The warrant in the Rosen case specified that he was considered a potential suspect in the leak of classified material, the reason that the DoJ didn’t bother to follow the existing Watergate-era statute in coordinating the records request with Fox News.  And note that Holder’s testimony in this case wasn’t produced by some sophisticated perjury trap sprung by a Republican, but as a freely-offered representation to no particular question during the question period of a Democrat.

This contradiction raises some rather serious questions. First of all, was Attorney General Holder lying when he said he was not part of the snooping on James Rosen?

A website called The Right Sphere explains the second problem:

The problem for Holder is that we now know he personally signed off on the order to get a subpoena for Fox News’ James Rosen’s phone records. The entire basis of the warrant for those records relies on Rosen being a potential conspirator and therefore potentially prosecuted.

According to the DoJ’s subpoena, Google surrendered Rosen’s emails, who is described as “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator,” to the government.

I’m sure Holder and his allies will say that they never intended to prosecute Rosen, but that’s 1) not the point and 2) even worse. If that’s their defense, they knowingly lied to the judge who would, hopefully, reject the request if they admitted it was just a fishing expedition for information.

They’re stuck. Either he (by signing the request for the records) lied to the judge or Holder lied directly to Congress.

It will be interesting to see how Congress reacts when they realize they have been lied to.

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The Attorney General Will Investigate the Department Of Justice And Report To The President On July 12th

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ABC News is reporting that President Obama has ordered the Department of Justice to review the national security leak investigations. So Attorney General Eric Holder will be conducting a 45-day review on the Department of Justice’s guidelines for handling these investigations.

The article states:

And then the news: “I have raised these issues with the attorney general, who shares my concern. So he has agreed to review existing Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters, and will convene a group of media organizations to hear their concerns as part of that review. And I have directed the attorney general to report back to me by July 12th.”

So Eric Holder is going to investigate Eric Holder. This should be interesting. We all know how that will turn out.

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Understanding The Immigration Bill

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First of all, I am not at all sure it is possible to understand the immigration bill–when it was introduced, it was 844 pages long; it has now grown to 867 pages.

Last night, I was able to attend a presentation explaining the Immigration Bill at the Northborough Public Library. The presentation was put on by the Northborough Tea Party. The speaker was Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.

Jessica Vaughan posted an article at the Center for Immigration Studies website on May 2 which explains the problems with the current immigration bill.

The article lists several problems with the current bill, these are only a few:

  • The bill allows the legalization of aliens who have been convicted of up to three misdemeanors on separate occasions, excluding “minor” traffic offenses. This provision will allow the legalization of those with multiple offenses for drunk driving, vehicular homicide, domestic violence, certain sex offenses, theft, identity theft, and other misdemeanors.
  • It requires immigration agencies to ignore convictions under state laws on alien smuggling, human trafficking, and harboring illegal aliens altogether.
  • It waives criminal offenses for anyone under 18 (as opposed to 16 under current law), no matter the seriousness of the offense, and even if the offender was tried as an adult. This provision will be most helpful to convicted gang members aged 16-18.
  • It eliminates all enhancements and punishments for aggravated felons that allow for these individuals to be barred from re-entry or punished if they do. It permits aggravated felons to be placed in “soft” detention such as group homes and electronic monitoring.
  • The bill forces the government to justify the detention of aliens charged with being deportable — and whose detention is mandatory by law due to the severity of the offense, such as aggravated felons — and guarantees aliens a hearing on the detention every 90 days.
  • For the first time in history, the Attorney General would be required by law to provide lawyers to certain aliens in deportation proceedings at taxpayer expense.
  • The bill provides sweeping new standards of judicial review for aliens denied benefits. It expands review into the federal district courts as well as circuit courts of appeal, and encourages class action suits against DHS.

We need immigration reform. However, we need immigration reform that works and borders that prevent further illegal aliens from entering the country. Until the border is secure, there really is no point in doing immigration reform–the number of illegal aliens involved would simply overwhelm the social welfare systems of America and collapse the current safety net.

One of the things that Ms. Vaughan pointed out was the fact that the immigration bill says that the citizens legalized in the immigration bill would be ineligible for federal assistance for ten years. However, it is the states who are in charge of government assistance and would determine someone’s eligibility–so that portion of the bill is simply nice words that mean nothing.

Yesterday The Hill reported the following:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a central member of the Senate Gang of Eight, expressed disappointment Tuesday after senators rejected a proposal to strengthen the system for tracking visa holders entering and exiting the country.

The panel rejected a Republican amendment to require a biometric entry and exit system at ports of entry before granting permanent legal status to 11 million illegal immigrants.

In 1986, President Reagan and Congress promised America a bill that would solve the immigration problem once and for all. That bill would secure the border, enforce immigration laws, and wipe the slate clean so that those here illegally at that time could become citizens. At the present time, the border is not secure, the immigration laws were enforced between 2007 and 2009, but now we are back to our old ways, and many of those here illegally have no desire to become citizens so they have not.

We have two choices–we can believe Congress when they tell us that this time they really will enforce immigration laws and seal the border, or we can fight this bill with everything we have to make sure it does not become law. Frankly, I choose the latter.

We need immigration reform. That can be done slowly in sections so that Americans can read and understand the laws being considered, and so that Congress can understand both the problems we face if we continue our current immigration program and the need to pass a bill that will actually solve our current and future problems. I also strongly suggest that Congress actually take the time to read the bill. We need to find out what is in the bill before it is passed–not the other way around.

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They’re Baaack!!!

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From Breitbart.com:

This is a picture of one of the New Black Panthers guarding the polls in Philadelphia. We did this four years ago, we are doing it again. Why? Because of the way the Department of Justice under Eric Holder handled the case.

In case you have forgotten, Breitbart.com tells the story:

In 2009, the Department of Justice sought a permanent nationwide injunction against the New Black Panther Party appearing at the polls.  The Eric Holder Justice Department gutted the case in May 2009.

Had the political appointees at Holder’s Justice Department sought the relief requested by Michael Mukasey’s Justice Department, this wouldn’t be happening.  Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s DOJ filed a complaint that sought a permanent injunction against King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson from appearing in front of a poll in New Black Panther attire nationwide. 

To make matters worse, the Washington Examiner reports:

Court-appointed Republican poll inspectors are being forcibly removed from voting stations in some Philadelphia wards and replaced in some cases by Democratic inspectors and even members of the Black Panthers, according to GOP officials.

Secrets just received this memo from GOP officials:

The Philadelphia GOP is reporting that court appointed Minority (read GOP) Inspectors are being thrown out of polling locations in several Wards.

These Inspectors are election officials – again, court appointed — and are reportedly being thrown out by the Head Judges of Elections (these Judges are elected Democrats) and being replaced by Democrats.

Chicago-style politics has come to Philadelphia. If the American people return President Obama to office, they will see more thuggery every time there is a close election involving Democrats.

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Some Other Aspects Of The Fast And Furious Investigation

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I am sure I was not the only person disgusted by the whitewash of the Fast and Furious investigation by the Justice Department. Since they were investigating themselves, it was no surprise that the culprits named did not include either Eric Holder or his top staff. However, Heritage.org pointed out some facts about the investigation that I hadn’t considered.

Today’s Morning Bell at Heritage listed five ways the Justice Department report tarnishes the reputation of Eric Holder’s Justice Department.

The article lists the five ways:

1. The report singles out top Department of Justice officials for wrongdoing.

2. The report appears to contradict sworn testimony by Attorney General Eric Holder.

3. The report faults top Justice Department leadership with failing to adequately respond to the murder of an American border patrol agent.

4. The White House refused to disclose any internal communications to the inspector general.

5. The report fails to consider evidence that a top DOJ official knew the department misled Congress.

Please follow the link and read the entire article for the details on each charge. I suspect that sometime after President Obama leaves office (either in 2012 or 2016), the truth about Operation Fast and Furious will come out. Until then, the facts will continue to get muddied.

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I Love Irony

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted the following:

Please note that the media will not be allowed in to the NAACP Convention to hear Attorney General Eric Holder speak unless they present a “government-issued photo I.D.” (such as a driver’s license) as well as valid media credentials.

Ok, let me get this right–media credentials are not enough to get in to hear Attorney General Eric Holder speak–you also need a government-issued photo I.D. in addition to your credentials. All those of us who want honest elections are asking for is one form of I.D. in order to vote–not two–and Eric Holder is fighting that. Does anyone else see the irony?

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The Letter Behind The Contempt Of Congress Charge

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Yesterday the Daily Caller posted a story explaining exactly what document Congress is seeking from Attorney General Eric Holder that he is unwilling to give them.

The article reports:

During the June 24 broadcast of Fox News Sunday, House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa cited the email as a “good example” of a specific document his committee knows Holder is hiding from Congress.

“The ATF director, Kenneth Melson, sent an e-mail. And he had said to us in sworn testimony that, in fact, he had concerns,” Issa said. “And we want to see that e-mail because that’s an example where he was saying, if we believe his sworn testimony, that guns walked. And he said it shortly after February 4, and [on] July 4. When he told us that, we began asking for that document.”

But the details of it surfaced first when Grassley mentioned it for the first time publicly during a June 12 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where Holder was testifying.

“He [Melson] immediately sent an email warning others, ‘back off the letter to Sen. Grassley in light of the information in the affidavits,’” Grassley explained.

It seems as if there has been some serious untruth telling before Congress during the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious. Congress is well within its authority and responsibility to investigate what happened in Operation Fast and Furious that resulted in the deaths of two Border Patrol agents and many Mexicans. It would be nice if the Justice Department would co-operate with the investigation. Obviously, they will not. A contempt citation may be the only logical next step for the Congressional committee investigating Fast and Furious. The Executive Branch does not seem to be willing to provide the information requested when asked nicely.

 

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Why It Matters Where You Get Your News

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Yesterday YouTube posted a video giving a general summary of Fast and Furious as it now stands. The video was produced and posted by the American Future Fund.

The video gives a short explanation of what Fast and Furious was and how the Obama Administration has successfully blocked (as of now) any serious inquiry into the origin and supervision of the program.

Meanwhile, Fox News posted a story remarking that NBC first reported on Operation Fast and Furious on Tuesday night. Brian Terry was killed in December of 2010 with a weapon traced to Fast and Furious. There have been questions about his death since then. Where has the major media been? The network slanted the story as a partisan battle between the Republicans and Attorney General Holder. This is not a political battle–it is a battle about a government agency out of control.

The article at Fox News reports:

Correspondent Kelly O’Donnell then took over, repeating the Williams theme that this was all about a Republican ax to grind. — And certainly never about an American border agent being killed by guns that Holder did everything but Fed-Ex to Mexican drug lords. — Williams and O’Donnell mentioned Republicans seven times and Democrats just twice because this was a “long simmering conflict between Republicans and Attorney General Eric Holder.”
 
It’s time the major media started reporting the news accurately and completely. The bias of the network is indicated not only in how they slant the story, but in the stories they cover. If American voters want to be informed, they are going to have to look past the major media.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

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There’s Something Rather Ironic Here

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John Hinderaker at Power LIne reported today on a speech Attorney General Eric Holder gave at the LBJ Library on election reform. Attorney General Holder denounced the Texas voter id laws as discriminatory and said that he would use the power of his office to enforce civil rights protections during the 2012 elections.

The article reports:

One last bit of irony — if not hypocrisy — was experienced as people lined up to enter the LBJ Library to hear AG Holder rail against voter ID laws. As each person entered the library they were required to present their photo IDs in order to be allowed in to hear the speech.

If Attorney General Holder feels a photo ID is necessary to hear him speak, why isn’t a photo ID necessary in order to vote?

 

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