Tag Archives: Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The IRS Scandal Summed Up In One Paragraph

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Yesterday’s Washington Examiner summed up the IRS scandal in one paragraph:

These simple questions – each based on indisputable facts – establish that somebody outside of the IRS told her they wanted the tax agency to “fix” something involving groups seeking 501(c)(4) tax status, that she directed subordinates to begin a (c)(4) project she feared could be seen as “political,” that she viewed Tea Party groups as “dangerous,” and that she ordered that such groups be subjected to “multi-level review.” Those are the four essential points of the IRS scandal: Who ordered the tax agency to get involved, who in the tax agency responded, who they targeted and what actions they took. She cannot answer these questions because, as she herself has claimed, that would be incriminating. Lerner and others must hope Issa doesn’t already have the answers.

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If She Didn’t Do Anything Wrong, Why Does She Need Immunity?

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I will readily admit to being a simple person–black is black, white is white, to me life is pretty simple. But sometimes when I see what goes on in our legal system and political system, I just wonder who is making the rules and if anyone making the rules has any common sense. This article is an example of my simplicity coming up against the complexity of our legal system.

Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that Lois Lerner has told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that she will not testify before them without being granted full immunity. Hmm. If she didn’t do anything wrong, why does she need full immunity?

The article reports:

On Tuesday, William W. Taylor III, attorney for Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the Tea Party targeting scandal who invoked her Fifth amendment rights before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on May 22, set forward his client’s hard line conditions to return and testify openly before the committee.

“They can obtain her testimony tomorrow by doing it the easy way … immunity. That’s the way to resolve all of this,” he told Politico.

As I said–I am a simple person. If she didn’t do anything wrong, why does she need immunity?

 

 

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Veterans And The Second Amendment

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Some members of Congress are leading an attack on the Second Amendment right now.  It is being done in the name of making Americans safer while overlooking the fact that criminals do not obey gun laws. However, there is also an attack on our military veterans‘ ability to own guns. This is very serious, as the group that would be most likely to prevent the government from doing really ugly things (should it come to that) would be armed military veterans. I hope that day never comes, but there is nothing wrong with being prepared and aware.

A website called Redflag posted an article on March 15th regarding some of what is happening in our government regarding the Second Amendment.

The lawyer who writes the Redflag site is offering his service to veterans who are in danger of losing their Second Amendment rights. This is what he has encountered:

Veterans are being declared incompetent not because they have a serious mental illness that makes them a danger to themselves or others, but because they have a physical disability resulting from their service in the armed forces or because they simply let their spouses pay the family bills.

If veterans have minor issues with PTSD, have expressed that they are depressed sometimes, or even in the case of Vietnam veterans admit that they are getting older and sometimes forget to pay their bills on time, the bureaucrats at the VA will seek to declare them incompetent. (I am a 65 year old veteran and often forget where I put my car keys, does that make me incompetent to handle my own financial affairs and even worse mean that I can’t own a firearm?) According to the VA it apparently does.

All of this has resulted in America’s heroes being declared incompetent by a process that blatantly violates their rights to due process under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Then, for reasons that have not been explained these same veterans are also being denied their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Many of the veterans I have heard from were initially both scared because of what was happening to them, and hurt because it is their own government that is causing this fear. After all, when they joined the military they signed a blank check to their country to defend it and its Constitution even if it cost them their lives. Yet, now their own government is turning on them and taking from them the very Constitutional rights they fought to preserve.

This needs to be reported in the mainstream media and stopped immediately.

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A Backdoor Approach To Limiting The Right Of Veterans To Own Guns ?

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For the past day of so, a number of ‘facebook friends’ have posted links to articles about veterans being denied the right to own guns. I waited to post this article until I saw the letter involved and was able to see who sent it.

The Blaze posted the story on Friday along with a copy of the relevant letter. The letter was written by the Oregon Department of Veteran’s Affairs.

One paragraph from the letter states:

“A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition. If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub.L.No. 103-159, as implemented at 18, United States Code 924(a)(2).”?

An article at Red Flag News states:

The letter provides no specifics on the reasons for the proposed finding of incompetency; just that is based on a determination by someone in the VA. In every state in the United States no one can be declared incompetent to administer their own affairs without due process of law and that usually requires a judicial hearing with evidence being offered to prove to a judge that the person is indeed incompetent. This is a requirement of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that states that no person shall “… be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law…”.

The writer at Red Flag News further asks:

“If you are receiving a Social Security check will you get one of these letters? Will the government declare that you are incompetent because of your age and therefore banned from firearm ownership?” Connelly wrote. “It certainly fits in with the philosophy and plans of the Obama administration. It is also certain that our military veterans don’t deserve this and neither do any other Americans.”

This bears watching.

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It Really Doesn’t Pay To Cover-Up Bad Stuff

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Today’s Washington Times is reporting that Arizona is launching its own investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, the government gun running operation that Congress has been trying to investigate for more than a year.

The article reports:

Speaker Andy Tobin created the committee, and charged it with looking at whether the program broke any state laws — raising the possibility of state penalties against those responsible for the operation.

It’s a turnaround from the rest of the immigration issue, where the federal government has sued to block the state’s own set of laws.

The committee is due to report back on March 30.

The article reminds us:

On Friday the chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona told a House committee he will decline to answer their questions next week, citing his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The official’s lawyer, in a letter to the committee, said his client is innocent but is “ensnared by the unfortunate circumstances in which he now stands between two branches of government.”

At some point we need to remind people that they don’t have these problems if they follow the law. I am hopeful that the pleading of the Fifth Amendment along with the Arizona committee will result in a serious enough investigation to expose whatever the facts are in this matter. If laws were broken, people need to face the consequences. 

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Sometimes It’s What They Don’t Say

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Ed Morrissey at Hot Air noted in a post today that Patrick J. Cunningham, the chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, has said that he will seek Fifth Amendment protection when testifying before Congress.

Representative Darrell Issa, who is chairman of the House Oversight Committee conducting the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, made the following statement in response to Mr. Cunningham’s claim that he would plead the Fifth Amendment:

 “The assertion of the fifth amendment by a senior Justice official is a significant indictment of the Department’s integrity in Operation Fast and Furious. The former head of the ATF has previously told the committee that the Justice Department is managing its response to Operation Fast and Furious in a manner designed to protect its political appointees.  This is the first time anyone has asserted their fifth amendment right in this investigation and heightens concerns that the Justice Department’s motivation for refusing to hand over subpoenaed materials is a desire to shield responsible officials from criminal charges and other embarrassment.

“Coming a year after revelations about reckless conduct in Operation Fast and Furious were first brought to light, the assertion of the fifth amendment also raises questions about whether President Obama and Attorney General Holder have made a serious and adequate response to allegations raised by whistleblowers.  Did Attorney General Holder really not know a senior Justice Department official fears criminal prosecution or is this just another example of him hiding important facts?  The committee will continue to demand answers.”

Unfortunately, Chicago politics has come to Washington, D. C. The investigation into Fast and Furious is moving ahead–but very slowly. President Obama’s Department of Justice is a political tool being wielded by the administration. The only way to end that is to vote this administration out of office.

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Following The Money Trail On Solyndra

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Image representing Solyndra as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Every now and then I post an article about a story that I totally do not understand. This is one of those times. If anyone reading this can shed some light on what actually happened in this case, please comment.

Yesterday the Washington Times posted an article about the list of creditors in the Solyndra bankruptcy case. The Solyndra bankruptcy case is already being looked at closely because of the amount of government money loaned to the company despite indications that the company’s business plan was not viable. Now the “creditor matrix,” a document which is a standard filing in a bankruptcy case, reveals that the California Democratic Party is listed as a creditor of Solyndra.

The article at the Washington Times reports:

The company (Solyndra) had its own in-house team of lobbyists, but it also hired three other Washington lobbying firms: McAllister & Quinn, Washington Tax Group and McBee Strategic Consulting.

Many of the lobbyists previously worked in government for Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike. They included former aides to lawmakers such as Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, New York Republican; Sen. Maria Cantwell, Washington Democrat; and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat.

From 2008, when the company spent $160,000 on lobbying, to 2010, when it spent $550,000, lobbying expenditures increased nearly 250 percent, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

It makes you wonder how much money actually went into producing a product.

Please follow the link to the article at the Washington Times. There are a lot of questions about Solyndra–including why its executives pleaded the Fifth Amendment when they were called before Congress. The article in the Times also points out some very interesting connections between some of the people involved in this company and major donors to the Obama campaign.

 

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