Inquiring Minds Want To Know

On Friday, Rumble posted an article that included a tweet by Roger Stone that asked a very interesting question.

Here is the tweet:

The article notes:

Have you heard the latest? The Biden Boys are set to fiercely fight their congressional subpoenas. Remember what happened to the Trump officials who took a similar stand during the January 6th sideshow?

Who can forget when Peter Navarro refused to testify before the circus known as the January 6th Committee? That poor guy was convicted of contempt of Congress so quickly, it made his head spin.

On October 6, 2014, Politico reported:

A federal judge has declined a House committee’s bid to have Attorney General Eric Holder held in contempt of court — and perhaps even jailed — for failing to turn over documents related to the Justice Department’ s response to Operation Fast and Furious.

However, in a ruling Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson also denied Holder’s request for an indefinite stay of her prior order that the attorney general must turn over any “non-privileged” documents the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed as part of an investigation into the botched gunrunning investigation. The judge previously ruled that Holder must give the panel any documents that are not both predecisional and deliberative in nature.

On November 17th, CNN reported:

The White House says the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden lacks constitutional legitimacy and is calling on GOP-led congressional committees to rescind their subpoenas and interview requests, according to a new letter obtained by CNN.

The move sets up a showdown with House Republicans as the White House criticizes what it describes as “Congressional harassment of the President,” calling on the committees to withdraw subpoenas and a series of requests for interviews aimed at White House officials and Biden family members and associates.

Earlier this week, House Oversight Chairman James Comer said he sent a subpoena to former White House counsel Dana Remus to discuss Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. The Kentucky Republican had previously requested that Remus to appear for a voluntary interview, but the White House did not comply. And last week, the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas to the president’s son Hunter and brother James as well as a Biden business associate.

Ignoring subpoenas only matters when you are a Republican.

 

It Helps To Know The History

The recent statements by Mike Pence regarding the ongoing indictments of President Trump are a disgrace. No one would know who Mike Pence is if he hadn’t been chosen by Trump (more on that later) as Vice-President.

On Wednesday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article that reveals some of the underlying historical connections that have come into play to keep President Trump from regaining the White House. This is not about ‘saving our democracy’ or even ‘the big lie.’ It is about preventing the deep state from being exposed and taken down.

The article notes how people were quietly put in place in recent years to ensure the deep state would always control the White House. President Trump messed up their plan, and they don’t want it to happen again.

The article reports:

Governor Ronald Reagan was steered by the ‘powers that be’ to accept George HW Bush as his vice president.  In 1981, President Reagan selected Eric Holder to be a Superior Court Judge in Washington DC – yes, that Eric Holder.  The recommendation came from his vice president.  George H W Bush was CIA Director ’76/’77.

Candidate Donald Trump was steered by the ‘powers that be’ to accept Mike Pence as his vice president.  Pence recommended fellow Senator Hoosier Dan Coats to be Director of National Intelligence.  Coats blocked all declassification efforts.  A fellow by the name Porter Goss lived on Sanibel Island, Florida, and was CIA Director from 2004 – 2006. For the past 30 years, where has Mike Pence gone on winter vacation?

I have one question for President Trump:

Who recommended Michael Atkinson to be Intelligence Community Inspector General?

If the answer is earworm Mike Pence, boy howdy do I have an article that will stun the 2024 election field.

2016 – Despite the efforts of the FBI, DOJ and Intelligence Community to target the outcome, in 2016 candidate Donald Trump stunningly won the election. The control mechanisms were not yet in place; DC was in a state of shock.  Mike Pence was in charge of transition team assignments.

2017 – Mike Pence takes down National Security Director Michael Flynn.  President Trump is under constant fire from the DOJ, FBI, IC and Robert Mueller et al; California hires Eric Holder to construct legal guidance for the Motor Voter process. The beta test for ballot harvesting operations.

2018 – While 36 Republican members of the House announce their departure, including Ron DeSantis (Gov run), the largest field of former intelligence community officials from the CIA and DoD are recruited by Democrats.  The 2018 midterm election results in Democrats retaking the House; California ballot harvesting (seeded by Motor Voter rolls) results in massive Republican losses in the days/weeks after election day.

2019 – With Democrats controlling the House, the Mueller investigation wrapping up, and with George W. Bush recommending Bill Barr as AG, the impeachment process begins using newly constructed CIA rules by IG Michael Atkinson (Eric Ciaramella and Alexander Vindman).

2020 – The ballot harvesting beta test goes national, thanks to COVID-19, and fundamentally alters the November 2020 election.

2021 – Mike Pence refuses to support sending delegate certification back to state legislature.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Our country will not survive if the deep state continues to increase its power.

Have We Reached Banana Republic Yet?

On Thursday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about recent legal activities that appear to be political.

The article reports:

A hallmark of banana republics is that those who lose power are apt to wind up in prison, or on the wrong end of a firing squad. Even more advanced countries, like Israel, sometimes have a regrettable tendency to prosecute former political leaders.

It is hard to think of anything more destructive to a democracy, and yet the Democrats are going down that path. It seems clear that they intend to bring criminal charges against President Trump over his keeping some White House documents at Mar-a-Lago–a trivial offense, as far as anyone knows.

And that’s not all. The Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to a large number of people who were associated in some way with the Trump campaign or administration. They generally seek information about efforts to challenge the reported election results in several states. A copy of one of the subpoenas, with the name of the person who was served redacted, is linked below. Take a look at the scope of the documents the subject of the subpoena is required to produce:

594129794-Redacted-Subpoena

In case you are wondering about John Hinderaker’s background in making the above statements, John Hinderaker practiced law for 41 years, enjoying a nationwide litigation practice. He retired from the practice of law at the end of 2015, and is now President of Center of the American Experiment, a think tank headquartered in Minnesota. He and two other lawyers founded Power Line Blog in 2002.

The article concludes:

So far, of course, no criminal investigations have been launched into Joe Biden’s shipping of illegal aliens to many points across the country, often in the dead of night, for the last year and a half.

More examples could be multiplied. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon likely will go to jail for contempt of Congress, the same offense that former Attorney General Eric Holder was held to have committed by a bipartisan 255–67 vote of the House of Representatives. But unlike Bannon, Holder was not prosecuted. He now makes millions as a partner in a prominent Washington, D.C. law firm.

Given the thorough corruption of the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland, there is a reasonable possibility that the Democrats will move to imprison both Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans. I suppose they think they are secure, because Republicans would never follow such a third-world precedent when they regain power. I don’t know about that. In any event, there is a more fundamental question: are the Democrats trying to trigger a civil war, as they did in 1861? Judging from their actions, I think the question must be taken seriously.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is frightening to see how corrupt the Justice Department has become.

The Existential Threat

On Sunday, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article that included the following Tweet:

The Tweet is part of a long, detailed article explaining why Donald Trump is such a serious threat to business as usual in Washington, D.C. The article is very detailed, so I suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article. Basically, the premise is that Washington works for the political elite using the government apparatus to secure and maintain power and helps Congressmen who enter Congress as middle class people become very wealthy in a very short time. Meanwhile, the American taxpayers pay the price.

Here are a few highlights from the article:

What was it that Washington DC and President Obama’s team feared so much about Donald J Trump?

The answer to that question is why the FBI, DOJ and CIA targeted Trump in 2016; and why they continued the targeting in 2017 with the Mueller investigation; and why they continued the targeting through two attempts at impeachment in 2019 and 2020; and why they still keep targeting Donald Trump with the J6 committee and a DOJ investigation two years after he is no longer in office.

Donald J Trump is the existential threat.

When your business involves gaining personal wealth by selling out America, Donald Trump is bad for business.

Barack Obama, John Brennan, Eric Holder and James Comey did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; the institutions were already weaponized by the Patriot Act. What the Obama era officials did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so those weapons of government only conducted surveillance and targeting toward one side of the political dynamic.

This point is where many people understandably get confused.

The article notes:

What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms so that only their political opposition became the target of this new national security system.

The problems we face now as a country are directly an outcome of two very distinct points that were merged by Barack Obama. (1) The post 9/11 monitoring of electronic communication of American citizens; and (2) Obama’s team creating a fine-tuning knob that it focused on the politics of the targets.  This is very important to understand as you dig deeper into this research outline.

Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01.  The Department of Homeland Security came along in 2002, and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was formed.

When President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.

The preexisting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dept of Justice (DOJ) were then repurposed to become two of the four pillars of the domestic national security apparatus: a domestic surveillance state. However, this new construct would have a targeting mechanism based on political ideology.

The DHS, ODNI, DOJ and FBI became the four pillars of this new institution. Atop these pillars is where you will find the Fourth Branch of Government.

We were not sleeping when this happened, we were wide awake. However, we were stunningly distracted by the economic collapse that was taking place in 2006 and 2007 when the engineers behind Obama started to assemble the design. By the time Obama took office in 2009, we sensed something profound was shifting, but we can only see exactly what shifted in the aftermath. The four pillars were put into place, and a new Fourth Branch of Government was quietly created.

The article concludes:

In the decades before 9/11/01 the intelligence apparatus intersected with government, influenced government, and undoubtedly controlled many institutions with it. The legislative oversight function was weak and growing weaker, but it still existed and could have been used to keep the IC in check. However, after the events of 9/11/01, the short-sighted legislative reactions opened the door to allow the surveillance state to weaponize against domestic enemies.

After the Patriot Act was triggered, not coincidentally only six weeks after 9/11, a slow and dangerous fuse was lit that ends with the intelligence apparatus being granted a massive amount of power. Simultaneously the mission of the intelligence community now encompassed monitoring domestic threats as defined by the people who operate the surveillance system.

The problem with assembled power is always what happens when a Machiavellian network takes control over that power and begins the process to weaponize the tools for their own malicious benefit. That is exactly what the network of President Barack Obama did.

The Obama network took pre-assembled intelligence weapons (we should never have allowed to be created) and turned those weapons into political tools for his radical and fundamental change. The target was the essential fabric of our nation.

Ultimately, this corrupt political process gave power to create the Fourth Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch. From that perspective the fundamental change was successful.

This is the scale of corrupt political compromise on both sides of the DC dynamic that we are up against. Preserving this system is also what removing Donald Trump is all about…. And like I said in the precursor, I doubt Donald Trump fully comprehends the motives of his opposition.

I was privileged to sit in on a law class at Suffolk University where the professor discussed the Patriot Act as it was being passed. (I was not a student, I was simply an observer). He warned of what was to come although most Americans did not see it. There are some real questions as to whether or not the genie can be put back into the bottle, but there are some real dangers up ahead if it is not.

The Company Town

On Saturday, American Greatness posted an article about how Washington, D.C., currently functions (or does not function). The article is titled, “Dismantle the D.C. Company Town.” What a great idea.

The article reports:

Gertrude Stein famously warned that it was important to know how far to go when going too far. 

It pains me to admit that Democrats seem to have a far better sense of all that than do Republicans. Perhaps it’s because Democrats have a visceral appreciation of William Hazlitt’s observation that “those who lack delicacy hold us in their power.” The Democrats, that is to say, long ago became expert at the game of holding their opponents to standards that they themselves violate not just with impunity but with ostentatious glee. 

The news last week that Michael Sussmann was found not guilty by a D.C. jury of his ideological peers was another thumb in the eye of the American so-called system of justice. Scary-looking super-cop John Durham had indicted Sussmann for the same thing that brought down Trump’s flash-in-the-pan National Security Advisor Mike Flynn—lying to the FBI—but no one who has been paying attention thought the two men would be treated the same way. Flynn was close to Donald Trump, therefore he must be considered a sacrificial beast, someone to be made an example of, a pariah. And so he was. 

Sussmann, by contrast, was a covert employee of the Hillary Clinton campaign. He helped get the Russian Collusion Delusion going and lied to the FBI in the process. But he was on the side of the regime party, so, as Jonathan Turley observed as the Sussmann case unfolded, he was afforded every consideration while Flynn found himself ruined. In this tale of two trials, we got a textbook illustration of how you can deploy a two-tier system of justice in which, as George Orwell put it in Animal Farm: All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. 

The article also notes the recent arrest of Peter Navarro:

Sussmann joins a long list of Hillary cronies and Department of Justice lackeys (but I repeat myself). In any just world Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, James Comey, Kevin Clinesmith, Loretta Lynch, and indeed Hillary herself would be behind bars. But this is our world, not any just world. 

And here’s some salt to rub in the wound. Peter Navarro, a former Trump economic advisor, was held in contempt of Congress because he refused to hand over documents to the Kangaroo Court, er . . . the Democrat-controlled January 6 inquisition. Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s self-declared “wingman” and Attorney General was also held in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over documents. But not to worry. As CNN reported soon after the affront, “The White House and the Justice Department made clear Friday what had been expected all along: Attorney General Eric Holder will not face criminal prosecution under the contempt of Congress citation passed by the U.S. House.”

The article concludes:

In his Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein says “all philosophical problems have the form ‘I have lost my way.’” The first response to being lost should be to retrace one’s steps in order to escape the maze. It’s time that Americans faced up to the reality that their governing apparat is a corrupt, self-engorging Leviathan. This is not, or not only, a partisan issue. Sure, Washington, D.C. is a fully paid-up concession of the Democratic Party, regularly voting some 93 to 95 percent Democratic. Sussmann was never going to be convicted there.

So a preliminary antiseptic, as I have argued elsewhere, would be to downgrade Washington in the political metabolism of the country. Indeed, I think the capital, if not the Capitol, ought to be dispersed. Washington, D.C., could continue to function as what it has already in part become: a sort of stage set where functionaries preen and simper before the cameras of a preposterous media and press corps. 

Donald Trump made a few half-hearted stabs at dismantling the lumbering machine that is the Washington establishment, but that seems like a long time ago and, besides, the swamp closed almost instantly to reassert its prerogatives. In his next term, however, he should make the destruction of the Washington machine one of his highest priorities. It won’t be easy. To be frank, I am not sure, absent some world-shaking calamity, it is even possible. But it is nevertheless necessary if anything resembling the republic as envisioned by the founders is to be salvaged.

We have wandered far from the republic the Founding Fathers created. I pray it is not too late to get it back.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article.

Twisting The Concept Of Voting Rights

I would like to go on the record to say that my definition of voting rights is that every American who is legally entitled to vote would be able to cast their vote without government interference and that every person in America who is not legally entitled to vote would be prevented from voting. Every illegal vote cast cancels out a legal vote. Most Americans want their votes to count. Unfortunately there are those in power in America who do not share my definition.

On Friday, The Hill posted an article about the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act which is currently proposed in Congress (it seems that HR1 is not receiving the support needed to pass it).

The article reports:

Beware the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — a backdoor way of implementing some of the worst provisions of H.R. 1 and stopping commonsense election reforms like voter ID.  

This legislation summons the ghost of Eric Holder, the former attorney general who abused federal power under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to badger states such as Texas, South Carolina, Florida and North Carolina over election integrity laws. 

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is a permanent, nationwide provision that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Section 5 was a temporary measure that required the worst states — places like Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi — to get pre-approval (or preclearance) of any changes in their voting laws from the U.S. Justice Department. The conditions prevailing there in 1965 justified this impingement on state sovereignty, but those conditions no longer exist.  Eight years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out Section 5, ruling in Shelby County v. Holder that 40-year old data did not justify continued federal oversight.  

The newly introduced act would resurrect the Section 5 preclearance process and give control over state elections to leftwing lawyers in the Biden Justice Department. Lawyers in the voting section of the civil rights division — where both of us once worked — would have the power to approve or reject the smallest change in state election procedures, from polling locations to redistricting to voter ID laws. 

We witnessed this power being abused while we were at Justice. But, the Holder Justice Department took abuse of preclearance power to a whole new level, blocking states from implementing citizenship verification and voter ID requirements. 

Please follow the link to the article to see exactly how this power would be used.

The article concludes:

In the entire history of the Justice Department, it has never interfered with, nor investigated, a single election audit. That’s because it has no legal authority to do so. Karlan (Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Pam Karlan) even made the claim that auditors can somehow retroactively “intimidate” voters whose ballots were already cast.  

The DOJ’s actions in the Arizona case exemplify the dangers to come under any Voting Rights Advancement Act scenario that would give partisan political appointees in the civil rights division the power to veto any state election law or rule they don’t like — without having to go to court to prove that it is actually discriminatory.   

Leftist voting groups may be willing to trade H.R. 1 in the short run for the Voting Rights Advancement Act today. Doing so would return the center of gravity back to D.C. on voting process issues and remove power further from the people, which is exactly what they want.  

Unfortunately under the Biden administration, our elections and our freedoms are at risk.

Why Should These Records Remain Hidden?

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported the following:

On Monday General Flynn Attorney Sidney Powell tweeted out that the law firm Covington and Burling that mis-represented General Michael Flynn is resisting turning over all documents and specifically those of Eric Holder and Michael Chertoff discussing the Flynn case.

It should be noted that Michael Chertoff is considered to be the co-author of the Patriot Act. Also, who helped General Flynn in deciding which law firm to hire? The article reminds us of the conflicts of interest the law firm had in representing General Flynn:

President Obama’s first Attorney General, Eric Holder, left a corrupt life in public office and returned to the law firm Covington.  While at Covington, lawyers from his firm represented General Mike Flynn and requested dirt on President Trump while withholding important information from General Flynn.  It needs to be asked.  Was Eric Holder involved?

After working for President Obama for six years, Attorney General Eric Holder returned to the law firm where he had previously worked, Covington, where he became a partner in 2015.

The article continues:

Covington had numerous conflicts of interest related to their biggest case ever, representing General Michael Flynn in his unjust indictment by the Mueller gang.  Flynn’s attorneys at the firm withheld evidence from their client.  They asked for dirt on President Trump.  They hired individuals that were involved in the criminal Spygate scandal.

There is no way that a partner at Covington like Eric Holder was not aware of the firm representing General Flynn in the biggest case in the US.
This all is so corrupt, it makes you wonder if former corrupt Obama AG Holder was involved.

Thank God that Attorney Sidney Powell was willing to step in (pro bono) and give General Flynn the honest representation that he is entitled to under law.

Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about some recent comments by former Attorney General Eric Holder.

The article reports:

Former President Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder acknowledged that he sees the coronavirus as “an opportunity” to change the way U.S. citizens vote forever.

“Coronavirus gives us an opportunity to revamp our electoral system so that it permanently becomes more inclusive and becomes easier for the American people to access,” Holder told Time magazine.

Holder went on to say that he supports shifting toward a system with more mail-in ballots.

“There has to be a sea change in our thinking there,” he said when asked how important he thinks mail-in ballots will be going forward. “Allow people to access their primary American right by voting at home. It’s not as if this is an untried concept. Oregon has been doing this for years. But we have to make sure that we’re being sensitive to the needs of poor communities and communities of color by doing things like having prepaid postage on envelopes. Construct a system so that you’ve got expanded in-person voting, you’ve got expanded at-home voting and expanded no-excuse absentee vote-at-home measures.”

Holder said he believes that these changes during the coronavirus crisis will help “enhance our democracy.”

Democrats across the country have been pushing for increased mail-in voting during the coronavirus crisis despite reports over the past week suggesting over 28 million mail-in ballots have been lost in the past 10 years and that thousands of ineligible voters could possibly receive mail-in ballots, including many dead people.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on his show this week he believes these efforts to push mail-in voting are part of a broader effort on behalf of Democrats to “encourage” voter fraud to win elections.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a sentiment similar to Holder’s claim that increased mail-in voting is a positive step forward for democracy.

This is the voice of desperation. The only way to push Joe Biden across the finish line in the 2020 election is with voter fraud. The greatest amount of voter fraud in America occurs with mail-in absentee ballots. We have all heard the stories from people who have gone to the polls to vote and were told they had already voted. There are also stories from people who requested absentee ballots and had them stolen and cast by other people. This is not a step forward for the voting process–it is an open door for voter fraud.

Stacking The Deck To Steal An Election

Next year is an important election for America. The ‘fundamental transformation of America’ has been temporarily interrupted by the Trump administration, but there are those who are extremely anxious to see the transformation continue. They are fully prepared to manage the decline of America. Unfortunately President Trump is fully prepared to manage the reemergence of America as a major economic player. That will be the battle fought. Americans (knowingly or unknowingly) will be asked to choose between growth or decline. President Obama is sending his henchman Eric Holder to see if the scales can be tipped in favor of decline. In August I posted an article about this effort. Now that effort is officially coming to North Carolina.

On Thursday, Channel 5 in Raleigh reported:

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder strategized on redistricting reform Thursday with left-leaning groups that are knee-deep in the issue in North Carolina.

Holder, who served under former President Barack Obama, met with activists in Raleigh and Greensboro. He’s chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, making him the Democratic Party’s point man on redistricting reform, gerrymandering lawsuits and state legislative fights heading into the 2020 elections.

Those elections will decide control of state legislatures, and thus a decade’s worth of election maps for legislative and congressional districts across the country. His group, with backing from the former president, has funded lawsuits and election campaigns with the overarching goal of electing Democrats and undoing maps his side sees as unfair Republican gerrymanders.

When that’s done, Holder said Thursday, he hopes to see nonpartisan redistricting reform take hold in more states. He said he favors an independent commission that takes the power away from elected officials to draw their own districts.

“We’ve got to get back to a place where elections are simply fair,” Holder said.

The article further explains:

Republicans have criticized Holder’s effort as a partisan one, geared toward electing Democrats whether the maps are fair or not. A spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, with whom Holder sparred a bit on Twitter last month, asked Thursday “how many times Eric Holder has hosted a roundtable in blue states.”

“It’s probably equal to the number of blue states he’s sued, which is zero,” Pat Ryan said in an email. “Holder’s support for ‘fair maps’ is a phony front to help Democrats win more elections.”

Holder hasn’t shied away from the partisan nature of his effort. He told those gathered in Raleigh that “it sounds kind of strange, but this is a partisan attempt at good government.”

Sorry, Eric Holder, there is no such thing as a partisan attempt at good government. Remember, this is the man who ignored a video of the New Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philadelphia and dropped the charges. The video has disappeared from YouTube, but here is a still shot:

When I think of Eric Holder, I don’t think of good government.

This Might Be A Problem For The Obama Legacy

On Wednesday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, a book written by General James Mattis about his time as leader of U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013, overseeing military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia. Some parts of the book do not portray President Obama in a positive light.

The article reports:

“From my first day at CENTCOM, I knew we faced two principal adversaries: stateless Sunni Islamist terrorists and the revolutionary Shiite regime of Iran, the most destabilizing country in the region,” he writes. “Iran was by far the more deadly of the two threats.”

That’s not how the president under whom Mattis served saw it, though, and Barack Obama eventually fired the storied Marine general for what Mattis believes were his insistent warnings about the Iranian threat.

Mattis says Washington didn’t even inform him when Iran committed an “act of war” on American soil.

The duty officer at his Tampa, Florida, headquarters on Oct. 11, 2011 told him that the attorney general and FBI director had held a press conference to announce the arrest of two Iranians who had planned a bomb attack on Cafe Milano, a high-end restaurant in Washington that was a favorite of the rich and famous, including Saudi Arabia’s ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir.

As Mattis writes, “Attorney General Eric Holder said the bombing plot was ‘directed and approved by elements of the Iranian government and, specifically, senior members of the Qods Force.’ The Qods were the Special Operations Force of the Revolutionary Guards, reporting to the top of the Iranian government.”

The article concludes:

Mattis says his reaction to the Cafe Milano bomb plot contributed towards Obama’s decision to fire him abruptly.

“While I fully endorse civilian control of the military, I would not surrender my independent judgment. In 2010, I argued strongly against pulling all our troops out of Iraq,” Mattis writes. (Earlier in the book, he recounts a discussion he had on the subject in Baghdad with Vice President Joe Biden, who was in charge of Iraq policy but “ignoring reality” and uninterested in the considered opinion of the general in charge of operations there.) “In 2011, I urged retaliation against Iran for plotting to blow up a restaurant in our nation’s capital. In 2012, I argued for retaining a small but capable contingent of troops in Afghanistan. Each step along the way, I argued for political clarity and offered options that gave the Commander in Chief a rheostat he could dial up or down to protect our nation.”

The commander in chief chose another option: fire the CENTCOM leader.

“In December 2012, I received an unauthorized phone call telling me that in an hour, the Pentagon would be announcing my relief,” Mattis writes. “I was leaving a region aflame and in disarray.”

And the biggest threat in the region, Mattis says, then as now, was Iran. He predicted the Obama administration’s reluctance to punish Tehran for its bad behavior while the two sides negotiated a nuclear deal would come back to haunt the U.S. He concludes that “the Iranians had not been held to account, and I anticipated that they would feel emboldened to challenge us more in the future.”

Unfortunately I think that in the future we will see more situations where President Obama put his own search for a diplomatic victory ahead of the safety of Americans.

Once A Community Organizer, Always A Community Organizer

President Obama has reentered the political scene. He is in the process of buying a beautiful waterfront home on Martha’s Vineyard. He is also involved in an organization called “Redistricting U.” The organization’s website is Allontheline.org.

Here is some information from the website:

  • “I’ve always believed that training is at the heart of organizing. It’s why I made it a priority in my 2008 campaign and throughout our larger movement for change in the years since. … The movement for fair maps will determine the course of progress on every issue we care about for the next decade. And we can’t wait to begin organizing when the redistricting process starts in 2021. We need to build this movement from the ground up – right now.” — President Obama
  • As a campaign of the National Redistricting Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) organization, All on the Line’s primary purpose is the advocacy and the promotion of social welfare. However, in limited instances, and only when consistent with our values and mission, All On The Line may engage in grassroots electoral work.
  • All On The Line is a campaign of the National Redistricting Action Fund (NRAF), an affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), which is chaired by Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States.
  • The All On The Line campaign began, in part, when NRAF combined forces with Organizing for Action, an organization founded by Obama aides that grew out of President Obama’s campaign infrastructure. The power of ordinary people coming together to enact change is central to the beliefs of President Obama and Eric Holder, and they are both active in this effort and supportive of this campaign.

The states targeted by this organization for redistrict6ing are Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. It is interesting that all but one of these states voted for President Trump in 2016. President Trump lost in Colorado by less than 5 percent.

So what is this really about? President Obama is watching his legacy being destroyed as President Trump is rebuilding the American economy. President Trump is on track to be reelected despite the efforts of the mainstream media and the hysterics of the Democrat presidential candidates. Redistricting reform is the name President Obama is giving to his efforts to make sure President Trump is not reelected.

 

That Was Then–This Is Now

One America News posted an article today contrasting Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi’s statement when Attorney General Eric Holder refused to appear before the House of Representatives with her statement when Attorney General William Barr. It should be noted that Attorney General Holder was asked to appear before the House, Attorney General Barr has been asked to appear before House lawyers, a procedure used only during impeachment hearings.

The article reports:

Pelosi quickly jumped on board with House Judiciary chair Jerry Nadler’s call to hold Barr in contempt of Congress after he refused to testify before a House committee last week.

Back in 2012 however, Pelosi assailed the decision to hold Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for failing to supply documents related to a controversial arms deal with Mexico. She called the move a “political scheme” orchestrated by the Republican Party.

“What we have seen is a shameful display of abusive power by the Republicans in the House of Representatives…they are holding the attorney general of the United States in contempt of Congress for doing his job,” she once stated.

This comes as Democrats to release Mueller’s full report, accusing the attorney general of “misrepresenting” the special counsel’s findings.

Mueller is set to testify before Congress on May 15th, however, President Trump has suggested he may block the move.

The Democrats have the report. They also have a less redacted copy they are able to view (so far no Democrats have bothered to view that report). They really don’t need to talk to Attorney General Barr–his testimony is totally moot in this matter. However, if the Democrats can discredit him before the Inspector General’s report on spying on the Trump campaign is released or before he can investigate the reasons behind the spying that took place in 2015 and beyond, they may avoid embarrassment (although I am not convinced the current crop of Democrats are capable of being embarrassed by anything). Unfortunately, Congress is playing political games again rather than doing anything constructive.

Preparing For 2020

I can’t imaging the Democrats would be crazy enough to run Stacey Abrams as their candidate for Vice-President in 2020, but stranger things have happened. Why do I think this might be a possibility? Rather than have her run as a failed candidate, Democrats are painting her as someone who had an election stolen from her.

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article yesterday stating that former Attorney General Eric Holder believes that Stacey Abrams won the race for Georgia governor in 2018.

The article reports:

In making that claim, Holder echoed other prominent Democrats in suggesting that Kemp’s role as secretary of state was a factor in the outcome.

“I think the way it was conducted, the – her opponent remaining as secretary of state, basically being the referee until about the last week of the election, certainly gave the appearance of unfairness, and I think it was unfairness.”

Abrams has never conceded the race, and has also maintained on several occasions that she won.

Also speaking to The Root, Abrams placed some blame on media coverage for how the election turned out.

“I would attribute it less to racism and more to a very narrow and immature ability to navigate the story of my campaign,” Abrams said. “I was doing a number of things that were new and different and discomforting to some. But what was worse was that, for a lot of those folks, they could not comprehend how all of these things could be true at the exact same moment. I wouldn’t necessarily ascribe any racial animus as much as I would a lack of—there was some incompetence in the coverage that was problematic.”

When the Democrats lose an election, somehow it is always someone else’s fault (or it is racism). How many times can you cry ‘wolf’ and still be believed?

This Is What Sore Losers Look Like

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about some recent comments by former Attorney General Eric Holder.

The article reports:

Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, who is considering running for president in 2020, called into doubt the legitimacy of the Supreme Court following the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Court by a 50-48 vote in the Senate on Saturday. Holder on Friday used incendiary rhetoric to call on liberals to use their “rage” to vote to “be rid of these people”–singling out Republicans in the Senate who support Kavanaugh and have used their majority power to control nominations to the courts.

I hate to say this, but this brings to mind how unpolitical the actions of the Senate were when Barack Obama nominated judges to the Supreme Court. The Democrats held the majority in the Senate when Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. Fifty-nine Democrats voted for confirmation (Ted Kennedy was not present) and nine Republicans voted for confirmation. When Elena Kagan was nominated for the Supreme Court, the Democrats also held the majority. The vote was 63-37 with five Republicans voting for confirmation. The Republicans acted like gentlemen, and the judges were confirmed. Both judges were known as liberal judges, but no one questions the legitimacy of the Supreme Court after they were confirmed.

The duly-elected President is the person the Constitution gives the power to select Supreme Court Justices. The Senate’s role is Advise and Consent. I believe that in the hearings for Judge Kavanaugh the Senate abused that role. There is nothing illegitimate about the Supreme Court now that it includes Justice Kavanaugh.

The article continues:

On Friday Holder expressed similar concerns in comments but also exhorted his supporters use their “rage” about how the Republicans who control the Senate used their power to confirm Kavanaugh and fill other judicial seats to “be rid of these people.” While Holder wrote he was urging people to vote to “be rid of these people”, his choice of language encouraging liberals to ‘use their rage’ to ‘be rid of these people’ is deliberate.

“Reputation and credibility of Supreme Court at stake with upcoming vote. How the Court is viewed. For years. Bigger than one individual. There are conservative acceptable alternatives…As you lament the Merrick Garland outrage never forget that McConnell and R’s did not fill lower court seats for YEARS. Those are the seats being filled now. Use the rage of today to get people out to vote and be rid of these people. Your voice matters. Your vote counts. VOTE!”

I really don’t think Eric Holder’s statements add anything to the civility of our political discourse.

One Of The Main Alligators In The Swamp

Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about Rod Rosenstein and his position in the swamp that is Washington, D.C.

The article reports:

Mr. Rosenstein, one of the most powerful men in the Department of Justice, threatened to investigate members of Congress and their staff if Congress continued to fulfill its constitutional responsibility to oversee the increasingly rogue federal department.

Move over J. Edgar Hoover. Rod Rosenstein has officially taken your place as the most power-drunk, nefarious, crooked blight on justice to ever preside in the Department of “justice.”

The popularity of Congress may be in the toilet, but self-dealing rogue prosecutors with unlimited power to punish political opponents and put people in jail are so far down the toilet they are fertilizing daisies in Denmark.

In a statement to Fox News, a DOJ official denied that Mr. Rosenstein threatened Congress in a bizarre statement — that confirmed Mr. Rosenstein did precisely that.

The Deputy Attorney General was making the point — after being threatened with contempt — that as an American citizen charged with the offense of contempt of Congress, he would have the right to defend himself, including requesting production of relevant emails and text messages and calling them as witnesses to demonstrate that their allegations are false,” the official said.

After admitting Mr. Rosenstein threatened Congress for overseeing his department, the DOJ official went on to reiterate that the threat remains.

Congress is assigned the job of overseeing the Department of Justice. Mr. Rosenstein’s thuggery is totally unacceptable.

The article points out the difference between Rod Rosenstein and Eric Holder, neither of which were particularly interested in following the U.S. Constitution:

Ex-Attorney General Eric Holder was an ideological crusader and political thug, hell-bent on maximizing the power of the president for whom he worked. Mr. Holder was never elected anything, but he was working for a guy who did get elected. Twice.

Mr. Rosenstein is a thousand times worse and so much more dangerous. He never got elected anything — and he is blatantly giving the middle finger to anyone elected by the people to oversee him and his increasingly lawless department.

Mr. Rosenstein believes he is — literally — above the law. He is answerable to no one. Legal accountability is beneath him. The public be damned.

Firing Mr. Rosenstein would be a step toward draining the swamp. Hopefully that step will be taken in the near future.

Common Sense Has Left The Building

The Hill posted an article today stating that a group of Democrats led by Eric Holder will go to court to stop the U.S. Census from asking people if they are citizens of the U.S. Think about that for a minute. The census is used to determine the number of representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives. These representatives represent citizens of the United States. Therefore a state with a large number of non-citizens reported on the census could actually get more representatives in the House of Representatives than they are actually legally entitled to. As more people leave California and the number of illegal immigrants increase, it is less likely that California will lose representatives as have other states with decreasing populations. Since illegals vote in California (against the U.S. Constitution, but it happens), there will be more Democrats (Hispanic illegals tend to vote Democratic–article here). So Eric Holder and his friends are suing in a blatant attempt to get more Democrats in the House of Representatives. Makes perfect sense to me.

The article reports:

“We will litigate to stop the Administration from moving forward with this irresponsible decision,” Holder said. “The addition of a citizenship question to the census questionnaire is a direct attack on our representative democracy.”

Holder’s announcement came a day after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that the Census Bureau would reinstate a question about individuals’ citizenship status on the 2020 census, despite objections from Democrats on the matter.

Under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department has argued that including such a question would help it enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a notion Holder rejected.

“Make no mistake — this decision is motivated purely by politics,” Holder said. “In deciding to add this question without even testing its effects, the Administration is departing from decades of census policy and ignoring the warnings of census experts.”

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) also said late Monday that he would file a lawsuit over the Commerce Department’s decision.

“We’re prepared to do what we must to protect California from a deficient Census,” Becerra said in a statement. “Including a citizenship question on the 2020 census is not just a bad idea — it is illegal.”

First of all, we are a representative republic–not a democracy. Eric Holder is a lawyer–shouldn’t he know that? The California Attorney General also seems rather ignorant of the law–why is it illegal to ask a person if they are a citizen if they are living here? Shouldn’t a representative republic represent the citizens of the country?

The bottom line here is simple–the Democrats are losing the center of their voting base. The party has shifted left, and the American public has remained pretty much in the center. The Democrats need the illegal immigrant votes. That is the reason they are trying to make them citizens and that is the reason they are trying to get them counted in the census.

 

Campaign Event

I had the privilege of meeting Lara Trump tonight at Captain Ratty’s in New Bern.

LaraTrumpShe is a native of North Carolina, married to Eric Trump. She is a very personable young lady working hard to elect her father-in-law to the Presidency.  I was impressed.

One of the things that Carl Mischka, the Craven Country Republican Chairman, reminded us of was the fact that if Hillary Clinton is elected, Barack Obama and Eric Holder will sit on the Supreme Court. I shudder to think what that will do to America.

At any rate, Lara is a very impressive young lady, and I wish her well on the campaign trail. She is a great asset to the campaign.

In The End, It All Comes Down To Trust

The Washington Free Beacon today reported that the National Institute for Justice (a group under the Justice Department) has awarded Michigan State University $585,719 to study social media use by “far-right” groups. It would be interesting to know how they define ‘far-right’ groups.

The article reports:

“We will collect posts made in four active forums used by members of the far-right and three from the Islamic Extremist community, as well as posts made in Facebook, LiveJournal, Twitter, YouTube, and Pastebin accounts used by members of each movement,” the grant said.

“The findings will be used to document both the prevalence and variation in the ideological content of posts from members of each movement,” the grant continued. “In addition, we will assess the value of these messages in the social status of the individual posting the message and the function of radical messages in the larger on-line identity of participants in extremist communities generally.”

The project will also “identify the hidden networks of individuals who engage in extremist movements based on geographic location and ideological similarities.”

The results will be used for a public webinar, and for presentations for counterterrorism experts in the United States.

Holder highlighted the study in remarks this February at the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, as an example of the new methods the Justice Department is using to combat terrorist threats.

Holder said the study will “help us develop more effective techniques and partnerships for counter-messaging.”

While the grant does not name the “far-right” groups that would be examined, other federal agencies have devoted their energy to the sovereign citizen movement.

As someone who probably belongs to at least one of the groups I suspect is labeled far-right, I would like to save them some trouble and maybe some money.

I use social media to see pictures of my grandchildren. I also use it to play silly games like Candy Crush and Trivia Crack. I use it to keep track of news events in areas I care about–Common Core in North Carolina and in Massachusetts, the statements of various conservative candidates, and activities of local conservative groups. I also love some of the animal pictures that other people post on Facebook and love the posts from the Wildcat Sanctuary. I also appreciate some of the inspirational things my friends post. I also have Democrat friends who post things. That’s their right as much as it is my right–only no one is investigating their social media habits or auditing their tax returns. Now that I have done some of your research for you, can I have part of the grant?

I write this to make a point. Congress is stalled right now on renewing certain aspects of the NSA Surveillance Program. Do you think if the Obama Administration had behaved better in dealing with its political opposition, people might be more inclined to trust the government?

This Needs To Be Done In Every State

The Daily Caller posted an article today about a law passed by the New Mexico state legislature. The law will abolish civil asset forfeiture. The bill now goes to the desk of Republican Gov. Susana Martinez.

The article reports:

Civil asset forfeiture is a practice where police can take and keep your property without convicting or even charging you of a crime. Then, you must go through the arduous and often unsuccessful process to get your property–whether it’s a vehicle, cash or your home–back from the police.

New Mexico police must now convict you of a crime and prove your property was used in the crime before you forfeit it to the authorities. Also, the money gained from the property will now go to the state’s general fund instead of police budgets, so that police do not have incentives to take from citizens.

Civil asset forfeiture is one of the issues in the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as U.S. Attorney General (rightwinggranny.com). While in charge of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York she brought in more than $113 million in civil actions between 2011 and 2013.

The article concludes:

The implementation of this bill would send a message to other states that this widespread practice can be abolished despite the lobbying of law enforcement and prosecutors.

Continuous media reports of extreme abuses by police in civil asset forfeiture have helped draw national bipartisan scrutiny that has been building in recent months. (RELATED: The 7 Most Egregious Examples Of Civil Asset Forfeiture)

This practice is unconstitutional and needs to end.

I Have An Absolute Attitude Problem With This Story

Yesterday Bloombergview posted a story about the fact that the Justice Department is threatening to bring charges against General Petreaus for classified information found on Paula Broadwell‘s computer. Paula Broadwell was writing a biography of the General, and he has been accused of giving her classified information. My first reaction to this is suspicion of the government. I posted a story in October (rightwinggranny) about Sharyl Attkisson, an investigative reporter who has done a tremendous amount of research on Fast and Furious and Benghazi.

The article at rightwinggranny stated:

Attkisson says the source, who’s “connected to government three-letter agencies,” told her the computer was hacked into by “a sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency.”

…“The intruders discovered my Skype account handle, stole the password, activated the audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably as a listening tool,” she wrote in “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.”

But the most shocking finding, she says, was the discovery of three classified documents that Number One told her were “buried deep in your operating system. In a place that, unless you’re a some kind of computer whiz specialist, you wouldn’t even know exists.”

“They probably planted them to be able to accuse you of having classified documents if they ever needed to do that at some point,” Number One added.

Considering the thuggish tactics often used by the Obama Administration, it is very possible that they did the same thing to Paul Broadwell’s computer.

So what is this really all about? Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted a story that provides some interesting information.

The story at Power Line states:

Petraeus denies that he gave classified information to Broadwell. However, FBI officials reportedly found such documents on her computer after Petraeus resigned from the CIA when news of the affair became public. But it does not appear that the disclosure by Petraeus, if any, resulted in harm to the nation.

Indeed, President Obama has said that he knows of no evidence that Petraeus disclosed classified information “that in any way would have had a negative impact on our national security.” Obama has also said that “we are safer because of the work that Dave Petraeus has done.”

General Petraeus is going to be called to testify before the Congressional Committee investigating Benghazi. I am inclined to believe that this is a warning shot across the General’s bow designed to control his testimony. I hope the intimidation effort by the Obama Administration fails miserably.

The Creeping Bureaucracy Of Washington

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?

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.

 

An Interesting Perspective On The Coming Amnesty

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?

Amoral vs. Immoral

According to the ConstitutionCenter.org:

If there is a lesson in all of this it is that our Constitution is neither a self-actuating nor a self-correcting document. It requires the constant attention and devotion of all citizens. There is a story, often told, that upon exiting the Constitutional Convention Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: “A republic, if you can keep it.” The brevity of that response should not cause us to under-value its essential meaning: democratic republics are not merely founded upon the consent of the people, they are also absolutely dependent upon the active and informed involvement of the people for their continued good health.

Somehow we have not done as good a job of keeping our republic as we might have. The recent election was a ray of hope, but we have a long way to go to get back to the government our Founding Fathers envisioned.

Fox News is reporting:

The Justice Department released nearly 65,000 pages of subpoenaed documents related to the DOJ’s botched gunrunning sting, after a federal judge overruled the Obama administration’s decision to withhold the records by invoking executive privilege. The program, which targeted Mexican gun cartels, came under scrutiny after weapons involved in the operation were connected to the killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in 2010.

“Issa and his idiot cronies never gave a damn about this when all that was happening was that thousands of Mexicans were being killed with guns from our country,” Holder wrote to members of his staff in April 2011, after Issa threatened to subpoena a Federal Firearms Licensee witness to testify on the investigation. “All they want to do — in reality — is cripple ATF and suck up to the gun lobby,” he continued, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the branch of the Justice Department that was in charge of the gunrunning operation.

“Politics at its worst — maybe the media will get it,” Holder’s email added.

It is obvious from that statement that Eric Holder did not believe he had done anything wrong. There is no acknowledgement that running guns to Mexico might be illegal or immoral.

According to the dictionary:

amoral – lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something

immoral – not conforming to accepted standards of morality

Somehow we have morphed from the representative republic created by the U.S. Constitution to a country ruled by a bunch of elite political class who can no longer distinguish between right and wrong. If we do not remedy this situation in 2016, we will lose our republic.

Also, please note that the documents released were released on the eve of the election in the hopes that no one would pay attention to them.

 

 

Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out

I am glad to see Eric Holder leave the Obama Administration. Although he is not the first Attorney General to have politicized the office, he certainly took that politicization to a new level. Unfortunately, his replacement will probably be more of the same.

The Daily Signal posted an article listing the various controversies surrounding Eric Holder during his time in office. They are listed in no particular order. This is my summary of the list:

1. Attempting to bring the 9/11 plotters to a civilian trial in New York City. Eventually he was forced to bow to public pressure and the trials were moved to Guantanamo.

2. Operation Fast and Furious.

3. Refusing to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) despite being charged as Attorney General to uphold the law of the land.

4. Eric Holder is the first Attorney General to be held in contempt of Congress for withholding documents relating to Fast and Furious.

5. Targeting journalists. The Department of Justice under Eric Holder seized a broad array of phone records of Associated Press journalists.

6. Operation Choke Point, originally established to stop consumer fraud is being used to target gun shops and pawn shops that sell guns.

7. Stonewalling in the investigation of the Internal Revenue Service‘s targeting of conservative groups.

8. Intervention in the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson.

9. Blocking Inspectors General from accessing documents related to Congressional investigations.

The article concludes:

Often cited among Holder’s controversies are his targeting of journalists and federal whistleblowers. Last year, it was revealed that the Justice Department had labeled Fox News reporters James Rosen a “co-conspirator” in one leak investigation and had seized phone records of Associated Press reporters in another.

More than two dozen news organizations signed a letter of objection, prompting Holder to modify Justice Department policies. Additionally, Holder has refused to answer questions first posed by a U.S. senator in July 2013 regarding the unauthorized, remote intrusions of my computers.

Holder also leaves the Justice Department in the middle of its investigation into the IRS’ targeting of conservative and tea party groups. The Justice Department has faced conflict-of-interest allegations because at the same time it is supposed to be independently investigating the IRS, it is also defending the IRS in civil litigation. Holder has said that his agency is impartially investigating the IRS and that no politics are at play.

It became obvious that Eric Holder was not going to dispense justice in an even-handed manner when he dropped the voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia. The video that went viral on Facebook clearly showed the Panthers intimidating voters, but the Holder Justice Department dismissed the charges. Eric Holder has also used the Justice Department to attack laws that would ensure less fraud in American elections. I am not sad to see him leave. My only regret is that he will be replaced by someone equally politically corrupt.