Hoping That Americans Have Short Memories

On Thursday, Townhall posted an article that illustrates the media’s hope that Americans have short memories.

This is the headline:

Reporters Are Still Pushing the False Claim Obama Had No Scandals

Let’s take a short walk down memory lane. The first thing that I saw in the Obama administration that gave me concern was the way the New Black Panthers case was handled. There was YouTube video of the New Black Panthers standing outside a polling place in Philadelphia dressed in black, holding billy clubs and looking intimidating. However, the people involved were never charged with voter intimidation.

On July 30, 2012, I reported:

The article in The Washington Examiner cites the writing of United States District Court Judge Reggie Walton:

The documents reveal that political appointees within DOJ were conferring about the status and resolution of the New Black Panther Party case in the days preceding the DOJ’s dismissal of claims in that case, which would appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General Perez’s testimony that political leadership was not involved in that decision. Surely the public has an interest in documents that cast doubt on the accuracy of government officials’ representations regarding the possible politicization of agency decision-making.

In sum, the Court concludes that three of the four fee entitlement factors weigh in favor of awarding fees to Judicial Watch. Therefore, Judicial Watch is both eligible and entitled to fees and costs, and the Court must now consider the reasonableness of Judicial Watch’s requested award.

Judicial Watch has been on the job for a long time. They demand transparency from both Republican and Democrat administrations. Their website is a very good source of information.

The Townhall article names some of the other scandals:

While there are too many scandals to list for one story, among the most egregious were the Fast and Furious scandal, the Solyndra scandal, the IRS targeting conservative non-profits, and the Taliban Five prisoner swap. A full list of scandals can be found here.

The Obama administration was simply a practice run for all of the current corruption we see in the White House.

If The Facts Get In The Way, Just Make It Up

The seeds for the division we now see in the country were sown years ago. Some were sown during the Obama administration when lies were told about the way the police treated different races. The seeds of division were sown when people like the New Black Panthers were not charged after intimidating voters at a polling place in Philadelphia despite a video showing the events. The seeds were sown when the IRS treated certain groups differently when they applied for 501c3 status. One of the biggest lies that has been told that has sown division is the misquoting of a statement made by President Trump after the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Ann Althouse reminds us of this lie (and the fact that it has continued) in an article on her blog.

She notes:

Biden put up that tweet last night after the speech. This post is to look at the transcript of the speeches that Biden and Harris gave at their event yesterday and to pull out the Charlottesville quotes

We have a racial justice crisis Donald Trump seeks only to inflame it with his politics of racist rhetoric and appeals to division. Today’s not only the day I’m proud to introduce Senator Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. It’s also the third anniversary of that terrible day in Charlottesville. Remember? Remember what it felt like to see those neo-Nazis, close your eyes, and those Klansmen, white supremacists, coming out of fields…

Real Clear Politics posted the real President Trump quote:

“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group.  But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.  You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did.  You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

This is the quote that is being ignored:

“I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.” 

Joe Biden is either lying or he is misinformed. Neither one is a good look for a presidential candidate.

Please follow the link to the article by Ann Althouse that is linked above for the whole story.

Does America Have Equal Justice Under The Law?

We are about to find out if the same rules apply to everyone. One America News Network is reporting today that Attorney General William Barr’s probe into the origins of the Russia investigation is turning into a criminal case. For those listening to the mainstream media spin that this is just retribution for impeachment, have you considered the Constitutional protections that were violated when there was massive surveillance on the Trump campaign, the Trump transition team, and even the Trump presidency? Have you looked at the changes made in the handling of classified information that took place in the final days of the Obama administration that made leaking information much easier?

The article notes:

The change reportedly allows U.S. attorney John Durham, who was chosen by Barr to lead the probe, to subpoena documents as well as witness testimonies and to file criminal charges if necessary. This comes after reports last week said Barr was expanding the investigation after Durham found something “significant.:” However, it’s still not clear what exactly prompted the switch.

The probe was first launched in May as an administrative review into the origins of the Russia hoax. President Trump has repeatedly denounced former special council Robert Mueller’s Russia probe by calling it a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.” When asked whether he prompted the attorney general to open the investigation, however, the president said he hadn’t, but also said he appreciates Barr’s work.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, Durham has reportedly expressed interest in investigating former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan, who were in charge while the since-debunked Steele dossier was released. This led to the secret surveillance of Trump campaign officials in 2016.

It was recently reported that multiple CIA officials have pursued legal council because of Durham’s legal review. Horowitz has said his report will be released in the near future.

Spying on Americans by the CIA is illegal. However, if the CIA used overseas resources to accomplish what was illegal, they need to be held accountable. One of the things that the Obama administration was known for was the politicization of government agencies–the IRA targeted conservative groups by slow walking their 501(c)(3) applications, the administration dismissed charges against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation when there was video evidence, the administration eavesdropped on James Rosen and his parents because they didn’t like his reporting, etc. It would not really be a surprise if they had used the government to further their political agenda. It will be interesting to see if anyone is held accountable for the violations of the civil rights of American citizens that occurred during the Obama administration.

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.

I Guess It Depends On Whose Ox Is Being Gored

I have to admit that I have somewhat mixed emotions about watching the Clintons squirm as new information about the email investigation comes out. Although Hillary Clinton is the only person responsible for the mess she is in, the mess beautifully reflects the ethics of the Democratic party and the Justice Department in recent elections. The difference is that after the election, if Hillary Clinton loses, the charges won’t go away. Handling classified information is a serious responsibility. People who have positions that require a security clearance are investigated thoroughly and educated on the handling procedures for classified information. Whether this was done in the case of Hillary Clinton remains a question.

Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article about the email investigation.

He reminded us:

The prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens — found to be without merit and, indeed, abusive by a federal judge — influenced the Senator’s election (he lost a close one). Comey’s statement this summer that Hillary Clinton would not be charged was viewed, correctly, as influencing the election. (I didn’t hear anyone complain that Comey announced that decision, though there were complaints about the decision he announced, as well as his lengthy summary of the evidence). Comey’s decision to investigate Clinton in the first place also had the potential to influence the election.

Paul Mirengoff also reminded us that the claim that the letter to Congress stating that the investigation was being reopened was against Justice Department policy is not entirely true:

“Comey’s decision contrary to policy,” shrieked the lead headline in today’s Washington Post (paper edition; online headline is similar). But what policy did Comey violate?

At the very end of their article Post writers Sari Horowitz, Tom Hamburger and Ellen Nakashima cite a 2012 Justice Department memo by Eric Holder. It states that employees “must be particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality, and nonpartisanship.” If anything, it seems to me that Comey has been too sensitive about playing the Clinton investigation down the middle, giving something to both sides in the election.

Holder’s memo went on to say that if an employee faces “a question regarding the timing of charges or overt investigative steps near the time of a primary or general election,” he should contact the department’s public integrity section “for further guidance.” Comey reportedly did seek guidance from top Justice Department officials (I’m not sure about the public integrity section). As one Justice Department official told the Post, “Director Comey understood our position; he heard it from Justice leadership.”

This is the same Justice Department that began its term by dropping the voter intimidation  charges against the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia. Frankly, I find tall people with billy clubs intimidating, evidently the Justice Department didn’t see it that way.

Remember the video?

The Justice Department dismissed the charges against the New Black Panthers, which later resulted in various lawsuits charging that political appointees in the Obama Administration interfered with the handling of the case.

The Justice Department under President Obama has been political. I don’t know how easily that can be fixed. I do know that if Hillary Clinton is elected, it will get worse. If Donald Trump is elected, considering the way some Republicans have treated him, he will not really have an allegiance to either political party. That would be a good thing. There might be some serious house cleaning in Washington.

Sleight Of Hand To Move An Agenda Forward

The one thing that the Obama Administration has been really good at is directing the attention of the American people away from an actual problem and creating a crisis that creates the appearance of a need for more government power. The current supposed problem with the police is aimed at getting more federal control of local police forces. That is totally unconstitutional, but the Obama Administration has little use for the Constitution. There are very few people talking about the impact that the destruction of the black family unit (caused in part by America’s social welfare programs) has on our society. We need to look at some of the roots of the myth that white police target black Americans. It is a myth if you actually look at the statistics, but the media is not overly inclined to mention that fact.

The Washington Free Beacon posted a story yesterday which illustrates how President Obama is creating racial unrest rather than helping solve the problem. Someone in the administration seems to think that racial unrest will bring out the black vote in November and elect Hillary Clinton. As Rahm Emanual stated, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.” The Obama Administration would do well to remember that the violence during the 1968 election did not elect Democrats.

The article reports:

On November 24, 2014, President Obama betrayed the nation. Even as he went on national television to respond to the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the looting and arson that had followed Brown’s shooting in August were being reprised, destroying businesses and livelihoods over the next several hours. Obama had one job and one job only in his address that day: to defend the workings of the criminal-justice system and the rule of law. Instead, he turned his talk into a primer on police racism and criminal-justice bias. In so doing, he perverted his role as the leader of all Americans and as the country’s most visible symbol of the primacy of the law.

Obama gestured wanly toward the need to respect the grand jury’s decision and to protest peacefully. “We are a nation built on the rule of law. And so we need to accept that this decision was the grand jury’s to make,” he said. But his tone of voice and body language unmistakably conveyed his disagreement, if not disgust, with that decision. “There are Americans who are deeply disappointed, even angry. It’s an understandable reaction,” he said.

Understandable, so long as one ignores the evidence presented to the grand jury. The testimony of a half-dozen black observers at the scene had demolished the early incendiary reports that Wilson attacked Brown in cold blood and shot Brown in the back when his hands were up. Those early witnesses who had claimed gratuitous brutality on Wilson’s part contradicted themselves and were, in turn, contradicted by the physical evidence and by other witnesses, who corroborated Wilson’s testimony that Brown had attacked him and had tried to grab his gun. (Minutes before, the hefty Brown had thuggishly robbed a diminutive shopkeeper of a box of cigarillos. Wilson had received a report of that robbery and a description of Brown before stopping him.)

The President, in making the statement at that time, undermined law and order in America, cast doubt on the ability and fairness of the police, and sowed the seeds for the destruction and loss of life we are seeing now. The Obama Administration’s disrespect for law and order was evident at the beginning of his term when his Justice Department refused to charge the New Black Panthers for their actions during the election. In case you have forgotten, here is the video:

 

There was also the incident with the Cambridge police when, without a shred of evidence, he condemned the policeman who was simply doing his job. The chaos we are seeing now is the result of actions by the Obama Administration. It is a planned strategy. It will stop when people ignore the media and look at the facts. Unfortunately, that may not happen. It is truly sad that America’s first black president, who grew up in elite schools with no relationship to the civil rights struggle, has chosen to advance his agenda instead of helping other black people achieve the success he has known.

Things That Happen In An Election Year

Yesterday’s Washington Post reported that seven Senate Democrats voted with the Republicans to block the nomination of Debo P. Adegbile as chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Adegbile voluntarily took up the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, after Black Panther member Abu-Jamal was convicted of the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

The article reminds us that these votes were not about principle, they are about politics:

A senior aide to one of the senators who voted against the nominee said several senators’ offices were “very angry” at the White House for moving ahead with the nomination even though it could leave Democrats who are facing tough reelection races vulnerable to attack ads.

…Reid had spoken in defense of Adegbile and initially voted in favor but later switched his vote to no, making him the eighth Democrat to vote against the nominee. But Reid did so only to reserve his right as Senate leader to bring up the nomination again. Later Wednesday, aides couldn’t say whether that will happen.

Under President Obama, the Justice Department has become very politicized. Had the nomination of Debo P. Adegbile been allowed to proceed, the Justice Department would have become even more political. In the beginning of the Obama Administration, the direction of the Justice Department became clear when the New Black Panthers were not prosecuted for voter intimidation. In the past, the Justice Department has not been a political arm of the President’s political party. Hopefully, when we are free of the Obama Administration in 2016, the Justice Department will go back to being an impartial judge of the laws of America. We can probably expect the nomination of Debo P. Adegbile to appear again after the 2014 mid-term elections.

 

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

This Does Need To Be Looked Into

Today’s Weekly Standard posted an article about the recent indictment of author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. There is some real question as to whether or not Mr. D’Souza is under indictment because of his open criticism of President Obama and President Obama’s policies. Senators Charles Grassley, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee have written a letter to FBI director James Comey asking questions about the indictment.

This is a copy of the letter:

These are questions that need to be answered. The Obama Administration has shown a very uneven hand in its administration of justice. The New Black Panthers were never prosecuted for voter intimidation, and the only person who was ever arrested in relation to Benghazi was the filmmaker who had nothing to do with the incident. This Justice Department has not upheld its duty of administrating justice equally.

Enhanced by Zemanta

There Really Is A Double Standard

 

Nugent in concert in Naples, Italy, June 1, 2004

Nugent in concert in Naples, Italy, June 1, 2004 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial about the recent comments by Ted Nugent which have resulted in his being asked to have a chat with the Secret Service. Ted Nugent is a bit outrageous in style in anything he does, and his political speeches tend to be direct and somewhat colorful. The Secret Service is concerned (lately, it seems to me, they have more important things to be concerned about).

The article reports:

Attempting to rally fellow NRA members already agitated by the administration’s push for gun control and its disregard for life and law in Operation Fast and Furious, Nugent told fellow Second Amendment devotees that “we are patriots, we are ‘Braveheart.'” He also said, “We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.”

Maybe I just don’t understand how things work, but I don’t think that means he will be riding a horse down Pennsylvania Avenue in November.

The article reminds of us some recent statements by those on the left side of the political spectrum:

Did anyone in the liberal universe or administration take note when Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said at Lemoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tenn., Saturday that “people tomorrow, maybe in a few days, are gonna kill their leaders who’ve been selling them out”?

The Justice Department threw out the case against the New Black Panthers who actually were intimidating voters in Philadelphia with real billy clubs. Why are they so concerned about Ted Nugent’s words. He is a rather flamboyant character to begin with and expresses his political ideas and philosophy in his own style. It would be very interesting to be a fly on the wall when the ‘chat’ with the Secret Service occurs.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Between A Rock And A Hard Place

There is an old joke (I’m a grandmother—all I know are old jokes) about a man walking back and forth under a streetlight. A friend comes by and asks him what he is doing. The man who is walking explains that he dropped his keys when he got out of his car, so he is looking for them. The second man asks why, since the car is parked across the street, the first man is looking on the other side of the street. The first man replies, “Because the light is better here.” That is my commentary on the current state of the mainstream media.

Big Journalism posted an article yesterday contrasting the media’s charges of racism against Rick Perry because of a rock on a property he did not own and the way President Obama’s more recent association with the New Black Panthers has been covered. This dust-up has nothing to do with Rick Perry–it has to do with the political left’s belief that Mitt Romney will be an easier candidate for Barack Obama to defeat. If Mitt Romney is the nominee, the left will attack him on Romneycare and his Mormonism. They have no other weapons.

President Obama’s economic plans have been a total failure. The only way that he can win re-election is to destroy any candidates who could defeat him and make sure his opposition is vulnerable enough to be defeated. Republicans need to be very careful not to let the mainstream media choose their candidates.

Please follow the link to the Big Journalism article to see the contrast in the reporting of ‘racism’ regarding Rick Perry and President Obama. We need to be very careful not to let the mainstream media determine who the Republican presidential candidate will be.

Enhanced by Zemanta

The New Black Panthers Case Continues

Alleged instance of voter intimidation in Phil...

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday Big Government posted an article about a new court ruling in the Black Panthers voter intimidation case. The Department of Justice has claimed that since the case was dismissed on May 15, 2009, all documents relating to the case, even those produced after that date were subject to the “attorney work-product privilege.” The court ruled that documents produced after May 15, 2009, were not subject to “attorney work-product privilege” and should not be withheld.

The article concludes:

We already know the Obama administration’s claim that political appointees were not involved in this decision is patently false. And now DOJ officials continue to fight tooth-and-nail to stonewall the release of additional information. What else do they have to hide? This new court ruling means that we may pry loose some additional information on this voter intimidation scandal and perhaps get to the truth in the matter.

Judicial Watch has led the fight to have the documents relating to the New Black Panthers voter intimidation incident made public. The YouTube video makes it clear that the New Black Panthers were not your ordinary poll watchers. It has been a long battle, but hopefully, if anyone obstructed justice in this matter, he will be fired.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta