Obama's fundraising pitches sounding more poor mouth that powerful
Published June 30, 2012 FoxNews.com
President Obama, the most prolific fundraiser in U.S. presidential campaign history, returned Saturday to a fundraising strategy that increasingly appears more like tin cup rattling.
Since losing the monthly fundraising battle for the first time, in May, to Mitt Romney, the president appears to have changed his fundraising strategy to suggest he's just trying to keep pace.
“We might not out raise Mitt Romney,” the president said Saturday in an email to supporters. “But I am determined to keep the margin close enough that we can win this election the right way.”
The roughly $750 million raised by the Obama campaign during the 2008 election cycle essentially broke every fundraising record, including the most money and most donors.
The campaign accomplished that feat in large part by soliciting and collect donations under $200 – many of them through the Internet and such social media outlets such as Facebook and MySpace, which was relatively innovative at the time.
Obama also eschews public financing to avoid the related spending limits, making him the first major-party candidate to reject taxpayer money for the general election since the system was instituted roughly 40 years ago.
In May, the joint fundraising effort Romney and the Republicans National Committee known as Romney Victory raised $76.8 million, roughly $16 million more than the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Valerie Jarrett is Correct....They will LIE, CHEAT, DECEIVE the American People to get what THEY WANT!
This President and Administration are totally corrupt...they will lie, cheat, deceive the American People just to get what THEY want.....it has nothing to do with what the American People Want!
Fast and Furious Just gets worse and worse....Obama and Holder are Guilty on This One....
Darrell Issa Puts Details of Secret Wiretap Applications in Congressional Record
By Jonathan Strong Roll Call Staff June 29, 2012, 12:06 p.m.
In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.
The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.
The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.
According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.
Holder and Cummings have both maintained that the wiretap applications did not contain such details and that the applications were reviewed narrowly for probable cause, not for whether any investigatory tactics contained followed Justice Department policy.
The wiretap applications were signed by senior DOJ officials in the department’s criminal division, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco and another official who is now deceased.
In Fast and Furious, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed assault guns bought by “straw purchasers” to “walk,” which meant ending surveillance on weapons suspected to be en route to Mexican drug cartels.
The tactic, which was intended to allow agents to track criminal networks by finding the guns at crime scenes, was condemned after two guns that were part of the operation were found at U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder scene.
Straw purchasers are individuals who buy guns on behalf of criminals, obscuring who is buying the weapons.
While Issa has since said he has obtained a number of wiretap applications, the letter only refers to one, from March 15, 2010. The full application is not included in what Issa entered into the Congressional Record, and names are obscured in Issa’s letter.
In the application, ATF agents included transcripts from a wiretap intercept from a previous Drug Enforcement Administration investigation that demonstrated the suspects were part of a gun-smuggling ring.
“The wiretap affidavit details that agents were well aware that large sums of money were being used to purchase a large number of firearms, many of which were flowing across the border,” the letter says.
The application included details such as how many guns specific suspects had purchased via straw purchasers and how many of those guns had been recovered in Mexico.
It also described how ATF officials watched guns bought by suspected straw purchasers but then ended their surveillance without interdicting the guns.
In at least one instance, the guns were recovered at a police stop at the U.S.-Mexico border the next day.
The application included financial details for four suspected straw purchasers showing they had purchased $373,000 worth of guns in cash but reported almost no income for the previous year, the letter says.
“Although ATF was aware of these facts, no one was arrested, and ATF failed to even approach the straw purchasers. Upon learning these details through its review of this wiretap affidavit, senior Justice Department officials had a duty to stop this operation. Further, failure to do so was a violation of Justice Department policy,” the letter says.
Holder declined to discuss the contents of the applications at a House Judiciary Committee hearing June 7 but said the applications were narrowly reviewed for whether there was probable cause to obtain a wiretap application.
Thousands of wiretap applications are reviewed each year by the DOJ’s criminal division. The applications are designed to obtain approval, so they tend to focus on the most suspicious information available.
A line attorney first creates a summary of the application, which is then usually reviewed by a deputy to Lanny Breuer, the head of the division, on his behalf. It is then reviewed and approved or denied by a judge.
Cummings has sided with the DOJ in the debate over the secret applications, but the full substance of his argument is unknown.
A June 5 letter from Cummings responding to Issa’s May 24 letter said Issa “omits the critical fact that [redacted].” The entire first section of the letter’s body is likewise blacked out.
"Sadly, it looks like Mr. Issa is continuing his string of desperate and unsubstantiated claims, while hiding key information from the very same documents," a Democratic committee staffer said. "His actions demonstrate a lack of concern for the facts, as well as a reckless disregard for our nation’s courts and federal prosecutors who are trying to bring criminals to justice. We’re not going to stoop to his level. Obviously, we are going to honor the court’s seal and the prosecutors’ requests. But if Mr. Issa won’t tell you what he is hiding from the wiretaps, you should ask him why."
Here's a Second Article Covering this Issue...You Probably Won't See This Covered in the State-Run Media....
Issa reveals wiretap docs from DOJ mole
By Jordy Yager - 06/29/12 04:30 PM ET
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has revealed portions of sealed wiretap applications related to the botched gun-tracking operation “Fast and Furious.”
Issa entered the sensitive, and previously undisclosed, information into the Congressional Record on Thursday during the floor debate leading up to the passage of his resolution placing Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.
The powerful Republican might be protected from what otherwise would be a criminal offense under Congress’s speech and debate clause because the remarks were written into the public record during chamber proceedings.
During his probe of Fast and Furious as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa has focused on a series of six wiretap applications that federal officials implemented in an attempt to dismantle gun-trafficking rings in the Southwest.
The applications, which are under a federal court’s seal, were given to Issa by a mole with access to the documents. Issa has claimed they reveal that top-level Justice Department officials signed off on the documents and knew about the controversial “gun-walking” tactics used in Fast and Furious. Issa has called his source a “whistleblower” and refused to disclose his or her identity.
“The enclosed wiretap affidavit contains clear information that agents were willfully allowing known straw buyers to acquire firearms for drug cartels and failing to interdict them — in some cases even allowing them to walk to Mexico,” stated a letter Issa sent to his panel’s ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), which was put into the record on Thursday.
“In particular, the affidavit explicitly describes the most controversial tactic of all: abandoning surveillance of known straw purchasers, resulting in the failure to interdict firearms.”
Gun “walking” occurs when a federal official allows a gun to be transferred illegally into a suspected criminals’ possession and they make no attempt to retake possession of the firearm. The tactic is at the heart of why administration and congressional officials have criticized Fast and Furious so vehemently.
Issa argued the information in the wiretap applications raises questions about whether Holder told Congress the truth. Holder has previously testified that he has reviewed the documents and concluded that nothing in them suggested senior DOJ officials should have known about the controversial tactics being employed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which ran the operation.
“The detailed information about the operational tactics contained in the applications raises new questions about statements of senior Justice Department officials, including the Attorney General himself,” said Issa in his May letter to Cummings.
“The affidavit reveals that the Justice Department has been misrepresenting important facts to Congress and withholding critical details about Fast and Furious from the Committee for months on end.”
Issa has been investigating Fast and Furious for 16 months, with specific emphasis on the role the DOJ played in approving the flawed operation. President Obama and Holder have repeatedly said they didn’t know about the “gun walking” tactics until after an ATF agent made news of them public.
In testimony before the House Rules Committee this week, Issa told lawmakers that he had no evidence that Holder was responsible for Fast and Furious. But on Thursday, the California Republican successfully passed civil and criminal resolutions placing Holder in contempt for not responding to a congressional subpoena for documents.
Issa has demanded the DOJ to turn over internal communications over a 10-month period that detailed how the department realized that the ATF had let guns “walk” after stating in a letter to Congress that it made every attempt to stop them.
According to one of the wiretap applications, which included lengthy transcriptions of conversations between alleged straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels, a suspect told an associate over the phone: “Can you hold them [firearms] for me there for a little while there?”
The associate responded, “Well it's that I do not want to have them at home, dude, because there is a lot of … uh, it's too much heat at my house.”
The news about Issa's entry into the Congressional Record was first reported by Roll Call.
— This story was updated at 5:12 p.m.
By Jonathan Strong Roll Call Staff June 29, 2012, 12:06 p.m.
In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.
The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.
The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.
According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.
Holder and Cummings have both maintained that the wiretap applications did not contain such details and that the applications were reviewed narrowly for probable cause, not for whether any investigatory tactics contained followed Justice Department policy.
The wiretap applications were signed by senior DOJ officials in the department’s criminal division, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco and another official who is now deceased.
In Fast and Furious, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed assault guns bought by “straw purchasers” to “walk,” which meant ending surveillance on weapons suspected to be en route to Mexican drug cartels.
The tactic, which was intended to allow agents to track criminal networks by finding the guns at crime scenes, was condemned after two guns that were part of the operation were found at U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder scene.
Straw purchasers are individuals who buy guns on behalf of criminals, obscuring who is buying the weapons.
While Issa has since said he has obtained a number of wiretap applications, the letter only refers to one, from March 15, 2010. The full application is not included in what Issa entered into the Congressional Record, and names are obscured in Issa’s letter.
In the application, ATF agents included transcripts from a wiretap intercept from a previous Drug Enforcement Administration investigation that demonstrated the suspects were part of a gun-smuggling ring.
“The wiretap affidavit details that agents were well aware that large sums of money were being used to purchase a large number of firearms, many of which were flowing across the border,” the letter says.
The application included details such as how many guns specific suspects had purchased via straw purchasers and how many of those guns had been recovered in Mexico.
It also described how ATF officials watched guns bought by suspected straw purchasers but then ended their surveillance without interdicting the guns.
In at least one instance, the guns were recovered at a police stop at the U.S.-Mexico border the next day.
The application included financial details for four suspected straw purchasers showing they had purchased $373,000 worth of guns in cash but reported almost no income for the previous year, the letter says.
“Although ATF was aware of these facts, no one was arrested, and ATF failed to even approach the straw purchasers. Upon learning these details through its review of this wiretap affidavit, senior Justice Department officials had a duty to stop this operation. Further, failure to do so was a violation of Justice Department policy,” the letter says.
Holder declined to discuss the contents of the applications at a House Judiciary Committee hearing June 7 but said the applications were narrowly reviewed for whether there was probable cause to obtain a wiretap application.
Thousands of wiretap applications are reviewed each year by the DOJ’s criminal division. The applications are designed to obtain approval, so they tend to focus on the most suspicious information available.
A line attorney first creates a summary of the application, which is then usually reviewed by a deputy to Lanny Breuer, the head of the division, on his behalf. It is then reviewed and approved or denied by a judge.
Cummings has sided with the DOJ in the debate over the secret applications, but the full substance of his argument is unknown.
A June 5 letter from Cummings responding to Issa’s May 24 letter said Issa “omits the critical fact that [redacted].” The entire first section of the letter’s body is likewise blacked out.
"Sadly, it looks like Mr. Issa is continuing his string of desperate and unsubstantiated claims, while hiding key information from the very same documents," a Democratic committee staffer said. "His actions demonstrate a lack of concern for the facts, as well as a reckless disregard for our nation’s courts and federal prosecutors who are trying to bring criminals to justice. We’re not going to stoop to his level. Obviously, we are going to honor the court’s seal and the prosecutors’ requests. But if Mr. Issa won’t tell you what he is hiding from the wiretaps, you should ask him why."
Here's a Second Article Covering this Issue...You Probably Won't See This Covered in the State-Run Media....
Issa reveals wiretap docs from DOJ mole
By Jordy Yager - 06/29/12 04:30 PM ET
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has revealed portions of sealed wiretap applications related to the botched gun-tracking operation “Fast and Furious.”
Issa entered the sensitive, and previously undisclosed, information into the Congressional Record on Thursday during the floor debate leading up to the passage of his resolution placing Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.
The powerful Republican might be protected from what otherwise would be a criminal offense under Congress’s speech and debate clause because the remarks were written into the public record during chamber proceedings.
During his probe of Fast and Furious as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa has focused on a series of six wiretap applications that federal officials implemented in an attempt to dismantle gun-trafficking rings in the Southwest.
The applications, which are under a federal court’s seal, were given to Issa by a mole with access to the documents. Issa has claimed they reveal that top-level Justice Department officials signed off on the documents and knew about the controversial “gun-walking” tactics used in Fast and Furious. Issa has called his source a “whistleblower” and refused to disclose his or her identity.
“The enclosed wiretap affidavit contains clear information that agents were willfully allowing known straw buyers to acquire firearms for drug cartels and failing to interdict them — in some cases even allowing them to walk to Mexico,” stated a letter Issa sent to his panel’s ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), which was put into the record on Thursday.
“In particular, the affidavit explicitly describes the most controversial tactic of all: abandoning surveillance of known straw purchasers, resulting in the failure to interdict firearms.”
Gun “walking” occurs when a federal official allows a gun to be transferred illegally into a suspected criminals’ possession and they make no attempt to retake possession of the firearm. The tactic is at the heart of why administration and congressional officials have criticized Fast and Furious so vehemently.
Issa argued the information in the wiretap applications raises questions about whether Holder told Congress the truth. Holder has previously testified that he has reviewed the documents and concluded that nothing in them suggested senior DOJ officials should have known about the controversial tactics being employed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which ran the operation.
“The detailed information about the operational tactics contained in the applications raises new questions about statements of senior Justice Department officials, including the Attorney General himself,” said Issa in his May letter to Cummings.
“The affidavit reveals that the Justice Department has been misrepresenting important facts to Congress and withholding critical details about Fast and Furious from the Committee for months on end.”
Issa has been investigating Fast and Furious for 16 months, with specific emphasis on the role the DOJ played in approving the flawed operation. President Obama and Holder have repeatedly said they didn’t know about the “gun walking” tactics until after an ATF agent made news of them public.
In testimony before the House Rules Committee this week, Issa told lawmakers that he had no evidence that Holder was responsible for Fast and Furious. But on Thursday, the California Republican successfully passed civil and criminal resolutions placing Holder in contempt for not responding to a congressional subpoena for documents.
Issa has demanded the DOJ to turn over internal communications over a 10-month period that detailed how the department realized that the ATF had let guns “walk” after stating in a letter to Congress that it made every attempt to stop them.
According to one of the wiretap applications, which included lengthy transcriptions of conversations between alleged straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels, a suspect told an associate over the phone: “Can you hold them [firearms] for me there for a little while there?”
The associate responded, “Well it's that I do not want to have them at home, dude, because there is a lot of … uh, it's too much heat at my house.”
The news about Issa's entry into the Congressional Record was first reported by Roll Call.
— This story was updated at 5:12 p.m.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Disappointing Supreme Court Decision Yesterday.....but do NOT Dispair....It will energize the Republican Base to throw Obama Out!...
Join the Fight to Repeal Obamacare
Fellow Americans,
Like you, I am disappointed by the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision. The Court misread and rewrote Obamacare in order to save it. Such contortions are not the proper role of judging. Most Americans are with you and me and deeply dislike this law.
We believe, however, that this is far, far from a time for despair. This decision will energize freedom-loving Americans to once again take matters into their own hands. Our republic has survived and flourished for more than two centuries because men and women—brave, determined, and deeply committed to the cause of freedom—were willing to stand, to march, and to make whatever sacrifices were necessary so that their children would know the blessings of liberty, the hope and opportunity that flow from living in "the land of the Free."
They will receive this ruling as a clarion call to action. Once again, the people will have to rise to defend a fundamental American concept: that the power of government over individuals must be limited.
First, let's acknowledge what was good in the decision. The Court recognized that there are limits to what Congress may do under the Commerce Clause. Big-government forces have for too long abused this clause's grant of congressional authority, but the Court's decision reaffirms that there are limits on their actions.
There's also the fact that the individual mandate has acquired the official constitutional status of a "tax"—and if it is indeed a tax, then that is even more reason for the U.S. Senate to repeal it with the 51-vote threshold available under the Budget Act's reconciliation process. It is a revenue provision. No filibuster problems there now.
Calling it a tax, of course, doesn’t make the heavy-handed policy in Obamacare any better for those who now have to buy a product they don't like. And yesterday's opinion makes clear that President Obama enacted a massive new tax on the middle class, breaking one of his repeated promises.
We must resolve to check this dangerous expansion of power.
The first step is to work harder than ever to fully repeal Obamacare. Now that the Supreme Court has had its say, Congress becomes the arena in which we can fight for relief and restoration of constitutional limits.
Congress can and must reassert its constitutional authority. Indeed, the House of Representatives has already acted. We congratulate the lower chamber for having voted to repeal Obamacare.
Now it's the Senate's turn to do what's right: Repeal Obamacare, and force the President to sign its repeal.
The American experiment is predicated on the idea that government exists to serve the people, that it derives its power from the people, and that the people retain all powers they do not specifically grant to government. Obamacare turns that fundamental idea on its head.
Ours is still a government "of the people." And the American people have spoken clearly. Indeed, the people's antipathy toward the law keeps growing. Just this month, a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News found that more than two-thirds of Americans wanted the Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare as a whole or in part. Only 24 percent would keep the law in place. While Court decisions obviously should not be driven by polls, the poll clearly shows the people's dissatisfaction with the bad policy in Obamacare.
So many aspects of Obamacare are appalling. Once all its provisions kick in—conveniently, after the November election—millions of Americans stand to lose their current coverage. Already, it saddles individuals and families with higher premiums, higher costs, and higher taxes—and even steeper increases loom on the horizon. It has sparked a host of other loathsome mandates, like the HHS mandate that requires charitable religious organizations to provide coverage that violates the tenets of their faith.
But why should we expect government to respect the constitutional right to religious freedom if we allow government to ignore fundamental restraints on its power to regulate the lives of its citizens?
This year will mark a pivotal point in American history. The American people now must make a critical decision: We must choose between constitutional, limited government on the one hand and arbitrary, unlimited rule on the other.
We at The Heritage Foundation, as always, will stand in defense of our nation's founding principles. We are eager to lead the fight to overturn this Intolerable Act—Obamacare—and we are grateful for your support of our efforts to save the American Dream for the next generation.
Sincerely,
Ed Feulner
President, The Heritage Foundation
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
These Democrats that are not deciding that it's politically correct NOT to go to the DNC Convention will get killed in the November elections....Americans are not Stupid enough to not see past this....
Flashback: Senators who plan to skip Democratic convention praised Obama in 2008
Published: 4:42 PM 06/26/2012 By Alex Pappas - The Daily Caller
What a difference four years can make.
Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of Montana — among the most vulnerable Democratic U.S. senators running for re-election — are skipping their party’s national convention in Charlotte this summer, according to their campaigns.
While both lawmakers say they’re missing out on the chance to attend President Barack Obama’s formal re-nomination for president to concentrate on their own re-election campaigns, observers note that it makes sense for them to keep Obama at an arm’s length.
That differs from just four years ago when both attended the 2008 convention in Denver.
“I have seen Barack Obama in the Senate,” McCaskill said at the convention. “I have been by his side campaigning in diners and coffee shops. I know he will bring the change we need in Washington.”
Likewise, Tester appeared on MSNBC from the convention in 2008, bragging in one interview about flying on the same plane as Obama.
I agree Obama is a by the seat of his pant person, BUT he's ALSO a LIAR!!!
June 27, 2012 4:00 A.M.
Obama, Story-Teller
What matters is the progressive intent — not some supposed objective truth.
By Victor Davis Hanson
A sign of an undisciplined mind is serial lapses into self-contradiction, or blurting out a thought only to refute it entirely on a later occasion. For a president to do that is to erode public confidence and eventually render all his public statements irrelevant. That is now unfortunately the case with Barack Obama, who has established a muddled record of confused and contradictory declarations.
Last week, the president invoked executive privilege to prevent the release of administration documents related to the Fast and Furious operation. All presidents on occasion use that tactic, but rarely after they have put themselves on record, as did Senator Obama just five years ago, damning the practice as a de facto admission of wrongdoing. Does President Obama remember his earlier denunciation — or why he thought a special prosecutor was necessary to look into the Scooter Libby case, but not the far greater mess surrounding Eric Holder?
About the same time, President Obama offered de facto amnesty for an estimated 800,000 to 1 million illegal aliens. Aside from his circumvention of Congress and his casual attitude toward his own constitutional duty to enforce the laws as they are written, Obama had on two earlier occasions stated that he not only would not grant such blanket exemptions from the law, but also legally could not. That was then, this is now — the middle of a reelection campaign?
Candidate Obama derided George W. Bush as “unpatriotic” for borrowing $4 trillion over eight years; what term might President Obama use to characterize his own record of borrowing $5 trillion in less than four years? “Extremely unpatriotic”? In his first year in office, Obama announced that he would deserve just a single term if the economy had not improved after his agenda was reified. What then is he to say to that earlier Obama when 8 percent unemployment is now in its 41st consecutive month, GDP growth is flat, and we continue to borrow $1 trillion per year?
As a candidate, Obama promised to play by the rules of public campaign financing, only to renounce that pledge when he was well on his way to raising $1 billion. Obama did not just promise to shut down Guantanamo and cease renditions, preventive detention, and military tribunals; he also denounced them in such venomous terms that his later embrace — or indeed expansion — of all these protocols was not so much hypocritical as surreal.
President Obama does not like filibustering in the Senate; Senator Obama apparently felt differently when he was in the minority and tried to stop a vote on the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice. The list of the Obama about-faces and obfuscations grows weekly — the revolving door, lobbyists in the White House, the new transparency, opposition to super PACs, attitudes toward Israel, huge savings from Obamacare. And we are at a point now where no one can verify anything from the president’s past, given that his own memoir was largely mythographic — details about his family, friends, and girlfriends made up to enhance his preferred narrative of racial oppression. If a writer will fudge on the very details of his own dying mother’s seeking to obtain health care, then he will fudge on almost anything. And if the Birthers were unhinged for suggesting that Obama was born in Kenya, what are we to make of Obama himself allowing just that untruth to appear on his literary agent’s biography of him for over a decade?
What explains these weird disconnects? There are many contributory factors. First, Obama is a quintessential postmodernist, who believes that there is no abstract “truth,” only floating narratives that gain credibility by their aims — false if for ignoble reasons, true if spoken for egalitarian purposes. Obama would argue that his literary fictions were not actually fictions given that they served the cause of exposing racial bias — it is the intent that matters, not the details. The larger truth is that Barack Obama suffered angst because of his biracial identity; how, when, and where all that happened is immaterial.
Obama once really did lament that he could not legally offer amnesty, only to do just that; similarly, the use of executive privilege for a President Bush is not the same thing as for a President Obama. A statement can be judged true or false only by its ultimate objective — and in Obama’s case all his untruths must be true because they were intended to serve a progressive end
Second, Obama understands that he is a symbolic as much as a real president. Name a controversy — Fast and Furious, the Secret Service scandal, the GSA mess, the serial leaking of key national-security secrets — and he assumes that critics will eventually be tarred with the brush of racial bias for daring to bring that scandal up and thereby help derail the nation’s first African-American president. Similarly, the fact that Obama is part African, has adopted the patois of the inner-city black community, and has allied himself with the identity-driven grievance industry is felt to offer exemption from charges of hypocrisy. So one can both damn fat-cats and endlessly play golf with them. The 1 percenters are culpable, but not so culpable that one would stay away from Martha’s Vineyard or Vail. In Obama’s mind, his minority status and left-wing politics trump any appearance of disingenuousness; he can slur the wealthy in the abstract while courting them and living like them in the concrete. And in our topsy-turvy world, to cite such hypocrisy is racist, whereas using race to seek exemption is not. We see how identity politics collides with truth all the time in America. In the Tawana Brawley case, the Duke lacrosse scandal, and the details surrounding the Trayvon Martin shooting, the point was not necessarily distinguishing fact from fiction, but being careful not to lose sight of the larger quest for racial justice.
Third, Barack Obama was as senator and remains as president a casual ad hoc thinker, an activist rather than a learned and informed leader. He assumes that how he speaks matters rather than what he says, as if months later when critics look at his contradictory transcripts they will remember only how he enthused the crowd by dropping his g’s or inserting a melodic “hope and change” or “make no mistake about it” fillip. At any given moment Obama can declare that he will cut the deficit by half by the end of his first term, that the private sector is doing fine, or that his administration has been a proponent of more gas and oil drilling. Emotion and enthusiasm are for him; detail, consistency, and accuracy are for others.
The media play an unfortunate role as well. Obama has never developed the normal politician’s fear of journalists, who customarily try to dry-gulch a politician by quoting back statements at odds with his record. Instead, Obama assumes that in a press conference or an interview, no one will remind him that he once criticized the use of executive privilege, opposed gay marriage, ruled out de facto amnesty by fiat, or denounced the revolving door. Obama rightly sensed that the more he damned Guantanamo as a candidate, the more his base would rally to his cause — and even more would they keep mum when as president he chose to keep the detention center open. Journalists simply empowered his habit of speaking off the top of his head by a conspiracy of silence. Deep down, Obama supposes that if he says something entirely opposite from what he once said, or something so preposterous that it cannot possibly be true, or calls the Falkland Islands the Maldives, no journalist would dare to press him on the disconnect — given the possible harm to the liberal agenda of our first African-American president.
But after nearly four years, the game is about up. If the president lectures the Europeans with another “make no mistake about it,” they will assume there are lots of mistakes about it. If he says “in point of fact” to Vladimir Putin, then Putin can be sure there are no facts at all. If Obama addresses the American people with “let me be perfectly clear,” then they assume he most certainly will be anything but transparent and concise. And if Obama compares a current event to one in his own past, then we can be sure that the earlier event never took place.
Obama’s critics may not be judicious or even quite accurate in calling him a liar, since he does not consciously and by deliberation craft mistruth. Rather, he simply is a story-teller, a novelist, a fabulist who says nice, interesting things for his own benefit, and on occasion thunders out promises in mellifluous cadences, without any worry whether they are true or false, or whether they confirm or reject what he said a bit earlier. What Barack Obama wants to be true, he says to be true; and we lesser folk can sweat the details when it is usually not.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author most recently of The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom.
If Obamacare is struck down then let Obama run on it....he's lose for sure then because the vast majority of the American People do NOT Want Obamacare....
June 26, 2012 10:56 pm
Obama warns on healthcare ruling
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
Barack Obama suggested that any decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn his landmark healthcare law would send the country “backwards” and that Americans did not want to “re-fight” the battle over healthcare.
It was the first sign that beyond the White House’s staunch defence of the Affordable Care Act Mr Obama is prepared to use the law as a rallying cry on the campaign trail. It is a risky strategy: about half the country remains opposed to the legislation, although most voters like the consumer protections that are guaranteed under the law.
Political experts have said it is unclear how the Supreme Court decision will shape the presidential contest; while a move to strike down the law will undoubtedly be a blow to the Obama administration, some believe it will motivate Democratic voters ahead of the November general election.
The high court is expected to announce the fate of “ObamaCare” on Thursday, when it will either uphold the law, overturn it in its entirety or strike some provisions of the controversial legislation.
The White House has said it expects the high court to uphold the law.
In his comments, Mr Obama did not make any explicit references to the court, although he has said in the past that it would be “unprecedented” for the ACA to be overturned.
“The American people fight for what’s right. And the American people understand that we’re not going to make progress by going backwards. We need to go forward,” he said.
To applause, he said that 3m young people had been added to their parents insurance under the law and that it was “the right thing” to give senior citizens discounts on prescription drugs.
Mitt Romney, Mr Obama’s Republican rival for the White House, also showed he was not shying away from using the law on the campaign stump, even though he has been criticised by fellow Republicans for passing a similar law while he was governor of Massachusetts.
Mr Romney has defended “Romneycare” – as that law was dubbed during the Republican primaries – and said states had the right to implement their own solutions to the healthcare crisis.
“If ObamaCare is not deemed constitutional, then the first three and a half years of this president’s term will have been wasted on something that has not helped the American people,” he said in a campaign stop in Virginia.
“If it is deemed to stand, then I’ll tell you one thing. Then we’ll have to have a president – and I’m that one – that’s going to get rid of ObamaCare. We’re gonna stop it on day one.”
Obama warns on healthcare ruling
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
Barack Obama suggested that any decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn his landmark healthcare law would send the country “backwards” and that Americans did not want to “re-fight” the battle over healthcare.
It was the first sign that beyond the White House’s staunch defence of the Affordable Care Act Mr Obama is prepared to use the law as a rallying cry on the campaign trail. It is a risky strategy: about half the country remains opposed to the legislation, although most voters like the consumer protections that are guaranteed under the law.
Political experts have said it is unclear how the Supreme Court decision will shape the presidential contest; while a move to strike down the law will undoubtedly be a blow to the Obama administration, some believe it will motivate Democratic voters ahead of the November general election.
The high court is expected to announce the fate of “ObamaCare” on Thursday, when it will either uphold the law, overturn it in its entirety or strike some provisions of the controversial legislation.
The White House has said it expects the high court to uphold the law.
In his comments, Mr Obama did not make any explicit references to the court, although he has said in the past that it would be “unprecedented” for the ACA to be overturned.
“The American people fight for what’s right. And the American people understand that we’re not going to make progress by going backwards. We need to go forward,” he said.
To applause, he said that 3m young people had been added to their parents insurance under the law and that it was “the right thing” to give senior citizens discounts on prescription drugs.
Mitt Romney, Mr Obama’s Republican rival for the White House, also showed he was not shying away from using the law on the campaign stump, even though he has been criticised by fellow Republicans for passing a similar law while he was governor of Massachusetts.
Mr Romney has defended “Romneycare” – as that law was dubbed during the Republican primaries – and said states had the right to implement their own solutions to the healthcare crisis.
“If ObamaCare is not deemed constitutional, then the first three and a half years of this president’s term will have been wasted on something that has not helped the American people,” he said in a campaign stop in Virginia.
“If it is deemed to stand, then I’ll tell you one thing. Then we’ll have to have a president – and I’m that one – that’s going to get rid of ObamaCare. We’re gonna stop it on day one.”
Obama - He's the Poison Pill....
What does it say about Obama and the Democrat causes when their own party is telling elected officials up for election NOT to attend their national Presidential Convention???????.......Looks like Obama is POISON....
House Dems' campaign chief urges candidates to steer clear of convention
Published June 27, 2012 FoxNews.com
The top Democrat in charge of getting other Democrats elected to the House is urging his party's candidates to steer clear of the national convention later this year.
The piece of advice from Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, came during the Reuters Washington Summit Tuesday.
"If they want to win an election, they need to be in their districts," Israel said of Democratic congressional candidates, according to Reuters.
The comment follows decisions by several vulnerable Democrats to skip this year's national convention -- to be held in early September in Charlotte, N.C.
"A trip to Charlotte may be interesting, but why leave your districts?" Israel reportedly said. He claimed President Obama's approval ratings had little to do with the guidance -- Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., former head of the DCCC, offered similar advice to candidates in 2008.
But Democrats have been ruling out attendance this year at a rather steady clip.
Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who is facing a tough re-election fight, was among the latest to decide against attending the once-every-four-years affair.
She joined a growing roster of party figures skittish about showing their faces in Charlotte, which will host what will effectively be the biggest tribute to President Obama since the inauguration.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, as well as West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall, are in that boat. This is the state where a federal inmate won 41 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary against Obama.
Several Pennsylvania lawmakers have also decided not to attend.
House Dems' campaign chief urges candidates to steer clear of convention
Published June 27, 2012 FoxNews.com
The top Democrat in charge of getting other Democrats elected to the House is urging his party's candidates to steer clear of the national convention later this year.
The piece of advice from Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, came during the Reuters Washington Summit Tuesday.
"If they want to win an election, they need to be in their districts," Israel said of Democratic congressional candidates, according to Reuters.
The comment follows decisions by several vulnerable Democrats to skip this year's national convention -- to be held in early September in Charlotte, N.C.
"A trip to Charlotte may be interesting, but why leave your districts?" Israel reportedly said. He claimed President Obama's approval ratings had little to do with the guidance -- Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., former head of the DCCC, offered similar advice to candidates in 2008.
But Democrats have been ruling out attendance this year at a rather steady clip.
Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who is facing a tough re-election fight, was among the latest to decide against attending the once-every-four-years affair.
She joined a growing roster of party figures skittish about showing their faces in Charlotte, which will host what will effectively be the biggest tribute to President Obama since the inauguration.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, as well as West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall, are in that boat. This is the state where a federal inmate won 41 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary against Obama.
Several Pennsylvania lawmakers have also decided not to attend.
Of Course the Holder Contempt Vote will be BiPartisan....Someone Died Thanks to "Fast and Furious"
House Dem breaks from party, plans to vote for Holder contempt
Published June 27, 2012 The Daily Caller
The Democratic Party’s resistance to holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress is crumbling.
Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson said Tuesday he plans to vote in favor of holding Holder in contempt over his refusal to comply with a subpoena into the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.
“It just compounds the tragedy when both sides play politics instead of releasing the facts. The Terry family, the public and Congress deserve answers,” Matheson said in remarks first reported by the Salt Lake Tribune in his home state. “Sadly, it seems that it will take holding the attorney general in contempt to communicate that evasiveness is unacceptable.”
To make matters worse for Holder, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, more Democrats are expected to join Matheson in holding Holder in contempt. House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House Democrats’ chief vote-counter, isn’t even sure how many Democrats will break ranks. According to the Associated Press — which framed the Democratic defections as a result of the NRA’s decision to score the vote — Hoyer wouldn’t say how many Democrats he expected to vote in favor of Holder in contempt, but confirmed he expects some, like Matheson, to abandon party lines.
These Democratic defections cut sharply into the narrative House oversight committee ranking Democratic member Rep. Elijah Cummings, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the White House and Holder himself have created around this scandal. They have all claimed that House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and House Republicans are motivated by partisan politics in pursuing this issue, something that Matheson and other Democrats’ vote would undercut.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/26/house-dem-breaks-from-party-plans-to-vote-for-holder-contempt/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo#ixzz1yzwknGDl
Published June 27, 2012 The Daily Caller
The Democratic Party’s resistance to holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress is crumbling.
Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson said Tuesday he plans to vote in favor of holding Holder in contempt over his refusal to comply with a subpoena into the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.
“It just compounds the tragedy when both sides play politics instead of releasing the facts. The Terry family, the public and Congress deserve answers,” Matheson said in remarks first reported by the Salt Lake Tribune in his home state. “Sadly, it seems that it will take holding the attorney general in contempt to communicate that evasiveness is unacceptable.”
To make matters worse for Holder, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, more Democrats are expected to join Matheson in holding Holder in contempt. House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House Democrats’ chief vote-counter, isn’t even sure how many Democrats will break ranks. According to the Associated Press — which framed the Democratic defections as a result of the NRA’s decision to score the vote — Hoyer wouldn’t say how many Democrats he expected to vote in favor of Holder in contempt, but confirmed he expects some, like Matheson, to abandon party lines.
These Democratic defections cut sharply into the narrative House oversight committee ranking Democratic member Rep. Elijah Cummings, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the White House and Holder himself have created around this scandal. They have all claimed that House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and House Republicans are motivated by partisan politics in pursuing this issue, something that Matheson and other Democrats’ vote would undercut.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/26/house-dem-breaks-from-party-plans-to-vote-for-holder-contempt/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo#ixzz1yzwknGDl
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
What a Bunch of STUPID People...and to think most of them probably have the right to VOTE....What Idiots!!!
These Stupid Protestors are most probably paid by Soros...they need the money for their drugs.....
Protesters Show Up to Rally Against Karl Rove — But Can’t Really Say Who Karl Rove Is
Posted on June 26, 2012 at 11:56am by Benny Johnson
Organized protesters set out to counter the issue of money in politics while marching over a mile through Washington DC last week. The heat index was a blistering 90 degrees, which seemed to add to the marchers’ aggression for their target, former Bush Administration Senior Adviser and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. While Rove has been out of the White House for over five years, he has remained active in fundraising for and promotion of conservative causes, particularly through his non-profit, Crossroads GPS.
Many of the protesters took issue with the success of Rove’s 501c4, stating it should be “illegal” even though they were themselves proud representatives of 501c4s. This conflation begs the question: Do these organized protesters even know why they are marching? Or do they even know who they are marching against?
The Blaze set out to uncover this mystery by asking the proud marchers one simple question: “Who is Karl Rove?” You may or not be shocked by
Pathetic Obama....
It's about time Obama Got Boo'd....The whole nation should be booing him...
In Boston Obama thanked the city for the trade of their baseball star, Kevin Youkilis, to the Chicago White Sox.: “Finally Boston, I just want to say, thank you for Youkalis. I’m just saying, he’s going to have to change the color of his socks. I didn’t think I was going to get any boos out here. I should not have brought up baseball, I understand, my mistake, my mistake, you got to know your crowd.” 2
Carney Convinces Obama Red Sox Fans Weren't Saying 'Boo'
In Boston Obama thanked the city for the trade of their baseball star, Kevin Youkilis, to the Chicago White Sox.: “Finally Boston, I just want to say, thank you for Youkalis. I’m just saying, he’s going to have to change the color of his socks. I didn’t think I was going to get any boos out here. I should not have brought up baseball, I understand, my mistake, my mistake, you got to know your crowd.” 2
Carney Convinces Obama Red Sox Fans Weren't Saying 'Boo'
Obama - Hypocrite AGAIN!!!!
A hypocrite again.....Michelle screams about what we can and can't eat, but Obama can eat the most unhealthy stuff imaginable....and notice how is dialect changes to a "black" dialect....
What a loser scum this guy is....Time to get his buddy Bloomberg after him....
What a loser scum this guy is....Time to get his buddy Bloomberg after him....
Biden....Just another hypocritical liberal....
Biden in 2007: Executive privilege only covers communications between a president and his advisors
By Doug Powers • June 25, 2012 02:30 PM
It appears unlikely that Biden’s boss will send him a follow up “well said, Joe” Tweet for this blast from the recent past:
Biden was responding to a question posed by the Boston Globe, which asked Biden, “Does executive privilege cover testimony or documents about decision-making within the executive branch not involving confidential advice communicated to the president himself?”
Biden delivered an unqualified response.
“The executive privilege only covers communications between the president and his advisors,” Biden said in a Boston Globe interview published in Dec. 20, 2007. “Even when the privilege does apply, it is not absolute; it may be outweighed by the public’s interest in the fair administration of justice.”
Biden, then serving as a U.S. senator from Delaware and seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, was speaking about President Bush and the issues of warrantless surveillance and interrogation of terror suspects in his interview with the Globe.
Biden said that in the same year then-Senator Obama knocked the Bush administration for trying to “hide behind executive privilege.”
By Doug Powers • June 25, 2012 02:30 PM
It appears unlikely that Biden’s boss will send him a follow up “well said, Joe” Tweet for this blast from the recent past:
Biden was responding to a question posed by the Boston Globe, which asked Biden, “Does executive privilege cover testimony or documents about decision-making within the executive branch not involving confidential advice communicated to the president himself?”
Biden delivered an unqualified response.
“The executive privilege only covers communications between the president and his advisors,” Biden said in a Boston Globe interview published in Dec. 20, 2007. “Even when the privilege does apply, it is not absolute; it may be outweighed by the public’s interest in the fair administration of justice.”
Biden, then serving as a U.S. senator from Delaware and seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, was speaking about President Bush and the issues of warrantless surveillance and interrogation of terror suspects in his interview with the Globe.
Biden said that in the same year then-Senator Obama knocked the Bush administration for trying to “hide behind executive privilege.”
Obama - Hypocrite AGAIN.....!
Obama campaign uses company with operations in India and China to book travel
Published: 1:24 PM 06/26/2012 By Alex Pappas - The Daily Caller
A new ad from President Obama’s re-election campaign calls Mitt Romney “Outsourcer-in-Chief,” accusing the former businessman and presumptive Republican presidential nominee of overseeing companies that shipped jobs to China and India while leading Bain Capital.
But while Obama tries to hit Romney on this issue, records show that Obama’s campaign is using a travel booking company this year that have operations in India and China.
Federal Election Commission reports show that Obama for America made numerous payments to the corporate travel company Egencia as recently as May. They were made to Egencia’s Bellevue, Washington office.
Egencia is a corporate travel division of the online travel company Expedia and, according to its website, has call center operations “around the world.”
“Our customer service team consists of hundreds of travel consultants around the world dedicated to superior service and value to your travelers,” the company says.
“Egencia is active in the Asia-Pacific region,” Egencia president Rob Greyber told the Investor’s Business Daily in 2009. “We have operations in both China and India as well as Australia.”
The company’s website shows that it has jobs openings for software development, engineering and analytics work for its office in Gurgaon, India.
Egencia, at one point, contracted with a company to handle calls at a center in Pensacola, Fla. But the Pensacola News Journal reported in 2011 that the company Tata Business Support Services closed and laid off all of its 180 employees.
Dems Money Running Short....ALREADY????
Democrats Cancel Speedway Event at Charlotte Convention
By Hans Nichols - Jun 26, 2012 7:47 AM CT
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Photographer: Tyler Barrick/Getty Images for NASCAR
.
“While we regret having to move CarolinaFest away from our great partners at the Charlotte Motor Speedway and the City of Concord, we are thrilled with the opportunity that comes with hosting this event in Uptown Charlotte,” said Dan Murrey, the executive director of the Charlotte in 2012 Convention Host Committee.
The move comes as party planners are grappling with a fundraising deficit of roughly $27 million, according to two people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss internal party politics. With a party ban on direct contributions from corporations, the host committee has raised less than $10 million, well short of its $36.6 million goal, said one of the people.
Murrey said that logistics, not costs, were behind the decision to cancel the Speedway event.
“In order to facilitate public caucus meetings -- and to maximize accessibility, transportation, and proximity of all guests -- we have decided that moving CarolinaFest 2012 to Uptown Charlotte is the best way to achieve that goal,” Murrey said in a statement that the host committee released this morning, after Bloomberg reported last night that it may call off the Speedway festival.
Shortened Convention
In January, Steve Kerrigan, chief executive officer of the convention committee, said that Democrats were shortening their convention from four days to three “to make room for a day to organize and celebrate the Carolinas, Virginia and the South and kick off the convention at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Labor Day,” Sept. 3.
Kerrigan also announced that Obama would accept his party’s nomination at the almost 74,000-seat Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers professional football team. The outdoor finale would echo Obama’s convention speech at Invesco Field in Denver four years ago.
While the Democrats will receive a $50 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security to defray police costs for the Sept. 4-6 convention, security for the Speedway festival may not have been eligible because the event isn’t part of the official convention proceedings.
Republicans will also receive a $50 million grant for their four-day convention in Tampa, Florida, August 27-30.
Public Funding
Last week, the U.S. Senate voted 95-4 for a measure that would end public funding for both parties’ national nominating conventions, adopting an amendment from Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn.
Coburn has argued that it’s hypocritical for lawmakers to spend public money on their party conventions after criticizing the General Services Administration for spending $823,000 on a 2010 conference near Las Vegas.
The nominating conventions are funded through a combination of public and private money. Congress has appropriated $100 million for security at the conventions, with an additional $36 million going to the two parties for other convention expenses.
Republicans have not placed any restrictions on where they raise money and have secured corporate contributions from such companies as AT&T Inc. (T), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Coca-Cola Co. (KO) to meet their $55 million target.
Corporate Contributions
Four years ago, corporate entities accounted for more than $33 million of the amount Democrats raised for the Denver convention, according to campaign finance reports. While Democrats have placed restrictions on how the Charlotte host committee, headed by Mayor Anthony Foxx and Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) CEO James E. Rogers, can raise money, with a ban on direct corporate donations and a $100,000 limit on individual contributions, corporations are allowed to give unlimited in-kind contributions, such as telephone and technology services or gift cards.
At the same time, Democrats in Charlotte have registered a second committee, New American City Inc., with the Federal Election Commission that does accept corporate contributions.
In April, representatives of the major U.S. unions, including the AFL-CIO, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Auto Workers, were given a tour of the convention sites in Charlotte as Democratic officials prepared to ask them to help cover their funding shortfall.
Labor organizations have been reluctant to contribute to the convention because Charlotte lacks unionized hotels and is in a state where compulsory union membership or the payment of dues is prohibited as an employment condition.
North Carolina is one of about a dozen states that Democratic and Republican strategists say are likely to determine the outcome of the presidential election.
To contact the reporter on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington
Liberal Racists....At it AGAIN....
You would know that Liberal Racists themselves like Pelosi, Sharpton and the NAACP would have to revert to racism because they have NOTHING ELSE....it's a move of pure desperation and it's a bit early for desperation...And as for Holder himself...he is as big a piece of SCUM as Obama is...both racists...both just bullying becuase of their current power...but trust me that will all catch up to them this November...
As Campaign Heats Up, Democrats Focus on Racism
By Chris Stirewalt Power Play Published June 26, 2012 FoxNews.com
“I’m not saying that this is because Holder is black, and I’m not calling [Republicans] racists. I’m saying what they’re doing has a racial effect, and that’s what we’re going to talk about.”
-- MSNBC host and racial activist Al Sharpton in an interview with The Hill, previewing an event today in which black leaders will denounce the pending House resolution to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for failing to turn over documents.
When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi last week said that a Republican desire to keep minorities from voting was the reason lawmakers were dogging Attorney General Eric Holder over secret documents related to the murder of a Border Patrol agent with weapons lost in a botched gunrunning sting, it was a bit puzzling.
The former speaker of the House is sometimes guilty of excited utterance, and certainly accusing one’s colleagues in Congress of trumping up a contempt charge in order to allow states to disenfranchise minority votes was a charge so monstrous that Power Play expected to see it walked back in subsequent days.
But it has not been walked back, and today it will be run forward by a trio of prominent Democrats: Al Sharpton, Ben Jealous, the head of the NAACP, and Marc Morial, the head of the Urban League.
While Sharpton is trying to say that the House Republicans are not intentionally violating the civil rights of black voters by ensnaring Holder in the unrelated case, Pelosi was very straightforward.
“They’re going after Eric Holder because he is supporting measures to overturn these voter-suppression initiatives in the states,” she told reporters.
Consider the magnitude of that accusation. She is saying that her replacement as speaker, John Boehner, and his fellow Republicans are willing co-conspirators with governors and state legislators who passed laws she says are intended to keep poor minorities from voting.
One wonders why Pelosi isn’t acting even more alarmed. If Republicans were capable of such corruption and evil intent, shouldn’t she be occupying the floor like Mr. Smith and demanding an end to such iniquity?
The fact that Pelosi made the charge so offhandedly suggests that there may be more here about spin than sincere outrage.
While President Obama has usually worked hard in office to downplay his African ancestry, save incidents like his embracing of slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and Harvard Professor Skip Gates, Holder has taken a particular focus on racial issues.
When he started his job, Holder famously called the United States “a nation of cowards” on the subject of race. Since then he has been at war with states and municipalities over what he says are a growing number of efforts to suppress the civil rights of minorities, particularly as it relates to voter identification and efforts to expel illegal immigrants.
This is all coming to a head with Holder’s effort to stop Florida from purging non-citizens from its voting rolls and out in Arizona where Holder’s agency is trolling for civil rights complaints about a state law that requires police to determine the immigration status of those they detain on other offenses.
The Florida case is huge because as the state seesaws between Obama and Republican Mitt Romney we see the chance for fraudulent votes or suppressed votes to be very consequential in a state that knows something about close presidential elections.
But Arizona is the big one for Democrats. Within hours of a Supreme Court decision allowing Arizona to proceed with that most controversial part of the law, the Obama administration had made clear that federal immigration officials would not work with local law enforcement officials to detain or deport illegal immigrants.
Holder’s part in this is to have a hotline and an email account to encourage any minority who feels that they were unfairly singled out because of their appearance. Holder would be very pleased, no doubt, the have Arizona back in court as soon as possible.
There is also the hope among Democrats that Romney, who is obliquely supportive of the Arizona law, will be forced to defend the law in the face of a heart-rending story from Arizona, e.g.: “the woman, a third-generation Arizonan was detained by police and missed her graduation, which would have been the first in her family.”
Liberal commentators have been honing in on Romney’s whiteness, which is quite considerable. Casting him as one who favors a nation in which dark-skinned people are randomly stopped on the street and asked for their papers would be ideal for Obama Democrats. On one side would be Obama, giver of temporary amnesty to young, deserving illegal immigrants, on the other would be racial profiling vampire Romney.
And Democrats believe that if they can hold Romney under 40 percent with Hispanic voters, they can squeeze Obama into another term.
Holder’s record certainly suggests he is sincere in his belief that white conservatives are actively trying to oppress minorities. This does not look like spin from him. This looks like a crusade, not a campaign trick.
But from Pelosi and others there is a strong emanation of political gamesmanship leading up to this eventual question: If it is racist to hold Eric Holder in contempt, isn’t it also racist to vote Barack Obama out of office?
Remember, many the moderate suburbanites who will decide this election were very proud of themselves for voting for Obama. They seem very interested in Mitt Romney’s CEO-style approach, but if Democrats can turn that 2008 pride into 2012 guilt, Obama might hold on to enough to win a second term.
But here’s the problem with racializing the election for Democrats: blue-collar white voters. With these voters, charges of racism don’t sit well, especially if the charges are related to allowing foreigners into the United States to work, even as the job market remains rotten.
The more Democrats focus on race, the more these voters will get turned off. And just as Romney has to hold on to some of the Hispanic vote, Obama can’t afford to get schneidered with blue-collar whites.
Looking at national polls as well as the trends in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan, it suggests that Obama is reaching a crisis point with these folks who once formed the bulwark of the Democratic coalition.
There’s cause for concern as it relates to upscale voters too. As Pelosi proved with what should have been a jaw-dropping accusation against House Republicans, charges of racism too often repeated lose their sting.
As Campaign Heats Up, Democrats Focus on Racism
By Chris Stirewalt Power Play Published June 26, 2012 FoxNews.com
“I’m not saying that this is because Holder is black, and I’m not calling [Republicans] racists. I’m saying what they’re doing has a racial effect, and that’s what we’re going to talk about.”
-- MSNBC host and racial activist Al Sharpton in an interview with The Hill, previewing an event today in which black leaders will denounce the pending House resolution to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for failing to turn over documents.
When House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi last week said that a Republican desire to keep minorities from voting was the reason lawmakers were dogging Attorney General Eric Holder over secret documents related to the murder of a Border Patrol agent with weapons lost in a botched gunrunning sting, it was a bit puzzling.
The former speaker of the House is sometimes guilty of excited utterance, and certainly accusing one’s colleagues in Congress of trumping up a contempt charge in order to allow states to disenfranchise minority votes was a charge so monstrous that Power Play expected to see it walked back in subsequent days.
But it has not been walked back, and today it will be run forward by a trio of prominent Democrats: Al Sharpton, Ben Jealous, the head of the NAACP, and Marc Morial, the head of the Urban League.
While Sharpton is trying to say that the House Republicans are not intentionally violating the civil rights of black voters by ensnaring Holder in the unrelated case, Pelosi was very straightforward.
“They’re going after Eric Holder because he is supporting measures to overturn these voter-suppression initiatives in the states,” she told reporters.
Consider the magnitude of that accusation. She is saying that her replacement as speaker, John Boehner, and his fellow Republicans are willing co-conspirators with governors and state legislators who passed laws she says are intended to keep poor minorities from voting.
One wonders why Pelosi isn’t acting even more alarmed. If Republicans were capable of such corruption and evil intent, shouldn’t she be occupying the floor like Mr. Smith and demanding an end to such iniquity?
The fact that Pelosi made the charge so offhandedly suggests that there may be more here about spin than sincere outrage.
While President Obama has usually worked hard in office to downplay his African ancestry, save incidents like his embracing of slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin and Harvard Professor Skip Gates, Holder has taken a particular focus on racial issues.
When he started his job, Holder famously called the United States “a nation of cowards” on the subject of race. Since then he has been at war with states and municipalities over what he says are a growing number of efforts to suppress the civil rights of minorities, particularly as it relates to voter identification and efforts to expel illegal immigrants.
This is all coming to a head with Holder’s effort to stop Florida from purging non-citizens from its voting rolls and out in Arizona where Holder’s agency is trolling for civil rights complaints about a state law that requires police to determine the immigration status of those they detain on other offenses.
The Florida case is huge because as the state seesaws between Obama and Republican Mitt Romney we see the chance for fraudulent votes or suppressed votes to be very consequential in a state that knows something about close presidential elections.
But Arizona is the big one for Democrats. Within hours of a Supreme Court decision allowing Arizona to proceed with that most controversial part of the law, the Obama administration had made clear that federal immigration officials would not work with local law enforcement officials to detain or deport illegal immigrants.
Holder’s part in this is to have a hotline and an email account to encourage any minority who feels that they were unfairly singled out because of their appearance. Holder would be very pleased, no doubt, the have Arizona back in court as soon as possible.
There is also the hope among Democrats that Romney, who is obliquely supportive of the Arizona law, will be forced to defend the law in the face of a heart-rending story from Arizona, e.g.: “the woman, a third-generation Arizonan was detained by police and missed her graduation, which would have been the first in her family.”
Liberal commentators have been honing in on Romney’s whiteness, which is quite considerable. Casting him as one who favors a nation in which dark-skinned people are randomly stopped on the street and asked for their papers would be ideal for Obama Democrats. On one side would be Obama, giver of temporary amnesty to young, deserving illegal immigrants, on the other would be racial profiling vampire Romney.
And Democrats believe that if they can hold Romney under 40 percent with Hispanic voters, they can squeeze Obama into another term.
Holder’s record certainly suggests he is sincere in his belief that white conservatives are actively trying to oppress minorities. This does not look like spin from him. This looks like a crusade, not a campaign trick.
But from Pelosi and others there is a strong emanation of political gamesmanship leading up to this eventual question: If it is racist to hold Eric Holder in contempt, isn’t it also racist to vote Barack Obama out of office?
Remember, many the moderate suburbanites who will decide this election were very proud of themselves for voting for Obama. They seem very interested in Mitt Romney’s CEO-style approach, but if Democrats can turn that 2008 pride into 2012 guilt, Obama might hold on to enough to win a second term.
But here’s the problem with racializing the election for Democrats: blue-collar white voters. With these voters, charges of racism don’t sit well, especially if the charges are related to allowing foreigners into the United States to work, even as the job market remains rotten.
The more Democrats focus on race, the more these voters will get turned off. And just as Romney has to hold on to some of the Hispanic vote, Obama can’t afford to get schneidered with blue-collar whites.
Looking at national polls as well as the trends in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan, it suggests that Obama is reaching a crisis point with these folks who once formed the bulwark of the Democratic coalition.
There’s cause for concern as it relates to upscale voters too. As Pelosi proved with what should have been a jaw-dropping accusation against House Republicans, charges of racism too often repeated lose their sting.
From Today's Heritage Foundation Morning Call....
Obama needs be impeached....at least the attempt needs to be made to do so...he has deliberately refused to enforce Laws on the books in many areas....I am not sure Who he thinks he is....he took an oath to uphold the laws of this nation and has failed big time on that.....he and Michelle put down bullies, but that's exactly what he is...he take power that he doesn have and exercises against those out of power.....He definitely GOT TO GO in November....
Supreme Court Upholds Immigration Checks, but Administration Counters
The Supreme Court handed down its decision on the Arizona immigration law yesterday, striking some portions of the law in a 5-3 ruling but unanimously upholding immigration status checks by law enforcement. The Obama Administration countered by announcing it would tell Arizona to release most of the people whose status was in question.
Following the Court's decision, law enforcement officers must make a "reasonable attempt…to determine the immigration status" of any person they stop, detain, or arrest for a non-immigration offense if "reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien unlawfully present in the United States." That check would involve a call to the Department of Homeland Security, which maintains a 24/7 hotline for this purpose, as the federal government determines who may enter and remain in the country.
"That means police statewide can immediately begin calling to check immigration status—but federal officials are likely to reject most of those calls," reports Stephen Dinan of The Washington Times. "Federal officials said they'll still perform the checks as required by law but will respond only when someone has a felony conviction on his or her record. Absent that, [they] will tell the local police to release the person."
The Administration has shown little regard for the other branches of government in most of its policy making, including immigration. President Obama's recent move to exempt young illegals from the threat of deportation—without a law made by Congress—drew the attention of Justice Antonin Scalia in his dissent in the Arizona decision.
"To say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing immigration law that the president declines to enforce boggles the mind," Scalia said.
In striking down some of the Arizona law's provisions, the Court said that federal immigration law preempted the state law. That should mean that it is the federal government's job to enforce these aspects of immigration law where the Court says the feds have exclusive jurisdiction. But the Obama Administration has made it clear that will not happen on its watch.
Not only is Obama's Homeland Security Department already planning to release most people questioned under the Arizona law, but it also is paving the way to challenge the law with allegations of racial profiling. This is despite the fact that the Arizona law (S.B. 1070) expressly prohibits racial profiling in immigration checks—and the Administration's own attorney told the Supreme Court that its challenge to the law was not based on any racial or ethnic profiling concerns.
The President's statement yesterday planted the seeds for this strategy by saying, "No American should ever live under a cloud of suspicion just because of what they look like."
Though the Administration's lawyer admitted that racial profiling was not an issue in the Arizona case, the Administration is certainly looking to make it an issue now—it has set up a hotline "for the public to report potential civil rights concerns regarding the Arizona law," the Associated Press reports.
Neither side got all of what it wanted in the Arizona immigration decision, but the Supreme Court confirmed that states have an important role to play in enforcing federal immigration law. States should not have to beg the federal government for permission to enforce laws within their borders.
As Heritage's John Malcolm noted:
Arizona and other border states bear the largest burden when immigration laws are not enforced federally or when rules are overlooked. And the burden is significant. There are 2,000 miles along the southwest border, 370 of which adjoin Arizona. Illegal entries and border smuggling by "coyotes" are rampant, with an accompanying influx of drugs, dangerous criminals, and vulnerable people (who often end up as victims of human trafficking). Between 2006 and 2010, in the border town of Nogales alone, 51 drug smuggling tunnels were discovered. Home invasions and kidnappings are common in Arizona.
Arizona is not alone. As The New York Times reports, "In sustaining one provision and blocking others, the decision amounted to a road map for permissible state efforts in this area. Several other states have enacted tough measures to stem illegal immigration, including ones patterned after the Arizona law, among them Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah."
With this decision, the Court has reaffirmed the important principle that, much as he might want to, President Obama cannot prevent the states from taking action to enforce federal immigration laws just by saying that he doesn't want them to do so.
Monday, June 25, 2012
The DNC Would be Smart to Dump Wasserman Schultz....she was a disaster from the start.....
Report: Debbie Wasserman Schultz ‘getting booted’ as DNC chairwoman after November
Published: 11:17 AM 06/25/2012 By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller
Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz may be “getting booted” from her chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.
Javiar Manjarres of the Shark Tank political blog reported Sunday that “Wasserman Schultz will not be back as DNC Chairwoman after the November elections.”
“According to our source within the Democratic Party, who is also a close associate of Wasserman Schultz, the arrangements have already been made for her to leave DNC regardless if President Obama wins re-election or not,” Manjarres wrote.
“This same source believes that Wasserman Schultz will be forced to resign behind closed doors and then stage an press event in which she tells Americans that her job as the DNC chair was a temporary one and that she is moving on with her congressional career.”
DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse has not immediately returned The Daily Caller’s request for comment on Wasserman Schultz’s future.
Looks more like a defeat for Obama and a win for Brewer....
Actually, Key Part of Arizona Law Upheld
By John Fonte June 25, 2012 1:00 P.M.
The crucial point in Mark Krikorian’s post on the Supreme Court’s Arizona immigration ruling is exactly right — “the core of the law was upheld.” According to the New York Times (“Supreme Court Upholds Key Part of Arizona Law,”) “the court was unanimous” on allowing police to check the immigration status of “people they stop and suspect are not in the United States legally.”
The Obama administration argued vigorously against the law, and particularly against the provision of the right of police to check the legal status of people that they come into contact with on routine stops, who they have reason to believe are not in the country legally. The court struck down 5–3 (Scalia, Thomas, Alito dissenting, Kagan recused) other provisions in the law that make it against Arizona state law for illegal immigrants to apply for a job or fail to carry identification that says whether they are in the U.S. legally. These provisions are, according to the court majority, preempted by federal law. Clearly, these other provisions seem rather minor compared to the police check on immigration status, which was upheld, I repeat, unanimously. The Washington Post (“Supreme Court rejects much of Arizona immigration law”) calls the court ruling a “partial victory” for the Obama administration. It looks more like a defeat for Obama and a win for Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and immigration
Saturday, June 23, 2012
So the President Can't Trust Hispanics with Forks and Knives in the Audience????? Bet the didn't have to give them up when Romney was speaking....
Fork it over: Secret Service confiscates utensils at Obama speech
By Judson Berger Published June 23, 2012 FoxNews.com
It seems the Secret Service can't be too careful.
Shortly before President Obama addressed a gathering of Latino officials -- whose support he is actively seeking -- guests at the Friday conference were told to hurry up and finish lunch. The reason? The president's security wanted to make sure all sharp-edged utensils were cleared away.
The surprise announcement came from Raquel Regalado, a board member for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
"It's very important that you use your utensils as soon as possible," she told the Florida crowd.
Chuckling through her own warning, Regalado noted they'd be having "another speaker" -- the president -- and "there is some Secret Service involved."
"So there's a reason why there's no knives at your table, and the forks will be collected," she said. "And I'm not joking."
Video of the announcement quickly made its way to the web, as bloggers opined about what the security precaution said about the president's trust level with his audience.
But it turns out the Secret Service routinely tries to keep sharp utensils out of reach during presidential visits. Guests just typically don't hear an announcement about it.
"It is a common practice for the USSS to ensure tables are cleared of any materials that may be deemed a possible hazard prior to the arrival of the president," Secret Service spokesman Max Milien said. "Any implication that this was unique for this event is completely inaccurate."
Of course, the president has been in the presence of diners before who were allowed to keep their silverware. Whether the Secret Service takes the step of clearing out forks and knives depends on the circumstances.
If the president plans to keep a fair distance from his audience, for instance, then guests might be allowed to keep their place-settings. And it would hardly be tenable for Secret Service to grab everybody's forks and knives every time the president decides he wants an impromptu lunch at a D.C. burger joint.
Politico.com first reported on the security precautions at Friday's conference.
By Judson Berger Published June 23, 2012 FoxNews.com
It seems the Secret Service can't be too careful.
Shortly before President Obama addressed a gathering of Latino officials -- whose support he is actively seeking -- guests at the Friday conference were told to hurry up and finish lunch. The reason? The president's security wanted to make sure all sharp-edged utensils were cleared away.
The surprise announcement came from Raquel Regalado, a board member for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
"It's very important that you use your utensils as soon as possible," she told the Florida crowd.
Chuckling through her own warning, Regalado noted they'd be having "another speaker" -- the president -- and "there is some Secret Service involved."
"So there's a reason why there's no knives at your table, and the forks will be collected," she said. "And I'm not joking."
Video of the announcement quickly made its way to the web, as bloggers opined about what the security precaution said about the president's trust level with his audience.
But it turns out the Secret Service routinely tries to keep sharp utensils out of reach during presidential visits. Guests just typically don't hear an announcement about it.
"It is a common practice for the USSS to ensure tables are cleared of any materials that may be deemed a possible hazard prior to the arrival of the president," Secret Service spokesman Max Milien said. "Any implication that this was unique for this event is completely inaccurate."
Of course, the president has been in the presence of diners before who were allowed to keep their silverware. Whether the Secret Service takes the step of clearing out forks and knives depends on the circumstances.
If the president plans to keep a fair distance from his audience, for instance, then guests might be allowed to keep their place-settings. And it would hardly be tenable for Secret Service to grab everybody's forks and knives every time the president decides he wants an impromptu lunch at a D.C. burger joint.
Politico.com first reported on the security precautions at Friday's conference.
"Fast and Furious" continues to heat up....
Court rulings suggest 'privilege' claim over 'Furious' docs would fizzle, Republicans say
By Judson Berger Published June 23, 2012 FoxNews.com
President Obama may have to clear a high bar in order to lock down Fast and Furious documents from the prying eyes of congressional investigators.
After the White House asserted executive privilege over potentially thousands of documents pertaining to the botched anti-gunrunning operation, critics of the move pointed out that the federal appeals court in the nation's capital has taken a skeptical view toward privilege claims in the past.
The D.C. appeals court in 2004 rejected a privilege claim made by the George W. Bush White House pertaining to Justice Department documents dating back to the Clinton administration.
That case involved a different type of claim, but a 1997 opinion from the same court made an observation that could come back to haunt the Obama administration if the current case ends up before the federal judiciary.
"The privilege," the court wrote, "disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred."
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., former House Judiciary Committee chairman, released a memo earlier this week citing that very line and decrying the administration's argument as bunk.
"The president's assertion of executive privilege is an illegal attempt to avoid responsibility for the department's misconduct," Sensenbrenner said.
He wrote in his memo that the privilege "cannot be used to protect documents in the face of wrongdoing."
As congressional Republicans pursue their contempt of Congress case against Attorney General Eric Holder -- potentially with a vote on the House floor this coming week -- the push to extract thousands of Fast and Furious documents from the Justice Department is expected to continue. And the D.C. federal courts would likely be asked to weigh in if a deal cannot be reached.
'The privilege disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred.'
- D.C. appeals court in 2004
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, told Fox News on Saturday the president's executive privilege claim will trigger a civil suit "that we will file in federal court in D.C."
Gohmert said Republicans will demand a "log" of all documents the White House is trying to lock down. "There may not be anything that's privileged," he said.
But despite all the tea-leaf reading, it would be impossible to judge the outcome of any court challenge based on past rulings -- as there is no case identical to the current dispute between Congress and the Executive Branch over Fast and Furious.
The Obama administration has outlined a robust case for its assertion of executive privilege.
Officials are invoking the claim based on so-called "deliberative process" -- a claim that argues internal deliberations can be kept secret so as not to inhibit open and candid discussion. That's what the Obama administration says Republicans are looking for here.
"I am very concerned that the compelled production to Congress of internal Executive Branch documents generated in the course of the deliberative process concerning its response to congressional oversight and related media inquiries would have significant, damaging consequences," Holder wrote in his letter Tuesday to Obama requesting the president's intervention.
He said the documents "fit squarely within the scope of executive privilege." Further, he referenced opinions that a congressional committee can overcome this only by showing the documents are "demonstrably critical" to its duties. Holder said this has not been shown.
But Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, said the documents likely "won't be protected."
He pointed to the case involving his group -- the one from 2004 -- and said the court decision conflicts with the Obama administration's current claims.
As in the current case, the 2004 case involved an attempt by the White House to lock down Justice Department documents. That case, however, involved a different type of executive privilege claim -- the Bush White House was trying to invoke the "presidential communications privilege" over documents pertaining to pardons issued under the Clinton administration. The court ruled that the claim didn't work, because the documents in question never made their way to the president's office.
The court opened the door for the Bush administration to consider invoking the "deliberative process privilege" instead -- which it did.
That is the precise category of "privilege" that Obama and Holder are now invoking to withhold Fast and Furious documents. Fitton, though, nevertheless remained convinced that the administration's "deliberative process" claim was different and would not pass muster in the face of the lingering questions surrounding Fast and Furious.
"Either way," he said, "the courts look askance at using the privilege to stymie probes into misconduct."
Fitton, too, referenced the 1997 opinion, which said: "Where there is reason to believe the documents sought may shed light on government misconduct, 'the privilege is routinely denied,' on the grounds that shielding internal government deliberations in this context does not serve 'the public's interest in honest, effective government.'"
But again, the 1997 case and the current dispute are different.
The 1997 case involved not a dispute between lawmakers and the Executive Branch but a dispute between the Office of the Independent Counsel and the White House over a criminal case involving a former secretary accused of corruption.
In that case, clear "misconduct" was alleged, whereas it's unclear today what the "Furious" documents under lock and key contain.
Meanwhile, Democrats on the House committee probing Fast and Furious on Friday filed a report stating unequivocally their opposition to the contempt proceedings against Holder.
"The Committee's contempt vote on June 20, 2012, was the culmination of one of the most highly politicized congressional investigations in decades," they wrote, referring to the committee vote along party lines to hold Holder in contempt.
"The Committee has repeatedly shifted the goalposts in this investigation after failing to find evidence to support its unsubstantiated allegations. The documents at issue in the Contempt Citation are not related to the Committee's investigation into how gunwalking was initiated and utilized in Operation Fast and Furious."
Fox News' Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/23/court-rulings-suggest-privilege-claim-over-furious-docs-would-fizzle/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo#ixzz1ydiWHGgU
By Judson Berger Published June 23, 2012 FoxNews.com
President Obama may have to clear a high bar in order to lock down Fast and Furious documents from the prying eyes of congressional investigators.
After the White House asserted executive privilege over potentially thousands of documents pertaining to the botched anti-gunrunning operation, critics of the move pointed out that the federal appeals court in the nation's capital has taken a skeptical view toward privilege claims in the past.
The D.C. appeals court in 2004 rejected a privilege claim made by the George W. Bush White House pertaining to Justice Department documents dating back to the Clinton administration.
That case involved a different type of claim, but a 1997 opinion from the same court made an observation that could come back to haunt the Obama administration if the current case ends up before the federal judiciary.
"The privilege," the court wrote, "disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred."
Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., former House Judiciary Committee chairman, released a memo earlier this week citing that very line and decrying the administration's argument as bunk.
"The president's assertion of executive privilege is an illegal attempt to avoid responsibility for the department's misconduct," Sensenbrenner said.
He wrote in his memo that the privilege "cannot be used to protect documents in the face of wrongdoing."
As congressional Republicans pursue their contempt of Congress case against Attorney General Eric Holder -- potentially with a vote on the House floor this coming week -- the push to extract thousands of Fast and Furious documents from the Justice Department is expected to continue. And the D.C. federal courts would likely be asked to weigh in if a deal cannot be reached.
'The privilege disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred.'
- D.C. appeals court in 2004
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, told Fox News on Saturday the president's executive privilege claim will trigger a civil suit "that we will file in federal court in D.C."
Gohmert said Republicans will demand a "log" of all documents the White House is trying to lock down. "There may not be anything that's privileged," he said.
But despite all the tea-leaf reading, it would be impossible to judge the outcome of any court challenge based on past rulings -- as there is no case identical to the current dispute between Congress and the Executive Branch over Fast and Furious.
The Obama administration has outlined a robust case for its assertion of executive privilege.
Officials are invoking the claim based on so-called "deliberative process" -- a claim that argues internal deliberations can be kept secret so as not to inhibit open and candid discussion. That's what the Obama administration says Republicans are looking for here.
"I am very concerned that the compelled production to Congress of internal Executive Branch documents generated in the course of the deliberative process concerning its response to congressional oversight and related media inquiries would have significant, damaging consequences," Holder wrote in his letter Tuesday to Obama requesting the president's intervention.
He said the documents "fit squarely within the scope of executive privilege." Further, he referenced opinions that a congressional committee can overcome this only by showing the documents are "demonstrably critical" to its duties. Holder said this has not been shown.
But Tom Fitton, president of the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, said the documents likely "won't be protected."
He pointed to the case involving his group -- the one from 2004 -- and said the court decision conflicts with the Obama administration's current claims.
As in the current case, the 2004 case involved an attempt by the White House to lock down Justice Department documents. That case, however, involved a different type of executive privilege claim -- the Bush White House was trying to invoke the "presidential communications privilege" over documents pertaining to pardons issued under the Clinton administration. The court ruled that the claim didn't work, because the documents in question never made their way to the president's office.
The court opened the door for the Bush administration to consider invoking the "deliberative process privilege" instead -- which it did.
That is the precise category of "privilege" that Obama and Holder are now invoking to withhold Fast and Furious documents. Fitton, though, nevertheless remained convinced that the administration's "deliberative process" claim was different and would not pass muster in the face of the lingering questions surrounding Fast and Furious.
"Either way," he said, "the courts look askance at using the privilege to stymie probes into misconduct."
Fitton, too, referenced the 1997 opinion, which said: "Where there is reason to believe the documents sought may shed light on government misconduct, 'the privilege is routinely denied,' on the grounds that shielding internal government deliberations in this context does not serve 'the public's interest in honest, effective government.'"
But again, the 1997 case and the current dispute are different.
The 1997 case involved not a dispute between lawmakers and the Executive Branch but a dispute between the Office of the Independent Counsel and the White House over a criminal case involving a former secretary accused of corruption.
In that case, clear "misconduct" was alleged, whereas it's unclear today what the "Furious" documents under lock and key contain.
Meanwhile, Democrats on the House committee probing Fast and Furious on Friday filed a report stating unequivocally their opposition to the contempt proceedings against Holder.
"The Committee's contempt vote on June 20, 2012, was the culmination of one of the most highly politicized congressional investigations in decades," they wrote, referring to the committee vote along party lines to hold Holder in contempt.
"The Committee has repeatedly shifted the goalposts in this investigation after failing to find evidence to support its unsubstantiated allegations. The documents at issue in the Contempt Citation are not related to the Committee's investigation into how gunwalking was initiated and utilized in Operation Fast and Furious."
Fox News' Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/06/23/court-rulings-suggest-privilege-claim-over-furious-docs-would-fizzle/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo#ixzz1ydiWHGgU
Friday, June 22, 2012
How Pathetic and Desperate is This Move....How Arrogant and Pompous....Who would EVER do that?
Obama Asks People Getting Married To Forgo Gifts, Ask Their Guests To Donate To His Campaign Instead…
You can even register your wedding on his campaign website. Could he be any more pompous?
Interesting Article by Peggy Noonan
Once More, With Meaning Romney can win, but he needs more than applause lines
By PEGGY NOONAN
You know what Republicans on the ground think when they look at Mitt Romney?
"Please don't blow it." They think President Obama can't win but Mr. Romney can still lose. So they're feeling burly but anxious, hopeful yet spooked.
They see Mr. Obama as surrounded by bad indicators—bad polls, bad economic numbers, scandals. They see a grubbiness in the administration now, a vacuity. When the White House sends out spokesmen to make the case for him on the Sunday morning shows, it's campaign operatives, like David Plouffe and David Axelrod. They more or less spin how he'll win. Where are the heavyweights, the cabinet secretaries, the great men and women of the Democratic Party? Hiding? Unable to make the case? Not trusted to make the case? Or are the political guys the only heavyweights in the administration?
Mr. Romney is looking good, as are his crowds. When the camera shows people in the stands behind him as he speaks, they no longer look as if they walked in off the street or put a bet on a horse and are straining to see if it breaks from the pack. Now they look like people watching their horse take the lead, with no one coming up the outside.
The Romney strategy the past eight weeks has been, in a small way, shrewd: have the candidate out there talking in a candidate-like manner, but don't let him say anything so interesting that it will take the cameras off Mr. Obama. The president is lurching from gaffe to mess, from bad news to worse. Don't get in his way as he harms himself.
It's working, but won't for long. People want meaning, a higher and declared purpose.
An odd fact: Republicans more than others, amazingly, have internalized and hold to the idea that this president has some secret magical powers he's just waiting to unleash. Those powers normally go by the name "eloquence." But the eloquence was always exaggerated, and to the extent it existed, there's no sign it's about to kick in. Do you remember any phrase or sentence the president has said in a speech or statement the past 3½ years? One? Anything, in all that talking, that entered your head and stayed there? You do not. He is interesting, his words are not. Republicans obsess on his eloquence because it allows them to pretend they lost in 2008 because the American people were gulled by pretty words. The truth is he won because he seemed the furthest thing possible from the Republicans who'd presided over two unwon wars and the great recession.
The president's rhetorical powers are not a factor in the campaign. Mr. Romney is not more boring than Mr. Obama. That's not a compliment, precisely, but is true.
Actually, it's amazing that during an existential crisis—a crisis that is economic, cultural and political, and that bears on our role and purpose in the world—both candidates for our highest office have felt free to be so . . . well, insubstantial. Neither Mr. Romney nor Mr. Obama has caught hold of the overall meaning of his candidacy, Mr. Romney because so far he's chosen not to, and Mr. Obama because he's tried and failed.
With just more than 130 days to go, Mr. Romney has to start pulling from his brain and soul a coherent and graspable sense of the meaning of his run. "I will be president for this reason and this. I will move for this and this. The philosophy that impels me consists of these things." Only when he does this will he show that he actually does have a larger purpose, and only then will people really turn toward him. He has to tell Americans why they can believe him, why a nation saturated with politics, chronically disappointed by its leaders, and tired of promises can, actually, put some faith in him.
They want to know how America can come back. Because they're pretty sure, down deep, that America has another comeback in her.
Mr. Romney has a tendency to litter his speeches with applause lines. They come one after another. It's old-fashioned, and it's based on the idea that that's all TV wants, five seconds of a line and two seconds of applause. But applause-line speeches aren't suited to the technological moment, when people can click on a link and listen to a whole speech if they have time. If all it is is applause lines, they'll turn away. More important, applause-line speeches are not right for a time of crisis, because they do not allow for the development of a thought, a point of view, an insight. Those things take quiet building. Sometimes they take paragraphs, sometimes pages. They take time. But people like to listen if you're saying something interesting.
Campaign professionals like applause lines in part because they think that's all a campaign speech is, a vehicle for a picture of people clapping. They see the world in pictures on a screen; they are largely postliterate. They don't care about meaning, they care about impression. But in the end, the impression is bad: distracted candidate barking lines, robotic audience clapping.
As for the president, his big campaign speech last week in Cleveland not only was roundly panned but was deeply revealing. In it—all 54 minutes of it—he attempted to make the case for his economic stewardship and his re-election.
What he revealed is that he doesn't know the case for his own re-election.
Politicians give 54-minute speeches when they don't know what they're trying to say but are sure the next sentence will tell them. So they keep talking. They keep saying sentences in the hope that meaning will finally emerge from one of them.
A 54-minute speech is not a sign of Fidel-like confidence, or a love for speaking. A 54-minute speech is a sign of desperation.
More Peggy Noonan
Read Peggy Noonan's previous columns
click here to order her book, Patriotic Grace
.
It was a speech about everything—renewable energy, tax credits, Abraham Lincoln, tax loopholes, deficit imbalances, infrastructure, research and development incentives. But a speech about everything is a speech about nothing. I listened once and read it twice: It wasn't a case for re-election, it was a wordage dump.
The president has wrestled for the past six months with themes. He's jumped from one to another. They are:
It's not so bad—this indicator is up, and that one.
OK, it's bad, but it could have been worse—my actions kept us from tanking.
It's bad, but it's Bush's fault.
It's bad, but it's the congressional Republicans' fault.
I have made it less bad, and I need more time to make it even less badder.
Rich people have fancy cars and car elevators, I stand for jalopies and street parking.
None of it has worked.
What does it say of a crisis presidency at a dramatic moment that a president can't make the case for his own re-election, can't find his own meaning?
It says the other guy can win—if he has meaning. And isn't just a handsome stranger who says, "I'm not the last guy, I'm not the guy you don't like."
That won't do this year.
J.C. Penneys problems...It's the Pricing Strategy, not the marketing....Sell your stock NOW!
Not a political story, but since I have spent 35 years as a retail executive I can tell you that this pricing strategy that Penney's has adopted will not work!...mark my words in a matter of months it will be Johnson that disappears from Penneys....it's not the marketing, it's the pricing strategy.....Been there, done that with Sears in 1987 and it was a total failure as it will be at Penneys....they are not Target and will not be Target....CEO's need to understand that they need to enbrace the culture and the niche that their company owns and not try to change it.....
Trust me this is a failing strategy (much like Obama's failed strategies)....sell your Penneys stock...NOW!
J.C. Penney Falls After Francis Leaves Amid Strategy Flop
By Lauren Coleman-Lochner - Jun 19, 2012 3:28 PM CT
.
J.C. Penney dropped 8.5 percent to $22.25 at the close in New York, the biggest decline since May 16, when the company reported first-quarter earnings.
The retailer said in a statement yesterday that Francis stepped down after joining the Plano, Texas-based company in October. The company didn’t give a reason for his exit.
Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson, who is taking over marketing and merchandising, is trying to remake the retailer’s image and overhaul its pricing strategy.
“The bottom line is, the marketing strategy wasn’t working,” said Bill Ackman, whose hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management LP, is the company’s largest shareholder. “Ron decided that he really needed to take over the marketing and advertising.”
Ackman said he’s “very comfortable” having Johnson handle the CEO and marketing functions.
“The company is not changing its strategy,” he said. “I 100 percent believe in the strategy of this company. The problem was, the pricing message wasn’t conveyed to the customer properly.”
Francis was serving as marketing chief at Target Corp. (TGT) when Johnson hired him away.
Artistic Approach
He had a “very artistic and streamlined approach to marketing, but it wasn’t getting the message across,” Lizabeth Dunn, an analyst with Macquarie Group in New York said yesterday in a telephone interview. “It seemed as though that was a philosophical difference with Michael Francis and the rest of the management team.”
Johnson developed discount chain Target’s “cheap chic” persona before moving to Apple, where he created the world’s most profitable stores. Now he’s trying to wean J.C. Penney’s middle-market customers from a steady diet of coupons and almost constant discounting.
In January, Johnson unveiled his four-year plan to transform J.C. Penney into America’s favorite store. In a presentation to investors and suppliers, he described a department store built around a so-called town square, with as many as 100 boutiques carrying items made by well-known brands specifically for J.C. Penney. The first store-within-a-store he announced will sell home goods by Martha Stewart.
Aggressive Discounts
Johnson also has sought to quickly replace J.C. Penney’s relatively high-list prices -- which it aggressively discounted -- with lower everyday “fair and square” pricing.
The company introduced brightly colored, themed monthly catalogs in February, and the current edition features photos of fathers romping with their children.
“Some of the advertising scared off the core customer, clearly, or at least it didn’t reach the customer,” Ackman said
The changes have yet to bear fruit. The department-store chain, with 1,100 U.S. stores, had a $163 million loss in the first three months of 2012 as revenue slid 20 percent, the biggest quarterly decline in more than seven years. Sales at stores open more than a year fell an average of 19 percent. The number of people coming into J.C. Penney stores dropped by 10 percent, and the number of those who bought something fell, too, by 5 percent.
“The transition has been tougher than we anticipated,” Johnson said during a May 15 presentation to investors
Trust me this is a failing strategy (much like Obama's failed strategies)....sell your Penneys stock...NOW!
J.C. Penney Falls After Francis Leaves Amid Strategy Flop
By Lauren Coleman-Lochner - Jun 19, 2012 3:28 PM CT
.
J.C. Penney dropped 8.5 percent to $22.25 at the close in New York, the biggest decline since May 16, when the company reported first-quarter earnings.
The retailer said in a statement yesterday that Francis stepped down after joining the Plano, Texas-based company in October. The company didn’t give a reason for his exit.
Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson, who is taking over marketing and merchandising, is trying to remake the retailer’s image and overhaul its pricing strategy.
“The bottom line is, the marketing strategy wasn’t working,” said Bill Ackman, whose hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management LP, is the company’s largest shareholder. “Ron decided that he really needed to take over the marketing and advertising.”
Ackman said he’s “very comfortable” having Johnson handle the CEO and marketing functions.
“The company is not changing its strategy,” he said. “I 100 percent believe in the strategy of this company. The problem was, the pricing message wasn’t conveyed to the customer properly.”
Francis was serving as marketing chief at Target Corp. (TGT) when Johnson hired him away.
Artistic Approach
He had a “very artistic and streamlined approach to marketing, but it wasn’t getting the message across,” Lizabeth Dunn, an analyst with Macquarie Group in New York said yesterday in a telephone interview. “It seemed as though that was a philosophical difference with Michael Francis and the rest of the management team.”
Johnson developed discount chain Target’s “cheap chic” persona before moving to Apple, where he created the world’s most profitable stores. Now he’s trying to wean J.C. Penney’s middle-market customers from a steady diet of coupons and almost constant discounting.
In January, Johnson unveiled his four-year plan to transform J.C. Penney into America’s favorite store. In a presentation to investors and suppliers, he described a department store built around a so-called town square, with as many as 100 boutiques carrying items made by well-known brands specifically for J.C. Penney. The first store-within-a-store he announced will sell home goods by Martha Stewart.
Aggressive Discounts
Johnson also has sought to quickly replace J.C. Penney’s relatively high-list prices -- which it aggressively discounted -- with lower everyday “fair and square” pricing.
The company introduced brightly colored, themed monthly catalogs in February, and the current edition features photos of fathers romping with their children.
“Some of the advertising scared off the core customer, clearly, or at least it didn’t reach the customer,” Ackman said
The changes have yet to bear fruit. The department-store chain, with 1,100 U.S. stores, had a $163 million loss in the first three months of 2012 as revenue slid 20 percent, the biggest quarterly decline in more than seven years. Sales at stores open more than a year fell an average of 19 percent. The number of people coming into J.C. Penney stores dropped by 10 percent, and the number of those who bought something fell, too, by 5 percent.
“The transition has been tougher than we anticipated,” Johnson said during a May 15 presentation to investors
This is What is Wrong with Higher Education in America!......
‘Not Fair to Be White’: See the Unbelievable New Campaign Sponsored by the University of Minnesota-Duluth
Posted on June 21, 2012 at 6:21am by Mytheos Holt
Here’s a pop quiz: What do we usually call unsubstantiated assumptions about someone’s class, or position in life, based upon the color of their skin?
That’s right, racism. And that appears to be what Campus Reform has uncovered at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, which is sponsoring an ad campaign whose core message is very difficult to distinguish from undiluted racism. Watch the ad below if you don’t believe us, and if that doesn’t convince you, keep reading:
Here is what Campus Reform has to say about the ad campaign:
The University of Minnesota – Duluth (UMD) is now sponsoring an ad-campaign designed to achieve “racial justice” by raising awareness of “white privilege.”
The project disseminates its message, that “society was setup for us [whites]“ and as such is ”unfair,” through an aggressive campaign of online videos, billboards, and lectures. The ads feature a number of Caucasians confessing their guilt for the supposed “privilege” that comes along with their fair features.[...]
“You give me better jobs, better pay, better treatment, and a better chance – all because of the color of my skin,” reads one poster that features a close shot of a Caucasian male.
The Un-Fair campaign also held a series of lectures and events on campus last semester. One included a presentation by Tim Wise, author of Dear White America. In his book, Wise confesses a “longstanding fantasy” where he turns to a man with a “God Bless the USA” button and asks him, “why can’t you just get over it?”
These lectures were publicly endorsed by university Chancellor Lendley Black. Black sent a message to the campus community in April describing his effort to “create an inclusive campus climate for all” through providing “support and… leadership to the Un-Fair Campaign.”
For those who are familiar with the work of Tim Wise, this should come as no surprise. Wise is one of the more infamous “anti-racist” activists alive, and is especially notable for having written a “Letter to the White Right” after the 2010 elections which includes quotes which dance dangerously close to an open desire for genocide. Consider the following, with special attention to the quotes in bold:
For all y’all rich folks, enjoy that champagne, or whatever fancy ass Scotch you drink.
And for y’all a bit lower on the economic scale, enjoy your Pabst Blue Ribbon, …
Whatever the case, and whatever your economic station, know this . . .
You need to drink up.
And quickly.
And heavily.
Because your time is limited.[...]
And in the pantheon of American history, old white people have pretty much always been the bad guys, the keepers of the hegemonic and reactionary flame, the folks unwilling to share the category of American with others on equal terms.
Fine, keep it up. It doesn’t matter.
Because you’re on the endangered list.
And unlike, say, the bald eagle or some exotic species of muskrat, you are not worth saving.
Wise has also accused the Founders of deliberately setting up a white supremacist society on CNN. Ironically, Wise is himself white.
Wise
But even if one of the campaign’s speakers is crazy, some might be saying, that doesn’t mean the entire campaign is racist, right? Wrong. The evidence shows that this pervasive effort to tar hundreds of millions of people with the racist brush is an integral part of the Un-Fair campaign.
As for the campaign’s slogan, “it‘s hard to see racism when you’re white,” the irony is almost too deafening to remark upon it at all. We certainly are not prepared to make such a harsh generalization about a race of people, but it does seem fair to say that, if this organization is considered to be representative of the white population, this slogan might have a point. Unfortunately, we don’t think self-hatred is the kind of racism they mean.
Worse yet is the fact that the idea of “white privilege” is as easily disproved as any other ugly racial stereotype. For instance, unless this campaign wants to argue with a straight face that a coal miner in West Virginia is more privileged than Colin Powell (in which case, they’d be laughed out of most reasonable company), their generalization completely falls apart. More to the point, using the term “white privilege” and slogans like “it‘s hard to see racism when you’re white” is a transparent and logically fallacious attempt to shut people up. The claim that whites who don’t agree with this stereotype are automatically trying to perpetuate racism completes the exercise in bullying that this campaign is.
A few weeks ago, the Blaze reported on the disgustingly racist attitudes of a resident of South Buffalo, who argued in full view of a camera that “blacks ruin neighborhoods.” This absurd stereotype was rightfully condemned. Yet now the University of Minnesota Duluth is lending institutional support to a campaign whose message is essentially “whites ruined the world and are trying to keep it ruined so that they can profit.” Granted, this isn’t particularly surprising, coming from a university whose very administrators consider the Constitution to be a symbol of “white privilege,” but it is still wrong.
Clearly, the Un-Fair campaign is aptly named.
There are SO MANY PEOPLE in this Administration that are lying that they may not even know what the truth is any more....
Either Holder or Axelrod lying about political meetings, Forbes says: ‘Mr. Axelrod is not under oath on news shows’
Published: 11:55 PM 06/21/2012 By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller
Virginia Republican Rep. Randy Forbes told The Daily Caller that he thinks either Attorney General Eric Holder or President Barack Obama’s chief re-election campaign strategist, David Axelrod, is lying about private political meetings they allegedly had together.
During a June 7 House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Forbes asked Holder if Axelrod, the White House or Obama’s re-election campaign were involved in crafting the Department of Justice’s messaging about Operation Fast and Furious.
“We [Holder, Axelrod and the White House] have certainly talked about ways in which we could deal with the interaction between the Justice Department and Congress — about ways in which we would,” Holder replied.
Rep. Forbes pushed Holder further by asking him if Axelrod, Obama’s re-election campaign and the White House were involved in crafting the DOJ’s policy for dealing with press. He said that they were.
“In terms of trying to get any message out that was consistent with facts and make sure it was done in an appropriate way, I’ve had conversations like that with people in the White House,” Holder said.
Since then, Axelrod told CNN’s Candy Crowley that no such meetings took place.
Rep. Forbes told TheDC that he thinks Axelrod’s denial of Holder’s statement to him means one of them is lying.
“I think that’s problematic because here’s the thing that we definitely know: We know that one of the two of them is not telling the truth,” Rep. Forbes said. “You can pick which one you think it is, but one of them is certainly not telling the truth because you can’t have one them saying, ‘Yeah, we had these meetings,’ and the other one saying, ‘No we didn’t.’”
Rep. Forbes added that he thinks Holder is telling the truth in this instance.
“I have very little question that it’s Holder who’s telling the truth about their meetings,” Rep. Forbes said in a phone interview with The Daily Caller. “And, the reason why is because it would be to his disadvantage to say that. If he hadn’t had any meetings, I think Mr. Holder would have been more than glad to have come out and say, ‘I never had any meetings with him — he never counseled me.’”
“Mr. Axelrod is not under oath on news shows,” Rep. Forbes added.
Rep. Forbes also pointed to Axelrod’s past and who he picked up as high-profile political clients.
“What’s really interesting is Mr. Axelrod really doesn’t have much credibility on these issues anymore because — just go back and look through his clients and he took the same position: He represented John Edwards; he represented Mr. [Richard] Daley after he had been arrested by prosecutors for pervasive fraud, and even wrote op-eds defending him; he represented Eliot Spitzer,” Rep. Forbes said. “So, I mean, here’s the guy that has got a record of just rubber-stamping saying, ‘No, no. That’s okay. There was nothing wrong. Let’s just move on.’”
Reports surfaced that the Democratic National Committee and Axelrod summoned all of Obama’s cabinet secretaries to DNC headquarters so they could use their positions in a political way to help Obama get re-elected.
“There’s no question about it [that the DNC and the Obama re-election campaign are using the president’s administration as an extension of the campaign],” Rep. Forbes said. “Nobody denied that this took place or that it happened. Now if this is not bad enough — which I think it is — we now have the attorney general’s office, which Mr. Holder –—and I took him at his word, if you looked I wasn’t harsh in my examination, in fact I was kind of shocked by his response — Mr. Holder began by saying that his office was different because they ‘apply the law and the facts and nothing else.’”
“I’m sure he got thinking about the fact that you know he had an oath responsibility there because he came back and that’s when he said he had been counseling with Mr. Axelrod,” Rep. Forbes continued, noting that it at first appeared Holder would deny the influence. “I think that’s very very concerning because you all of a sudden, you’ve got the attorney general of the United States now getting counsel from the top strategist from the campaign in a climate where we know the top strategist from the campaign is telling all of the cabinet secretaries what they should be doing between now and the election.”
Fast and Furious documents that Obama asserted the executive privilege over on Wednesday morning may include Axelrod’s name. But, when asked if he thinks that’s a possibility, Rep. Forbes said he doesn’t want to speculate and that he is waiting for the evidence before he jumps to a conclusion like that.
Rep. Forbes is one of the 129 House Republicans who have called for Holder’s resignation over Operation Fast and Furious. They join seven U.S. senators, two sitting governors and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in demanding Holder’s ouster over the scandal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)