Obama 'Admin' Failed to Stop Mexican Cartel Murder of ICE Agent with Smuggled Guns.

Obama DOJ Failed to Stop Mexican Cartel Murder of ICE Agent with Smuggled Guns.HT: JudicialWatch.

The Obama administration had numerous opportunities to arrest Mexican drug and weapons traffickers before murdering a federal U.S. agent and seriously wounding his partner but opted for the hands-off approach, a new federal audit reveals. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which operates under the Department of Justice (DOJ), should have stopped the traffickers—members of the Los Zetas organization—long before the Immigration and Customs (ICE) agents were ambushed in Mexico with firearms smuggled south of the border thanks to a once-secret Obama administration gun-running operation.

Instead, on February 15, 2011, ICE agents Victor Avila and Jaime Zapata were assaulted while returning to Mexico City from Matehuala, Mexico in their government-issued armored sports utility vehicle. Both agents were on assignment in Mexico and their SUV displayed diplomatic license plates. After passing through a toll booth on Mexican Route 57 in the early afternoon the agents noticed that two vehicles were following them, one of which passed and blocked the agents’ SUV from the front, forcing it to stop. Approximately eight assailants approached the SUV armed with various firearms, including assault weapons (AK-47s and AR-1Ss) and handguns. Two of the assailants gained access to the interior of the SUV through a partially open window and shot Zapata and Avila. Zapata died and Avila was seriously wounded.


Authorities determined that members of the renowned drug trafficking organization Los Zetas carried out the attack with weapons that had been purchased in Texas as part of a scandalous Obama administration operation that that allowed guns from the U.S. to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.

Judicial Watch was a leader in investigating the Obama administration’s illegal Mexican gun-running operation and filed several lawsuits in federal court to uncover details. Known as Fast and Furious, the scandalous secret program was masterminded by the DOJ and implemented by the ATF under the leadership of Obama Attorney General Eric Holder. The weapons have been implicated in hundreds of crimes in both Mexico and the U.S., the records show. They also document how high-level officials of the Obama administration covered up the scandal and that the former president abused his office by asserting executive privilege to keep Fast and Furious records from going public. Obama even exerted executive privilege for Holder’s wife and mother to conceal emails with the then Attorney General involving the operation. Read the full story here.

Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Revealing AG Holder Travel Expenses Exceeded $4 Million in Four Years.

Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Revealing AG Holder Travel Expenses Exceeded $4 Million in Four Years.HT: JudicialWatch.

Taxpayer-funded personal travel expenses alone totaled nearly $700,000 from March 2009 to August 2012

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents from the Department of Justice (DOJ) revealing that between March 27, 2009, and August 24, 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder accrued $4,263,704.01 in total travel expenses. This included $697,525.20 in taxpayer-funded personal travel expenses.  The documents were released to Judicial Watch in June in response to an August 2012 Freedom of Information Act request.
Altogether, Holder took 213 out-of-Washington trips during the 42 months for which Judicial Watch obtained records. His 31 personal trips during the time period included two trips to Martha’s Vineyard with a flight-only price tag of $95,184.50, as well as eight trips to Farmingdale, New York, at a flight cost of $118,553.71.  On September 9, 2010, Holder took a one-day personal jaunt to Atlantic City that cost the taxpayers $7,408 in flight expenses alone.
Holder’s first taxpayer-funded trip noted in the documents was to an April 2009 “US/Mexico Arms Trafficking Strategy Meeting” (government cost “unavailable”) concerning gun-running between the US and Mexico, an issue in which the attorney general subsequently said he had no involvement. Among other controversial Holder travel expenditures:

• In April, 2011, Holder charged taxpayers $15,452.50 for a speaking engagement at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network in New York City.
• In June, 2012, Holder charged $38,108.18 in “business and personal” expenses to address LULAC, a liberal group that strongly supports amnesty for illegal aliens, in Orlando and New Orleans.
• In July, 2012, Holder charged an additional $38,108.18, this time fully billed to the taxpayers, to speak before La Raza, another controversial pro-amnesty group, in Las Vegas.
• Also in July, 2012, Holder flew on a Department of Defense plane, at unknown cost, to speak before the NAACP convention in Houston.

The documents also include Holder’s personal expense form reports for room service and lodging.
As attorney general Holder is a “required use” official who must take government aircraft for all travel while in office due to “security and communications needs,” according to a February 2013 U.S. Government Accountability Office report.  The requirement dates most recently from 2004.  According to Bloomberg Businessweek, “For personal trips, Holder is required to reimburse the government for the equivalent commercial coach fare, which is often much less than the total trip costs according to the GAO.” Holder usually flies on a Gulfstream V, the same private luxury jet owned by former Apple chairman Steve Jobs and billionaire businessman Mark Cuban.
“I hope these documents help Attorney General Holder understand the burden his unnecessary personal travel places on American taxpayers,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  “The notion that federal officials such as Holder have access to a fleet of luxury jets for discounted personal travel for “security” reasons should strike most Americans as a scam that needs to be reformed.”

Attorney General Holder to Stay into Second Term ‘About a Year,’ Source Says.

Attorney General Holder to Stay into Second Term ‘About a Year,’ Source Says.(PU).Attorney General Eric Holder will honor President Obama’s request to stay into the second term and but will remain on the job only “for about a year,” Fox News confirmed Monday.

A senior administration official told Fox News that Obama does not want a mass exodus at the start of his second term, especially with his national security team going through major changes. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton already has said she will leave soon.The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Holder has accepted the president’s request to stay temporarily.Hmmmmm.........God forbid he gets nominated to the SCOTUS or maybe both?Read the full story here.

Judicial Watch Sues Obama Justice Department to Obtain ‘Fast and Furious’ Records Withheld from Congress.

Judicial Watch Sues Obama Justice Department to Obtain ‘Fast and Furious’ Records Withheld from Congress.(JW).(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:12-cv-01510)) against the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking access to Operation Fast and Furious records withheld from Congress by President Obama under executive privilege on June 20, 2012. Judicial Watch seeks the following records pursuant to a June 22, 2012, FOIA request filed with the Office of Information Policy (OIP), a component of the DOJ:

All records subject to the claim of executive privilege invoked by President Barack Obama on or about June 20, 2012, as referenced in the letter of Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole to the Honorable Darrell E. Issa, Chairman, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives, dated June 20, 2012. More specifically, the records requested herein are those records described by Deputy Attorney General Cole in his June 20, 2012 letter as “the relevant post-February, 2011, documents” over which “the President has asserted executive privilege.”

The lawsuit was filed yesterday, on September 12, 2012.


The president’s assertion of executive privilege came just hours before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to respond to congressional subpoenas for Fast and Furious records. On June 28, 2012, the House voted 255-67 to hold Holder in contempt. (A number of Democrats joined the vote, while other Democrats, endorsing lawlessness, walked out in protest.) A second vote, 258-95, authorized the pursuit of records through civil litigation in the courts. Moreover, documents uncovered by CBS News seem to indicate that AG Holder may have perjured himself during congressional testimony detailing what he knew about Fast and Furious and when.

“It certainly appears that the president improperly invoked executive privilege to cover up the Fast and Furious scandal and protect his corrupt Attorney General,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

 “It’s long past time for the Obama administration to come clean and complete the public record on one of the most egregious violations of public trust in modern political history. We hope our lawsuit pries loose more information and exposes Obama’s abuse of power in holding these records secret.”Read the full story here.

Obama's 'CHANGE' - Time to Restore America’s Rule of Law.

Obama's 'CHANGE' - Time to Restore America’s Rule of Law.(Heritage).In his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Professor David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania Law School pointed out:

No one doubts that the coming election will be the most important referendum on the size and nature of government in a generation. But another issue is nearly as important and has gotten far less attention: our crumbling commitment to the rule of law.… A sad irony of [it] is that rule-of-law values have been one of America’s greatest contributions to world-wide economic development in recent decades.… In the years after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, American markets served as a model of the importance of privatization and protection of property rights as the nations of Eastern Europe charted a new economic future. Now we increasingly are the ones that need to learn these lessons.… Rule-of-law matters cannot be separated entirely from questions about the size and role of government. The more government grows, the harder it is to preserve rule-of-law virtues like transparency and clear rules of the game.

The troubling trend of weakening the rule of law is well documented in The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. The U.S.’s indicators for the rule of law, which measure property rights and freedom from corruption, have eroded dramatically over the last five years.Read the full story here.

Holder Justice Department Recruits Dwarfs, Schizophrenics, and the ‘Intellectually Disabled’

Holder Justice Department Recruits Dwarfs, Schizophrenics, and the ‘Intellectually Disabled’.(PJ Tatler).The PJ Tatler has obtained documents from the Justice Department detailing efforts to recruit attorneys and staff who are dwarfs or who have “psychiatric disabilities” or “severe intellectual disabilities.” On May 31, 2012, Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez issued a directive to affirmatively recruit people with these “targeted disabilities.” This DOJ policy does not merely involve prohibitions against discrimination, but rather the documents reveal deliberate recruitment efforts to hire as attorneys and staff for the Department of Justice people suffering from psychiatric disorders and intellectual disabilities. Moreover, applicants can “self-identify” their disability by means of the “Standard Form 256, Self Identification Disability.”
Those with “targeted disabilities” may be hired through a “non-competitive” appointment. That means they don’t have to endure the regular civil service competition among applicants, but can be plucked from the stack of resumes and hired immediately instead.
According to the documents, those with these “targeted disabilities” may be hired “before the position is advertised” and even “before the position’s closing date.” Moreover, lawyers with psychiatric disabilities and “severe intellectual” disabilities receive a waiver from the requirement that a new DOJ employee have practiced law for one year before being hired.
You can read the detailed Civil Rights Division “Hiring of Persons With Targeted Disabilities Policy” memo here.
You can also read PJ Media’s full report on the attorneys hired for the Justice Department Civil Rights Division from 2009-2010 here in the Every Single One series.
Speaking of preferences, here is another document, the entire “Operational Diversity Management Plan,” obtained by PJ Media. It should be fascinating to those interested in racial preferences in government policy.Hmmmm......My advice :If you go to court "Plead insanity"!Read the full story here.

Video - FBI informant armed and trained Black Panthers.

Video - FBI informant armed and trained Black Panthers.(RS).A video published Monday by the Center for Investigative Reporting reveals that the man responsible for arming and training members of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s did so while acting as a federal informant.
According to reporter Seth Rosenfeld, Richard Aoki was approached by FBI agent Burney Threadgill Jr. in the late 1950s, around the time he was graduating high school, and developed into a source into the activities of various political groups during the following decade.
“I said, ‘Well, why don’t you just go to some of the meetings and tell me who’s there and what they talked about?’” Threadgill is quoted as saying. “Very pleasant little guy. He always wore dark glasses.”
Aoki, who committed suicide in 2009 after working as an educator for 25 years following his involvement with the party, has been remembered for his activism. He was the subject of the biography Samurai Among Panthers: On Race, Resistance And A Pardoxical Life, which traced his ascent within the organization, where he became the highest-ranking non-black member of the party. Read the full story here.

Congress Wants to See Obama’s “License to Kill”.

Congress Wants to See Obama’s “License to Kill”.(MJ).Congress is finally standing up to President Barack Obama on targeted killing. Almost a year after three American citizens were killed in US drone strikes, legislators are pushing the administration to explain why it believes it's legal to kill American terror suspects overseas. Congress is considering two measures that would compel the Obama administration to show members of Congress what Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) calls Obama's "license to kill": internal memos outlining the legal justification for killing Americans overseas without charge or trial. Legislators have been asking administration officials to release the documents for nearly a year, raising the issue multiple times in hearings and letters.
But the new proposals, including one from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) first flagged by blogger Marcy Wheeler and another in a separate intelligence bill, aren't requests—they would mandate disclosure. That shift shows both Republicans and Democrats are growing impatient with the lack of transparency on targeted killings. The New York Times has confirmed the existence of a secret memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)—the branch of the government that tells the president whether what he wants to do is legal—outlining the legal basis for the targeted killing program. But the Obama administration has yet to acknowledge that any such memo exists, despite defending the targeted killing policy in speeches and public appearances, and is currently fighting an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that seeks to force the government to reveal the legal justification for targeted killing. Now Congress seems to be moving towards the ACLU’s position. Cornyn’s amendment would require the Obama administration to provide the Office of Legal Counsel memo justifying the killing program to legislators on several congressional committees. Democrats on the Judiciary Committee voted to shelve Cornyn’s proposal, but that doesn’t mean the effort is dead. Cornyn could propose his amendment again later this year, and there’s also a section of a separate intelligence bill that would compel the administration to share all of the Justice Department’s legal opinions on intelligence matters with the congressional intelligence committees—unless the White House invokes executive privilege. “We’re not mere supplicants to the executive branch, we are a coequal branch of government,” Cornyn said during discussion of his amendment in the Senate committee hearing last week. “So it is insufficient to say pretty please, Mr. President, pretty please, Mr. Attorney General, will you please tell us the legal authority by which you claim the authority to kill American citizens abroad?” (Cornyn also noted that just because he wants to see the memo doesn’t mean he’d necessarily disagree with its contents.) Now that legislators on both sides of the aisle are pushing for more disclosure, the chances the public will learn about the contents of the targeted killing memos has increased dramatically. Still, Anders says, it’s easy to see a difference between how hard Congress pushed for George W. Bush-era memos authorizing torture and the deferential stance Congress adopted during the first three and a half years of the Obama administration.Read the full story here.

Video - The Obama/Holder Justice Department: Moving toward criminalizing criticism of Islam?

The Obama/Holder INJustice Department: Moving toward criminalizing criticism of Islam?(HSUS).During the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution oversight hearing held on Wednesday, July 25, 2012,

Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez, refused to answer Congressman Trent Franks question whether the Holder Justice Department’s agenda includes the abrogation of a U.S. citizen’s right to free speech by making it a criminal offense to merely criticize Islam.

The two-and-a-half minute exchange took place about 23 minutes into the hearing, when Congressman Franks asked Perez a simple, direct question whether his department was essentially considering criminalizing speech critical of a particular religion.

He prefaced his question by recounting Perez’ attendance at the meeting and his favorable response to Aziz’ prompts to make any critical talk or writings against Islam a criminal offense, despite American’s current enjoyment of such protection under the First Amendment.

“If the Department of Justice can’t even answer whether they will entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion, then it’s pretty late in the day.” ~ Congressman Trent Franks.

It’s clear that the Obama/Holder Department of Justice has aligned themselves with the Islamist agenda, and is proactively attacking our freedoms under the First Amendment.Read the full story here.

Obama 'buddy' Rahm welcomes help from Farrakahn, ignores anti-Semitic remarks.

Obama 'buddy' Rahm welcomes help from Farrakahn, ignores anti-Semitic remarks.(ST).Ignoring Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s history of anti-Semitic remarks, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday welcomed the army of men dispatched to the streets by Farrakhan to stop the violence in Chicago neighborhoods.Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th), an Orthodox Jew, has said it’s good that Farrakhan is “helping” in the fight against crime, “but it doesn’t eradicate the comments that he’s made about the Jewish community.” Emanuel offered no such caveat. Although Farrakhan has a history of making anti-Semitic statements, Chicago’s first Jewish mayor has no interest in revisiting that controversy. He’s more concerned about reducing a 40 percent surge in Chicago homicides that’s become a media obsession and threatens to undermine his efforts to market Chicago to international tourists. “People of faith have a role to play and community leaders have a role to play in helping to protect our neighborhoods and our citizens. You cannot get there on just one piece of an anti-crime strategy,” the mayor said. “The police have a role to play. Tearing down abandoned buildings has a role to play. Shutting liquor stores that are a cancer in the community have a role to play. Community leaders have a role to play. Pastors have a role to play. Principals have a role to play. And most importantly, parents have roles to play. They have decided, the Nation of Islam, to help protect the community. And that’s an important ingredient, like all the other aspects of protecting a neighborhood.”
For the last two Mondays, black men in dress suits and bow ties fanned out across violence-plagued Chicago neighborhoods — first Auburn-Gresham, then South Shore — to form a human wall of protection against any sudden outbreak of gunfire. The army of men, know as the Fruit of Islam, were led by Farrakhan, who ordered the show of force in response to last month’s brutal murder of seven-year-old Heaven Sutton. Emanuel’s decision to steer clear of Farrakhan’s history of anti-Semitic remarks is a far cry from the 1994 controversy that followed former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s private meeting with Farrkakhan. During the meeting, Daley prodded Farrakhan to work out his differences with Jewish leaders in talks arranged by the Commission on Human Relations. Daley even hinted that if those conversations did not take place, the Nation of Islam would have trouble winning the city approval needed for its planned development along the 79th Street commercial strip. Jewish leaders refused to engage in the dialogue. They were so concerned about the mayor’s private meeting with Farrakhan they demanded an audience of their own to clear the air. Daley used that meeting to deny ever suggesting the give-and-take. “There’s been a rather longstanding pattern where Minister Farrakhan has talked about wanting dialogue. There have even been a couple of instances where members of the Jewish community have met with him,” Michael Kotzin, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said at the time.Hmmmm.......'New Black Panthers, Farrakhan's Vigilantes'........"CHANGE"?.Read the full story here.

Secret Service shuts down ‘Fire Holder’ protest outside White House

Secret Service shuts down ‘Fire Holder’ protest outside White House.(DC).Secret Service agents shut down a protest outside the White House on Monday where about 30 young protesters demanded President Barack Obama fire Attorney General Eric Holder. Agents on scene claimed a backpack abandoned on a sidewalk was a “suspicious package,” closing the Pennsylvania Avenue pedestrian mall in front of the White House, and the adjoining Lafayette Park, from protesters and tourists. All pedestrian traffic, including media, was forced to retreat to side streets. Officers roped the streets off with bright yellow crime scene tape and brought in bomb-sniffing K-9 dogs. After waiting on the sidewalk behind the police line for about half an hour, a middle-aged woman came forward to claim the backpack, telling agents that she had put her small bag on the ground so she could take a photograph with her family. She declined to be interviewed. The protesters had a National Park Service protest permit from 10 a.m. to noon. Agents began clearing the crowd at 10:43 a.m., giving little information to protesters and tourists as they forced them out of the area. Organizer Oliver Darcy told The Daily Caller that he didn’t believe the protest’s premature end was an accident. Darcy noted that he and others were demanding the president fire his attorney general over a scandal the White House doesn’t want to talk about. “To me, it seems like a bit of an overreaction to evacuate the entire — like — I don’t know. Was the White House evacuated?” Darcy said. “On Pennsylvania Avenue, they shut the entire block down, you know? From my judgment, it seemed like an overreaction, but I don’t work for the Secret Service and I know they take this stuff very seriously.” “It did seem very odd that during a protest of Attorney General Eric Holder and Barack Obama in front of the White House that all of a sudden there was a mysterious bag left — accidentally, right?” Darcy continued. “I really don’t know, but she [the backpack's owner] looked like she was pretty sincere that she left it accidentally, but I’m not a secret service agent so I don’t know what the protocol is. … I’ve taken part in multiple protests in front of the Supreme Court, in front of the Capitol Building, in front of the White House. Never have I seen anything like this before.” Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary told The Daily Caller later that law enforcement was not trying to chill protesters’ free speech rights. “We had an unattended package, and we cleared it for public safety,” he said.Hmmmm.......Remember: President Obama signed bill H.R. 347 (also known as the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011) into law.Read and see the full story here.

Syria casts shadow as arms trade treaty negotiations kick off in New York.

Syria casts shadow as arms trade treaty negotiations kick off in New York. (AA).One of the reasons this month's negotiations are taking place is that the United States, the world's biggest arms trader accounting for over 40 percent of global conventional arms transfers, reversed U.S. policy on the issue after Barack Obama became president and decided in 2009 to support a treaty. But U.S. officials say Washington insisted in February on having the ability to "veto a weak treaty" during this month's talks, if necessary. It also seeks to protect U.S. domestic rights to bear arms - a sensitive issue in the United States. The other five top arms suppliers are Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia. Wood, Macdonald and Abramson said some of the top arms trading countries have been joining other nations in an attempt to weaken the treaty. They said the United States, China, Syria and Egypt were pushing to exclude ammunition. China, they added, wants to exempt small arms, while several Middle East states oppose making compliance with human rights norms a mandatory criterion for allowing arms deliveries.Delegates from around the world gather in New York on Monday for the start of month-long U.N.-hosted negotiations to hammer out the first-ever binding treaty to regulate the global weapons market, valued at more than $60 billion a year. Arms control campaigners say one person every minute dies as a result of armed violence around the world and that a convention is needed to prevent illicitly traded guns from pouring into conflict zones and fueling wars and atrocities. Most U.N. member states favor a strong treaty. If they get their way, all signatories would be charged with enforcing compliance to any treaty by companies that produce arms and with taking steps to prevent rogue dealers from operating within their borders. They say conflicts in Syria and elsewhere cast a shadow over the talks, reminding delegates of the urgency of the situation.There is no guarantee the July 2-27 negotiations will produce a treaty, let alone a good one. In February, preparatory talks on the ground rules for this month’s talks nearly collapsed due to procedural wrangling and other disagreements. In the end, the United States and other countries succeeded in ensuring the treaty must be approved unanimously, so any one country can effectively veto a deal. But the treaty may not be doomed if that happens. Wood said nations that support a strong pact could bring a treaty to the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly and adopt it with a two-thirds majority vote if there is no consensus in July. Given the predominant position of the U.S. as a global arms exporter (the world’s biggest arms exporter with a $55 billion-a-year trade in conventional firearms), any such treaty would have limited relevance without its participation, he said. Ratification would require passage by a 2/3 majority of the U.S. Senate in addition to presidential approval, which is rendered unlikely by opposition from gun rights groups such as the National Rifle Association. As of September 2011, 58 U.S. Senators opposed the Arms Trade Treaty, more than 1/3, according to Alhaj. Wood, Macdonald and Abramson said some of the top arms trading countries have been joining other nations in an attempt to weaken the treaty. They said the United States, China, Syria and Egypt were pushing to exclude ammunition. China, they added, wants to exempt small arms, while several Middle East states oppose making compliance with human rights norms a mandatory criterion for allowing arms deliveries.Hmmmm......This treaty would make everyone run "FAST AND FURIOUS" to the Gunshop?Read the full story here.

Issa: Executive Privilege Reserved For Presidential Decision-Making.

Issa: Executive Privilege Reserved For Presidential Decision-Making.(BLN).By Susanne Posel.Darrell Issa, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman, wrote a letter to President Barack Obama wherein he directly challenged Obama’s use of executive privilege, essentially hiding certain documents concerning the Fast and Furious operation.
There was a formal request that Obama provide “legal justification for the privilege claim and a list of specific documents covered by it.”

Issa explained that according to case law, “executive privilege is reserved for direct presidential decision-making.” 

By intimation, Obama is admitting to have overseen the operation by his use of executive privilege.

While Obama has asserted in public forum that he and Holder were not involved in F&F, he is essentially lying by omission.
Issa reminds Obama that either his “most senior advisers were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious … and the fallout” or he is hiding behind “a presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation.”
Holder, trying to bargain with the House Oversight Committee, offered documents in exchange for the contempt charge dropped. Holder spoke to Obama in private, wherein he told Obama to use executive privilege because the documents requested by the HOC would have “significant damaging consequences”.
Last week, Holder advised Obama to use his executive privilege card concerning the internal documents of the F&F.
Issa mentioned Board Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death and pointed out that the gun that killed Terry had been shipped into Mexico for the drug cartels by US agents.
The Terry family has been requesting for over a year and a half for the US government to hold those responsible within the government to “justice and accountability”. They recognize that it is very “disappointing that [the Terry family] are now faced with an administration that seems more concerned with protecting themselves rather than revealing the truth behind Operation Fast and Furious.”
Holder had admitted this fact in a letter written in February of 2011. Seeing Holder retracted that statement several months later, Issa cites that “lying to Congress is a crime”. All documents pertaining to that denial will be subpoenaed by the HOC; specifically correspondence between Obama’s administration and Holder between June of 2012, until the claim of executive privilege.Hmmmm.......GunWalker."These boots keep on walking, one of these days they'll walk all over you".Read the full story here.

Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault-Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’.

Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault-Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’.(CNSNews).Via: InfidelBloggers.By By Fred Lucas.Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama's transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.
When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.
“There’s clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing, and this is an office that is at the center of the issues of border enforcement,” said Burke.
Over the course of several days, CNSNews.com left multiple telephone messages with Burke for comment on this story. He did not respond.From 1999 to 2003, Burke was chief deputy and special assistant to Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano.
In 2003, when Napolitano became governor, Burke became her chief of staff. He stayed in that job until the fall of 2008, when he left to help Democratic political campaigns, including then-Sen. Obama’s presidential campaign.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show that on Jan. 9, 2008, while working as Gov. Napolitano’s chief of staff, Burke contributed $2,000 to then-Sen Obama’s presidential primary campaign. Since 1997, according to FEC records, Burke has contributed a total of $16,350 to various Democratic candidates.
After Obama was elected in November 2008, Burke joined his presidential transition team, serving on the Immigration Policy Working Group.
Eight days before Obama’s inauguration, on Jan. 12, 2009--while Burke was working on the transition team--Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C. At that meeting, Obama “pledged” to take action to stop the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico.
Obama also decided to put Burke’s old boss, incoming Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in a leadership role in making the gun-trafficking problem a top priority.
“President-elect Obama expressed support for efforts in the border states in both the United States and Mexico to eradicate drug-related violence and stop the flow of guns and cash,” incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement at the time. “He told President Calderón that he intends to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to lead an effort to increase information sharing to strengthen those efforts. He pledged to take more effective action from the United States to stem the flow of arms from the United States to Mexico.”
When Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary, Burke moved from the Obama transition team to become her senior adviser. On Feb. 25, 2009, a little more than a month after Obama had made his “pledge” to Calderon, Napolitano testified in the House Homeland Security Committee. She stressed that stopping the flow of guns to Mexico was a top priority of the Obama administration and key focus of her work.Responding to a question about violence on the border, Napolitano said the administration was going to work with the Mexican government on the issue. Then she said: “Secondly, it is looking at, government-wide, at what we can do to stop the southbound export of weaponry, particularly assault-type weapons and grenades that are being used in that drug war.”Hmmmm...........This is for me the most important phrase in the whole article:

"He told President Calderón that he intends to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to lead an effort to increase information sharing to strengthen those efforts. He pledged to take more effective action from the United States to stem the flow of arms from the United States to Mexico."

Any questions left who ordered "Fast and Furious"?Read the full story here.

Video - House Finds Holder in Contempt Over 'Fast and Furious' Investigation.

The GOP-led House voted Thursday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to provide key information pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, making Holder the first sitting Cabinet member to be held in contempt. The vote was 255 to 67. Seventeen Democrats joined the majority of Republicans in voting yes. GOP Rep. Dan Lipinski voted not present, and 65 Democrats left the floor before the vote.
 “Today’s vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided -- and politically motivated -- investigation during an election year,” Holder said after the vote. “By advancing it over the past year and a half, Congressman Issa and others have focused on politics over public safety.”

A.G. Holder Withholding Documents From Congress On CAIR-Linked Holy Land Foundation Terror Funding Case.

A.G. Holder Withholding Documents From Congress On CAIR-Linked Holy Land Foundation Terror Funding Case.(FSM).Via : InfidelBloggers.U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is in the spotlight after the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold him in contempt because he is refusing to provide documents related to the Fast and the Furious scandal. But there’s another scandal you should know about. For over one year, he has refused to hand over documents about the Muslim Brotherhood network in the U.S. 
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), vice chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, confronted Holder about the matter on Thursday, June 21. Rep. Gohmert wants Congress to have access to documents from the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history. Five Foundation officials were found guilty of funding Hamas and evidence introduced by the federal government shows it was set up by the Muslim Brotherhood’s secret “Palestine Committee” in the U.S. 
Three prominent Muslim-American organizations were labeled by the federal government as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the trial-the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT).
The documents requested by Rep. Gohmert for the past year were provided to the Holy Land Foundation’s defense team, yet are being denied to Congress.

"They are terrorists, and we wanted the documents you gave to the terrorists. We are a year later, and we still don't have them," complained Rep. Gohmert. Holder replied that he'd only provide what is already available publicly.
Rep. Gohmert is one of five members of Congress requesting investigations into the influence of Muslim Brotherhood-tied organizations and individuals in the U.S. government. As I reviewed here, this influence is far-reaching. It is very possible that the documents from the Holy Land trial would be embarrassing to many government officials, not to mention businesses and interfaith groups that have embraced Brotherhood entities. 
At the very least, they could provide further justification for the labeling of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT as "unindicted co-conspirators."The documents were originally requested on April 27, 2011 after reporter Patrick Poole broke the blockbuster story at Pajamas Media that Justice Department political appointees blocked the prosecution of one CAIR co-founder and, according to his high-level Justice Department source, other groups and individuals listed as "unindicted co-conspirators."
According to Poole's source, "It was always the plan to initially go after the [HLF] leaders first and then go after the rest of the accomplices in a second round of prosecutions." The original trial resulted in a mistrial, pushing back the planned prosecutions. The Obama Administration then came into office and they were stopped.
Rep. Gohmert slammed Holder for not prosecuting these groups and individuals when there is a "mountain of evidence" against them. He further revealed that "at least one of which now says it is working inside your [Holder's] agency to help advise on the purge of counter-terrorism training materials."
The role of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has already been discovered. MPAC was founded by Brotherhood ideologues and works in tandem with the aforementioned groups, but was not labeled as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Holy Land trial. Rep. Gohmert was apparently referring to CAIR, ISNA or NAIT.
On February 8, ISNA was part of an interfaith group that met with the FBI Director about the training materials. A FBI spokesperson said the agency would consider a proposal from the group to create a committee to review the materials. More recently, the White House's new Director for Community Partnerships, George Selim, said that "There is [sic] hundreds of examples of departments and agencies that meet with CAIR on a range of issues."Hmmmm.......Obama“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”Read the full story here.

Muslim Brotherhood Freedom and Justice Party deputy chief : We Have No Representatives in Parliamentary Delegation Currently in U.S.!

Muslim Brotherhood Freedom and Justice Party deputy chief : We Have No Representatives in Parliamentary Delegation Currently in U.S.!(IW).Dr. Essam El-Erian, Vice-Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), affirmed that the FJP has nothing to do with a partisan delegation that traveled to the United States recently. In a statement to Freedom and Justice newspaper, Erian assured that the FJP did not participate or send any of its members in the visit, pointing out that the delegation speaks for itself and for its members, reiterating that the FJP has absolutely nothing to do with the delegation or the visit. 


Hmmmmm.......On Wednesday, the U.S.-Egypt Business Council hosted a meeting and luncheon at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which included an Egyptian parliamentarian delegation led by Mohamed Anwar El Sadat, President of the Reform and Development Party in Egypt. Other Egyptian Parliamentary leaders represented at the event included theConstruction and Development Party, the Freedom and Justice Party and the Social Democratic Party. Despite their varying political perspectives, the delegates ensured the meetings attendees that the interest of the nation precedes that of party politics.


Via the Daily Beast:

It was supposed to be a routine meeting for Egyptian legislators in Washington, an opportunity for senior Obama administration officials to meet with new members of Egypt’s parliament and exchange ideas on the future of relations between the two countries.Instead, the visit this week looks like it’s turning into a political fiasco. Included in the delegation of Egyptian lawmakers was Hani Nour Eldin, who, in addition to being a newly elected member of parliament, is a member of the Gamaa Islamiya, or the Egyptian Islamic Group—a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The group was banned under former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and is now a recognized Islamist political party. Its spiritual leader, Omar Abdel Rahman—also known as the “blind sheik”—was convicted in 1995 of plotting attacks on New York City landmarks and transportation centers, and is serving a life sentence in a North Carolina federal prison.In his meetings with senior Obama administration officials, Eldin says, he asked Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough about transferring Abdel-Rahman to an Egyptian prison. He said his request was declined. “When I raised this issue in the White House I was told it was not in their authority and all judicial issues relating to sentences must be discussed with the Department of Justice,” he says. Transferring Abdel-Rahman, says Eldin, “would be a gift to the revolution.” McDonough didn’t reply to requests for comment made Thursday afternoon.In addition to being convicted of planning the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Abdel-Rahman is also a cause celebre for radical Islamic fundamentalists, including al Qaeda, who have at times demanded his release.

The U.N. Speaks: The Arms Trade Treaty Will Affect “Legally Owned Weapons”

The U.N. Speaks: The Arms Trade Treaty Will Affect “Legally Owned Weapons”.(Heritage).Yesterday, the U.N. released its press kit for the July conference that will finalize the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The most interesting item in the kit is a lengthy paper by the U.N.’s Coordinating Action on Small Arms (CASA) program titled “The Impact of Poorly Regulated Arms Transfers on the Work of the UN.” This paper perpetuates the belief, on which much of the ATT is based, that the big problem the world faces is a lack of agreed standards on arms transfers. That’s wrong: The big problem the world faces in this regard is that many U.N. member states are dictatorships, supporters of terrorists, or simply incapable of controlling their own borders.
But the paper makes it clear that the job of the U.N.—as the U.N. itself sees it—is to make the case for a very broad treaty. As CASA puts it, “Advocacy efforts should be developed…through relevant reports and op-eds, messages, and statements at relevant meetings and to the press.” So watch out for U.S. taxpayer-funded funded U.N. propaganda in a newspaper near you. But in spite of its desperate efforts to rebut Second Amendment concerns, the U.N. can’t stop stepping on its own shoelaces. After proclaiming that the ATT “does not aim to impede or interfere with the lawful ownership and use of weapons,” the CASA paper goes on to say that “United Nations agencies have come across many situations in which various types of conventional weapons have been…misused by lawful owners” and that the “arms trade must therefore be regulated in ways that would…minimize the risk of misuse of legally owned weapons.” How, exactly, would the ATT do that if it doesn’t “impede” or “interfere” with lawful ownership? The U.N. would have a lot more credibility on the ATT if it didn’t imply so regularly that the problem is as much lawful ownership as it is the international arms trade.Read the full story here.

Fast And Furious: Executive Privilege Is Illegitimate to Shield Wrongdoing!

Fast And Furious: Executive Privilege Is Illegitimate to Shield Wrongdoing!(Heritage).By Todd Gaziano.As Holder surely knew all these past months, there is no privilege that exists between Congress and the executive branch to withhold documents except the constitutional executive privilege, which is based on the separation of powers. The slated House committee vote to hold Holder in contempt today was unfortunately necessary to get him to at least reconsider his lawless course of stonewalling. In a desperate attempt to prevent the contempt vote in the last few hours, Holder asked President Obama to invoke executive privilege to shield these 1,300 pages of documents from Congress, and the President apparently agreed to do so. Yet that is not the end of the story. Even if properly involved, the Supreme Court has made clear that executive privilege is not absolute. DOJ must provide an explanation why all those documents fit one of the recognized categories of executive privilege. It is questionable whether they all are legitimately subject to executive privilege, for several reasons.

First, the Supreme Court in United States v. Nixon (1974) held that executive privilege cannot be invoked at all if the purpose is to shield wrongdoing. 

The courts held that Nixon’s purported invocation of executive privilege was illegitimate, in part, for that reason. There is reason to suspect that this might be the case in the Fast and Furious cover-up and stonewalling effort. Congress needs to get to the bottom of that question to prevent an illegal invocation of executive privilege and further abuses of power. That will require an index of the withheld documents and an explanation of why each of them is covered by executive privilege—and more. Even a proper invocation of executive privilege regarding particular documents is not final. But there is at least one helpful development in Holder’s request that the President invoke executive privilege to shield these documents: The President now owns the consequences of further stonewalling.The American people will now clearly understand that it is President Obama who doesn’t want them to know who is to blame for the Fast and Furious scandal—and whether his Administration has done anything to prevent it from happening again. Read the full story here.Todd Gaziano is the Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He previously served in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the Attorney General and the President on the invocation of executive privilege. He was also a chief oversight counsel in the House of Representatives

Video - Eric Holder Found in Contempt of Congress by House Panel.