The Founding Father's Real Reason for the Second Amendment
And remember the words of Thomas Jefferson "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." See Video of Suzanna Gratia-Hupp’s Congressional Testimony: What the Second Amendment is REALLY For, below (u-tube HERE).
The Leaders Are Here... Palin, Cruz, Lee, Paul, Chaffetz....
T'S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Can You Really Still Believe That None of These People Would Have Done a Better Job???
A top Republican senator is pressing Attorney General Eric Holder for answers following allegations by a government watchdog that the IRS may have improperly accessed the tax records of a political donor or candidate -- but the Justice Department declined to prosecute the case.
J. Russell George, the inspector general who audited the IRS has claimed he turned over evidence of criminal behavior that the DOJ refused to press charges on. Among George's claims was that politicians were targeted for audits and that confidential donor and candidate tax information was accessed.
Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), questioned whether these breeches were politically motivated.
George pointed out one case where information was willfully accessed against the current US law and in his letter to congress said, "we presented evidence of a willful unauthorized access to the Department of Justice, but the case was declined for prosecution."
The DOJ is refusing to pursue any charges against the IRS for audits or harassment of politicians, Conservative Groups or Donors or related individuals.
This is hardly the first time Eric Holder has refused to prosecute a case against democrats and liberals.
He also refused to prosecute the two New Black Panthers, who committed voter intimidation, even though career attorneys at the DOJ, strongly recommended it. Holder has also refused to prosecute Wall Street big wigs like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jon Corzine, and the board of Solyndra, all large contributors to President Obama's campaigns, and how about all the other Obama administration scandals from Fast and Furious to Benghazi, just to mention a few.
And for anyone out there that thinks these scandals don’t or won’t affect them… There has also never been an answer as to why none of the Tea Party and other Conservative Groups were never granted their non-profit status through the IRS in 2012… or any answers to 2012 Voter Fraud allegations in general. When it affects our votes or the election process, it affects all of us.
'Coincidence? You decide': Sarah Palin's father 'horribly harassed' by IRS under probe led by Obama donor, her brother claims
In a January 11 Facebook post, Chuck Heath Jr. accused the IRS of going after his dad Chuck Heath Sr.
He said the elderly man said he had been 'horribly harassed' six times since Palin became the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008
Heath Jr. suggested the new found interest was no coincidence, but part of an IRS's heightened security of conservative groups
Sarah Palin's father has been 'horribly harassed' by the IRS, her brother has claimed.
In a January 11 Facebook post, Chuck Heath Jr. accused the tax man of going after his dad Chuck Heath Sr. six times since Palin became the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008, suggesting the new found interest is no accident.
Harassed? Sarah Palin's father Chuck Heath Sr, pictured above, has been 'horribly harassed' by the IRS, her brother has claimed
'My father, who worked multiple jobs and faithfully and honestly paid his taxes for fifty years, had never heard a word from the IRS.
'In 2008, his daughter was tapped to run for vice president of the United States. Since that time, he has been, in his words "horribly harassed" six times by the agency.'
He added: 'They've tried to dig up something on him but he's always operated above board. Government and politics are ugly. Kudos to the few that are trying to clean it up.'
Attack: In a January 11 Facebook post, Chuck Heath Jr., pictured working his sister's campaign, accused the tax man of going after his dad Chuck Heath Sr six times since Palin became the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008, suggesting the new found interest is no accident.
Support: After streams of anti-Obama comments to his post, Heath Jr responded, 'Thank you guys for the support. I know Dad appreciates it'
Heath Jr. was suggesting the attention allegedly directed towards his father was part of the IRS's heightened scrutiny of conservative groups.
On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI doesn't plan to file criminal charges in the probe, after it failed to find enough evidence of political bias to prove a violation of criminal law had occurred.
The news will likely intensify debate over the politically charged scandal.
After streams of anti-Obama comments to this post, Heath Jr. responded.
'Thank you guys for the support. I know Dad appreciates it,' he wrote.
'I wasn't going to say anything about the IRS targeting him when he told me about it a few months ago. I guess I feared some kind of retaliation from them.
'But when I heard the person heading up the IRS investigation for their targeting of Tea Party groups was a major Obama donor, I felt compelled to say something.
'We are all so sick of cronyism and backdoor tactics that bring good people down.'
Barbara Bosserman, a trial attorney within the IRS's Civil Rights Commission, is leading the internal investigation. According to reports she is a frequent donor to the Democratic National Committee and President Obama.
Chuck Heath and Chuck Heath Jr., Sarah Palin’s father and brother, like her children, are private citizens who are being harassed at every turn by the media and now the IRS because they are related to her. Sarah’s great sin… she stood up to the corruptocrats in Alaska and won and gave life to the McCain ticket after her rousing VP nomination acceptance speech and scared the Hell out of the establishments in both parties and the ruling elite everywhere. Why? Because she is and would represent the American people and continue to call out the beltway politicians and power elite. So they had their minions in the media destroy her with lies, frivolous law suits… all of which she won, and continuous attacks on her and her family.
In a recent interview Roger Ailes said, “The only two people I knew who got worse press than Sarah Palin were Richard Nixon and George W. Bush — much of it unfairly, most of it unfair to her family.”, and she is still standing strong and Undefeated. CNN Said Palin Influence Far from Diminishing and Jim DeMint at the Heritage Foundation said there was no more valuable endorsement in conservative circles than that of Sarah Palin… as Ted Cruz and others have said, Palin is the Kingmaker. Ailes also knows that Palin just might take another shot at the big job herself… after all who better to go head to head with Hillary Clinton. The DNC’s carrot would be electing the first female president. It truly would be the battle of the Century! And Ailes as well as the powers that be know it!
Election 2016 is a make or break it election for America’s future direction and definitely for Conservatives the Republican Party! Conservatives have lost their credibility because the don’t stand up for their own! And Progressives, Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Holder will do anything and everything to steal that election (2014 and 2016).
Joshua Pundit: Here's a smoking gun for you. Attorney General Holder is speaking to Democrat Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia of the oversight committee about the AP scandal...and at 5:00 Holder says clearly, under oath that he never had anything to do with signing off on spying on the press:
"In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. This is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy."
And who was the DOJ attorney who filed in district court to keep the illegal surveillance ongoing and secret for years even though they hadn't found anything? That would be U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen - the same attorney who was charged with deciding whether to pursue the House’s contempt citation against his boss, Eric Holder, over Fast and Furious. And - what a coincidence - he just happens to be leading the FBI investigation into the leak that involved the DOJ subpoenaing AP reporters’ phone records.
And who appointed him to that position? None other than James Cole, Holder's deputy, who took over after Holder recused himself.
Even more disgusting, President Obama acted socked, just shocked about all this and proclaimed yesterday in that faux sincere baritone of his that he had ordered the Attorney General to review the DOJ’s guidelines for spying on reporters.
In other words, Eric Holder will be in charge of investigating what Eric Holder did. And in the areas where he recused himself , he has a couple of loyal, dependable soldiers to take care of things.
Yet the fact remains that Holder committing perjury and likely obstruction of justice, and that particular cat is now out of the bag.
Victory: Eric Holder Sent Letter To Rand Paul On Obama’s Authority To Target U.S. Citizens With Drones: ‘The Answer Is No’
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney announced during Thursday’s briefing that Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter to Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) this morning regarding the administration’s policy on drone strikes targeting Americans on U.S. soil. Holder’s letter stated definitively that the U.S. would not use “weaponized” drones to targets American citizens on domestic soil. Read Full Article HERE
Making the Sunday show rounds, Senator Tom Colburn (R-OK), one of the most respected Senators in Washington, told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that Senate Negotiators Are Not Close to a Deal on GunBackgroundChecks ... As one of four Senators working on legislation to expand background checks for firearm purchased, he made it very clear that there would be no record keeping (lists or a national registry created) on law-abiding gun owners in this country.
Coburn has been working with Illinois Republican Mark S. Kirk, New York Democrat Charles E. Schumer (a definite Progressive anti-gun guy) and West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin III on developing narrower ‘background check’ legislation which aims to ensure that criminals and those with mental health issues are not able to access/purchase firearms.
Being in full agreement, my first reaction is how do you stop the government from creating and keeping a list and can you believe them? Just look at all the falsehoods and indiscretions that have been leaked about the TSA and other government entities, including the White House. NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre spoke out and continues to speak out on universal gun registration, realizing that it will ultimately lead to the disarming of Americans. The Founding Fathers painstakingly chose every word that is in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution for a purpose and giving the American people the right to keep and bear arms is the lynch pin to guarantee that we can keep the rest.
NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre speaks on universal gun registration. (Photo: NRA)
The Blaze: National Rifle Association executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre continued speaking out against President Obama’s recent gun control proposals Saturday night, zeroing in on “the real consequences of background checks,” according to the NRA.
Most recently, the NRA has been publicizing a memo it obtained from the Justice Department that says the success of universal background checks would depend in part on “requiring gun registration,” and says gun buybacks would not be effective “unless massive and coupled with a ban.”
LaPierre began his speech with a reminder on why he believes it’s so important to counter strict gun control measures:
“The Second Amendment — it’s not just words on parchment. It’s not a frivolous suggestion from our Founding Fathers to be interpreted on a whim. It lies on the very heart of what our country was founded upon. Our Founding Fathers knew that without the Second Amendment, all of our other freedoms could be in jeopardy. [And] our freedoms are the very essence of America. They are what make America unique!
Now, he said, we’re witnessing the single-most devastating attack on that right that “our country has ever seen.”
He discussed NRA proposals to make schools safer, noting that Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) admitted that she had gun control legislation in her desk for a year and was waiting for the “right time” to introduce it. In his opinion, many gun control opponents more about politics than they are proven solutions.
“Waiting for an unspeakable act to occur so the American people could be persuaded to buy her political agenda?” LaPierre commented with disgust. “It’s not about making our kids or our streets safer, it’s all about their decades-old agenda.”
He soon got to the heart of his speech: universal background checks, and what he claims they’re really all about:
“Don’t you be fooled. There is nothing “universal,” nor “reasonable” about it. They ought to stop pretending and stop calling it what it will never be. Criminals will never be a part of it, and I have come to believe that the adjudicated mentally incompetent [won't either]…This so-called universal background check that you’re hearing about is aimed at one thing: it’s aimed at registering your guns and, when another tragic opportunity presents itself, that registry will be used to confiscate your guns.”
“Imagine right now, your name on a massive government list,” he asked the audience, noting that it would be pretty “handy” for a drug dealer, thug, or criminal. “How safe do you think that government list will be?” he continued, noting the flood of personal information released this year by various media outlets on gun owners.
The crowd stands and cheers after the NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre urges them to stand for their rights. (Photo: NRA)
LaPierre proceeded to highlight other gun control proposals state by state, concluding with a word on how the Mexican government has asked the U.S. Senate for a registry of all gun owners in the United States.
“What is the point of that?” he asked.
“They have all the security they want,” LaPierre said, referring to politicians. “Our only means of security is the Second Amendment when the glass breaks in the middle of the night, and we have a right to defend ourselves…They don’t have the right to take that right away.”
“Was this what our Founding Fathers intended?” he asked. What Washington needs to do is recognize that Americans really have shared goals: they want their communities to be safer, and they will do anything to protect their kids.
Start focusing on that, he said, and “stop trying to convince the American people that all law-abiding gun owners are criminals in waiting.”
He concluded with an inspiring statement on how many gun control proposals have failed, and NRA members and Americans need to continue standing up and making their voices heard. He told the crowd to call their congressmen and senators this week, then sit down and write a hand-written letter, and follow up with an email.
“We will not be duped. We will not be demonized. And we will not be divided,” he said.
“As lawful gun-owners, we deserve nothing less than absolute respect as people that believe in our individual rights, believe in individual responsibility, believe in protecting our families, and believe in defending our country.”
DOJ memo states: “Buybacks are ineffective unless massive and coupled with a ban.”
The National Rifle Association has obtained a Department of Justice memo calling for national gun registration and confiscation. The nine page “cursory summary” on current gun control initiatives was not officially released by the Obama administration.
The DOJ memo (downloadable here as a PDF) states the administration “believes that a gun ban will not work without mandatory gun confiscation,” according to the NRA, and thinks universal background checks “won’t work without requiring national gun registration.” Obama has yet to publicly support national registration or firearms confiscation, although the memo reveals his administration is moving in that direction.
The memo stands in stark contrast to the administration’s public stance on so-called gun control. White House spokesman Jay Carney said last month that laws proposed by Obama would not “take away a gun from a single law-abiding American.”
The NRA declined to explain how it obtained the document. The memo was written by the acting director of the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice, Greg Ridgeway. It is dated January 4, two weeks before Obama mounted his attack on the Second Amendment following the Sandy Hook massacre. Ridgeway came to the Justice Department from the RAND corporation.
The memo says universal background checks on firearms purchases may help the government push to control and eventually outlaw firearms, but it would lead to an increase in illegally purchased guns.
It pointed out that banning high capacity ammunition clips would be ineffective due to the fact there is a large number of them already in circulation.
A Justice Department official said the memo is an unfinished review of gun violence research and does not represent administration policy.
The DOJ memo arrived a few weeks prior to a letter sent out by the Department of Veterans Affairs. “A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition,” the sent to military veterans states. “If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both pursuant to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, Pub.L.No. 103-159, as implemented at 18, United States Code 924(a)(2).”
“US veterans are receiving letters from the government informing them that they are disabled and not allowed to own, purchase or possess a firearm. If the veteran does decide to purchase a firearm he will by fined, imprisoned or both,” the Gateway Pundit remarked.
Please don’t be manipulated. Big brother is counting on you being uninformed! The reason for the second Amendment, per Founding Father and President Thomas Jefferson, has nothing to do with hunting, or even defending oneself from intruders, although both good reasons to own a gun. The reason for the second amendment is if and when all goes wrong, for the people to be able to defend themselves against the government and exactly why someone could need and should be allowed to own an AR-15 or any of the other guns and ammo on the so-called assault weapons list. One only has to watch a movie like The Bourne Legacy [Blu-ray/Digital Combo] to figure that one out!
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.
I was going to respond to each of these alleged “gaffes” one by one, but then I got to thinking what gaffes?
Both statements are true and self evident. So, go Mitt!
Every one knows the Palestinians don’t want peace. Duh.
Oh, sure, they want “peace” …. if by peace you mean the “one state solution” which is just a sophisticated way of saying the utter destruction of a Jewish state in the Middle East.
There are two types of people who think Mitt got this wrong:
1) Those in utter denial of reality 2) Antisemites
There is a third camp here that is angry over Mitt’s statement. This camp doesn’t think Mitt got it wrong, which is why I didn’t include them in the above. Instead, this group thinks Mitt is exactly right, but think that it is not in America’s best interest to say this out loud.
Personally, I’m not in that camp. I don’t mind our future President being honest about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Lying to ourselves about the Palestinians has gotten us nowhere. We tried that strategy for the past 20 years, and it has failed. When a strategy fails, it’s time to change it and try something else.
Let’s give the truth a chance.
As to the second point, Mitt is right on again. Great going. More please!
Obama’s electoral strategy has always been to divide Americans into discreet interests with each interest being dependent on government largess.
Obama goes after the farm vote by promising farmers more subsidies. He goes after blue collar workers by (finally) taking on China’s manufacturing subsidies and currency manipulation. He goes after the poor by expanding WIC, welfare, and medicare. He goes after the lower middle class by extending tax breaks that only apply to them.
Any one who thinks that Obama’s strategy isn’t exactly how Mitt described it is in utter denial of the truth.
Which is why the media thinks this is a big deal. It isn’t.
They only think it’s a big deal because they are Obama partisans and liberals who think that votes ought to be bought by government largess.
The real scandal here is the media coverage. I get that Mother Jones thinks this is a scandal. Mother Jones is so far to the Left that they think Barack Obama is a mainstream conservative.
But for CNN or any other network of publication to claim non-partisanship to think this is a big deal? Sometimes the partisanship is subtle, but this time not so much.
Hat tip: Hot Air, where Ed seems to be in total agreement.
The conventions are done. It’s go time. This is the most important Presidential election in our lifetime. One path leads to Atlas Shrugs (sort of). The other? It leads to real hope. Real change. We have two months. Let’s do this!
“And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go!” - Clint Eastwood
Back on April 23rd, 2000 Fox News’ Judge Andrew Napolitano had a few questions for (then Deputy) Attorney General Eric Holder. Here they are thanks to The Media Research Center :
Napolitano : Tell me, Mr. Holder, why did you not get a court order authorizing you to go in and get the boy (Elian Gonzalez)?
Holder : Because we didn’t need a court order. INS can do this on its own.
Napolitano : You know that a court order would have given you the cloak of respectability to have seized the boy.
Holder : We didn’t need an order.
Napolitano : Then why did you ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for such an order if you didn’t need one?
Holder : [Silence]
Napolitano : The fact is, for the first time in history you have taken a child from his residence at gunpoint to enforce your custody position, even though you did not have an order authorizing it. When is the last time a boy, a child, was taken at the point of a gun without an order of a judge…Unprecedented in American history.”
Holder : “He was not taken at the point of a gun.”
Napolitano : “We have a photograph showing he was taken at the point of a gun.”
Holder : “They were armed agents who went in there who acted very sensitively…”
This “sensitivity” consisted of the INS macing, kicking, and gun-butt their way into Lazaro Gonzalez's house on the morning of April 22, 2000, wrenching a bawling 6-year-old child from his family at machine-gun point and bundling him off to Castro’s Stalinist fiefdom, leaving 102 people injured, some seriously.
Thanks to the ritual MSM-Castroite collusion most people forget (or missed) the crucial legal and ethical details of this circus/tragedy — which were mostly established during the first week after Elian’s rescue at sea, after his heroic mother’s drowning. The “son-belongs-with-his-father” crowd, for instance, “missed” (with the help of the MSM-Democratic complex) that Elian’s father was initially delighted that his motherless son was in the U.S. and in the loving arms of his uncles and cousins.
The evidence — frantically buried by the MSM-Democratic complex — was overwhelming. Mauricio Vicent, a reporter for Madrid newspaper El Pais, wrote that during that first week he’d visited Elian’s home town of Cardenas and talked with Elian’s father, Juan Miguel, along with other family members and friends. All confirmed that Juan Miguel had always longed for his son Elian to flee to the United States . Shortly after Elian’s rescue, his father had even applied for a U.S. visa!
Elian’s Miami uncle, Lazaro, explained it repeatedly and best: “I always said I would turn over Elian to his father, when Juan Miguel would come here and claim him. But I (along with practically everyone with experience under communism from Cambodians to Hungarians and from Lithuanians to Cubans) knew such a thing was impossible. He couldn’t do that. I knew it wasn’t Juan Miguel requesting Elian– it was Fidel .”
The legal-weasels forgot (or missed) that on Dec, 1st 1999 the INS asserted that Miami-based uncle Lazaro was indeed Elian’s legal custodian and Florida’s family court indeed the place to arbitrate further issues .
Then on Dec 5th, 1999, Castro clapped his hands and his MSM minions snapped to attention.
Within weeks Clinton’s INS had turned its initial decision on its head. Within months this same INS was kicking down Lazaro’s door, pummeling camera men and elderly ladies to the ground with jackboots and wrenching a screaming Elian from his legal custodians in a blaze of pepper gas and machine guns. When asked for the legal authority for this, they brandished either a search warrant to seize evidence that didn’t exist (and would not have been hidden anyway) or an arrest warrant to seize someone who no one claimed was a criminal or even a lawbreaker.
“They never made it clear just what kind of warrant” it was. And neither would it have been legal,” patiently explained Alan Dershowitz (no less)
So why did Elian’s father change his tune?
Remember Godfather II? Remember the Senate hearings where Frankie Pentangeli, under FBI protection, was prepared to testify against Michael Corleone? The stage was set. Looked like a done-deal for the Feds. Then Frankie looks up and sees his bewildered brother Vincenzo from Sicily, sitting next to Mikey.
Whoops! Frankie sure changed his tune, didn’t he?
Think of Juan Miguel as Frankie Pentangeli. The gun Fidel Castro held to Juan Miguel’s head was as invisible (to those without experience with Communism) as the one Mikey held to Pentangeli’s head was to most spectators at those hearings.
Recently Uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, who suffered ten years in Castro’s dungeons and torture-chambers provided an update: “The Castro regime won’t allow us to contact the boy “and the entire family is forbidden to speak to us. Every time they detect a call from us in Miami, the line drops. I’d love to go and see Elián, talk to him. But they’ll never let us.”
Fast and Furious is NOT the only reason to put the corrupt Eric Holder in an Orange jumpsuit
Holder: What Was His Part in Oklahoma City?
By Kevin “Coach” Collins
Eric Holder’s part in Fast and Furious and its cover up constitute serious felonious conduct. Any street cop in America can look at what his man did and recognize the numerous felonies he committed in this very ugly display of treachery. Nevertheless, Eric Holder was involved in a much greater crime, one that official Washington of both Parties has yet to find enough courage to even mention, let alone investigate it. There is clear and incontrovertible evidence that Holder was involved in covering up the Clinton Administration’s part in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
The Clinton Administration’s “story” actually started to unravel even before the sunset on April 19, 1995, the day a homemade bomb brought down the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City murdering 168 women men and children. But it is hard to find that fact in the mainstream media.
An investigation into the jailhouse death of a man named Kenny Trentadue by his brother Jesse an attorney led to Jesse bringing a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
All Jesse Trentadue wanted was answers about how his brother died and nothing more. Trentadue was not on a political crusade. He had no idea the strange pieces of information he was able to pry out of the Federal Government using Freedom of Information requests would take him from Oklahoma City to the office of Assistant United States Attorney Eric Holder in Washington. In the “discovery” phase of his successful wrongful death suit against the Clinton Federal Bureau of Prisons, Trentadue came upon the fact that Eric Holder had been sent from Washington to Oklahoma City to “manage” the investigation surrounding Trantadue’s death. That is clear and not contradicted by any available evidence, but why did Eric Holder assume that responsibility?
Jesse Trentadue’s lawsuit proved the Clinton FBI, Department of Justice and CIA were behind (NOT involved in or mixed up in, but BEHIND) the Oklahoma City bombing and that Bill Clinton KNEW he needed his most reliable “cleaner” to smother the story a supine media was only too happy to ignore.
The conspirators needed to eliminate “loose ends” so they murdered Kenny Trentadue. They didn’t realize Kenny Trentadue an innocent man who looked like the man they were looking for and was NOT part of the conspiracy. The same FBI that botched Ruby Ridge and Waco murdered the wrong man. When investigating his brother’s death Jesse Trentadue discovered that the puppet master of the cover up of his brother’s death was Eric Holder Barack Obama’s Attorney General. He also discovered much more about the Oklahoma City bombing and who planned it.
Keep this in mind as this week’s events unfold in the House investigation of Eric Holder’s part in Fast and Furious continues. See the many attached links and decide for yourself about Holder. Is Fast and Furious or Oklahoma City Eric Holder’s worst crime?
JUST SO YOU KNOW WHY ERIC HOLDER WILL LOSE THE EP FIGHT
By Ken Klukowski
20 June 2012 - breitbart.com/
President Obama’s assertion of executive privilege to prevent Attorney General Eric Holder from complying with congressional subpoenas on the Operation Fast and Furious fiasco will blow up in the White House’s face. But not for the reasons you’ve heard on the first day of this legal fight.
Some Republicans are saying and some media commentators are reporting that executive privilege only applies when the president himself is involved. That’s incorrect as a matter of law.
It’s important to get this right, because some are suggesting that today’s invoking of the privilege means Obama himself is involved, a smoking gun that could make this the next Watergate. Not true. The White House might be involved, but we don’t know one way or another… yet.
As I’ve written before, there are two types of executive privilege. One is a strong form rooted in the Constitution, called the presidential communication privilege. But there is another type, much weaker and rooted in common law instead of the Constitution, called the deliberative process privilege. That second, weaker variety is what President Obama invoked today regarding Holder.
It’s still the White House asserting the privilege, because only the president can assert executive privilege for his entire administration. (Except that the vice president can also assert it, but only for matters directly involving the VP.) So Obama has invoked it on Holder’s behalf.
Others are also incorrect in saying executive privilege only applies to military matters, diplomatic secrets, or national security situations. The courts have repeatedly held that executive privilege covers much more than that, most recently in 2004 in Cheney v. U.S. District Court, where the Supreme Court considered whether the VP’s conversations with energy industry leaders was protected by the privilege. Executive privilege is strongest when those three issues are on the table, but it’s broader than that.
There are several factors courts look to. The most important is whether the president was involved, since that determines which privilege (presidential communications versus deliberative process) is in play. Beyond that, several factors weigh in favor of Congress and against Holder here. This was domestic policy (not foreign), in an operation out of an agency (not the White House), where crimes may have been committed, and none of the president’s constitutional prerogatives are implicated by the case. Factors favoring Obama are that this is not legislative policymaking, and it does have a diplomatic angle because of relations with Mexico. But surveying 200 years of court precedent shows that Congress has the better claim here.
The only way to beat an executive privilege claim is by court order. To take this issue to court, the full House must vote to hold Holder in contempt of Congress, then when federal prosecutors predictably inform the House that they will not prosecute their boss the full House must pass a second resolution authorizing Rep. Darrell Issa to file suit in the U.S. District Court for D.C. on behalf of the entire U.S. House.
Holder will lose the court fight. He’ll appeal, of course, but eventually the appeals will be over, and we’ll all learn the truth of what really happened in Fast and Furious.
And whom to hold accountable.
***********************************************
By Breitbart News legal contributor Ken Klukowski is on faculty at Liberty University School of Law, and author of Making Executive Privilege Work, published by Cleveland State Law Review.
“Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who first began the Fast and Furious investigation, said the assertion by the White House of executive privilege raises “monumental questions.”
“How can the president assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the president exert executive privilege over documents he’s supposedly never seen? Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme? The contempt citation is an important procedural mechanism in our system of checks and balances,” he said.”
By now, you probably know that President Barack Obama invoked executive privilege to stall Congress’ attempt to get Attorney General Eric Holder to fork over documents in the Fast and Furious Scandal.
You probably also know, by now, that Obama explicitly spoke out against executive privilege before he was president, saying “the American people need to know what’s going on,” in yet another classic “do as I say, not as I do” moment brought to you by the first dictator in the history of the United States.
But did you know the president has to be involved in a situation in order to invoke executive privilege?
Under those precedents, the privilege, which is constitutionally rooted, could be invoked by the President when asked to produce documents or other materials or information that reflect presidential decision making and deliberations that he believes should remain confidential.
Note the emphasized language, and the grammar of the sentence that leaves no doubt that the president MUST be involved in whatever issue for which he invokes executive privilege: “when asked to produce documents or other materials or information that reflect PRESIDENTIAL DECISIONMAKING AND DELIBERATIONS.
You won’t hear this from the lapdog media. But, hey, I’m just a blogger.
So, what we have here, then, is the president not only protecting Holder, he’s also protecting himself.
Meanwhile, over at Think Regress (see comments), the left is rejoicing about the president’s actions, once again, as leftists do, defending the indefensible.
I wonder how the president’s new 800,000 voters feel about him covering up information about the murder of Mexicans.
UPDATE II: Breitbart is saying this is deliberative process privilege, rooted in common law not the Constitution, and therefore Obama didn’t invoke EP to protect himself.
This is what we, in the data analysis community call “contrary facts.” In other words, one datum (“we knew nothing”) contradicts the other (“we will not reveal what we knew”).
Expect the Media Myth Generators to offer a package of “reasons” explaining how you can deny knowing and yet still claim “privilege” to protect the “nothing” that you know.
Head them off at the pass. Call them on it.
They.
Are.
Lying.
To us.
Never mind lying to Congress. They are lying to the entire population.
“Lying to America” may not be a crime on the books, but I reckon it’s a crime nonetheless.
A quick update from a longtime D.C. political operative who indicated two years ago the Obama administration was facing a serious political crisis rooted within the Department of Justice. With a contempt vote now looming over Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, and Barack Obama’s use of Executive Privilege in refusing to comply with Congressional requests for related Fast and Furious documents, – that political crisis foretold to readers of the UlstermanReport has now arrived in full.
I’m watching the news reports same as you. Made a number of calls back to my people in D.C. Getting many different versions of things but they all share the same thing and that is a real sense of urgency and shock at a couple of things. One is the use of Executive Privilege by the Obama White House. That makes a direct tie to the administration now. The perception of that is now the reality of it. Obama owns Fast and Furious. He can’t walk that back. It’s his. He is telling Congress he won’t hand over docs. The line in the sand was placed there by the president himself. That alone has people really scrambling now to figure out how deep this thing could go. Will it hurt the re-election. Will there be blowback against the party. Basically all the things I told you were concerns before have now become concerns. And some of them I told myself months and well over a year ago to prepare. Some listened. Some didn’t. Poor bastards who didn’t.
Second, something just now breaking out is Holder walked back a Blame Bush statement he gave to Congress just last week. Fast and Furious was nothing like anything the Bush boys did. Bush era program was much smaller and had the full cooperation of the Mexican authorities. Holder lied when he attempted to link the two and now he is already trying to correct that testimony from one week ago. This kind of sloppy mistake is a clear sign he’s in big trouble and really feeling the heat. It’s also a signal to party leaders and the White House he is falling apart on this.
Obama is saying to Congress “come and get me if you dare”. Now we gotta see if Republicans dare. It’s an election year so the White House is banking on enough Republicans in the leadership to not want to look like they are beating up too bad on Obama. They fear the race card. Part of me says they are a bunch of spineless pukes for that fear and the political operative in me understands the concern. The White House is more than willing to push that race issue much farther than we have seen already. You know what I’m talking about there.
So now we wait to see what the Republicans do. Contempt vote? How hard are they gonna fight the Executive Privilege order? Are they willing to make this a presidential election year issue? Word back to me is some are. Some don’t even care about the politics of it. They are pissed and disgusted by what this administration and Eric Holder have done. It’s a fight of principle vs politics within the Republican Party right now.
Lastly I want to give a nod to the Old Man. This entire Fast and Furious thing was a slow drip not so long ago. He made a push on some folks who in turn had a few meetings on the Hill and got this thing going again. At least he was a big help in that. Not sure if you know but there’s been another health setback for him and we probably won’t hear from them for a bit. I’ll update you on that situation as soon as I know anything more. It’s not hopeless but it’s not good. Say some prayers for him. He really wants to make it to the next inauguration.
I’m on the road but like I said, am keeping contact back in D.C. If there is anything new on FnF will clue you in when I can.
-WHI
Secondly, something just now breaking out is Holder walked back a Blame Bush statement he gave to Congress just last week. Fast and Furious was nothing like anything the Bush boys did. Bush era program was much smaller and had the full cooperation of the Mexican authorities. Holder lied when he attempted to link the two and now he is already trying to correct that testimony from one week ago. This kind of sloppy mistake is a clear sign he’s in big trouble and really feeling the heat. It’s also a signal to party leaders and the White House he is falling apart on this.
Received in-house word regarding “scrambling” at the White House. Something has them very spooked. I hinted at this to you last week regarding the meeting that had staff coming out looking very concerned. The Grassley message had to have shook them up. Told Issa has been repeating comparisons to Watergate to staff and fellow House members. White House must be aware Issa and Co. might have something that could inflict a hell of a lot of damage.
Dem leadership sent out signals to staff to prepare for necessary insulation from the White House to limit damage to individual campaigns. Black Caucus member engaged in a 10 minute “explosive” rant against someone from Issa’s office following a recess. Some Dems getting openly fearful and aggressive. Chaffetz had “face to face” with one of them. He is proving very willing to aggressively engage the opposition at any time.
This is far from won but recent events are proving to be damn favorable to those of us who want to defeat the president.
Don’t get over confident though. This administration is gonna fight this hard.
I’ve been called back. That indicates this has become real important real fast to a lot of real important people.
20 June 2012: It is interesting that it was exactly forty years ago this week that five “burglars” were caught inside the Watergate complex, setting off one of the most notorious presidential scandals in U.S. history. The events of June 17, 1972 resulted in the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon just over two years later. During that two years, the press was aggressive in its coverage and investigation, while the White House denied any involvement with, connection to, or knowledge of the incident.
During the two years following the arrests of the men caught inside the Watergate complex and until the White House could no longer suppress evidence behind the claims of “executive privilege,” the press and congressional investigators were relentless in determining “what Nixon knew and when he knew it.” How times have changed.
Not very fast, and no fury
Unless you’ve been trapped in a cave or your television has been stuck on MSNBC, chances are good that you are aware of a growing scandal known as Operation Fast & Furious. Chances are equally good that you don’t know all of the intricate details of Fast & Furious, as it has been the practice of this administration and many in leadership positions to confuse the public, convolute the facts, and downplay the murderous scandal that leads directly to the highest levels of this administration.For example, Chris Matthews of MSNBC has stated that anyone wanting Operation Fast & Furious investigated is “another strain of the crazy far right.” Rachel Maddow, however, believes that the coverage of Fast & Furious is “the insane paranoid message from the NRA.” Jon Stewart of The Daily Show is even less articulate, calling any investigation into Fast & Furious “f***ing crazy.” (As noted by Katie Pavlich, author of “Fast & Furious, Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and it’s Shameless Cover-Up”).
Meanwhile and unlike the Watergate era, all but a few in power and the media have been proactive in their quest for answers, except for Washington based CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. Add the disinformation deliberately published on the internet, one is likely to be left confused, uncertain of those involved and the timelines, and the actual components of this mother of all scandals.
Background: “Project Gunrunner”
Operation Fast & Furious is the name of an aggressive anti-gun initiative launched and conducted by the United States Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, an agency under the oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice. It officially began in early 2009 as an extension of a program known as Project Gunrunner, an operation that was started under the Bush administration in 2005 as part of the Southwest Border Initiative (SBI). The pilot program for Project Gunrunner began in Laredo, Texas. The objectives were to conduct surveillance, identify and stop the flow of weapons and ammunition from the U.S. illegally entering Mexico and eventually making their way to the drug cartels.
In April of 2006, the program was expanded to a national level as a weapons interdiction program under the BATFE, formerly known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). Project Gunrunner also involved the use of an Internet based weapon tracking system known as eTrace, a program that would permit participating law enforcement agencies to track the origin of confiscated or questionable guns, through their serial numbers, to their point of origin.
On April 10, 2008, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey briefed the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations on the status of the project. At that time, Mukasey stated that the “ATF has approximately 148 special agents…and 56 industry operation investigators (IOI) responsible for conducting regulatory inspections.” Mukasey also stated that the ATF “is also expanding its presence at the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) which serves as the central repository and “clearinghouse” for all weapons related intelligence collected and developed by ATF’s field personnel and attaches in Mexico as well as by all other Federal, State and local law enforcement entities involved in narcotics interdiction and investigation along the U.S./Mexico border.”
At the end of the Bush administration, Project Gunrunner was responsible for approximately 650 criminal cases being filed against about 1400 defendants, involving about 12,000 firearms.
It is relevant to point out here that “Project Gunwalker” is not the name of any legitimate operation, but a satirical moniker attached to Project Gunrunner.
Operation Fast & Furious
Under the Obama administration, “Operation Fast and Furious” was launched in early 2009. By extension of Project Gunrunner, the BATFE commissioned gun shops along the southern U.S. border to sell weapons to known criminal suspects. Ostensibly, this operation was for interdiction purposes, but the agents involved were directly ordered not to interdict the weapons. What resulted was a mass amount of weapons that actually and genuinely originated in the U.S., with the knowledge and approval of the BATFE, being permitted to “walk” unmolested across the southern border (hence the satirical name “gunwalker”).
From early 2009 through December 2010, this process was repeated over and over in the southern U.S. despite the objections of numerous BATFE agents and gun shop owners. During this time, several agents began to notify congress and became “whistleblowers” about the stand-down orders.
Late on the night of December 14, 2010, the inevitable happened. U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down in Rio Rico, Arizona by an AK-47 that was “walked” across the U.S. Mexican border with the knowledge and allowance of the BATFE. Two weapons that were allowed to “walk” across the border were found at the murder scene.
The guns found at the scene were traced to a purchase made on January 16, 2010 from a U.S. gun shop with the full knowledge and authority of the U.S. government by a Mexican national identified as Jaime Avila. On January 16, 2010, Jaime Avila bought 52 firearms, and paid for the guns in cash. ATF agents watched, but were ordered not to stop Avila from making the purchase or crossing back into Mexico.
In addition to Agent Terry, Immigration Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata, 32, was also killed by a weapon allowed to “walk” into Mexico. Agent Zapata and his partner, Victor Availa, were driving a government SUV with diplomatic plates on a Mexico highway, returning from a meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City when they were ambushed. Agent Availa was badly injured but survived. It should be noted that neither agent was armed, as Mexican law prohibits U.S. agents from carrying weapons in Mexico.
With the tragic death of agents Terry and Zapata, questions began to be raised about Operation Fast & Furious, but it was evident that no one from the Obama administration wanted to talk. Attorney General Eric Holder, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Barack Hussein Obama claimed that they had absolutely no knowledge of Operation Fast & Furious or that any weapons were being permitted to be sold and “released.”
Fatalities increase
If the goal of Operation Fast & Furious was to interdict weapons and stop the cross border violence, and that objective is certainly in question, it was a dismal failure from the beginning. In December 2009, there were 849 people murdered. Every month thereafter, the numbers grew: 937 in January, 2010; 988 in February, 2010, and 1200 in March of that year. In total, 15,273 people were murdered in drug cartel related activity.
Despite this obvious increase in fatalities, no one from our government put a halt to the gun shipments to Mexico. Why?
The real objective behind Fast & Furious?
After taking office, Barack Hussein Obama began a coordinated effort with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to control the purchases and ownership of guns in the United States. To justify the implementation of tougher gun control laws and in a direct assault on the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, this administration cited a statement made to Congress by William Hoover, Assistant Director for Field Operations for the BATFE on February 7, 2008. According to that report, 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexican drug cartels were purchased from or originated in the U.S.
That stunning revelation empowered the Obama administration to solicit public support for banning so-called assault weapons in the U.S., and calling for tougher gun control laws. The problem, however, is that the statement is disingenuous at best.
First and perhaps most transparent, it has been noted that only 1 in 5 guns that have been recovered in Mexico actually underwent any form of tracing, leaving 80% untraced. Accordingly, the 90 percent figure is already factually inaccurate.
In 2009, 21,313 guns were recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing. Less than a quarter of those guns were found to have originated in the U.S.
Secondly and perhaps the most scandalous of all is that all figures of cited by this administration pertaining to weapons tracing include weapons sold to the Mexican military via U.S. arms-trading policies under programs such as Direct Commercial Sales (DCS) initiatives.The fact is that the bulk of the arms used by the Mexican drug cartels did not – and do not originate from gun shop sales in the U.S.,but from U.S. government sponsored programs that sell weapons and ammunition to the Mexican military as well as other third-world nations. This process was accelerated under Obama.
Many of the weapons used in Mexico and counted in border violence statistics actually arrived in that area from Central American countries involved in U.S. government sanctioned programs administered by the Pentagon and with the knowledge and imprimatur of the U.S. State Department.
Interestingly, confirmation of the government’s programs and knowledge by government officials, particularly Hillary Clinton was made public by the release of State Department cables published by Wikileaks. The cables prove that the U.S. State Department and Hillary Clinton knew the origins of the bulk of the weapons used by the Mexican drug cartels, although kept this information secret for the greater agenda of U.S. gun control.
Meanwhile, it appears that the Obama administration with the full cooperation of Eric Holder, used various weapons tracking programs already implemented to inflate the statistics involving guns originating in the U.S. to advance even tougher gun control measures.
Research and investigation indicates that a series of programs implemented under the umbrella of a government sanctioned program known “Project Gunrunner” were purposely exploited with the knowledge and consent of government officials at the highest of levels.
According to several agents who have provided testimony, each operation where weapons were allowed to “walk” into Mexico from the U.S. was approved at the highest levels of the United States Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of State. Some believe that operations of this magnitude could not have been possible without the knowledge and approval of Obama himself.
Forty years after the biggest scandal to rock the nation, it is again time to ask the question to Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama under oath and in front of congress: What did you know and when did you know it?
thecommunists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
Then they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat.
Then they came for the trade unionists, I did not protest; I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, I did not protest; I was a Protestant.
Then they came for the Jews, I did not speak out; I was not a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Election 2014 - What Is Really At Stake
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We apologize in advance for any Videos or links that are not functioning in these or other older posts. Internet information... like 'true' history in our student's textbooks are under constant attack by the Progressive Movement and even more so under the present administration. Try to save what you can to your own computer.
"...there comes a time, ladies and gentlemen, when ideology can cause death. I am so tired, so tired, of zealots, primarily on the left, putting their insane personal agendas above the safety of fellow Americans. Do you think the brave soldiers and Marines operating in dangerous areas right now want [unreleased photos of alleged abuse of prisoners] all over al-Jazeera and the terror websites? So let's look out for the military, OK? Nancy Pelosi has an obligation to get the loons in her party under control. If the Speaker can't do that, she doesn't deserve her position." ... Bill O'Reilly
Updated:If you'd like to contact Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, here's the contact information that you'll need.
![Rand Paul - Filibuster_thumb[1]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5EdQ-VFrOq8_KTSQMO9ScwtGhAevJQvoT0S1j-QLnWBZxPsEw0Q6-9PnqFdlVznR289jF3gGBDvm03YUDjje7K1xRGppHK2jcXCXosRTKq7IV-lRim5J3uFr0__isKy2sgtqnKPQ6GY7G/s1600-h/Rand%252520Paul%252520-%252520Filibuster_thumb%25255B1%25255D%25255B6%25255D.jpg "Rand Paul - Filibuster_thumb[1]")
