Showing posts with label Holder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holder. Show all posts

Friday, October 21, 2011

Thanks, Janet and Eric: Mexican Cartels Recruiting Texas Children as "Expendable" Drug Runners

This story will literally make you sick.

Texas law enforcement officials say several Mexican drug cartels are luring youngsters as young as 11 to work in their smuggling operations.

Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told Reuters the drug gangs have a chilling name for the young Texans lured into their operations.

"They call them 'the expendables,'" he said.

McCraw said his investigators have evidence six Mexican drug gangs -- including the violent Zetas -- have "command and control centers" in Texas actively recruiting children for their operations, attracting them with what appears to be "easy money" for doing simple tasks... "Cartels would pay kids $50 just for them to move a vehicle from one position to another position, which allows the cartel to keep it under surveillance to see if law enforcement has it under surveillance," he said.

"Of course, once you're hooked up with them, there's consequences."

...This month, "we made an arrest of a 12-year-old boy who was in a stolen pickup truck with 800 pounds of marijuana," he said. "So they do recruit our kids."

...Law enforcement officers say children are less likely to be suspects than adults, are easily manipulated by relatively small sums of money, and face less severe penalties than adults if arrested.

...Last month, Texas officials released a report indicating Mexico-based drug gangs are intent on creating a "sanitary zone" on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, and are "intimidating landowners" in south Texas into allowing them to use their property as "permanent bases" for drug smuggling activity.

Say, I've got an idea: let's keep our border with Mexico wide open to allow the drug cartels free rein.

What's that? You say Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama have already been doing that? Roger that.


Wednesday, October 12, 2011

My New Fast and Furious T-Shirt

What do you say? Should I sell 'em?


Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.

Thanks to U.S. open borders policy, Mexican drug cartels now operating brazenly in Austin, Texas

Leaving our border unprotected while a civil war rages in the failed narco-terror state called Mexico? What could possibly go wrong?

The two men were returning to the small, one-story house in Northeast Austin from Alabama. Hidden in the back of their SUV was $110,000 in carefully wrapped bundles, money authorities said came from cocaine sales.

But responding to an informant's tip, federal drug agents found the men in the parking lot of a bar in Baton Rouge, La., where they searched the truck. As the officers pulled out the cash, the men grew terrified.

"I wish you would put me in jail," one of them said, according to a criminal complaint. "They are going to kill me over this missing money."

According to court documents, the money was destined for an Austin resident the couriers had reason to fear: Jose Procoro Lorenzo-Rodriguez, who authorities say is a local leader for Mexico's brutal La Familia cartel.

The raids that followed revealed that La Familia, a quasi-religious, hyper-violent group born five years ago in the mountains of Michoacán, used Austin as a base of operation to funnel large quantities of cocaine, marijuana and especially methamphetamine to places such as Atlanta and Kansas.

..."It's not surprising that (cartel members) are migrating to Austin as well," said Francisco Cruz Jimenez, a Mexican journalist who chronicled the recent history of Luvianos in his 2010 book "Narco-Land." "It's very natural that they look for communities where they have paisanos because they can go unnoticed."

...Since [2008], Austin officials have learned that as many as four cartels operate inside the city. Law enforcement agencies have arrested human smugglers connected to the Zetas, targeted local prison gang members connected with the Gulf cartel and conducted numerous raids on La Familia members. The Drug Enforcement Administration says members of the Beltrán-Leyva cartel also operate within Austin.

It's certainly reassuring to know that we have the Obama administration's crack law enforcement leadership team -- Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano -- on the case.

Given our open borders and the fact that Hezbollah is now operating in Mexico -- collaborating with the cartels on IED development and terrorism tactics -- it's only a matter of time before our feckless leaders in DC help touch off a 'man-made disaster' here in the states.


Tuesday, October 11, 2011

SmartPower™: Within Minutes of Discovering Iran's DC Bomb Plots, Obama Rules Out Military Retaliation

Unlike the Democrat losers who launched "Wag the Dog" invectives at the Bush administration whenever an attack was foiled, I'll take the Obama White House at its word.

If the reports are accurate, Iran just escalated its offensive against America tenfold by targeting diplomatic personnel and facilities in Washington, DC. No longer content with existential threats against America and killing our soldiers in Iraq, Tehran's Islamo-Nazi regime just upped the ante.

FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a "significant terrorist act in the United States" tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.

The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C. Bombings of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were also discussed, according to the U.S. officials.

...U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in an announcement today that the plan was "conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran" by a faction of the government and called it a "flagrant" violation of U.S. and international law... "The U.S. is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions," Holder said.

Senior Obama administration officials said the U.S. currently does not have any information indicating that either Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad necessarily knew about the assassination plot and said the U.S. will pursue a path of response that would not include the possibility of an armed conflict with Iran.

Yes, you read that right: the Obama administration immediately ruled out the possibility of a military response.

That a foreign government would plot to kill a foreign leader on American soil could be seen as an act of war, but Obama administration officials say the path the U.S. government will purse will align with American interests – and a military response and possible armed conflict with a third Muslim nation would not be part of that.

So if I understand SmartPower™, it's basically to cower and tell your enemies that you won't retaliate.

Once again, the Democrat Party lives up to its longstanding nickname -- The Party of Weakness.

After all, President Bowsalot doesn't exactly strike an intimidating figure on the world stage.

Thought experiment: would the Mullahs have tried this gambit during a Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush presidency? I think we all know the answer to that question.

Because nothing strikes fear into terrorists like the thought of Eric Holder reading them their Miranda Rights.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Eric Holder Comics

3 March 2011
Fast and Furious? I love Vin Diesel movies!

4 February 2011
No s***. I swear on the Holy Kor-- Bible that the ATF makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally! Plus, to prevent their transport into Mexico! Pinky swear!

3 May 2011
I swear on a stack of pancakes that I first heard about Operation Fast and Furious... uh... just a few weeks ago!

6 June 2011
Okay, I'm serious this time. Operation Fast and Furious was a rogue operation carried out by the Phoenix field division of the ATF!

6 July 2011
Look. The cat's out of the bag. Knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious was limited to the ATF only!

6 August 2011
Would you believe that it was limited to the ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona?

7 September 2011
Seriously, dude: no reports -- NONE! -- concerning Operation Fast and Furious ever reached the upper levels of the Justice Department!

7 October 2011
I never saw those seven separate memos about Fast and Furious that were sent directly to me and only me!

10 October 2011
How about those Brewers???


Based upon: Holder Ridge Defenses Overrun. Holder isolated in his bunker, awaiting the coup de grâce..

30 times worse than Solyndra

Say, how's that GM investment working out for taxpayers?

BailoutCost.com calculates to the second and to the penny how much we are in the hole on the Government Motors bailout.

Briefly: We own about 500 million GM shares. To break even, they need to be sold at $53 per. Right now they're trading at about $23.

Which loses us about $15 billion.

Remember, Solyndra lost us: $0.5 billion.

I'm not real good at math, but that seems like a lot more.

20-30 times more (again, depending on the share price whence we sell).

Besides abrogating bankruptcy law to hand the UAW an immense payoff, let's not forget the administration's skulduggery surrounding Dealergate and the hundreds of selective dealer closings that seemed curiously -- how you say? -- selective and partisan.

When the complete history of the Obama-Holder administration is finally written, I'm certain it will make Nixon-Mitchell look like the kids who stole fizzy-lifting drinks from Willy Wonka's factory.


Sunday, October 09, 2011

Ten Arizona sheriffs demand probe as 1,500 Fast and Furious weapons are still unaccounted for; Eric Holder hardest hit

The natives are getting understandably restless:

Led by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, 10 Arizona sheriffs are calling for an investigation into what U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder knew about "Operation Fast and Furious," a gun-running operation that put weapons into the hands of violent drug cartels in Mexico.

...Babeu, an outspoken critic of the federal government's enforcement of immigration law, was joined outside the Arizona Capitol building Friday by the other sheriffs, representing nine of Arizona's 15 counties. Babeu called "Fast and Furious" a betrayal of state law enforcement. He said the issue is not partisan, but a public safety issue and that guns allowed into Mexico have been linked to dozens of crime scenes on both sides of the border.

"I want the truth, I want the truth from the attorney general, I want the truth from all of those people who are involved," Babeu said... If Holder is found to have lied about his knowledge of "Fast and Furious," he should resign, Babeu said.

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, whose county borders Mexico, said U.S. authorities are in a fight for our country, our Constitution and our very lives.

"While our own government is blaming America for exporting arms and cash south of the border, they're complicit," Dever said.

Babeu said "Fast and Furious" is no small scandal... "I believe that this is a much larger scandal than anything that took place in Watergate because off of this information has had to be dragged out through Congress," he said.

Babeu said 1,500 weapons remain unaccounted for and there's no doubt more bloodshed will occur.

Over 200 Mexican nationals and two American law enforcement officials are dead thanks to Eric Holder and Barack Obama.

And 1,500 weapons are still out there.


The FBI's 'Controversial' Training Presentation on Jihad

Last month, Wired's Spencer Ackerman revealed a few slides of four presentations describing the nature of jihad. The presentations seem to have been used for a time by the FBI for training purposes. Ackerman's headline ("FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical’") was designed to generate controversy and indignation.

But the real story was far more tame: an FBI intelligence analyst had simply prepared the presentations to describe the theological basis for jihad using a multitude of Islamic sources. In other words, there was almost no opinion offered in the presentations; instead, the analyst simply quoted from Islamic texts to describe the roots of the multi-century war between Islam and the West.

Judge for yourself. Here are the "highlights":









Really?

This is supposed to be controversial?

Suffice it to say that the breathless release of these documents and the fact that Eric Holder is Attorney General shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

The entire presentations (all in PDF format) may be viewed here:

Militancy Considerations
Strategic Themes and Drivers in Islamic Law
Doctrinal Basis for Jihad
Chart: Violence and Adherence to the Torah, Bible and Koran


Friday, October 07, 2011

Holder Uses Politico in a Furious Attempt to Hold Fast to His Job

"Operation Fast and Furious" was a massive firearm smuggling program orchestrated by the Department of Justice. It was ostensibly put in place to monitor the flow of weapons to Mexican drug cartels. More than 2000 weapons, including military-style assault- and sniper rifles, were intentionally sold to the cartels over the protests of gun-shop owners and ATF field agents. And virtually none of the weapons were actually tracked by U.S. officials.

The murders of at least two American law enforcement officials and roughly 200 Mexican nationals have since been tied to these weapons.

And in an utterly predictable turn of events for a Democrat fighting to keep his job, Attorney General Eric Holder today used Politico to market a defense against charges he lied to Congress about the operation. Among his claims:

• "Fast and Furious Was a Flawed Response" -- so hundreds were killed thanks to Fast and Furious... and the strongest adjective Holder can find is "flawed".

• "...in 2011, after the controversy about this matter arose, I took decisive action to ensure that such operations are never again undertaken. First, I referred the matter to the Department’s Inspector General for review so the facts underlying it could come out." -- This is an outright lie. According to the acting ATF head himself, Holder stonewalled the House at every turn as investigators sought to get to the bottom of Gunwalker.

• "...In addition, new leadership is now in place both at ATF and in the United States Attorney’s Office in Arizona." -- Who was punished? No one. Instead, officials were promoted or shuffled. Which implies a cover-up. In my estimation, they were probably offered immunity in exchange for silence. But certainly no one was punished, which speaks volumes about Holder's actions.

• "Much has been made in the past few days about my congressional testimony earlier this year regarding Fast and Furious. My testimony was truthful and accurate and I have been consistent on this point throughout. I have no recollection of knowing about Fast and Furious or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it." -- That is a lie: Holder received at least five progress reports describing the status of the operation. Furthermore, it's inconceivable that thousands of hard-core, military-grade weapons would flow through Holder's shop without his knowledge, especially since he had bragged about the overarching Project Gunrunner on multiple occasions to Mexican law enforcement officials.

• "I cannot help but note that at the same time that some members of Congress understandably criticize the Fast and Furious operation, they vehemently refuse to consider whether ATF has the resources and legal tools it needs to do its job — tools that would be entirely consistent with the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.” - In other words, Holder -- in the midst of his fight -- wants to continue his mission of hammering nails into the coffin of the Second Amendment.

• "Until we move beyond the current political climate — where real solutions take a back seat to both political posturing and making headlines on cable news programs and is deemed more important than actually solving our country’s difficult challenges — nothing is going to change."

Oh, that's rich. No, not Marc Rich -- the recipient of a Clinton pardon that Eric Holder approved back in the day and then claimed ignorance of during his confirmation testimony. No, what's really rich is Eric Holder complaining about partisanship.

Because Eric Holder is a malevolent, partisan hack.

He filled his Civil Rights division entirely with left-wing goons and kooks, an unprecedented and despicable practice for career civil servants.

In addition, Holder has sued Arizona and other states over their enforcement of immigration laws; allowed blatant civil rights violations by New Black Panthers; and worked tirelessly to have Gitmo detainees released into the U.S. proper.

Let me be the first to state that Eric Holder is lying through his teeth. Oh, it looks like I'm second.

A spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif, who as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is leading a congressional investigation into "Fast and Furious," said he found Holder's letter unconvincing... "If Attorney General Holder had said these things five months ago when Congress asked him about 'Operation Fast and Furious,' it might have been more believable," the spokesman said. "At this point, however, it's hard to take at face value a defense that is factually questionable, entirely self-serving, and a still incomplete account of what senior Justice Department officials knew about gun walking."

...After the release of the memos Thursday, Issa said Holder "has failed to give Congress and the American people an honest account of what he and others knew about gun-walking and Operation Fast and Furious," calling "the lack of candor ... deeply disturbing."

In addition, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is calling for a special counsel to look into the matter. And earlier Friday, sheriffs from 10 Arizona counties echoed the call, accusing Holder and the Justice Department of "betraying every law enforcement officer in America, especially Arizona."

In his letter, Holder said it's his most ardent critics who have "heaped" disrespect upon the nation's law enforcement officers.

No, schmuck: we're heaping disrespect on you, because you're a freaking disgrace. And you need to be investigated now.

And one postscript: Holder is Obama's firewall. If Holder goes, I'm betting all kinds of skulduggery will come to light; stuff that makes Solyndra look like a purse-snatching.


Update: Congressman to Holder: We’re not interested in ‘Kumbayah,’ drop your ‘rhetoric’ and resign immediately

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Super Happy Fun Quiz: Do You Have What It Takes to Become a Washington Post News Editor?

Question: which is the bigger story?


A painted rock at a ranch once rented by Rick Perry's father?

Or an Attorney-General who approved an illegal gun-smuggling operation that left 200 dead including two U.S. law enforcement officials and later lied about it under oath to Congress?

Correct Answer: Now, which Republican candidate saw that painted rock?


RED ALERT: Smoking Gun -- Holder Lied, People Died

"Operation Fast and Furious" was a massive firearm smuggling program orchestrated by the Department of Justice. It was ostensibly designed to monitor the flow of weapons to Mexican drug cartels. More than 2000 weapons, including military-style assault- and sniper rifles, were intentionally sold to the cartels over the protests of gun-shop owners and ATF field agents. And virtually none of the weapons were actually tracked by U.S. officials.

The murders of at least two American law enforcement officials and roughly 200 Mexican nationals have since been tied to these weapons.

In sworn testimony, Attorney General Eric Holder denied knowledge of "Fast and Furious" on May 3, 2011.

Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says he does not believe Attorney General Eric Holder gave accurate testimony under oath to Congress during the House Judiciary Committee on May 3.

Asked in May when he learned of Operation “Fast and Furious” and “Project Gunrunner,” Holder claimed he ‘probably’ learned of it ‘over the last few weeks.’ In the testy exchange that followed, Issa pointed out that two Americans were killed by weapons associated with the botched operation, and that in the end, no major criminals were brought to justice. Issa also implies that the Department of Justice was deliberately slow-rolling the request for documentation about the program. You can watch the exchange between Holder and Issa here.

Unfortunately for Holder, CBS News' Sharyl Atkkisson has been doggedly pursuing the case and has unearthed documents that prove Holder lied under oath:

...internal Justice Department documents show that at least ten months before that hearing, Holder began receiving frequent memos discussing Fast and Furious...

The documents came from the head of the National Drug Intelligence Center and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer... the new documents leave no doubt that high level Justice officials knew guns were being "walked."

Two Justice Department officials mulled it over in an email exchange Oct. 18, 2010. "It's a tricky case given the number of guns that have walked but is a significant set of prosecutions," says Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division. Deputy Chief of the National Gang Unit James Trusty replies "I'm not sure how much grief we get for 'guns walking.' It may be more like, "Finally they're going after people who sent guns down there."

The Justice Department told CBS News that the officials in those emails were talking about a different case started before Eric Holder became Attorney General. And tonight they tell CBS News, Holder misunderstood that question from the committee - he did know about Fast and Furious - just not the details.

Holder -- during an April 2, 2009 speech in Cuernavaca, Mexico -- also boasted about the overarching operation ("Gunrunner") to Mexican authorities.

Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels.  My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion.

In addition, the book Mexico-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress alludes to Holder's vociferous support of these types of operations.

Holder praised Mexico-U.S. cooperation in the investigations that led to [the] indictments [of 43 Mexican drug dealers]... ...ATF has begun a new intelligence-driven effort known as Gunrunner Impact Teams (GRITs)... and beefed up its Project Gunrunner program as a part of its efforts to stop the flow of guns into Mexico... ...on August 13, 2009, DHS and DOJ, along with Mexico, signed a letter of intent to develop a coordinated, bilateral arms trafficking strategy...

Not only did Holder lie to Congress, but President Obama likewise has feigned ignorance. Yet Gunrunner was part of the "Stimulus package" signed by the President in 2009.

The original Southwest Border Violence Reduction Act of 2009 was sponsored by Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas. Rodriguez's co-sponsors were two other Texans, Henry Cuellar and Silvestre Reyes, plus Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Harry Teague, D-N.M.

...Holder is clearly not telling the truth about his role in Gunrunner. He knew about it, boasted of it and took credit for it. Now he's orchestrating a cover-up of it. President Obama needs to man up about Gunrunner and either take responsibility for this tragedy or admit, under oath if need be, that even he didn't know what was in the stimulus bill.

During an interview with a Univision reporter that aired in March, Obama said he was "absolutely not" informed about the ATF program that deliberately funneled guns into Mexico. "I did not authorize it," he said. "Eric Holder, the attorney general, did not authorize it..."

Eric Holder must resign immediately.

Sharyl Atkkisson deserves a Pulitzer Prize.

And the American people deserve a a special prosecutor.


Update: The Hill weighs in with "Documents show Holder was informed of Fast and Furious operation in 2010"


Related: Emails show Operation Fast and Furious was shared with Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan -- and perhaps beyond

Saturday, October 01, 2011

Emails show Operation Fast and Furious was shared with Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan -- and perhaps beyond

It's no longer a question of whether Eric Holder knew; it's whether President Obama knew and approved of Operation Fast and Furious. The rogue ATF operation sent thousands of military-grade weapons to Mexican drug cartels. And at least two of the weapons were discovered at the scene of last December's killing of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Sharyl Attkisson's quest for the Pulitzer continues apace with new revelations that trace knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious to the White House and the pinnacle of the nation's security apparatus. New revelations in the case include:

• ATF's Phoenix office led an operation out of Tucson called "Wide Receiver"; during which, according to sources, guns were allowed to "walk" to the cartels (just like "Fast and Furious")

• The ATF was communicating Gunwalker status to then-White House National Security Staffer Kevin O'Reilly, who was assembling information for Obama counterterrorism adviser John Brennan. O'Reilly can't be interviewed by investigators because he "is on assignment for the State Department in Iraq and unavailable"

• The White House is still withholding some records of Gunwalker communications because of "significant confidentiality interests"

Can you say "cover up", boys and girls?

Notice the photos of .50-cal Barrett sniper rifles found at the scenes of killings in Mexico and shared with Brennan. These are the same types of military-grade weapons that the ATF allowed to "walk" into Mexico.

A reasonably intelligent counterterrorism adviser would have asked the ATF: "How are the cartels getting these weapons?"

But after all, Brennan is the same man who didn't know about a massive terror plot in London that was headline news around the world; who said that a 20 percent terrorist recidivism rate was 'not bad'; and who made a series of bizarre misstatements regarding the killing of Bin Laden.

House Republicans should hold press conferences on the Capitol steps day after day demanding a special prosecutor for this case, to say nothing of Solargate.


Thursday, September 29, 2011

A Fast-and-Furious Smoking Gun: Were Obama and Holder Trying to Touch Off a Civil War in Mexico?

Hot Air points us to an article by Michael Walsh in the New York Post.

After months of pretending that “Fast and Furious” was a botched surveillance operation of illegal gun-running spearheaded by the ATF and the US attorney’s office in Phoenix, it turns out that the government itself was selling guns to the bad guys...

...Agent John Dodson was ordered to buy four Draco pistols for cash and even got a letter from his supervisor, David Voth, authorizing a federally licensed gun dealer to sell him the guns without bothering about the necessary paperwork... On orders, Dodson then sold the guns to known criminals, who first stashed them away and then — deliberately unhindered by the ATF or any other agency — whisked them off to Mexico.

...There are two possible explanations. The first is that the anti-gun Obama administration deliberately wanted American guns planted in Mexico in order to demonize American firearms dealers and gun owners...

...A second notion is that the CIA ... feared the los Zetas drug cartel was becoming too powerful and might even mount a coup against the Mexican government. So some 2,000 weapons costing more than $1.25 million were deliberately channeled to the rival Sinaloa cartel, which operates along the American border, to keep the Zetas in check.

I completely reject scenario #2.

Walsh seems to have forgotten that the State Department is alleged to have armed the Zeta Cartel.

Phil Jordan, a former CIA operative and one-time leader of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s El Paso Intelligence Center, claims that the Obama administration is running guns to the violent Zetas cartel through the direct commercial sale of military grade weapon...

The U.S. Direct Commercial Sales program is run from the U.S. State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. It regulates and licenses private U.S. companies’ overseas sales of weapons and other defense materials, defense services, and military training. This does not include the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, which authorized sales to foreign governments...

An El Paso Times article – as of now ignored by mainstream media — went into much more shocking detail:

“They’ve found anti-aircraft weapons and hand grenades from the Vietnam War era,” Plumlee said. Other weapons found include grenade launchers, assault rifles, handguns and military gear including night-vision goggles and body armor."

Scenario #3:

• The ATF arms the Sinaloa cartel

• The State Department arms the Zetas

• The combination helps fuel a full-blown civil war in Mexico

• Civilians start streaming north to safety

The resulting humanitarian crisis is used as a lever for a mass immigration event with hundreds of thousands of undocumented Democrats entering the U.S. seeking asylum.

It's as good an explanation as any I've heard -- and certainly consistent with the mindset of the Holder and Obama duo: the ends always justify the means.

Walsh closes with words of wisdom: Time for a special prosecutor, who’s both fast and furious.


Wednesday, September 21, 2011

I don't ever want to hear another stinking word from you liberal drones about "infrastructure projects"!

Well, there's a couple of trillion dollars we'll never get back (not to mention our kids and grandkids).

While Obama’s out there pointing at bridges that might need repair, Orrin Hatch reveals that there were 35 states that got less stimulus money for their roads, highways, and bridges than Solyndra did in a guaranteed loan for their green jobs scam...

Here’s a chart, courtesy of PJ Tatler, that shows how much money each of these 35 states got for their ‘shovel ready’ jobs in comparison with what Solyndra got in a guaranteed loan. And notice that only three of them exceeded $500 billion.


In related news, senior Solyndra executives apparently lied to Congress when they offered to speak openly in exchange for a scheduling delay in their testimony.

The top executives at Fremont's bankrupt solar manufacturer Solyndra plan to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to answer questions when they appear at a congressional hearing Friday.

Brian Harrison, Solyndra's CEO, and W.G. "Bill" Stover, the company's chief financial officer, have voluntarily agreed to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday and had previously assured congressional staffers they would testify...

...The House committee plans to go forward with Friday's hearing even though Harrison and Stover will not testify.

"Both Mr. Stover and Mr. Harrison will be sworn in under oath this Friday," said a statement issued by the committee Tuesday. "We have many questions for Solyndra's executives on their dealings with the Obama administration, their efforts to secure federal support for a project that appeared doomed from the outset, and why they made certain representations to Congress regarding their dire financial situation just two months ago. We would encourage Mr. Harrison and Mr. Stover to reconsider this effort to dodge questions under oath and hide the truth from those American taxpayers who are now on the hook for their $500 million bust."

Obviously the Obama administration has already determined that infrastructure projects aren't quite as important as enriching their crony contributors.

Therefore the administration's pleas for more infrastructure spending appears about as genuine as a Hillary Clinton $3 bill.


Note: Click image above to see an artist's depiction of Solyndra's testimony.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Secret recording: ATF agent suggests digging up dirt on Sen. Chuck Grassley to help forestall Gunwalker investigations

I think this seals the deal. When Pulitzer Prizes are awarded next year, CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson should walk away with the investigative journalism award for her work exposing Eric Holder's disastrous "Gunwalker" program.

Gunwalker's fatally flawed "Operation Fast and Furious" intentionally allowed drug cartels to smuggle military grade weapons into Mexico where have they since been found at dozens of crime scenes -- including some in the United States.

Secret recordings made just weeks after CBS broke the story in legacy media (thanks to Sipsey Street Irregulars and other new media outlets) strongly suggest that Attorney General Eric Holder was fully aware of and approved the operation.

The conversations were recorded by Andre Howard who ran the Lone Wolf Trading Company. Howard's gun dealership had been cooperating with the ATF in "Fast and Furious." At least two of his weapons were sold to a straw buyer before turning up later at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Hope MacAllister, the ATF agent heard in the conversations, was the lead case agent.

Dealer: ...Holder has to respond to this tomorrow.

Agent: Yeah he's gonna respond.

Dealer: I know he is. And I can assure you the media isn't gonna like his response because basically it's gonna mirror what he's told Grassley.

Agent: Yeah.

Dealer: He can't deviate.

Agent: Well if, I mean I've seen a rough copy at least of what our US Attorney here has sent up. Whether or not he has the b---s to actually use it or not, I doubt it. But I mean it's pretty aggressive. Um. The way I see it our local US Attorney is extremely aggressive. When it gets to DC...

...

Dealer: What's Holders' office got to say about this?

Agent: Well like I said they're supposed to come out with little more um b----y statement than they have in the past, so...

Dealer: God they're (intell)

Agent: I mean at some point they're gonna say have to say Grassley you're just gonna have to sit your a-- down. I mean that or they're gonna have to (unintell). I mean like I said my understanding is he can't call a hearing. Somebody from the majority party has got to call a congressional hearing and as of right now...

Dealer: Patrick Leahy's an a----e, you know that. He gets ahold of something he's like a dog with a bone.

Agent: As of right now we don't have any info that's occurred. So...

...

Agent: That's kind of what my suggestion but nobody thought that was funny like if I were a P.I. I'd put him on Grassley, I'm sure there's a lot would go away. Actually my one suggestion was just tell him in a registered Republican. I'm sure if he knew that everything would be fine, they didn't like that either.

Did I just imagine this, or did an ATF agent suggest having a private investigator tail Chuck Grassley, presumably to dig up dirt on the Senator and thereby forestall further investigations through, ahem, blackmail?

Nah... that must be my imagination.

Once again: House Republicans must demand a special prosecutor in no certain terms.


Update: Report: At least 200 murders in Mexico now linked to Fast & Furious weapons


Linked by: Protein Wisdom. Thanks!

Friday, September 16, 2011

Good news: ATF's Gunwalker may have helped Mexican cartels buy rocket launchers

Reports surfaced Wednesday that the U.S. Border Patrol had seized six assault rifles, one rocket launcher, a grenade launcher, and three packages of what appeared to be C-4 explosives near the Rio Grande River.

But, folks, please don't be concerned. Nothing says competence like the crackerjack combination of Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano:

...reports in the El Paso Times detailing “an alleged gun smuggling operation in which Obama administration officials were selling military grade weapons to drug cartel members in Mexico.”

...Let’s review: When we first learned about Fast and Furious, the news was that a number of assault rifles had been sold to straw purchasers. Soon, we learned that the number was approximately 2,500 and that some of those were .50 caliber sniper rifles. Then we learned that somewhere between 1,200 and 1,300 of the weapons were unaccounted for, and that the ATF had allowed another upstanding gentleman to walk grenade components into Mexico (I guess he ended up in Mexico: no one knows because the ATF lost him). And finally, we’re learning that just a few days ago, on our side of the border, U.S. Border Patrol Agents found rocket and grenade launchers, assault rifles, and C4 explosives.

We’ve got to get to the bottom of this mess. But until we do, everyone who’s interested ought to head down to their local Fast and Furious dealer and get a rocket launcher while supplies last.

Just mention that Eric Holder sent you.

And those airplanes that could be brought down by RPGs? Not to worry, they could be corporate jets owned by millionaires and billionaires.


Thursday, September 15, 2011

Deep Corruption at Justice: Eric Holder is an 'Abomination', a 'Menace' and 'Worse Than John Mitchell'

A must-read by Quin Hillyer at American Spectator:

Start rattling the chains. Start ratcheting up the hue and cry. Fire up the masses. It's long past time to force mass resignations at, and possible prosecutions of members of, the Obama Justice Department -- and, more broadly, of the West Wing itself... The reality is that these Obama/Holder minions at DoJ are dangerous to the very heart of constitutional, republican (small 'r') government.

...the Black Panther case, the dismissal of which I (on the Washington Times editorial page) and the Times' ace reporter Jerry Seper on the news side were the first to report in print (I later discovered that the fabulous Michelle Malkin wrote on it online a day or two earlier), still hasn't been adequately handled...

...And the outrageous DoJ blocking of non-partisan elections in Kinston, N.C., solely to benefit the Democratic Party , is now being examined in the courts, with the administration having lost, big, in the latest round...

...More recently, the burgeoning scandal of the "Fast and Furious" gun-running blow-up, already a huge embarrassment for the Justice Department, keeps moving closer to the White House. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, for her part, denied direct knowledge of this dangerous idiocy but as Dexter Duggan reports at the Wanderer (sign-in required), the U.S. Attorney who ran the moronic program, Dennis Burke, has been sponsored throughout his entire career by Napolitano...

...This week, meanwhile, Christian Adams continued Pajamas Media's mind-boggling series of stories on blatantly illegal hiring practices at DoJ... This is amazingly disturbing stuff. Of 106 supposedly apolitical hires by the Obama/Holder Civil Rights Division, all 106 are demonstrably, irrefutably leftist activists. Again, these are for "career" slots for which no political bias is supposed to be used to hire them. Simple random distribution would assure than in a center-right country, at least a couple of dozen of these hires would be either right of center or at least apolitical -- but not a single one has been anything but a hard-left radical...

...As I noted a few weeks ago when writing about this scandal, "These people were members of groups like 'Queer Resistance Front,' 'Intersex Society of North America,' and of course People for the American Way. Their published essays focused on issues such as 'Genital Normalizing Surgery on Intersexed Infants' and on arguing that providing material support for terrorism isn't a war crime...

...Buried in Christian Adams' latest story on this scandal comes what should be an incredibly explosive allegation: "Worse, Loretta King, while serving as the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights at the outset of the Obama administration, ordered the resumes of highly qualified applicants to be rejected
only because they didn't have political or left-wing civil rights experience. Multiple DOJ sources with direct knowledge of hiring committee practices have confirmed this to me."

...Then there is the continuing failure of systems that are supposed to ensure that military personnel abroad can get ballots cast and counted, which is part of a seemingly deliberate pattern of obstruction by the Obama/Holder Justice Department.

...And, of course, their ranks have been filled with an unusually high number of lawyers who considered it pro bono (literally, for the public good!) to represent terrorist detainees held in
Guantanamo
...

...In the weeks before Eric Holder was confirmed as Attorney General, Jennifer Rubin kept up a steady drumbeat of blog posts warning us all what a dishonest, radically leftist problem he would turn out to be. Rubin was absolutely right. Somehow, though, Holder's dastardliness has outstripped even the stern warnings Rubin issued...

...Under Richard Nixon, John Mitchell was as corrupt as they come. But that was all for protecting political power. The Holder Justice Department is equally as corrupt, but in worse ways even than Mitchell. Holder's team is out for raw political power unmoored from the law, of course -- but also for hard-leftist ideological ends that undermine the entire tradition of American jurisprudence and legal practice. They are a menace, and they must be stopped.

Read the whole thing... and send the link far and wide.

Eric Holder is a danger to America. The House must act now.


Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Oh, my: Emails show White House knew Solyndra was a disaster before it issued $535M crony loan

Can we call it "Solargate" yet?

We already knew that Solyndra investor George Kaiser personally gave more than $50,000 to the Obama Presidential campaign in 2008. And that Solyndra executives visited the White House 20 times since Obama took office.

Now ABC News has evidence that the White House knew what everyone else did: that Solyndra's products were ummarketable from day one.

Newly uncovered emails show the White House closely monitored the Energy Department's deliberations over a $535 million government loan to Solyndra, the politically-connected solar energy firm that recently went bankrupt and is now the subject of a criminal investigation.

The company's solar panel factory was heralded as a centerpiece of the president's green energy plan -- billed as a way to jump start a promising new industry. And internal emails uncovered by investigators for the House Energy and Commerce Committee that were shared exclusively with ABC News show the Obama administration was keenly monitoring the progress of the loan, even as analysts were voicing serious concerns about the risk involved. "This deal is NOT ready for prime time," one White House budget analyst wrote in a March 10, 2009 email, nine days before the administration formally announced the loan.

"If you guys think this is a bad idea, I need to unwind the W[est] W[ing] QUICKLY," wrote Ronald A. Klain, who was chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, in another email sent March 7, 2009. The "West Wing" is the portion of the White House complex that holds the offices of the president and his top staffers. Klain declined comment to ABC News.

Worse still, Solargate hasn't slowed the Department of Energy's efforts to redistribute taxpayer funds to other "green" companies (which just happen to be backed by Obama's top contributors).

On September 7, the DOE announced its plan to guarantee 80 percent — or $275 million — of a $344 million private loan taken out by the firm SolarCity. The company installs rooftop solar systems that harvests electricity SolarCity then sells... The guarantee means that if SolarCity’s project [fails, taxpayers must] pay back 80 percent of the company’s private loans...

...The Chairman of SolarCity, Elon Musk, is a major financial supporter of the president. On April 15 of this year, Musk donated $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund. He also gave an additional $5,000 to the Obama campaign... Like Solyndra officials White House visitor logs show Musk has visited the Administration at least four times since 2009.

The second company is Solexel. On September 2, the solar energy company announced a $13 million award from the DOE as part of a program to make solar energy systems more affordable for homeowners... Solexel is financially backed by venture capitalist Steve Westly. In 2008, Westly bundled for Obama’s presidential campaign, bringing in more than $500,000. Westly also served as a California co-chair and was a member of the National Finance Committee for the Obama for American campaign.

He’s at it again for the president’s 2012 re-election campaign. So far, Westly has bundled between $100,000 and $200,000... [and] Westly’s companies have received millions in stimulus dollars from the Obama administration. The Westly Group’s portfolio includes Tesla Motors, which received a $465 million loan in 2009; Amyris Biotechnologies, which got more than $24 million; and Logos Technologies, which received $20 million in DOE loans.

This is an immense scandal. The Obama administration appears to have laundered billions of taxpayer dollars through green companies using its political backers as front-men.

As Mark Levin said last night, "We need a special prosecutor."


Related: Solyndra employee: from day one, everyone knew that our solar panels were uncompetitive... including President Obama.