Here’s a postfrom the Clean Up ATF site that gives you an idea of how bad the snitch culture has gotten as the ATF:
Support for those and their families suffering from stress related to ATF management abuses:
We have a therapist out of Arizona who is conducting doctoral research on adolescent, teen and young adult mental health challenges. She currently works in practice and on hospital units with this population along with their family systems. She has been successful in identifying stressors in families where one or more parent is in law enforcement.
Her next research project will focus on stress related injuries regarding ATF agents who suffer abuse at the hands of their employer and the effects this in turn has on their families.
She goes under the name DocPowerPuff here on CleanUpATF.org. She is available to help anyone who needs resources relating to their or their family’s stress issues in this area. Of course any communications with her will be strictly confidential. There is no fee. This is simply a service she is offering to us as a way to help in an area she is passionate about while she collects ever more information for her research.
I have sadly watched many through the years lose their lives to suicide, addictions, and other mental health issues due to this particular kind and level of stress. I believe her next project will be as ground breaking as her last one and I feel truly blessed to be a part of it. I pray that one day her work will help to change the current broken system where victims have no real protections or outlets other than the government sending these people to their so-called experts who many times merely continue the abuse.
Show your support for ATF whistleblowers: sign the petitionand retweet. Let’s make this thing go viral.
UPDATE:
FYI: You do need to register with the White House in order to vote – just a name and a email address. Worth the trouble, I think.
As Morgen said a few months ago, when Verum Serumstarted a Repeal ObamaCare petition -
We’re 13 months out from the election at this point. It’s time to stand up to the Administration and let them know what we really think about their policies. And if that doesn’t inspire you to subject yourself to never-ending spam from the President, then use that old Hotmail or Yahoo address you never use, or just create a new one and use it only for this.
Is anyone else having trouble signing the petition? I’ve been getting this after I sign in:
404 Page Not Found
The page you’re looking for is currently unavailable to view
We’ve been upgrading our site. It is possible that this page has been moved or renamed. You can use your browser’s Back button to return to the previous page, go to the homepage, or you can browse or search for the information you’re looking for.
Cam Edwards interviewed Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) – NRA News about the Congressional Resolution of No Confidence in U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder he filed late Monday:
Nearly two-dozen Republicans have joined Gosar in backing the “no confidence” legislation.
Early in his administration, President/Professor Obama repeatedly referred to “teaching moments.” He would admonish staff, members of Congress and the public, in speeches and in private, about what they could learn from him. Rather than the ideological or corrupt “I’m above the law” attitudes of some past administrations, President Obama projected an arrogant “I’m right, you’re wrong” demeanor that alienated many potential allies. Furthermore, the president concentrated power within the White House, leaving Cabinet members with no other option but to dutifully carry out policies with which they had limited input in crafting and might very well disagree. From my experience, this was especially true in the environmental, resources, housing and employment areas. Not by coincidence, these areas have also been responsible for much of the president’s harshest critiques.
LECTURES vs. LISTENING
One former administration official told me directly that the people in the White House “NEVER TALK TO REAL PEOPLE.” Another former Obama staffer confided to me that it was clear to him that the president didn’t mind giving speeches (lectures), but really avoided personal contact with members of Congress and folks outside the Beltway. “He doesn’t seem to derive energy from spending time with regular people the way Clinton did. He rallies to give speeches for the big crowds, but avoids individual contact,” the former staffer recalled. This “arms-length” attitude extends to top decision-makers in the president’s administration. A senior housing official recently told me that, despite the fact that he was responsible for crafting policies to stem the foreclosure crisis, he had personally never met with a homeowner who had been foreclosed on.
The president’s disinterest in input from those outside his inner circle is costing him many wasted opportunities. Recently, a senator told me Obama went to his/her state, but issued an invitation for the senator to attend the event only the day before. “I represent a must-win state and lead the president in approval ratings by nearly 20 points. He was totally off-message for what my people wanted to hear. Doesn’t the White House get it? I don’t need him, he needs ME!”
Read the whole thing. He’s a Dem-Soc, so he still prefers Obama over a Republican, but it’s obvious, that even people in Obama’s own camp are tired of being lectured to.
I’ve written about Dr. John Drew’s interactions with Obama in college, here before, but Selwyn Duke adds his fresh perspective to the story:
We have in the President a man who:
1. Had communist Frank Marshall Davis as childhood mentor.
2. Was a flat-out Marxist-Leninist in college.
3. Has no known history of renouncing these views.
4. Later in life built an alliance with a “small c” communist and other assorted radicals.
5. Upon achieving high office, appointed avowed communists to his administration.
Given this profile, what is the radical position? That the man is a communist or at least a communist sympathizer? Or that he is just your everyday moderate politician?
Perhaps we don’t have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that would stand up in a criminal proceeding for either of the above propositions. But asking for it is unreasonable and irresponsible. In the court of public opinion, there must be no higher burden than in a civil court: a preponderance of the evidence. And a preponderance of it in the President’s case points to a simple conclusion: Barack Obama is likely a communist or communist sympathizer.
Now, there are many reasons why people would deny what is plain about Obama. The most obvious is partisan loyalty, but there is another factor: The “it”-couldn’t-happen-here mentality.
We see this when people are shocked to learn that a neighbor is a serial killer or child molester and say that “he seemed so normal” or when there is a heinous crime in a neighborhood and residents just can’t believe that “it” could happen in their little Mayberry. In the example relevant here, an American President could never be a communist sympathizer. Sure, you read in history books about such leaders attaining power in places such as Cambodia, Russia, and North Korea. But the US of A? “It” is something that happens to the other guy’s nation.
Of course, this isn’t reality. Say what we will about American “exceptionalism,” the fact is that we receive no special dispensation from the laws governing man. There is no “it” that can’t happen here. And while we don’t vote for our next-door neighbor, we do choose our President. We’d be wise to make sure that, some years hence, we’re not witnessing disaster with our mouths agape and left saying, “But he seemed so normal.”
Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar has filed a resolution in the House of Representatives pushing for vote of “no confidence” in Attorney General Eric Holder.
The resolution, introduced Monday afternoon, is a formal way to exhibit congressional disdain for Holder as the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious proceeds. It would also be an initial step toward some House Republicans’ plan to formally remove him from office if he won’t resign.
The resolution, officially numbered H. Res. 490, states that “it is the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress has lost confidence in the Attorney General of the United States.”
In a statement, Gosar denounced Holder’s continued refusal to comply with lawfully issued subpoenas and other official congressional requests for information.
“It is imperative that the citizens of our nation have confidence in our Attorney General,” Gosar said in the statement. “After months of evasive answers, silence and outright lies it is time that Congress speak up on behalf of the many people who have or will fall victims to the firearms in the flawed gunrunning operation Fast & Furious.”
One year ago today, The Washington Postpublished its “Hidden Life of Guns” article exposing how under-regulated gun sales along the Mexican border were sending firearms into that country feeding its crime and instability.The paper’s four-reporter team operated as full-partners of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives PR department receiving internal statistics, documents and even an interrogation video.One of the two gun stores were correctly singled out by the Post: Lone Wolf in Arizona and Carter Country in Texas. But, one year later, we know it was for the wrong reasonsIt was on a Dec. 13 Houston’s KRIV-TV news broadcast that the lawyer for Carter Country, responding to that morning’s report in the Post, made the outrageous charge that agents from the BATFE actively encouraged reluctant Carter Country employees to sell weapons to suspected “straw purchasers.”
Nearly two-dozen Republicans are backing legislation stating that Congress “has lost confidence” in Eric Holder to continue as attorney general.
The resolution, introduced by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and supported by 21 GOP co-sponsors, resolves “that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress has lost confidence in the Attorney General of the United States.”
“At some point these guns are going to end up killing either a government of Mexico official, a police officer, or military folks, and then what are we going to do? There was complete silence on the other end of the phone…”
He (Gil) would ask (his superiors) repeatedly:
“When is this case going to shut down? The Mexicans are going to have a fit when they find out about it. You’re (speaking of himself, here) in Mexico… have limited diplomatic immunity…and the government is looking at you as potentially bringing weapons into their country (which in many cases is an act of war!), and they’re already very worried about their sovereignty down there, and the ATF agents let this happen. There are agents all across Mexico, and their safety should be the number one priority, and these folks are in that much more danger, now.”
One of those agents in Mexico watched Eric Holder’s testimony before Congress, last Thursday, and weighed in with this acerbic response at the whistle-blower forumClean-up ATF :
Posted 09 December 2011 – 11:47 AM
An Open Letter to Attorney General Holder
Dear AG Holder:
From deep inside Mexico, thanks to streaming video, I was able to watch and listen to the entire House Judiciary Committee hearing. I’m a registered
Independent – not Republican and not Democrat, so this is a non-partisan commentary. As I write this, my life, and the lives of my family members are more
at risk becase of the reckless actions of you and your ATF buddies allowing, facilitating and even paying for firearms to be smuggled into Mexico for
criminals.
Wow! You really made points with us when you refused to acknowledge you were under oath.
How many times did you answer “I don’t know”? You must be the most “know nothing” Attorney General in history.
Funny, you had the answers for all the other issues brought up during the hearing…..
You said those who created “Fast & Furious” will be held accountable, but you still don’t know who did it and no one will be fired? You have to consider
their overall service to the department???? Do you consider their overall service for any other crime?
It’s been nearly a year since you assigned the investigation of Fast & Furious to the DOJ IG, although not in writing. Interesting. So, the DOJ is
investigating itself? How long does it take for the IG to investigate? Is this the same IG that cooked up the false $16 muffin story? Is this the same IG
that took (as gospel) ATF’s word that 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico and traced came from the U.S. – statistics later discredited – by ATF themselves?
We watched and listened as you and your Democrat sycophants on the Committee parroted the same tired scripted mantra praising you for advancing gun control
and begging for more gun regulations and more ATF funding. The same old figures were quoted about how many guns were traced from Mexico. Did your figures
include all the duplicate traces from Mexico? All the.22 rabbit rifles and farmer’s shotguns that Mexico traced? Did they include 100 year old guns used by Pancho Villa? Did you explain that the average age of those guns traced from Mexico is over 14 years? ATF calls that “time to crime”, but may have nothing to do with a crime.
Did you explain that as far back as 1992, and as recently as 2009, the Congressional Research Service warned against the use of statistics from ATF’s
tracing system? Did you also not read their warning, “The ATF tracing system is an operational system designed to help law enforcement agencies identify the
ownership path of individual firearms. It was not designed to collect statistics.”? Or did you simply ignore it?
Did you explain that the new multiple rifle regulation which you are so strongly supporting would not have stopped a single Fast & Furious gun from being
smuggled to Mexico? And won’t stop any future smuggling? And the multiple rifle purchase report requirement is so overly-broad that it includes 50 to 100 year
old rifles of interest only to collectors – which will now be reported as ‘crime guns’? What’s with that? Oh, yeah….. Those sales are now permanently ‘registered’
in ATF registration databases. Was this supposed to be “under the radar”, too?
Did you explain why your buddies at ATF are reporting personal information (name, address, height, weight, date of birth, drivers license number, etc.) of totally innocent American gun owners to corrupt Mexican cops – through eTrace? Enough information for ID theft? These gun owners may have disposed of the guns many years ago – but ATF still reports the original owner as a ‘suspect’ to Mexican cops. Thanks a lot. That makes me feel really good while I’m here in Mexico….. Have you forgotten that in Mexico, you’re guilty until proven innocent?
So this is the “Most Transparent Administration” in history? Well, on that issue, that’s right. With your performance in front of the Committee, and your
obstruction of justice and obfuscation of the issues, you were completely transparent. Everyone could see right through you. And you’re refusing to release
any more documents? What could be more transparent than that? Wow!
Watching you in front of the Committee, for the first time in my life, you make me ashamed to be an American. Hell, Watergate was easier to understand….., and people didn’t die. How many people are going to be killed as a consequence of Fast & Furious?
How do I explain to my Mexican friends and associates why ATF has illegally armed Mexican criminal gangs? And no one has gone to jail, or been fired, or
suspended, or even identified…..? Isn’t that great for international relations…..
Mr. Attorney General, you will be held accountable – by the American People.
Is the ATF’s Kevin Crenshaw, the first head to roll?
Posted 09 December 2011 – 05:33 PM
Patriot, on 09 December 2011 – 10:51 AM, said: The most encouraging news I have heard is that Crenshaw is the first of many shoes to drop. I hope the housecleaning picks up the pace. Not only will we finally be rid of bad managers, but launching these people will save salaries for which we not getting anything in return but bad decisions. I can’t wait for Crenshaw to use the defense of “my boss approved what I did”. As if that is an acceptable reason for suspending the rules of ethics.
***
My prediction on Crenshaw, if he is indeed one of the snakes, is that he starts threatening to turn in ATF executives X, Y, and Z for their various corrupt practices and his firing is reduced to days on the beach at most, and the severity of his suspension will likely depend on what dirt he has on X, Y, and Z. It’s a bit tricky to fire someone who can take you down with them. And let’s face it, there is so much dirt in ATF Management and the CCO, that for him not to have plenty of mud to sling would be highly unlikely.
***
ATF has protected the executives for so long and it is all coming back on them all at once. After the Crenshaw termination word on the streets is that Horace, O’Brien, Vido, Torres and the rest of the corrupt SAC’s are all laying low knowing that their day is coming soon. The truth never changes and you can only run from it for so long.
…Crenshaw knows where the bodies are buried as he ran IA. Expect him to leverage his dirt for a better deal. Anticipate him getting off the hook in exchange for his sitting quite on teh criminal acts, corruption, office sex, etc., of our
“leaders”. In Chicago when he was the ASAC and Ford was the SAC, they loved to have agents see them getting their shoes shined together. Some humility might have gone a long way. Ford appears to be safe but that “big pimpin” attitude has set an entire agency against him.
***
I don’t see an official announcement of his firing, anywhere, yet.
Here he is in a video Posted October 22:
White Center Now/West Seattle Blog video of ATF’s Kelvin Crenshaw at the Operation Center of Attention announcement.
A crowd assembles at Union station in Kansas City to hear Turk’s announcement.
On Monday, Dec.12, 2011, Jacob Turk held a press conference in front of supporters at Union Station in Kansas City to announce his candidacy for Congress in Missouri’s 5th district. This is his fourth attempt at unseating Emanuel “Spittlegate” Cleaver,after coming within single digits in 2010.
Stressing the need for a serious congressman in district 5 who will address the pressing issues of jobs, fiscal responsibility, and restoring integrity and honor in DC, Turk stated that we can turn things around with leadership constituents can trust.
I managed to get a question in after the presser was over:
I’ve always been inclined to like the guy – but no more. No more. I can’t see how any right-minded, self-respecting Republican can have anything to do with Glenn Beck at this point.
Glenn Beck said this morning on his radio show that if Newt Gingrich is the nominee and Ron Paul runs third party, he’d consider voting for Ron Paul over Newt Gingrich, and he hates Ron Paul’s policies on the Middle East.
Watch video at the site.
He’d throw Israel under the bus over Gingrich?
Unbelievable. I understand that politics gets a little heated at times, and we have our little disagreements over candidates – but this? This is crazy and suicidal. Beck has a large audience, and I hope to heck most of them leave him over this.
Apparently some among us talk a good game about the crucial need of removing Obama from office, but sort of have a kind of Battered Wife Syndrome, and just can’t quit the big lug.
That’s about the long and short of it.
I can only hope (and pray) that Ron Paul has enough love for his country that he not do this.
Conservative radio host Michael Savage is offering Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich $1 million if he drops out of the GOP race within the next 72 hours,according to a message on his website.
“Newt Gingrich is unelectable. Mitt Romney is the only candidate with a chance of defeating Barack Obama, and there is nothing more important than that for the future health, safety, and security of the United States of America,” the statement read. “Therefore I am offering Newt Gingrich one million dollars to drop out of the presidential race for the sake of the nation.”
Savage and Beck could team up, but I think Savage may have poisoned the well when he called Beck a “hemorrhoid with eyes”:
“Now we’ve got a guy on the conservative band who is equally – shall I say – cynical, crazy, manipulative, political or what and we’re not supposed to notice this?”
Takes one to know one.
UPDATE II:
Via BloggerGunny, Beck is taking a beating on his own website. Commenters on this post; Glenn to respond to “big government GOP progressives” on GBTV tonightare letting him have it with both barrels. First the tea partiers are racist if they vote for Newt slur, (with which the left is predictably having a field day) and now this third party crap has people up in arms.
And what’s with the “big government GOP progressives” crap. Nice Deb is anything but a “big government GOP progressive” and I think he’s full of excrement. GBTV may as well be The Alex Jones Show at this point.
Hey, guess what? – Soon to be impeached Attorney General Eric Holder is heading to Texas to make announcement about voter integrity laws – because when he’s not lying about his agency’s involvement in running guns to Mexican Drug Cartels, he’s making sure that American citizens no longer have any confidence in voter integrity. You see, to a Dem’s way of thinking, we should be focused on is voter disenfranchisement – (no, not disenfranchisement of military personnel overseas, silly!) Disenfranchisement of people who are burdened by *the man* to show any form of I.D. at the polls. They say this type of oppressive, fascistic voter suppression harkens back to the Jim Crow South, and it will not be tolerated in ObamAmerica. The DNC even launched a website to push back against common sense voter integrity laws with the Orwellian name:Protecting the Vote- (which would be better named “Protecting the Fraud”).
Anyhoo - atBig Government, J Christian Adams has issued an all points bulletin, alerting Texans to the news that the most corrupt and radical Attorney General in American history is heading their way:
On Tuesday, Americans will have a rare chance to voice their disdain of the corruption and lies flowing from this Justice Department. They will have a chance to speak out against the radical and racialist law enforcement priorities of this Justice Department. Eric Holder comes to Austin, Texas to make a major announcement about voting laws, probably to acquiesce to some loud demand of the NAACP to block state efforts to ensure voter integrity. But a counter-rally organized by Catherine Engelbrecht and True the Vote will greet Eric Holder’s appearance in Austin, Texas at the LBJ Library at 4 p.m. America is invited, and here is a flier with details.
You have a First Amendment right to petition your government for redress of grievances. Use it. So rarely has so much been worth grieving.
As bad as Watergate was, it didn’t involve hundreds of murders, dead American law enforcement agents, and the illegal distribution of thousands of firearms. How long has it been since an Attorney General appeared before Congress and words such as “contempt” and “impeachment” were used by members as they were last week?
The Fast and Furious scandal isn’t the only mess overseen by Eric Holder. His entire tenure has been characterized by racialist radicalism, disguised to some critics as mere incompetence. But it is far worse than incompetence, and to think otherwise is a mistake. From the dismissal of the voter intimidation case against racist anti-Semitic New Black Panther thugs, to the Mirandizing of battlefield captures in Afghanistan, Holder has presided over a systemic radicalization of the most powerful federal agency. This isn’t incompetence. It is radicalism.
Why Gingrich’s statement two days ago in which he called the Palestinians an “invented” people is considered controversial, is a mystery to me. Yet, in the GOP debate in Iowa Saturday night, Romney called Gingrich’s words incendiary and a mistake. Gingrich, to his great credit, stood his ground.
“Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth: These people are terrorists,” he said. “They teach terrorism in their schools. They have textbooks that say, ‘If there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left?’”
Romney said such talk did Israel little good.
“Therefore, before I made a statement of that nature, I’d get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say, ‘Would it help if I said this? What would you like me to do? Let’s work together because we’re partners.’ I’m not a bomb thrower, rhetorically or literally,” Romney said.
So Romney is so timid, he would literally pick up the phone to ask “his friend Bibi” whether he should speak the truth about Palestine? Oh man….
“I happen to agree with most of what [Gingrich] said, except by going out and saying the Palestinians are an invented people,” Romney said, calling Gingrich’s remark “a mistake.” But the former Massachusetts governor stopped short of actually weighing in on the issue of Palestinian peoplehood, referring the matter to Israel, which, Romney seemed to claim, should be the one deciding whether Palestinians are indeed a people.
“We’re going to tell the truth but we’re not going to throw incendiary words into a place which is a boiling pot, when our friends the Israelis will probably say ‘what the hell are you doing?’”
For his part, Gingrich refused to take back his controversial comments. Although his campaign issued a statement earlier Saturday expressing support, albeit a cautious and reserved expression of support, for a two-state solution, once on the stage at the ABC debate in Iowa, Gingrich dug his heels in, saying that his claim was based on historical truth.
“Somebody ought to have the courage to say the truth,” Gingrich said after detailing a list of accusations against the Palestinian Authority, “These people are terrorists. They teach terrorism in their schools…That’s fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and say ‘enough lying about the Middle East.’”
This line of argument seemed to play well with the conservative audience in Iowa, which responded with cheers to the comments by Gingrich.
He concluded his defense of his words by invoking Reagan:
“I think sometimes it is helpful to have a president of the United States with the courage to tell the truth. Just as it was Reagan who went around his entire national security apparatus to call the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire.’ Reagan believed the power of truth restated the world and reframed the world. I’m a Reaganite. I’m proud to be a Reaganite. I will tell the truth, even if it causes some confusion sometimes with the timid.”
In honor of the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mary Ever Virgin, Dec 8: David Haas’s beautiful Magnificat -
I usually prefer to hear that sung by a woman – because it’s Mary’s song – but this guy sang and played it so well. Just excellently done. Chills.
I offer also for your enjoyment, Magnificat by Johann Sebastian Bach. Conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt:
JS Bach’s Magnificat, is a canticle, a sacred music of praise by Mary, on learning she’ll give birth to Christ. Bach’s Magnificat brief history, and other information.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Magnificat, text from the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 1, Verses 46-55, is a sacred hymn of praise traditionally presented for Christmas. The original language is in Latin, a word for a canticle of the Virgin Mary (“My soul doth magnify the Lord”) as it appears in St. Luke’s Gospel. The first performance was in the church of St. Thomas in Leipzig, Christmas Vespers (1723).
Written by Bach in 1723, the first version was in E-flat major. It was revised in 1732 to form the second version in D major, the only one in existence today. Magnificat is composed of 12 musical numbers. The cast has five solo voices, five-part mixed chorus, flutes, oboes, trumpets, timpani, strings, continuo with cello, contrabass, bassoon, and organ.
Johann Sebastian Bach, (1685-1750), a German composer and organist, was born in Eisenach, Germany. He was a contemporary of George Frideric Handel.
Coach is Right supplies some background on the withdrawn Feb. 4th letter at issue:
When Dennis Burke resigned his post as US Attorney for the Phoenix district in August it was with the devout hope his role as local overseer of Operation Fast and Furious would be forgiven and forgotten by the House and Senate committees investigating the criminal gun smuggling affair.
After all, liberal Democrats consider the “willing” abandoning of power the greatest and most meaningful sacrifice of all, a literal falling on the sword worthy of eternal praise! After such an act of supreme contrition, any notion of additional punishment should be unthinkable, an uncivilized display of piling on!
But Burke’s attempt to gracefully retreat from Fast and Furious responsibility suffered a serious blow in Friday’s Department of Justice document dump as his former DOJ colleagues released memos and emails placing the blame for “misstatements” made by the Department to congressional high inquisitors Grassley and Issa directly on Burke’s head. If fear caused the former Janet Napolitano assistant to throw up at his last committee appearance, any future command performance before Congress will likely result in a call for paramedics.
At the center of this latest document release is the February 4th letter addressed to congress by Assistant Attorney General Ron Weich. In it he stated categorically that any “…allegation…that ATF ‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser who then transported them to Mexico—is false.” Of course, testimony and information gathered by House and Senate committees during the course of the year make it quite clear that the deliberate transport of weapons across the Mexican border isexactly what happened.
Therefore on Friday the Weich letter was formally withdrawn by Deputy Attorney General James Cole. “Facts have come to light during the course of this investigation that indicate the Feb. 4th letter contains inaccuracies,” wrote Cole is his accompanying letter to congress. And why is that?
Enter AG, Eric Holder, who wants us to believe that Asst. Attorney General, Weich was duped by “those disreputable people in far off Arizona”, using the George Costanza Method of lying to do so:
Uh oh, you better watch out, in this Christmas themed video, the elves have gone #Occupy, and they are not happy with the “fat cat”who’s running things at the North Pole.
Via Freedom’s Lighthouse:New Cartoon Video Imagines what an “Occupy North Pole Movement” Would be Like!
Made me smile: Hallelujah Chorus -Quinhagak, Alaska:
One more Christmas video – The Carpenters – Merry Christmas Darling (original 1970 single version):
I heard this in the car earlier this week, as I was taking my daughters home from dance class. Got a little choked up telling them about Karen’s tragically young death from anorexia….such a waste – such a talent. She was the best female singer of her age, in my opinion:
Bill Whittle looks at recent examples outrageous behavior in America. From Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky, to the NOAA, which seized a man’s prize 881-pound tuna, there is an outrage overload occurring in our culture. Let Bill Whittle help you deal with the outrage.
Speaking of “outrage”, here are a couple more choice videos from the Thursday hearing on Capitol Hill where sparks flew and Holder is still licking his wounds…
Rep. Chaffetz, unable to conceal his contempt with AG Holder, asks: Where Is Communication B/W DOJ, Obama Administration, & Mexican Gov’t?:
The Republicans are not only sick of the lies and obstruction – they are sick of having their intelligence insulted by Holder’s nonsense. Like our next contestant -
Via The Other McCain: Rep. Sandy Adams Grilled Holder Over Fast and Furious Operation – (a better description would be – she raked him over the coals):
Obama’s Divide & Conquer scheme dissected by Charles Krauthammer:
It seems that he and his policies have nothing to do with the current state of things. Sure, presidents are ordinarily held accountable for economic growth, unemployment, national indebtedness (see Obama, above). But not this time. Responsibility, you see, lies with the rich.
Or, as the philosophers of Zuccotti Park call them, the 1 percent. For Obama, these rich are the ones holding back the 99 percent. The “breathtaking greed of a few” is crushing the middle class. If only the rich paid their “fair share,” the middle class would have a chance. Otherwise, government won’t have enough funds to “invest” in education and innovation, the golden path to the sunny uplands of economic growth and opportunity.
Where to begin? A country spending twice as much per capita on education as it did in 1970 with zero effect on test scores is not underinvesting in education. It’s mis-investing. As for federally directed spending on innovation — like Solyndra? Ethanol? The preposterously subsidized, flammable Chevy Volt?
Our current economic distress is attributable to myriad causes: globalization, expensive high-tech medicine, a huge debt burden, a burst housing bubble largely driven by precisely the egalitarian impulse that Obama is promoting (government aggressively pushing “affordable housing” that turned out to be disastrously unaffordable), an aging population straining the social safety net. Yes, growing inequality is a problem throughout the Western world. But Obama’s pretense that it is the root cause of this sick economy is ridiculous.
Iran is conducting anti-U.S. operations from Latin America, including military training camps in Venezuela, and expanding its reach across the border from the U.S. in Mexico, according to footage unveiled late Thursday by the largest Spanish-language network in the United States, Univision.
The documentary showed a former Iran senior official accepting a plan to launch from Mexico a cyber war on the United States, one that would cripple U.S. computer systems, including the White House, the FBI, the CIA and several nuclear plants. The official, former Iranian Ambassador to Mexico Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri, was shown accepting the offer from undercover Mexican university students. A trailer to the documentary can be seen here.
The documentary also showed the undercover Mexican students presenting plans for the cyber attack to Venezuelan officials in Mexico. The Venezuelan official was very receptive to the plot, saying that she was close to Venezuela’s hard-leftist President Hugo Chavez and that she would love to share the information with him as soon as possible. The same happened with Cuban officials in Mexico, who were equally interested in a plot against the United States.
The students in the documentary appeared to have conducted a sting operation similar to the reports carried out by the American journalist James O’Keefe in the U.S.
The documentary, called “The Iranian Threat,” said that undercover journalists were also able to infiltrate Iranian military training camps working from mosques in Venezuela, though it showed no actual footage of the camps. Univision alleged there were links between the alleged camps and a radical Muslim implicated in the 1994 Buenos Aires bombing of a Synagogue that killed 85 and wounded hundreds. The Iranian lives in Argentina, a country which also has strong ties to Chavez.
Ties between the hard line Islamist government in Tehran and the anti-American government of President Hugo Chavez have been growing for years, including a weekly secretive Cairo-Tehran flight that is of grave concerns to U.S. officials.
Matthew Boyle has been on the ” Retire Holder” beat for The Daily Callerfor the past several weeks. The latest call for the embattled Attorney General to step down comes from SC Rep Gowdy, who says Holder “needs to go now.”
South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy told Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer on Friday morning that Attorney General Eric Holder “needs to go now.”
Gowdy, who has been intimately involved with the House oversight committee investigation into Operation Fast and Furious, became the 54th congressman to demand Holder’s resignation. Gowdy adds that he backs Wisconsin Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s suggestion “100 percent” that impeachment proceedings may be necessary to remove the attorney general from office.
Hemmer asked if the oversight committee has the power to impeach Holder. Gowdy responded, “Absolutely.”
“I hope it doesn’t get to that,” Gowdy added. “I hope he gets the message.”
I somehow missed this whopper, yesterday – probably because I was more focused on Fast and Furious questions, and tended to ignore the Democrat boot-lickers’ questions.
Kerry Picket at The Washington Times Water Cooler flags this incredible moment that was probably designed to prop Holder up, but actually just highlighted what a bold-faced liar he is:
“The last administration was cited for political hiring within the civil rights division. Have you continued that political hiring in violation of the law?” asked Rep. Bobby Scott, Virginia Democrat.
“We hire people in the Civil Rights Division on the basis of their experience. Their commitment to that which the Civil Rights Division has historically stood for—people who are going to be good litigators. People who are going to work hard. We don’t hire people on the basis of political or ideological affiliations,” General Holder responded.
A.G. Holder’s response was curious, as Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation Hans von Spakovsky showed that the attorneys who have been hired since Holder was appointed have only been explicitly from the activist ideological Left.
Bryan Sells: Mr. Sells was recently hired as one of the Voting Section’s new deputy chiefs. He comes to the Department from the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, where he worked for nearly 10 years as a Senior Staff Counsel. During his tenure, his organization strongly opposed all voter ID laws, and challenged the right of states to verify the U.S. citizenship of individuals seeking to register to vote. He also characterized state felon disenfranchisement laws – which are expressly authorized in the Constitution — as a “slap in the face to democracy,” and consistently took the most aggressive (and generally legally unsupportable) positions on redistricting cases throughout the country.
Meredith Bell-Platts:The other new deputy chief hired by the Voting Section, Meredith Bell-Platts, also comes from the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, where she, too, spent nearly 10 years. Much of her time there was devoted to blasting voter ID requirements, which she claimed were motivated by people who do not want to see blacks vote (an issue on which she consistently lost in court). Before arriving at the ACLU, Ms. Bell-Platts was a founding member of the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law, a publication whose stated “mission is to explore the impact of gender, sexuality, and race on both the theory and practice of law” and thereby “complement[] a long tradition of feminist scholarship and advocacy at the [Georgetown] Law Center.”
Read more from the list at the link, and weep.
Not only have they been hiring only people from the far left, according to J Christian Adams, they’ve been disqualifying better qualified attorneys in favor of far left loons. As he says, “Pure crazy radicalism”has been going on at Holder’s DOJ behind closed doors. A culture of lawlessness has taken over the Justice Dept.
In fact, according to Adams, millions and millions of dollars of court sanctions have been imposed against lawyers at the Holder’s Justice Dept for misconduct. During the Bush years, it was – $0.
Lachlan Markay over at Heritage notes that of the 15 lawyers hired under Holder:
“Social justice,” “gender identity,” “human rights,” “diversity,” and other such politically correct buzzwords pepper the summary of these hires’ professional backgrounds and educations. Attorneys have worked to give convicted felons voting rights, and asylum to illegal immigrants. Conspicuously absent is any hire who has devoted his or her career to constitutional scholarship or – heaven forbid – criminal prosecution or civil defense.
