Saturday Movie Matinee: Democrats vs Republicans on Contempt Vote

Today’s theme is Democrats vs Republicans on the vote to hold Holder in Contempt of Congress.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t home for the full House Contempt vote, last Thursday, so I had to miss most of the floor speeches. I did turn on my CSPAN iphone ap when I had a chance to listen in when I could, and remember being aghast when I heard Democrat voices like Hank Johnson’s coming through…

I don’t know what to tell you other than, this guy don’t know sh*t from shinola, but he’s a pretty good representation of the caliber of argument coming from the House Democrats.

Georgia’s own Hank (Guam could Capsize!) Johnson, put on his legal scholar hat to explain to the ignorant masses that we just have to trust that there is a good reason for Holder (?!) to invoke executive privilege.

He also explained how the Republicans leaders at the beginning of Obama’s presidency were;

“scheming to disrupt, and uh….say no… and obstruct everything the President put forth….  They have done everything they can to make the President look bad. This is a manufactured crisis, it has no legal substance whatsoever, this is just simply a cheap stunt to bring disfavor on the President of the United States. And I ask my colleagues to not let us sink to this level……this is truly saddening.”

I’m sorry, the average Joe could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and crap out a smarter statement than that.

And now, here’s an emotional, but as always, highly articulate, and well reasoned Trey Gowdy explaining the reason for the contempt vote: “The same rules apply to everyone”…

“For those of you who want a negotiation, a compromise, an extraordinary accommodation, (to use the Attorney General’s words), for those of you who want to plea bargain, my question to you is simply this; will you settle for 75 of the truth? Is 50 of the truth enough for you? A third? Or do you want it all? Because if you want it all you want all the documents….”

Dem Rep Cohen (TN) says GOP focus on Fast and Furious, (which started under the Bush administration) is “misplaced”, and like Johnson, advances the theory that the Republicans are just out to get Obama.

Compare to Rep Jason Chaffetz’s (UT) reasoned and fact filled defense of the contempt of Congress vote on House floor:

Former prosecutor Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) defends Attorney General Eric Holder, saying that we should be focused on stopping the gun violence that spills across the border, but instead are inexplicably focusing on documents.

Everything in this speech is designed to obfuscate and deceive:

In his one minute speech, Speaker of the House, John Boehner explains “how we got here, and the acts of the case”. He argues that by invoking executive privilege, the Obama administration has   “left us no other options”.

Are Democrats across America proud of how their Reps conducted themselves regarding a scandal that is already much worse than Watergate because it has a body count, and with 1000 weapons still out there, unaccounted for, a body count that is certain to grow? Are you proud of their “circle the wagons” loyalty to party over principle?

SEE ALSO:

Doug Ross: Sharyl Attkisson double-taps Eric Holder on CBS News: perjury, cover-up and retribution confirmed:

Thanks to heroes like Dodson and Forcelli, as well as true journalists like Sipsey Street Irregulars, Gun Rights Examiner and Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News, it will become increasingly difficult for vintage media to ignore the utter lawlessness of Eric Holder and his out-of-control DOJ.

Oh, and as for the results of Holder’s “internal investigation” by the DOJ “inspector general”, which has been supposedly been underway since February 2011 — 18 months, or 50 percent longer than the Warren Commission investigation into JFK’s assassination — not a single word has been forthcoming.

Rep. Issa: it’s time to subpoena Holder’s “inspector general” Cynthia A. Schnedar. It’s time to find out what she knows and when she knew it. Or she can take the Fifth, which would tell us everything we need to know.

Gretawire: Rep. Jason Chaffetz ‘On the Record’

Watch to the very end where she asks him, “Do you have more? Do you have any sources or whistleblowers that have sort of piqued your interest….”

Chaffetz: “Yes. Yes. Absolutely.”

There is more coming.

Karol Markowicz: Opinion: Fast and Furious – and Eric Holder’s Mistake – is Deadly Serious

I’m not going to give you the whole the-media-would-lap-up-this-scandal-if-the-president-was-Republican song and dance though it’s obvious to anyone paying any attention that they would. I just want to focus on the latest spin from the media on the whole story. It had two parts. Part 1 is “who cares?” and part 2 is “let’s make fun of those who do care.”

Take Roger Simon from Politico. He’s their Chief Political Columnist, which sounds pretty serious. So it’s strange that a serious Chief Political Columnist would tweet this yesterday:

Think House GOP now sorta regrets scheduling its Holder contempt vote for today? ‪#WhoStillCares

Who still cares that the U.S. government sold guns to Mexican gangs? I care. Brian Terry’s family cares. I’m sure the families of the hundreds of Mexicans who were killed with these guns care. I guess a “Chief Political Columnist” doesn’t have to worry about stray bullets from these guns but those who do CARE.

The Chief Political Columnist then tweeted:

If guns don’t kill people, but people kill people, why are conservatives upset over Fast & Furious

I guess in the Beltway this might be a…joke? In the rest of the country it’s an eyeroll.

Big Government: Fast and Furious: Dead Fish Stink from the Head Down:

Back in 2009, I was in Del Rio, Texas, attending a Texas Border Sheriff’s Coaliton conference. During one particular Q and A session, the Obama liaison from the Department of Homeland Security kept focusing on stopping the southern flow of guns and money into Mexico.

Linked by Pirate’s Cove,thanks!

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Issa Puts Details of Secret Wiretap Applications in Congressional Record (Update!: ATF Honcho: “ATF Needs to F—k” Whistleblowers)

More “political gamesmanship” from the GOP via Ace of Spades HQ:

This is that red-banner headline Drudge has — but the site is overloaded and can’t be reached.

But JohnE. reached it earlier, and sent it by email.

This is from Roll Call. Update: Link now appears to be working.

Darrell Issa Puts Details of Secret Wiretap Applications in Congressional Record

By Jonathan Strong
Roll Call Staff
June 29, 2012, 12:06 p.m.

…

In the midst of a fiery floor debate over contempt proceedings for Attorney General Eric Holder, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) quietly dropped a bombshell letter into the Congressional Record.

The May 24 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the panel, quotes from and describes in detail a secret wiretap application that has become a point of debate in the GOP’s “Fast and Furious” gun-walking probe.

The wiretap applications are under court seal, and releasing such information to the public would ordinarily be illegal. But Issa appears to be protected by the Speech or Debate Clause in the Constitution, which offers immunity for Congressional speech, especially on a chamber’s floor.

According to the letter, the wiretap applications contained a startling amount of detail about the operation, which would have tipped off anyone who read them closely about what tactics were being used.

Holder and Cummings have both maintained that the wiretap applications did not contain such details and that the applications were reviewed narrowly for probable cause, not for whether any investigatory tactics contained followed Justice Department policy.

KABOOM!

I’ve gotta run, you can read Ace’s reaction, here.

UPDATE:

Via Matthew Boyle of The Daily Caller: Grassley: Politics in US attorney’s decision not to prosecute Holder?

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is pressing Ron Machen, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, to explain whether political interference has blocked him from prosecuting Attorney General Eric Holder, whom the House of Representatives held in criminal contempt yesterday.

After the contempt vote, Deputy Attorney General James Cole wrote to House Speaker John Boehner saying the administration has decided it won’t ask Machen to enforce the resolution.

“The Department has determined that the Attorney General’s response to the subpoena issued by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform does not constitute a crime, and therefore the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General,” Cole wrote.

But in a letter to Machen, Grassley wrote Friday that the U.S. attorney doesn’t appear to have personally made the decision not to prosecute. It appears, he wrote, that Holder or some other political figure in the Obama administration made it for him, and that the decision seems to lack even the appearance of “independence.”

This Attorney General is as clean as a whistle. Those awful Republicans just need to stop being motivated by partisan politics…

UPDATE:

This was posted on the Clean-up ATF whistleblower website, today:

We are midst of never before seen levels of corruption, mismanagement and deceit at DOJ and ATF.The conduct of DOJ is mind-blowing.What has and is taking place at ATF is never going away until it is addressed with something other than words of false promise. Excuses and a failure to react/address do not fly with ATF Agents. Someone has to find the character to walk the walk and stop talking.The executives know full well what happened in Fast and Furious. They know the who, what, when, where, why and how. They know.That level of understanding also applies to the Reno Field Office, the preferred treatment for SES’s in trouble, the issues affecting moral, and the individual issues of Vince Cefalu, all the whistleblowers, Jay Dobyns and everything else dirty about our agency.The leadership of DOJ and ATF all know what time it is on every aspect of every dispute. They know.

UPDATE!

Matthew Boyle, The Daily Caller: Issa, Grassley release details about Fast and Furious whistleblower retaliation, cover-up:

In a Friday letter to the DOJ’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Grassley and Issa said they’re now concerned retaliation is much more likely following Thursday’s votes to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal and civil contempt of Congress.

“We just learned that ATF senior management placed two of the main whistleblowers who have testified before Congress about Fast and Furious under the supervision of someone who vowed to retaliate against them,” they wrote before describing how senior political figures have made dangerous threats before.

Grassley and Issa said that in early 2011, right around the time Grassley first made public the whistleblowers’ allegations about Fast and Furious, Scot Thomasson – then the chief of the ATF’s Public Affairs Division – said, according to an eyewitness account: “We need to get whatever dirt we can on these guys [the whistleblowers] and take them down.”

Thomasson also allegedly said that: “All these whistleblowers have axes to grind. ATF needs to f—k these guys.”

According to Grassley and Issa, when Thomasson was asked about whistleblowers’ allegations that guns were allowed to walk, Thomasson said he “didn’t know and didn’t care.”

The  details of secret wiretap applications that Issa put into the Congressional Record can be found here.

RELATED:

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

Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama’s transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.

When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.

I guess so.

SEE ALSO:

Doug Ross: Sharyl Attkisson double-taps Eric Holder on CBS News: perjury, cover-up and retribution confirmed

Linked by Points and Figures, thanks!

Friday Free-For All: ObamaTax = “Major Fraud”

Obama still hasn’t figured out how arrogant and unpresidential public gloating like this looks to the average American…especially since most of us oppose ObamaTax:

Via Weasel Zippers:

Still a BFD: OFA.BO/ayPgAZ

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 29, 2012

So be it. We’ll see how well such arrogance serves him, this November.

Gateway Pundit: Top Lawyer Arguing Against Obamacare Says Democrats Committed “Major Fraud” By Not Honestly Representing Obamacare As a Massive New Tax (Video):

Attorney Michael Carvin, one of the lawyers arguing against ObamaCare in front of Supreme Court, told Megyn Kelly that a major fraud had been perpetrated on the American people. If Obamacare would have honestly been represented as the largest tax in history it never would have passed through Congress. Democrats kept this a secret from the American people. Chief Justice Roberts yesterday, in some bizarre twist of logic, decided that it was indeed a massive tax.
Americans, you’ve been had.

Watch the videos via Andrew Kaczynski of Buzzfeed: Five Times The Obama Adminstration Said The Individual Mandate Was Not A Tax.

The Shark Tank: Hillary Clinton Calls Obama a Liar in Romney Video:

I am just going to let this video speak for themselves. Obama has shown a pattern of lies and distortions dating back to the 2008 Democratic Presidential primary race against Hillary Clinton. Watch the video, and see how Hillary smacks him down.

He continues spending millions of dollars, perpetuating falsehoods.So shame on you Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton.

Ace: Obama’s “Crowning Achievement” Is… A Tax:

But now, about that ObamaTax.

Now, Republicans can attack the law not only for being “big government” but for being a huge tax during in weak economy, adding burdens to middle class taxpayers and slowing economic growth. And the GOP doesn’t have to come up with a detailed plan to “replace” Obama’s health care plan.

And Bruce McQuain: Speaking of taxes, here are 20 new taxes ObamaCare imposes:

These via the Americans for Tax Reform.  Says the ATR:

Taxpayers are reminded that the President’s healthcare law is one of the largest tax increases in American history.

Indeed.  Tax increases which took place in 2010 after the passage of the bill:

Read it all…it’s a nightmare for the American taxpayer.

Like I said, yesterday; Republican candidates have been handed their campaign theme – they had better pound it. Most Americans don’t like being lied to.

The National Journal leaked yesterday:

“I’m sure they’ll nail us on taxes and I’m sure it will work,” said a senior White House official speaking on condition of anonymity. “But, given the alternative, that’s a bitter pill I’m ready to swallow.”

The White House, realizing how toxic this issue is to them, now essentially saying that the Supreme Court’s ruling was wrong.

Though SCOTUS upheld constitutionality of healthcare mandate under tax law, WH says today the penalty for not buying insurance is not a tax.

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) June 29, 2012

Unbelievable…

Via The Foundry: Sen. Jim DeMint’s Rallying Cry to Repeal Obamacare:

DeMint’s speech, which Heritage excerpted for this short video, came just two hours after the ruling shocked and disappointed many conservatives. After all, tea-party activists swept a group of freshmen lawmakers into the halls of Congress last year and their vote to repeal Obamacare was a major triumph. Equally disappointing for many was the court’s decision.

“We all knew when Obamacare passed that the urgent priority had to be the repeal of that bill and the replacing of the people who imposed it on the American people. That is still the priority today,” DeMint said at Heritage.

Good News for Mitt, via Buzzfeed: Health Care Verdict Drives Flood Of Small Contributions To Romney:

Romney, who has pledged to begin the process of repealing the bill on his first day in office, brought in over $3.2 million in online donations from more than 30,000 individual donors in the first 11 hours after the ruling, according to press secretary Andrea Saul. By contrast, in the entire month of May, Romney’s first month as the presumptive Republican nominee, the candidate listed 27,661 individual donations who reached the $200 reporting threshold on Federal Election Commission filings.

Get this:

The Obama campaign repeatedly declined to release information about their fundraising after the decision.

I know….they just don’t want to spike the football, muahahaha.

Neal Boortz for Townhall: The True Impact of the Obamacare Decision:

I spent the better part of yesterday listening to various pundits and reading blogs and columns about the ObamaCare decision. I think a lot of people are missing something here; missing something very important. The Court’s ruling on ObamaCare grants the Congress of the United States the power to command virtually any action – any action that would not in and of itself constitute a crime – of any individual in this country, and to demand compliance with that command or be penalized. The federal government can now regulate virtually any human activity in which you wish to engage, and to regulate whether or not you will be allowed to refuse to participate in that activity, so long as a penalty is attached to your noncompliance.

NRO Composium: What’s Next for the Opposition?

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled on the individual mandate, what’s next for both conservatives and the Republican party on health-care reform?

***

BRIAN BURCH notes:

Only one man in the last 40 years has been elected president without a majority of the Catholic vote. Even those Catholics who oppose elements of Church teaching don’t want the federal government forcing their Catholic school to provide sterilizations and abortion pills, which the HHS mandate would require. That’s why a majority of Catholicsfavor a clear exemption to the HHS mandate.

But President Obama has refused to grant a workable exemption to Catholic institutions and instead has sought to define the very criteria for what constitutes a religious group. And that’s why states with significant Catholic populations, such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, have suddenly become swing states. If Romney were to win just one of these states, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where Obama wins reelection.

AoSHQ: Liberals: Oh No You Can’t Use Reconciliation To Undo ObamaTax, Republican Senators: Oh Yes We Will:

Some pre-emptive butthurt from liberals:

@timothypmurphy: Old enough to remember when reconciliation was an unconscionable abuse of power.

Right, because only you get to use reconciliation to pass a bill, but it would be hypocritical of us to take you at your word — that the bill is subject to reconciliation — to repeal it.

Kaus wonders why liberals believe this.

Because liberals have the unique ability to suspend their disbelief if it benefits their side.

You can sign AFP’s Hands Off My Healthcare Petition, here.

Watch One Man Photoshop Machine, Slublog go a little crazy on Twitter

Twitchy: Obama’s gloating gone wrong

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Video: Krauthammer on Why Chief Justice Roberts Did It

A lot of people are speculating about what John Robert was up to with his ObamaCare decision, today.

Mark Levin is stunned, calling the decision “lawless”, and “a brutal assault on individual sovereignty….We had four justices, including Kennedy who wanted to throw the entire thing out. The Chief Justice saved it. We can repeal ObamaCare, but how do we fix the Constitution now that it’s been abused….again!”

Charles on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier thinks he knows why Roberts did it:

He cranked out a lengthier explanation for his Washington Post column:

National health care has been a liberal dream for a hundred years. It is clearly the most significant piece of social legislation in decades. Roberts’s concern was that the court do everything it could to avoid being seen, rightly or wrongly, as high-handedly overturning sweeping legislation passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the president.

How to reconcile the two imperatives — one philosophical and the other institutional? Assign yourself the task of writing the majority opinion. Find the ultimate finesse that manages to uphold the law, but only on the most narrow of grounds — interpreting the individual mandate as merely a tax, something generally within the power of Congress.

Result? The law stands, thus obviating any charge that a partisan court overturned duly passed legislation. And yet at the same time the commerce clause is reined in. By denying that it could justify the imposition of an individual mandate, Roberts draws the line against the inexorable decades-old expansion of congressional power under the commerce clause fig leaf.

Law upheld, Supreme Court’s reputation for neutrality maintained. Commerce clause contained, constitutional principle of enumerated powers reaffirmed.

That’s not how I would have ruled. I think the “mandate is merely a tax” argument is a dodge, and a flimsy one at that. (The “tax” is obviously punitive, regulatory and intended to compel.) Perhaps that’s not how Roberts would have ruled had he been just an associate justice and not the chief. But that’s how he did rule.

Some other Roberts friendly musings here, here and here, and especially here.

Holder Held In Contempt, 255-67, 100 Dems Walk Out – Issa’s Speech, Pelosi’s Insane Rant, Holder’s Bitter and Cynical Statement (Video)

The House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress a short while ago. The vote was 255 ayes, 67 nays, and 1 present vote for Contempt Perjury Lied to House. Ouch. Seventeen Democrats joined the Republicans to vote for contempt – 100 did not vote at all, opting to dramatically walk out of the chamber in protest –  talk about “gamesmanship”.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said on the House floor, “I never thought it would come to this.”

Pelosi, completely out of her mind, completely unable to deal with reality, said the contempt vote was “stunning”, and  “let’s just ignore the whole thing, and not dignify what they are doing and not be present on the floor when they do this heinous act…” Start at 7:00 for the best parts:

Eric Holder responded with a bitter and cynical statement that repeated the administration’s weak talking points, accusing the Republicans of advancing a “politically motivated” investigation during an election year  – in other words -accusing Republicans of  acting in bad faith, rather than in trying to get to the bottom of  what has been aptly dubbed “murdergate”. He patted himself on the back for taking action (only after whistleblowers had come forward), and only calling the Terry family to offer condolences after he had been shamed into it, and he decried what he called “reckless charges” and “truly absurd conspiracy theories”.

Uh huh. Alinsky would be proud.

This is a  tour de force of brazen corruption, dishonesty and incompetence:

Since this corrupt fool has no intention of stepping down, I hope the Republicans are ready for a protracted fight, and the Alinskite tactics that will be employed.

See Also:

Oversight and Reform: Issa Statement on Bipartisan Vote Holding Attorney General in Contempt over Refusal to Produce Fast and Furious Documents

Linked by Doug Ross, thanks!

Video: Obamatax

Obama’s candidacy in 2008, his presidency, his reelection – virtually everything he says –  is based on lies.  His biggest whopper of all?: “No taxes on the middle class.”

The great Jim Geraghty says: A Lot of Promises Reached Their Expiration Date Today.

Red State’s Ben Howe highlighted the duplicity in another excellent video:

This Supreme Court decision just gave Republicans their campaign theme.

UPDATE:

Via Weasel Zippers Romney’s new ad: “Day One, Job One, Repeal Obamacare”…

UPDATE II:

Weasel Zippers: White House Website Still Says Obamacare Individual Mandate Is Not A Tax…