When Is An ATF Agent Not An ATF Agent?

When he's a J. P. Morgan six-figure employee. Or at least that's what the Obama administration claims. In fact, Bill McMahon is drawing his full salary from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF, ATF) while working as a top security official at J. P. Morgan. Bill McMahon was the assistant director in the Phoenix office of ATF, and he was up to his neck in Operation Fast and Furious.

But now he's “on leave, drawing his full salary while awaiting complete vesting of his federal pension, medical and retirement benefits. Is this illegal? Maybe. Is it unethical? You bet your bippie it is, and at the same time it's another example of the favoritism and coverups being perpetrated by Barack Obama and Eric Holder.

One whistleblower in the Justice Department disputes the Department of Justice's conclusions about the dismissal of charges against the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia, and he's sent to the DOJ equivalent of Siberia. ATF Special Agent John Dodson gives testimony before Congress that points the finger at McMahon's involvement in Fast and Furious, and he is told that he must wait until the Inspector General's report is complete before the DOJ can consider retracting the false statements made about him by McMahon et al during testimony and in memos from DOJ to Congress. McMahon, on the other hand, gets sent to the Fountain of Wealth.

I should note that the Inspector General's report is now complete, but we can't see it, nor can Congress, because it is currently “under review” by Attorney General Holder and his political lawyers. These are the same people who time and again stonewalled Congress and/or simply refused to provide information requested by committees in both the House and the Senate. There is little doubt that McMahon was fully-involved and active in Fast and Furious, but it's unlikely to look that way when DOJ gets done tampering with the Inspector General's report

Billy Boy is doing just fine, making big bucks at J. P. Morgan while hiding from Congress and enjoying his “leave” from ATF. Committee head Darrell Issa in the House, and ranking committee minority member Chuck Grassley in the Senate are both demanding answers as to why McMahon is being allowed to double-dip and at the same time use his private employment as a shield from Congressional investigators. If for no other reason, shouldn't the Obama administration be miffed with McMahon for taking a job with one of those evil Wall Street corporations (sarcasm off)?

Hard evidence, including e-mails to and from McMahon were presented to Congress which proved conclusively that McMahon knew about Fast and Furious, and was actively involved in its planning and subsequent coverup. Yet McMahon continued to claim he was just a low-level agent who knew nothing about any of the details of Fast and Furious. In doing so, he also maligned the character and veracity of agent John Dodson and other ATF agents who testified clearly about McMahon's involvement. Right up until the heat was getting too great and he took his “leave.”

McMahon and his shysters at DOJ now claim that the “leave” means that McMahon is no longer technically a federal employee, and has every right to assert “no comment” to any questions posed to him as a private employee of J. P. Morgan. The final Congressional Report nevertheless found that McMahon's fingerprints were all over Fast and Furious. He was a high-level supervisor in Phoenix where the Fast and Furious operation was launched during his tenure.

His records and e-mails clearly show that he knew that straw purchasers had bought over nine hundred sophisticated weapons which ended up in the murderous hands of Mexican cartel members. At the hearings, McMahon even admitted that he rubber-stamped Fast and Furious documents without reading them, but that his actions were negligent rather than intentional. As if that matters. Either way, he is at least partially-responsible for a serious breach of national security and the duty to protect American citizens. He was a vital link between the Phoenix field office and ATF headquarters in Washington DC.

McMahon claimed that it was not his duty to as a mere supervisor to ask questions about operations in the field. Sounds a lot like “I was only following orders.” He did admit that it was his duty at least to review the documents in front of him, but that failure to do so was a minor failure, not even a dereliction of duty. If carefully monitoring agent activities was not his major duty as a supervisor, what was?

In the long run, McMahon's actions and inactions, followed by his lies and coverups, have left hundreds of innocent victims dead in Mexico and perhaps dozens on our side of the border. Poetic justice would require that McMahon and Holder be required to submit to a face-to-face confrontation with the loved ones and relatives of the dead, specifically including the family of murdered Border Agent Brian Terry. But that won't happen, because McMahon is busy performing his duties at J. P. Morgan and Holder is busy re-writing the Inspector General's report.

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While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Three years ago, the iconic Gibson Guitar Company was raided by the Gestapo federal agents, not once but twice. In the second raid, armed SWAT-like teams of federal officers with serious automatic weapons entered Gibson's factory and seized approximately a million dollars-worth of alleged contraband. Cocaine, you ask? Stinger missiles? Vats of moonshine? No, it wasn't any of those. It was exotic wood imported from India and Madagascar. Pretty dangerous stuff.

The great underlying felony was an alleged violation of the Lacey Act which bans the importation of loosely-defined endangered wood products. The two major woods involved in the raid are ebony and rosewood. India does not name either ebony or rosewood as endangered trees, but if the feds say they are, they must be. The act (if you can call it that) of possessing an inventory of exotic woods is not in and of itself a crime. Even the Lacey Act purports to regulate the importation of exotic woods, not to forbid it or make importation a criminal act. But concealment, now that might be a federal crime requiring a D-Day style invasion.

The raids were supposed to seize records which might indicate that at least some of the wood in Gibson's inventory was forbidden fruit, which then allowed a bootstrap armed raid to seize the wood which may or may not have been imported in violation of the Act. I haven't seen that much firepower since the feds grabbed little Elian Gonzales to send him off on a permanent vacation with his family in Cuba. I don't know what the feds expected. Look-alikes for Les Paul and Mary Ford armed with AK-47s and Uzis to keep them from seizing the fingerboards maybe?

This was all set up with the approval of President Barack Obama and his sterling Attorney General Eric Holder. It was one of their earliest “green preservation” initiatives. So you know there were no politics involved. In fact, Holder himself stated categorically: “ The actions that we take in all matters are based on the facts, the law, and the enforcement responsibilities that we have. We have no politics involved. That's not how we make decisions in this department.” You believe him, don't you?

But it does make one wonder, does it not? There are dozens of guitar manufacturers using the same woods from the same places. A few of the larger firms are serious competition for Gibson. But only Gibson was targeted. There is one small difference between Gibson and the other companies. The latter are either in the Democratic camp or quietly neutral. The CEO of Gibson, Henry Juszkiewicz, is a major Republican contributor and bundler. In addition, Gibson is proudly a non-union shop. Juszkiewicz is not shy about his public criticism of Obama and the entire administration.

Three years and millions of dollars in attorneys fees and investigative costs later, the most the government could prove was that Gibson may have been in violation of the Lacey Act solely because of a paperwork error in which Gibson accidentally exceeded its allowable inventory of exotic woods (largely the ebony). This attack also resulted in lost production, laid-off employees, lost income and therefore lost taxes. Try explaining that to a statist/socialist bureaucrat. All of this could have been avoided. Juszkiewicz stated that it was a matter that “Could have been addressed with a simple contact from a caring human being representing the government. Instead, the government used violent and hostile means.”

On August 6, the company and the government issued joint statements settling the case. Gibson will pay a $300,000 civil penalty along with a $50,000 payment to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (which quarterbacked the original investigation) which will research tree conservation activities (in India?). But Jerry Martin, US Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, just couldn't leave well enough alone. It was apparent that the government simply couldn't make its criminal case. But that didn't stop him from announcing: “This criminal enforcement agreement goes a long way in demonstrating the government's commitment to protecting the world's natural resources.”

In exchange for not having to continue throwing good company money after bad, the company gets its seized inventory back. That's a million dollars right there. In addition, it can continue to import ebony and rosewood so long as it is more scrupulous in keeping accurate books reflecting the quotas set by the Lacey Act. And the government was forced to agree jointly with Gibson that both “acknowledge and agree that certain questions and inconsistencies now exist regarding the tariff classification of ebony and rosewood fingerboard blanks under the Indian government's Foreign Trade Policy.” If you read between those lines, what it really means is both the Lacey Act and the Indian Foreign Trade Policy are so badly-written, then and now, that unintentional violations are almost inevitable.

The official statement from Gibson was more accurate than that of the US Attorney. “The company is gratified that the government ultimately saw the wisdom and fairness in declining to bring criminal charges in this case.” And to put the frosting on the cake, the government was required to agree not to undertake any future actions against Gibson until such time as the Indian government modifies its laws either to specifically allow or ban the sale and exportation of ebony and rosewood fingerboard blanks.

All of this adds up to one simple thing. The Obama administration is determined to do whatever is necessary to cripple its vocal opponents. Obama's enemies list dwarfs that of Richard Nixon. The Department of Justice has regularly been ordered to perform what lawyers call “selective enforcement.” And Holder has done it with gusto and a straight face. During this entire three-year exotic wood witch hunt, not one other guitar manufacturer received even a kindly inquiry from the Obama administration about the possible use of ebony and rosewood fingerboard blanks.

Play on, Les Paul.

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Snakes In A Hissing Contest

The green mambas at the US Department of Justice and the spitting cobras at the California State Bar have gotten into a hissing contest over admissions policies for illegal immigrants. The dumbed-down, y'all come California Bar has provisionally admitted one Sergio C. Garcia after he passed the Bar exam in 2009. He has been in lawyer limbo ever since.

But he won't be practicing law in California or anywhere else until the conflict with the feds is resolved. Oddly, Garcia is a victim of the Obama administration's order-imposed DREAM Policy.

Without considering the DREAM Act in either its actual or fantasy version, a 1996 federal statute denies public benefits to illegal immigrants. Those few courts which have addressed the issue have declared that a license for a professional practice of any sort is a public benefit. DOJ officials who are involved in the Garcia dilemma have stated: “The 1996 law was drafted to preclude undocumented aliens from receiving commercial and professional licenses issued by states and the federal government.” The case is presently pending before the California Supreme Court.

There are multiple ironies involved in this case. To start with, the California Supreme Court is quite conservative, unlike every other branch of government in the state. But what does that mean for this case? One conservative view would be to hold that a non-citizen has never enjoyed the right to a professional license in California, and shouldn't now. That would put California on the same side as the DOJ. But the other would be to hold that under the Tenth Amendment, California has the sole right to determine the qualifications of its own professionals, and that the semi-independent State Bar has determined that Garcia should be allowed to practice law. That would put California on the side of the State Bar Committee of Bar Examiners and state Attorney General Kamala Harris. I won't even hazard a guess as to which way the state high court will go.

Then there's Garcia himself. He would seem to be a perfect candidate for DREAM Act treatment. California has actually formally approved a DREAM Act of its own, in advance of any Congressional action on the matter. But the devil is in the details. Garcia was brought to California illegally by his parents when he was seventeen months old. When he was nine, they went back to Mexico just ahead of the [then] INS agents. They came back in again when Garcia was seventeen years old. His father applied for citizenship, which was ultimately granted, but the parents didn't at first do anything to get citizenship proceedings instituted for the children, include young Sergio. In 1994, his father finally applied for a green card for Sergio. Garcia is now 35 years old, and under the arcane terms and mathematical formulas of the California DREAM Act (as well as the fantasy federal DREAM Act), he doesn't qualify for the exception.

Given the nature of the immigration services and the backlog of immigrants awaiting legal status, it is unlikely that Garcia would be able to get full legal American citizenship any time before 2021 or 2022. The procedure in California is that the State Bar certifies a candidate to the State Supreme Court, which then determines whether or not to issue a license to the applicant. In Garcia's case, the Supreme Court reviewed his file, and put his application on hold, resulting in the current litigation.

By the calculations of the Obama administration (and therefore the DOJ), Garcia wouldn't qualify for expedited citizenhip and “public benefits” even under the fantasy federal standard. Technically, Garcia [re]entered the US when he was seventeen. Obama's order says “before turning sixteen.” Deportations are halted and “public benefits” bestowed if the applicant is age thirty or under. Garcia is thirty-five, and will be in his mid-forties by the time the immigration authorities are likely to grant him citizenship.

Even Garcia's supporters, such as the political hack attorney general, admit that Garcia is not eligible under either state or federal law to be licensed at the present time. But then they pull out the liberal catch-all: “Allowing him to become a lawyer would be in keeping with the spirit of the new policy.” Note that the federal standard is indeed a “policy,” but California's DREAM Act is cold, hard law. It was designed to get rafts of illegals into the professions, but in Garcia's case it has had exactly the opposite effect.

State AG Harris said that “Garcia exemplifies the kind of self-sufficiency that Congress has stated should be a basic principle of immigration law.” True or not, it's irrelevant, since Congress has never passed a DREAM Act. Harris is arguing against a federal policy that she thinks ought to be interpreted differently in each case, totally ignoring the fact that the state she represents has actually passed a DREAM Act, under which Garcia still doesn't qualify. As I mentioned earlier, she's a political hack from San Francisco taking a purely political position on a legal matter.

So my final question is, “why is the Department of Justice attempting to force federal supremacy in a case that is in direct opposition to its position of 'putting undocumented aliens on the fast track'?” I think the answer may be simple. Obama has taken a position that he is a strict enforcer of immigration law (even though we all know that's a lie). But Garcia is just one hapless pawn in the political game. Obama and Attorney General Holder can express their deep sympathies for illegal immigrants in general, but use this specific case to point out their spurious dedication to strict enforcement of the law. Typical and cynical Obama smoke and mirrors.

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Biting The Hand That Feeds Them

It came as no surprise that the illegal immigrant-needy Justice Department fought to keep Arizona from defending its borders when the feds wouldn't. That pleased the open borders crowd no end. He may even have picked up a few votes for his boss with the action. What did come as a bit of a surprise last week was that Attorney General Holder then decided to go after his buddies in the sanctuary movement.

Sanctuary cities are largely populous urban crime centers, but there are small enclaves of yuppie political-correctness as well. Sanctuary as a genuine policy largely ceased to exist centuries ago with the decline of the supremacy of the Catholic Church. The rules were pretty stringent. Sanctuary had to be sought within a consecrated church, and it usually applied only if the person seeking sanctuary was holding onto the altar or some religious icon particularly identified with that church or cathedral. Even to our medieval forebears, a sanctuary city would have been an odd concept indeed.

American law does not recognize sanctuary at all—in any state or the federal jurisdiction. It is pure politics, and it has been rather successful as a means of keeping illegal immigrants out of the hands of immigration authorities. Federal law clearly allows the central government to withhold massive federal funds from cities which refuse to cooperate with the federal immigration authorities. So far, almost zero funds have been withheld despite a serious spike in crime committed by illegal immigrants.

Some of this action is predictable as hell, the rest somewhat surprising. First of all, I'll believe it when I see it. It's one thing in an election year to say you're going to prevent government waste by cutting off large sums of money to sanctuary cities. It's quite another to set the legal process in motion. But what is truly surprising is that the Justice Department has asked Holder to pursue Cook County, Illinois. For those who may not know, that's basically Chicago and the Obama suburbs.

In a fit of spite, Holder cut off all federal/state cooperation with Arizona, even after winning a landmark case against Arizona and the Tenth Amendment. At this point, Arizona can do next-to-nothing on its own to protect its borders and its citizens, and Holder doesn't want any illegals turned over to ICE or the Border Patrol even when they are captured under the current crippling standards. If this is a move to get back the votes he lost in Arizona by picking up votes in Illinois, it's a very strange way of doing it.

It may just be a matter of slapping the troops back in line. Even early sanctuary city San Francisco will turn over habitual illegal immigrant felons to the feds. According to John Morton, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement: “Right now, it's not a question of Cook County releasing some individuals to us. They are releasing no individuals to us, including very violent offenders, and I just don't think that's good policy.”

Even Let 'Em All In DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has jumped on the enforcement bandwagon against Cook County. The pressure on Holder and President Obama from his own people is growing, and with it a political dilemma. Holder and Obama are both products of the Chicago/Cook County Democratic political machine. The current mayor of the Windy City, Rahm Emanuel, was an Obama confidante, and is facing an unprecedented (yes, unprecedented) murder rate on the streets of Chicago. Even though he has not yet weighed in on the problem, Emmanuel is aware of the fact that the high murder rate is being enhanced by the activities of illegal immigrant gangs. But Cook County, among all the sanctuaries, has been the most combative about turning illegals over to the feds.

I guess you would have to call this a falling-out among thieves. Cook County claims that it has received no special demands or interrogatories about its sanctuary policies from the federal government. Spokesman for both Chicago and Cook County say that they have not been told their federal funds might be withheld, and that if it should happen, they would fight tooth and nail.

Cook County is not yet covered by the Secure Communities Act which requires that the fingerprints of all arrested illegal immigrants be turned over to the feds for determination of deportation status. Among the provisions of the Act is that if a prisoner's fingerprints submitted to the FBI pop up on the federal immigration deportation database, the city or county involved is to “detain” the arrestee beyond the time allowed for citizens charged with similar crimes. Thus far, Cook County (which includes the largest Chicago jail) has refused to cooperate. It will be covered by the Secure Communities Act early next year. But that's after the Justice Department puts on its pre-election dog and pony show.


Director Morton apparently attempted to salve wounded feelings at the Cook County offices by trying to work out the fingerprint issue before the Secure Communities Act goes into effect there. Even that effort was rebuffed, so there are some egos involved here as well. This could be a battle royal. Chicago/Cook County is in the same desperate financial condition as all Democrat-controlled big cities. It's broke, and so is the state that might help them out. Under the State Criminal Alien Assistance Act, Cook County has received $13 million in federal assistance money. That is not the only money-for-nothing program that transfers tax money from Washington DC to friendly cities and counties, but it is one of the largest. It's impossible to justify that expense when Cook County refuses to cooperate in even the most minimal way.

This may all be a big ploy to gain the votes of anti-illegal immigrant activists. Holder will likely make big speeches and assign multiple political lawyers to the matter, then make more speeches in the Hispanic communities telling them he won't really interfere with their support of open borders. Nothing will actually happen until after the November election. I still remain mystified by the move, however. Cook County and Chicago are the last places on earth that Obama wants to offend, even a little.

If you have an opinion about why this move at this time, I'd be delighted to hear it. Your theory will probably turn out to be far better than mine.

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Random Thoughts On Voting

Bev's article yesterday got me thinking about voting itself, the importance of it, and the degrading of it. I have to go back into fuddy-duddy mode to discuss my feelings about the current pathetic state of voter participation. And much of this is in light of the Holder Justice Department's twisting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

When I first got the vote (it was age 21 back then), a voter actually had to get off his dead behind and go to the polling place. Absentee ballots were difficult to obtain, and required sufficient affidavits of absence to satisfy election standards which were quite restrictive as to why the voter couldn't possibly get to his or her local polling place. The Founders risked their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to make it possible for all eligible citizens to vote. The Civil War was the final act in making all men equal in voting qualification. The Fourteenth Amendment established the universal right of all American men to vote. The final act toward universality of voting was the Nineteenth Amendment which very belatedly recognized that the Founders had left out half the population because of their sex.

Fighting the Revolution and the Civil War were deadly serious matters. Those who fought in either wanted the right to vote to be universal. They didn't say anything about it being easy. In fact, the lazy, mentally incompetent, and uncaring were discouraged from voting based on the moderate difficulty of taking time off to go to the polls and the further ability to read or comprehend sufficiently to be able to discern what was on the ballot. It wasn't a perfect system, but the Constitution guarantees fair elections, not perfect elections.

Fast forward to today's ridiculous ease of voting and voting fraud. We have high speed computers to count votes, but restrictions on using those same computers for maintaining current and honest voter rolls. I plead guilty to voting by mail, another stupid idea that has been in place for a couple of decades now. Not absentee (with legitimate reason for not being able to vote in person on election day at the local polling place), but “by mail.” The possibilities of voter fraud with mail-in votes are legion, but why have it in the first place? Oh, because it makes voting easier. I would add “and therefore less valuable.” The best things in political life are not free.

I first registered by mail because at election time I was still recovering from major surgery and couldn't make the walk to the polls. I didn't intend it to be permanent, but they just made it so damned easy. And I've been doing it ever since. Today, if I had to go to the “local” polling place, I would have to drive thirty-five minutes on dirt and mountain roads to get there. My mailbox is less than a mile away, so I continue to vote by mail. But what if vote-by-mail were eliminated? Then I'd bloody well make the drive. And if the car didn't work, I'd rig up a carriage and have Niko the Wonder Dog pull me to the polls. Under which of those scenarios does my vote seem most valuable—particularly to me?

Furthermore, if I had to go all that way to the polling place, I would probably spend a lot more time reviewing the most current facts and information. As it is, I have my prejudices like everyone else, so I tend to vote as soon as I receive the ballot in the mail to “get it out of the way so I won't forget it.” If my candidate was found to be an al Qaeda agent three days before the election, there's no provision for me to change my vote from four weeks earlier.

The left constantly emphasizes ease of voting over fairness or legitimacy of voting. Furthermore, they are now using it as an excuse to perpetuate voter fraud and party loyalty. Voter photo ID requirements are being savagely attacked as racist by the Holder Justice Department because it “suppresses” minority voting. Aw hooey! It does nothing of the kind. Fortunately, he can only wield this legal hatchet in Southern states affected by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a law as useful to today's realities as the Missouri Compromise.

The irony is that Holder is unintentionally proclaiming that the people he purports to be protecting are either too stupid or too lazy to get voter photo ID (or both). He gave a speech at the NAACP proclaiming how difficult the racists make it for minorities to get a photo ID. He did so at a meeting that required valid photo ID to get in. And like most Obamists and other race-baiters, he lied.

Just how difficult is it to get a valid photo ID to vote? Well, if you can't afford one, they'll give it to you for free. If you can't make it to the DMV or whatever department issues the ID, they will make provisions to transport you there or in some states they will come to you. If you're not smart enough to know that, you're not smart enough to be voting. In California, you can drive up to the DMV, get your driver's license (a valid photo ID), then drive around the building once and set up your voter registration (presumably, even if you're an illegal immigrant). How much easier could it be?

Well, it's too damned easy. Men and women fought, bled and died to assure the right to vote. Why is it necessary to make voting as easy as ordering a NetFlix movie online? Who in his right mind thinks that everyone should vote? All the ease of voting does is guarantee that the lazy, shiftless and government-dependent can make sure their freebies and lives of ease don't end. Sure, fraud is a big issue, and more of it keeps turning up as the Obamists deny there is any at all. But my gripe is with people who think that one of our most valuable rights should have no costs. If it's too easy and too facile, those exercising it will hold it in contempt.

Eric Holder and his race-baiting friends have now gone so far as to claim that valid photo ID is tantamount to the poll tax. Leave it to the “progressive” Democrats to haul out an issue which died almost five decades ago. As for my opinion, if you're too lazy, too stupid, or too ugly to get a photo ID and get up off the couch to go to the polling station, then stay home and wait for your government assistance check. We don't need you, and the Republic will fare far better without your ignorant vote.

Voters in Philadelphia can ignore this rant. They will have the poll protection of the New Black Panther Party and the ever-vigilant Holder Justice Department to assure ease of voting.
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Horsefeathers!

If you think that the EPA is the only administrative agency attempting to ruin America through fiat and regulation, think again. Sure, the EPA can halt construction of a dream home on private property by “discovering” a wetland on the property. But what if a miniature golf course has hills that are too steep? Or what if a restaurant doesn't allow horses at dinner?

Enter the warriors and all the bureaucrats who enforce the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act). Of course there's the Department of Justice (DOJ) to punish the malefactors.

Recently, the DOJ generously extended the deadline for violators of the new ADA rules. Well, maybe not so generously. The requirements also affect judicial facilities, prison facilities and public recreation facilities. Such governmental agencies always lag behind private businesses in complying with the law. So in actuality, the extension was self-serving. In the private sector, the new rules and regulations already cover the aforesaid miniature golf courses, driving ranges, amusement parks, sauna facilities, the aforesaid restaurants, and shooting ranges.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez spoke at a conference in Baltimore early in June. He said: “We expect the implementation of these accessibility standards to open up doors for full participation in both the responsibilities, such as jury duty, and the benefits, such as playing at city parks, of civil life for people with disabilities.” Thus, the extension of time for implementation. But the same rules apply to private businesses. The public facilities will be improved and made compliant using taxpayer dollars, so what the heck. But the cost to private businesses will be borne by individuals already struggling to survive in a terrible economic environment.

Get out your tape measures and surveying tools, folks. Fifty percent of golf holes on miniature golf courses must be accessible to the handicapped. The ground space around a hole must be a minimum of 48 inches by 60 inches, “with slopes not steeper than 1:48 at the start of play.” At gyms, at least one of each type of exercise machine must be positioned so that it is “accessible” to a person in a wheelchair.

Saunas must have “sufficient turning space” and at least one bench specifically designed for the disabled (sitting and sweating in your wheelchair not allowed). For inside gun ranges, there must be “sufficient turning space for each different type of firing position (my question on that one is 'does that include the standing position?').” Full-sized golf courses get even more attention. There must be an accessible route to connect all accessible elements within the boundary (this could be a bit difficult if the fifty percent of “accessible” holes are not contiguous). Swimming pools must have a wheelchair accessible entry point unless the pool is larger than three hundred linear feet, in which case it must have at least two such accessible entry points.

And now for those restaurants (and taxis, by the way). Well, now it's time to let those guide horses in. Most of us are used to, and understand, rules that allow guide dogs for the blind where other dogs would not be allowed. More recently we have begun to accept the reasonable exception made for those physically or emotionally handicapped persons who are almost entirely dependent on their canine companions for normal activity. But horses?

OK, so they're not going to require that the restaurant owner or taxi driver allow Secretariat or Seabiscuit into their eateries or cabs. It's only miniature horses which must be allowed and facilitated. “A public accommodation shall make reasonable modifications in policies, practices or procedures to permit the use of a miniature horse by an individual with a disability if the miniature horse has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of the individual with a disability.” Miniature horses are cute as hell, and can be very affectionate. But no matter how you cut it, they're not as smart as certain breeds of dogs, though most are smaller than a St. Bernard. But whoever heard of “dog flies?”

The justifications for adding miniature horses are many. Among them are religious objections by certain segments of society to using or having contact with dogs. Another is allergy to dogs (a handicap on top of a handicap). There is also the “fact” that miniature horses have a longer useful life span than dogs (seven years for dogs, as much as twenty-five years for miniature horses).

At Joe's Greasy Spoon Restaurant, the biggest objection (other than equinophobia) is the potential mess a horse of any size would be likely to produce where humans are eating and a minimum of sanitation is expected. No problem, say the mini-horse people. Says one ADA spokesman: “Similar to dogs, miniature horses can be trained through behavioral reinforcement to be 'housebroken.'” Since there is not yet a visible “housebroken” certificate or horse tag identifying the little horse as housebroken, it would be a quandary for both the restaurant owner and the taxi driver. What if the mini-horse actually isn't potty trained? Answer: horse manure.

Nobody has yet addressed the potential conflict when two disabled persons show up, one with a dog and the other with a mini-horse. What if Fido and Man O' War don't like each other? How about the patron who is terrified of dogs, or the other one who gets the heaves at the sight or smell of a horse (big, small or indifferent)? But I'm sure we can trust our government bureaucrats to solve those conflicts with ease.

This is going to be great fun (except for those who end up in jail for failing to comply, or in the poorhouse for complying). The possibilities for increasing the number of overpaid bureaucrats to enforce the rules are almost innumerable. San Francisco, always in the forefront of enforcing ADA rules, has proven just how silly loosely-written ADA laws can be, as well as the deleterious results they produce. You'll be seeing things like the San Francisco nonsense nationwide soon.

For instance: A deli-restaurant beloved by San Franciscans for four decades, located on bustling Market Street, was found not to have a compliant disabled accessible entryway. The owners realized that the requirements were both reasonable and legal. So they did what any good citizen does. They spent hundred of thousand of dollars on construction of a disabled accessible entrance. Doing so on Market Street would have been a major interruption of business and would have required outrageously expensive relocation of fixtures and replacement of load-bearing walls and columns. So the owners quite logically and reasonably did the construction at the side of the building on Sixth Street. If you can call construction of a disabled accessible structure a work of art, this was one—including the automatic opening doors.

All was well, right up through the grand re-opening, at which point one potential customer in a wheelchair objected to the structure, since it was on the side of the building rather than in front, and filed an ADA discrimination suit. He won, and the owners were required to go forward with the far more expensive and unnecessary construction at the front of the restaurant in addition to the one on the side. The owners threw in the towel and closed the business. It sat empty and decaying for months. San Francisco lost a great local restaurant, only to have it replaced much later by a Wendy's franchise. Wendy's could afford better lawyers, and ultimately the handicapped entrance on Sixth Street was allowed after all.

In the “let the taxpayers pay for it” example, all of the San Francisco superior courts and clerical offices were closed while City Hall underwent an earthquake retrofit following the big Loma Prieta quake of 1989. The City/County of San Francisco rented a skyscraper located in the financial district for the period of the retrofit. The building was already wheelchair accessible, though the courtrooms had to be upgraded for accessibility for the public and the jurors. But they forgot one little detail. They didn't make the judges' chambers and benches wheelchair accessible. Doors had to be widened, and ramps built to allow the disabled judges to get onto their seats behind the bench. The cost to the taxpayers ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, approaching a million.

Now for the reality. There was only one judge in the entire superior court judicial panel who was actually in a wheelchair. And he wasn't the one who complained. He simply asked nicely if they could fix things up for him, and it was done forthwith. He was happy as a clam. It was an officious intermeddler who was not even part of the system who filed the complaint. So all the courtrooms and judicial chambers were made wheelchair accessible. Only one was ever used. And now the courts are back in City Hall, and all that construction and expense was for naught. But the bureaucrats still have a satisfied smile on their faces as San Francisco sinks farther into debt.

I guess we should be grateful that the one wheelchair-bound judge didn't have a miniature horse to help him out. Now that would have been some really cool reconstruction. "Reasonable modifications in policies, practices or procedures" has an entirely different meaning for government bureaucrats from the meaning you or I would give it. Get ready, this is only the tip of the bureaucratic iceberg.
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Obama’s “Week From Hell” Coming Up

Everybody’s had one of those weeks, where everything goes wrong. Obama is about to experience a big one! Indeed, this week will likely be the week which will define his Presidency as a total failure in the history book. And it starts with ObamaCare.

Obama bet his entire Presidency on ObamaCare, and that’s going down in flames this week. Yep. Sometime this week, the Supreme Court will finally issue its decision. We’ve discussed that a lot, including the likely outcomes (LINK), but any way you slice it, this will end poorly for Obama. At the very least, the individual mandate will be struck down. But more likely, the Supreme Court will strike down the entire law. Either result, however, will be seen by the public as a complete reversal of ObamaCare, and with it, a complete undoing of his entire term in office.

My biggest concern here is if only the mandate gets struck down. That could kill the momentum for a repeal of the entire bill, which is what is truly needed. Indeed, the individual mandate is the least harmful of the provisions. The rest of the bill raises taxes, hands out favors, reshapes how hospitals function, limits the way doctors can arrange their businesses, slashes Medicare, subsidizes some people’s healthcare, imposes requirements on insurers, and forces states to create these massive insurance exchanges which will never go away. That is the real heart of ObamaCare and that’s what needs to be eliminated. On the plus side, once people think ObamaCare is gone, it will be hard to stop the Republicans from repealing the rest. On the downside, once the pressure is released, Washington tends to return to rest and let things stay as they are. Let’s hope the Supreme Court does the right thing and kills the whole bill.

But ObamaCare is just the beginning. This week the Supreme Court will also uphold Arizona’s law to let its police enforce the nation’s immigration laws. If immigration truly is THE issue for Hispanics, and this bill is as bad as the left claims, then Hispanic won’t be too happy that Obama proved impotent on this issue.

More importantly, as more and more states pass these laws, the ability of the Democrats to ignore the illegal immigration problem by sabotaging ICE efforts in Washington will vanish. Instead, the states will start taking care of these issues, with a likely first round resulting in a demographic shift as illegals flee to welcoming states like California. . . which can’t afford them.

On Thursday, Obama’s lawyer, Attorney General Eric Holder, will find himself held in contempt of Congress for lying and withholding documents from Congress related to his “Fast and Furious” program which resulted in thousands of weapons being given to drug cartels in Mexico. Interestingly, even the left is mocking Obama’s claim that Holder has the right to withhold the requested documents under Executive Privilege. Apparently, young Barack Obama once said Bush’s identical claims were illegal.

On Friday, Obama’s latest effort at a stimulus bill, a $109 billion highway bill, will probably fail in the House. So much for spreading around a little bribe money before the election.

Finally, student loan rates will double unless action is taken by June 30, and the House Republicans don’t seem all that interested in stopping this. This will upset yet another key Obama demographic, students. This one might pass, but we’ll see. But it won’t help the mood on college campuses that Obama let this happen.

That’s a big week for Obama and from the looks of it, it’s all going to go wrong. :)

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Same Crap. Different Package.

You will be seeing two important government figures swearing by all that's holy that they will provide all the documents and reveal all the information required "very soon." Both have been asked to explain why they have been secretly performing nefarious acts while denying them publicly despite all the apparent evidence.

The headline picture is US Attorney General Eric Holder. The picture accompanying this paragraph is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both Holder and Ahmadinejad have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and both have responded with denials, lies, obfuscation, and convenient compliance. But their most useful tool is delay. The script goes as follows: Look wounded when confronted with your failure to do what you were asked, and promise to do better next time.

Ahmadinejad has been lying about Iran's nuclear weapons development program for years. He has claimed that all Iranian nuclear development is strictly for peaceful purposes of producing energy. Though the country sits on an ocean of easily-extracted oil, good ol' Mahmoud says Iran needs nuclear energy so their people can have light and HBO (and a few missile silos). Occasionally, the timid international authorities produce evidence that disproves what he is saying. Then, Ahmadinejad quickly appears, makes a statement about how wrong those authorities are, and promises to produce documentation to prove it. This "cooperation" always occurs about the time authorities threaten to tighten the noose around his neck.

Attorney General Holder has exhibited the same behavior pattern. His indignation when accused of selective prosecution is a performance worthy of Sir Laurence Olivier. He denies racism in his dismissal of voter intimidation cases against the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia. He denies political cronyism when discussing the details of the Solyndra failure. He looks terribly wounded when someone accuses him of fake civil rights activity when denying states their right to purge their voter rolls and require photo ID for voting.

But he does come up with sufficient documentation and phony excuses to keep moving the questioning and investigation down the road. Now, the noose has been tightened in Congress in regard to Holder's knowledge of and participation in the organization of Operation Fast and Furious. This is especially noticeable in the hearings being conducted by Republican Darrell Issa of California in the House.

Holder has been adamant that he has provided all the information requested of his department by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He has also been absolutely stalwart in his contention that he has told the truth from the beginning. He claims he knew nothing about Mexican criminal cartel gunwalking until Congress discovered the deaths resulting from the disastrous operation, including the ambush murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry by cartel members using guns purchased during the operation.

Frustrated by the minuscule information provided to his committee by Holder's office and angered by Holder's denial of clear facts produced right in front of him, Issa finally told Holder last week that he would produce the documentation and testify truthfully by this coming Wednesday or face a contempt of Congress citation. This is the first time contempt has been specifically threatened, though it has been bandied about for months.

Like Ahmadinejad, Holder steadfastly denies his involvement in the nefarious activities. In fact, he continues to deny that his department was involved in any significant Fast and Furious activity whatsoever. At least that was what he did at the conclusion of the hearing. Then, like Ahmadinejad he snuck back to his office, and fired off a memo to Rep. Issa. He promised to produce more records and information regarding the operation, claiming that his epiphany came only after the Committee stated categorically that requested information would exclude sensitive law enforcement information.

Rather than admit the noose was tightening and that his political position was in some immediate danger, Holder requested a Monday meeting with Rep. Issa while calling his offer "an extraordinary accommodation of the committee's interest." To trash a song from The Music Man, "Cheat a little, talk a little, cheat a little, talk a little, cheat, cheat, cheat, cheat a lot, cheat a little more." The stall is on, once again. First Holder presents himself as the wounded victim just trying to help, then promises to produce some more useless and irrelevant (and frequently 90% redacted) documentation, then humbly requests a meeting between gentlemen to avoid any further unnecessary acrimony.

It's hard not to think that Holder believes he can stall any further damaging revelations until after the November elections. But now that the corresponding Senate committee is making some of the same sounds, and some Democrats are just now beginning to express doubt about Holder's veracity publicly, the tactic may not work much longer. Rep. Issa doesn't seem the least bit fooled by Holder's snake-charmer eyes, and has already announced that promises will no longer be sufficient. It's a true showdown, with Issa playing the lonely sheriff and Holder the proficient gunslinger.

This coming Wednesday could be the big gunfight, unless something truly significant emerges from Holder's secret vaults. But on Saturday, Rep. Issa said he will consider postponing the contempt hearing if the information provided by Holder is truthful and truly responsive. Holder wins the round, but he hasn't yet won the fight. What's your guess as to how this is going to be resolved?
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Obama Thanks Buffett, Again

Warren “Tax Me, Bro” Buffett got a big gift from Barack Obama and the Department of Justice last week. Crony socialist Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the government had reached a settlement with five major U.S. banks in regard to foreclosure abuse. The settlement: $25 billion. Buffett’s profit: $154 million. Since it’s growth in the value of his bank shares, it won’t be taxed as ordinary income, and his secretary will continue to pay at a higher rate.

Now if you happen to have a few billion dollars lying around unused, and want to make a big profit with the help of the President, here’s how the Sagebrush of Omaha did it. Back in 2011, Buffett invested $5 billion in Bank of America. He knew that it would eventually be a solid investment, since BofA was too big to fail and did very well with government bailouts. As part of his purchase, he also got warrants to buy 700 million shares at the depressed price of $7.14 per share.

A few months later, amid bonus and mortgage abuse scandals at BofA, those shares had dropped to $4.94. But never fear, the government is here. Not known for panicking at a mere downtick, Buffett held onto his shares and increased the number at the even-lower price. On Thursday, the DOJ announced the settlement, and BofA shares promptly rose to $8.13 per share. By Friday afternoon, the shares had risen to $8.35 per share.

Now I’m absolutely sure that this and other Buffett windfalls as a result of administration action are purely coincidental (sarcasm intentional). Just prior to this gift, Barack Obama announced that despite Congress’s urging, he would not allow the State Department to approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas. No direct largess there either. But nevertheless, by eliminating the pipeline, the Canadian oil has to be transported to the refineries in Texas somehow.

That would be railroads, folks. And the biggest beneficiary is Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC, which is owned by, you guessed it, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. At the time the pipeline was nixed, Kirata York-Wooley of Burlington Northern said simply: “If Keystone XL doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul.” I’ll bet they are.

Buffett’s “billionaires should be taxed at a much higher rate” statement is much beloved or much hated, depending on your political/economic stance. But this is the same man who also said: “Through the tax code, there has been class warfare waged, and my class has won.” This was before his love affair with Barack Obama, and he wasn’t saying it apologetically.

Given his ties to this corrupt administration, there is plenty of reason to believe that he may have what is called an informational advantage for investments in the not-so-free market. Proving that he is trading on insider information is of course an entirely different matter. It’s good to have knowledgeable friends in Congress, and even better to have them close to the White House.

That’s twice in a very short period of time that Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway have greatly benefited by administration action, the details of which the average investor couldn’t know in advance. Coincidence is not concurrence, but I’m still getting a faint odor of rat. Perhaps Buffett will donate a few billion dollars of these two big gains to the public treasury while giving his secretary a raise. The increase in value of Buffett’s shares in BofA and Burlington Northern is what our socialist friends call “windfall profits.” When they’re gained this way, I have another name for them—“convenient luck.”
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DOJ Discovers The Constitution

The United States Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder considers the Constitution to be an infinitely malleable document, subject to the whim of temporary majorities, Congress and the Chief Executive. But as of last week, it found one constitutional provision it considers cast in concrete. That would be the Fifth Amendment.

US Attorney Patrick J. Cunningham, deeply-involved in the Fast and Furious scandal, is invoking his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The Committee is looking into who is responsible for the gun-running operation which has ended up with thousands of weapons in the hands of Mexican criminal cartels and which has resulted in an unimaginable number of deaths in Mexico and that of a Border Agent inside America's borders.

Sooner or later, high-ranking members of criminal organizations such as the Mafia and the Department of Justice learn that lying only trips them up, while silence protected by the Constitution only makes them look guilty but can’t be used as proof of guilt. That certainly fits Cunningham, who is the chief of the Criminal Division of the US Attorney’s Field Office in Arizona. When you get caught flouting the law and end-running the Constitution, become a devotee of that selfsame Constitution.

Then, when your arse is showing as you get caught with your pants down, hire a savvy lawyer to blame the victims and the system. Use the Al Gore defense when El Rotundo was caught taking money from the cash box of Buddhist nuns: “I didn’t do it, and I’ll never do it again.” Cunningham’s lawyer says: “Department of Justice officials have reported to the Committee that my client relayed inaccurate information to the Department upon which it relied in preparing its initial response to Congress [on Operation Fast and Furious]. If, as you claim, Department officials have blamed my client, they have blamed him unfairly.” Deny the claim, then call the informants liars.

The lawyer even uses classic mob jargon. “The Department of Justice in Washington is making him the fall guy, claiming he failed to accurately provide the Oversight Committee with information on the execution of Fast and Furious.” Cunningham doesn’t even have the honor to fall on his sword and take the heat for the actions of his Capo, Eric Holder. So he attacks the Justice Department before it has even accused him of anything. Right now, the only ones pointing the finger of blame at him are Congressional investigators, some Committee members, and a lineup of witnesses. But not the Department itself.

Now Cunningham may find himself directly in line with that pointed finger from DOJ. He is soon going to find out how much honor Holder, Obama and the whole Democratic machine have. You won’t take a small hit for us? Then we will utterly destroy you, your family, and your reputation. You have fouled up our gun-grabbing, gun-running plan, and you will pay the price for trying to dirty our skirts!

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa says “The assertion of the Fifth Amendment by a senior Justice official is a significant indictment of the Department’s integrity in Operation Fast and Furious. The former head of the ATF has previously told the committee that the Justice Department is managing its response to Operation Fast and Furious in a manner designed to protect its political appointees. This is the first time anyone has asserted their Fifth Amendment right in this investigation and heightens concerns that the Justice Department’s motivation for refusing to hand over subpoenaed materials is a desire to shield responsible officials from criminal charges and other embarrassment.”

As tough as that statement is, it’s probably mild compared to what Cunningham has been threatened with by those same DOJ political appointees (including Holder himself) if he caves in somewhere along the line and refuses to take the fall for the unethical and vicious behavior of the out-of-control Justice Department.

At first, the Obama administration, with Holder as its front-man, claimed they were completely unaware of the “gunwalking” plot and had no knowledge of any of its details. Over the months since, huge piles of evidence and testimony have piled up that show those original statements to be outright lies. In order to protect their political skins, it became necessary to find someone in the Justice Department who could be blamed for keeping Holder and Obama in the dark about Fast and Furious. It’s a lame tactic, but it could become the focus on one individual that takes the spotlight off Holder and Obama long enough to get through the next election cycle. It looks like the designated sacrifice is Cunningham.

The “rogue agents” and “rogue Justice Department field office heads” theory simply reeks of unethical and perhaps criminal manipulation of facts and what Bill Clinton called the politics of personal destruction. Holder and Obama are pedaling like mad to distance themselves from this deadly scandal. Poor Cunningham is going to have to make a choice somewhere along the line. Face the possibility of serious legal sanctions against him and ‘fess up now, or wait, and risk the possibility of that plus the wrath of the Holder Justice Department. Oh, what a tangled web we weave, etc.

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California Doesn't Need Dead Voters

While Eric Holder is blocking voter ID requirements in South Carolina, Rahm Emmanuel is registering dead people in Chicago, and ACORN's successors are registering people randomly selected from the phone book or the Baseball Hall of Fame, California Democrats are guaranteeing their success the old-fashioned way. Redistricting.

While Holder in the DOJ is protecting “minority and poor” voters in South Carolina from the onerous burden of having to obtain a [free] state photo ID, he is perfectly fine with photo ID being required to get on an airplane, to buy cigarettes and booze, some OTC medications and to obtain a “get your food free” electronic debit card. Meanwhile, the Chicago mayor is working furiously to protect the additional right to vote guaranteed in the Constitution to the deceased. In St. Louis, Indianapolis and other places, persons with the same name as famous sports figures and cartoon characters must be protected from the racists who want them to prove who they are before voting. It makes me wonder if in Chicago dead sports figures or Mickey Mouse get two votes.

California, being the most creative of all the states in guaranteeing Democratic victories, has avoided such common methods of adding extra votes. In fact, given their current plan, they don’t even need to add phony votes. And why, you ask? Because the state has been so carefully gerrymandered that it makes strong Democratic majorities almost inevitable.

That’s nothing new, you say. Well, I mentioned that California is übercreative. Unlike other states where the majority political machine draws electoral districts, Democratic Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown and the entire Democratic Party are the beneficiaries of a “people’s initiative” which took the power to redistrict away from the legislature and placed it in the hands of a “non-partisan” commission comprised of five Democrats, five Republicans, and four independents.

The result is a redistricting map for Congressional and state elections which favors Democrats even more than the previous Democratic legislature’s gerrymander. The public was sold on the non-partisan nature of the commission, and Republicans cooperated because all indications were that they would pick up a few seats in the conservative Central Valley if the lines were drawn fairly. The road to electoral disaster is paved with good intentions.

Unknown to the public, various left wing and Democratic (redundancy?) organizations were preparing well in advance to skew the results of the commission hearings. ProPublica is the whistleblower that is now bringing the matter to the public’s attention and participating in a new initiative drive to abolish the commission and put redistricting into the hands of the courts. You might think that this is just sour grapes from the Republicans. But ResPublica is a non-profit investigative journalism group formed by liberal Democrats, even getting funding from George Soros surrogates. The only person in the watchdog journalism group who is not a Democrat or Independent is former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger. They obviously took their duty to be more important than their funding.

The commission held hearings throughout the state, not realizing that facts and opinions thought to be from “average citizens” were actually heavily-infiltrated by Democratic operatives. Each witness was, for obvious reasons, supposed to be a member of the local community where each successive hearing was held. ProPublica found a secret memo outlining the results of an earlier meeting of prominent California Democrats mapping out a strategy for misinforming the commission.

Part of the plan was to get Democratic and leftist allies to show up to testify in swing and weakly-Republican districts, purporting to be local citizens. The enabling legislation which pretended to put the voter initiative into operation fairly was written by the Democrat-controlled legislature. Oddly (?) it contained no requirements that those testifying before the commission prove that they were residents of the locale in which the hearing was being held. I wonder how that happened. Maybe they should have required valid state-issued photo ID.

The most egregious of the scams uncovered by ProPublica was a female witness who claimed to be a lifelong member of the Asian community in the San Gabriel Valley. In fact, ProPublica investigated and found that she is a paid Democratic lobbyist who spent most of her life in rural Idaho and at the time of the hearings lived (and still lives) in Sacramento.

As you can see, California is exceptionally creative. Why register dead people, convicted felons, names drawn from the telephone book, and sports figures when you can obtain electoral victories by meddling with an independent commission and producing what appears to be a nonpartisan, fairly-drawn electoral map? The result of the commission’s redistricting, even if drawn in good faith, was weighted far more heavily toward preserving or creating Democratic districts and breaking up Republican-leaning districts, all with a cover of non-partisanship and fairness. And it was based largely on false input from the “public.”

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More Crony Socialism From The DOJ

Eric Holder and the US Department of Justice (Civil Rights Division) have been handed another pot of gold to distribute to his racist friends. This past month, as a Christmas gift to Holder and Barack Obama, the US District Court for the Central District of California (Los Angeles and environs) issued its ruling in the case of The United States v Countrywide Financial Corporation.

A $335 million award was granted to blacks and Hispanics who took out loans with Countrywide during the period from 2004 to 2008. Now if this judgment had been entered after an extended court battle, including hard evidence and believable testimony, it might not be so bad. But Countrywide Financial is not in a position to defend itself, since it no longer exists. Its toxic assets were purchased in 2008 by Bank of America, and Bank of America seemed uninterested in pursuing the matter further. That might have something to do with simple financial risk calculation. I find it more likely that B of A, a recipient of largess from the federal government in the form of bailouts, was being very timid about offending its benefactors in the Obama administration.

So there was what is called a “consent decree.” The plaintiff (DOJ) and defendant (Countrywide/B of A) enter into an agreement on money damages, how they were determined, and how the agreement will be presented to the public in the form of a formal judgment. Here’s the money quote from the decision: “The money damages awarded are intended to compensate allegedly aggrieved persons for monetary and other damages they may have suffered.”

The court rubberstamped the DOJ contention that blacks and Hispanics were charged higher interest rates than whites based solely on their race or ethnicity rather than their creditworthiness. There were approximately 200,000 aggrieved borrowers, but it will be up to Holder and the DOJ to determine who gets what, and how much. Any money not distributed within two years of the decree will go to persons and causes to be determined by the DOJ. And you can bet there will be plenty of undistributed money left over to be used by Holder to reward his political cronies.

Holder and his boss are of course expecting to be back in office in 2012 with the full power of the DOJ to enrich their pet causes and supporters. And even before the election, Holder can play accountant-in-chief for how the money damages will be distributed and to whom. That is very likely to include those who would benefit most from Barack Obama’s reelection. Among the potential recipients mentioned in the decree are nonprofit community organizations that “provide education, counseling and other assistance to low-income and minority borrowers.” Isn’t that what got us into this mortgage mess in the first place?

There is honor among thieves, so Holder will make sure there is plenty of money “undistributed” and he will make promises to supporters of Obama’s reelection that they will be recipients of that money after Obama’s reelection and the passage of the two-year distribution period. I have no doubt that he will keep his word. There is no provision whatsoever in the decree for oversight of the distribution by any person or entity other than Holder and the DOJ themselves.

Holder’s history of favoritism and race-baiting pretty much guarantees that “leftover” money will be distributed to persons and interest groups which have no connection at all to the original lawsuit. The first one that comes to my mind is The New Black Panther Poll-Watching Consortium. Ok, I made that up. But is it really that far-fetched? Need I say that this is just another chapter in the history of what Michelle Malkin calls “the culture of corruption?”
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Darrell, Why Persecutest Thou Me?

Attorney General Eric Holder is shown during one of many trying moments for him during Thursday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing into Operation Fast and Furious. Since Holder last appeared before a Congressional committee on the subject, multiple e-mails, memos and notes from Justice Department staff became available to Congress. It is over the differences in these documents from Holder’s former testimony that he was brought back to testify.

Things didn’t go well for Holder from the get-go. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, asked that Holder be placed under oath. Issa is somewhat suspicious of Holder’s veracity, to say the least. Holder had earlier refused to take the oath, and Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) did not want Holder to escape without answering questions, so he merely ruled that Holder was “deemed” to be under oath since he had sent Holder a letter reminding him of his responsibility to be truthful.

Lying under oath is perjury—a felony. But if a court were later to decide that Holder’s refusal to be placed under oath protected him from a perjury charge, he could still be found guilty of other statutory violations such as lying to Congress and impeding a Congressional inquiry. If a later Justice Department official were to pursue the matter, Holder would not get off entirely scot free. Smith’s compromise kept Holder in the room, and probably made him very nervous as well.

During the questioning, the proceedings got very heated more than a few times. Some of the various committee members threatened Holder with everything from impeachment to charges of contempt of Congress for his evasiveness. Issa called Holder’s testimony “outright lying,” and he had stacks of documents in front of him that seem to support that conclusion.

In one exchange, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) took a very combative line. “Do you think the buck stops with you?” he asked. Then, as Holder seemed to shrink behind the witness table, Sensenbrenner went on to remind Holder that lying to Congress is a federal crime. But he softened the charge by following up with “I don’t want to say you lied, but what are you going to do to clean up the mess?”

In his answer to the not-too-veiled charges of lying, Holder channeled Clinton’s “it all depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” Confronted with serious inconsistencies between known fact and supporting evidence and Holder’s prior testimony, he punted. His Justice Department had made a very unusual move a few days earlier by “withdrawing” a letter it had sent to the committee in answer to certain committee questions. The DOJ actually called its answers “misleading.” That withdrawal followed earlier testimony by ATF Special Agent William Newell that was also “withdrawn” as Newell termed his answers as “lacking completeness.”

Facing questions about these major inconsistencies and DOJ backtrackings, Holder was then asked by Sensenbrenner how “misleading” and “lying” were different from each other, if they are indeed different. Holder said that the difference between “lying” and “misleading” was state of mind. But Holder was merely tossing out a legal distinction that, though true, doesn’t apply to this matter. He hoped nobody would notice.

If one “misleads” because he has himself been misled or misinformed, and has a reasonable excuse for not knowing the true facts, there is no intent to lie. But if one misleads, knowing that the words used to mislead are incorrect, then “misleading” becomes “lying.” The DOJ, ATF and DEA testimony that Congress had already determined was intentionally misleading was available to Holder and his department long before Congress ever saw it. Ergo, he lied.

During the testimony, Democratic committee members frequently attempted to protect Holder from hard scrutiny and/or turn the investigation of Holder’s part in Fast and Furious into a forum on gun control. The spin was marvelous to behold. Attempting to prove how dangerous all weapons in the hands of individuals are, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) asked “how many firearms had been sold to Al Qaeda terrorists, to other convicted felons, to domestic violence perpetrators, and to white supremacists.”

He neglected to ask about how many had been sold to the Crips or the Bloods. But even if he had been an equal opportunity disarmer, the question would have been entirely irrelevant, given what the hearing was actually about. The hearing is about Operation Fast and Furious, why it was so poorly-planned and deadly in execution, and most importantly, who knew what, and when. But that didn’t stop Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California) from asking why there is no requirement for a federal firearms dealer to report, say, the sale of 100 AK-47s.

The final exchange was between Issa and Holder. Issa suggested contempt of Congress for Holder’s refusal to release committee-requested document without citing Constitutional or case law to support the refusal. Holder responded: “We will respond as other attorneys general and other Justice Departments have done.” Issa snapped back with: “That’s how John Mitchell responded (referring to the Watergate hearings of the Nixon administration).”

Holder, who has the same ability as Obama and Nixon to play the victim rather than the perpetrator, channeled McCarthy hearing defense counsel Joseph Welch and pleaded: “As they said at the McCarthy hearings, have you no shame?” Quick, get me a hankie. I need to wipe away the tears I’m shedding for poor, innocent, persecuted Eric Holder.

At the end of the hearings, Rep. Dan Lungren (R-California) summed up Holder’s testimony and the attempts of the Democrats to change the subject: “You screwed up, you admit you screwed up, but don’t use your screw-up as an attempt to justify your actions and extend your authority.”

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Primer: Obama/Holder v. Iran

I figured you might like a primer on the new Iranian issue, as it’s all over the headlines and it’s an issue which could actually lead to war if mishandled -- although that’s extremely unlikely. Here’s what’s up:

● What Happened: On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the DEA and FBI had foiled a plot to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador and blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies. This plot was supposedly masterminded by Iran’s “elite” Quds military unit. The Quds are a special unit within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard whose job it is to “export” Iran’s Islamic revolution to other countries.

According to Holder, Manssor Arbabsiar (a Corpus Christi, Texas car salesman) was tasked by the Iranian government with finding someone to carry out the killing and the bombings. Arbabsiar turned to the nastiest of the Mexican drug cartels, Los Zetas, a group of former special forces soldiers who started their own cartel. I wrote about Los Zetas here: LINK. Arbabsiar wanted Los Zetas to do both the killing and the bombings and he wanted them to agree to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East into Mexico.

However, the person Arbabsiar contacted turned out to be a DEA informant. Whoops.

● Team Obama’s Response: The administration accuses Iran and describes this as: “a dangerous escalation of Iran's long-scale use of violence.” The reason they claim Iran did this was “the Iranians watch the Saudis roll tanks in Bahrain, and they see a key ally in Syria going down, so they step up the Quds Force.”

Joe Biden has been sent forth from the Idiotorium to take the lead on this. He described this as “really over the top” and said it was “an outrage that violates one of the fundamental premises on which nations deal with one another.” He also said that “no options have been taken off the table” for dealing with this, though the administration has already ruled out military action. Instead, they are considering sanctions, the standard response by liberals when they don’t know what to do.

● The Saudi Response: Saudi Arabia and Iran are bitter regional rivals largely because their versions of Islam consider the other to be heretics. The Saudi embassy said this was “a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions,” and their former head of intelligence said Iran will have to “pay the price.” They have not been more specific yet. However, Saudi Arabia does not have a military capable of defeating Iran.

● The Iranian Response: For its part, Iran denies involvement. They told the UN they are “outraged” and “strongly and categorically reject these fabricated and baseless allegations, based on the suspicious claims by an individual.” Tehran claims Obama has fabricated this to “divert attention from the Wall Street uprising.” Ha ha! They also repeated claims the US has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists in the past two years.

For the record, the only link so far to Iran is that the car dealer apparently is a cousin of someone in the Qud and he visited Iran right before $100,000 was wired into the informant’s account by the car dealer. The FBI claims this was wired from a Qud bank account.

● The World Reaction: The world reaction has been skeptical. Iranian experts say that Arbabsiar does not fit the profile of the typical Iranian agent, who tend to be professionals. And they say it’s unlikely Iran would be behind such a plot. Similarly, an Iranian expert in Berlin said these claims would be viewed with skepticism as “everyone is extremely skeptical about US intelligence revelations” and added, “I don’t regard it as impossible but rather improbable, even if the details of the story presented by the attorney general are essentially true.”

One western diplomat said: “I don't believe Iran's regime was behind the plot. If we assume it was Iran's plot, it would seem like a group of professional gangsters hiring a careless agent for their most important project. It's impossible.”

Even a senior American law enforcement official said (on condition of anonymity) that the US isn’t quite sure what this was and it was likely a “rogue plan. . . so outside their normal track of activity.”

● Some Questions: This all leaves us with some odd questions. If we assume Holder is correct, then what will Obama do about it? Even Clinton dropped a few cruise missiles on Sudan after the embassy bombings in Africa. So Obama can’t just pretend this didn’t happen.

But if Holder is wrong, then is he simply wrong or is there more to this?

I never like conspiracies as an answer, especially when there are more likely answers -- such as this guy just being a nut job. But it is extremely coincidental that the day after Darrell Issa starts talking about subpoenaing Holder to answer for what are likely criminal acts related to Fast and Furious, that Holder manages to unveil a huge distraction involving the very elements of Fast and Furious -- DEA, drugs, Mexican cartels and cross border crime. This is one of those coincidences you can’t put in films or people will lose their suspension of disbelief.

My normal response would be to trust professional law enforcement. BUT we’ve already seen how compromised they’ve been by Democratic Justice bosses, such as when Janet Reno ordered the Branch Davidian attack to show that she was tough or the Elian Gonzalez deportation to show Castro goodwill or Holder’s actions in Fast and Furious itself, where potentially hundreds of lives have been taken or destroyed by Holder’s attempt to use the ATF for political purposes. Trust is in short supply here.

So I think we should keep an open mind at this point and not assume anything unless and until strong, verifiable, independent proof is provided.

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Holder Searches For F&F Answers

This past Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder found himself on the hot seat before the House Oversight Committee questioning him about his involvement in the deadly Operation Fast and Furious. Finding no answers that would exonerate him in law or reality, Holder searched for exoneration wherever he could find it. His answers did little to alter his image as less an attorney than a Chicago politician.

Holder turned first to his speech and debate training, and instead of answering a direct question, attempted to use the tu quoque (thou also) argument. Pardon the metaphor, but that gun backfired. Hoping to deflect the spotlight from himself to the Bush administration, Holder brought out an old Bush-era operation which he claimed was just like Fast and Furious. The problem is that the operation (called Wide Receiver) was nothing like Fast and Furious.

Holder wanted to stymie the Committee by stunning them with an "everybody does it" non-responsive answer. According to Holder, Wide Receiver also "walked guns" to the Mexican cartels. Holder's "gotcha" moment quickly turned into a complete rout. The media attention he wanted to draw to the Bush administration and off his own won't happen because he got the facts wrong. In the alternative, he may have been given the wrong facts, or was attempting to spin the true facts, but the Committee members were prepared in advance for just such an attempt.

Wide Receiver was indeed an early attempt to track cartel members and the weapons they purchased in the United States. The operation didn't work, largely because just like Fast and Furious, the people who came up with the bright idea relied on high-tech and unproven methods to trace the purchases, and that technology was simply not available. Entirely unlike Fast and Furious, Wide Receiver was strictly a local ATF operation which never really got off the ground, and never even got close to being presented to the higher echelons of law enforcement or the Justice Department. Few weapons went to cartel members, nobody got killed, and the guns are largely accounted for.

So far, the Washington Post is the only major newspaper to accept Holder's claim of equivalence and "plenty of blame to go around" as an excuse for his own failed policy. Since the Post supports the Obama/Holder gun control agenda, it blindly missed the point that Wide Receiver was designed to prevent widespread cartel purchases of weapons while Fast and Furious was designed to get guns into the cartels' hands so that more rigid gun-control laws could be passed in the United States.

Holder should have known he set a trap for himself. Also on the Committee's agenda that day were the e-mails that strongly indicate that Holder's knowledge of Fast and Furious was a long way from incidental. Within those e-mails was a specific mention of Wide Receiver, and how it could be used to enhance Fast and Furious. The e-mail was sent to Holder's chief deputy AG Jason Weinstein. If Holder didn't know, he should have known.

Wide Receiver involved a botched local ATF operation. Fast and Furious involved the FBI, DEA, ATF, and possibly even Homeland Security. He might be excused for not knowing about a hare-brained local ATF scheme, but not knowing about Gunwalker and Fast and Furious, involving so many agencies directly or indirectly under his control, is either disingenuous or grossly incompetent. One also has the right to expect that a major operation fully-discussed with his chief deputy would reach the Attorney General himself before being given the green light.

If Holder didn't know of it, and/or didn't authorize or monitor it, then at best his department is out of control. Most recent evidence shows that Holder was personally informed of the death of Border Agent Brian Terry, who was murdered with a Fast and Furious gun. So even if Holder didn't know about the operation at an earlier date (which is highly doubtful), Terry's murder and its connection were known to Holder much earlier than he claimed he first heard about Fast and Furious. If he isn't lying, then his Alzheimer's has advanced too far for him to continue in office.

After stuttering and stammering his way around this self-created mess, Holder then fell back on his favorite dodge: "This matter is currently under investigation, and I therefore refer you to the office of the Inspector General." And why not? The Inspector General, Cynthia A. Schnedar, is an old crony of Holder's. While both were in lesser positions in the Justice Department, they worked together on somewhere between fifteen and twenty major cases. They have both filed briefs and written articles advocating strict gun control. That creates a clear conflict of interest when Holder refers matters to his buddy, the Inspector General.

What's a boy to do? Holder couldn't allow himself to be so easily and so clearly publicy humiliated. So right after the hearing, he went into high spin cycle. With the assistance of the compliant mainstream media, Holder put on his best righteous indignation mask and declared the hearing a political ambush. He puffed himself up to declare that he had to defend his honor. Yeah, right.

Knowing that he couldn't claim to be a strong law enforcement kind of guy (see: New Black Panthers), and not daring to attack the law enforcement officers who are most at risk in this dangerous venture, he instead attempted to deflect the issue away from himself. "I could not sit idly by as a Majority Member of the House Committee (Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Arizona) suggests, as happened this week, that law enforcement and government employees who dedicate their lives to protecting our citizens be considered 'accessories to murder.'" Gosar, of course, said nothing of the kind, and if Holder disagreed with what Gosar did say, a good government servant and top lawyer would have addressed that in his answers at the hearing.

And then, almost unbelievably, Holder concluded his remarks to the MSM by proving the point conservatives and Second Amendment supporters have been arguing all along: "Current [gun] laws are insufficient to stop weapons trafficking." If this all adds up correctly, the suspicions of Holder's opponents will be confirmed. For all its danger, and its deadly results, Holder apparently approved of Fast and Furious in order to undo the effects of two major decisions of the United States Supreme Court upholding the individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms.

If this can all be proven conclusively, Holder should resign, or face impeachment and removal. He should also prepare to defend himself against multiple criminal charges, including lying to Congress. Scooter Libby went to prison for far less.
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Politicized Justice

The United States is free and stable because we depoliticized the most dangerous parts of our government: the power to tax, the power to police and make war, and the legal system. The power to tax is the power to destroy. The power to police and make war is the power to kill. And the legal system controls every other aspect of our lives. If you control the legal system, then there are no rights, only privileges given at the whim of our masters. The Democrats are trying to undo this, as shown by the Gibson Guitar case.

It took our country a long time to depoliticize much of our government. Until the 1930s, both the army and the federal bureaucracy were considered spoils to be exploited by the political victors, and they would appoint their supporters to government jobs or give them military commissions. Changing this was a monumental achievement. Unfortunately, in the past 20 years, the Democrats have worked hard to re-politicize these government functions.

Clinton took the first big steps in this regard, when he sent the IRS after churches because they were seen as supporters of Republicans -- the Republicans never counter-attacked, despite the fact that so many leftist groups are hiding behind non-profit labels, which cannot by law be partisan. Clinton’s Justice Department's Civil Rights Division spent its time doing the bidding of feminists, while its Antitrust Division went after the competitors of campaign donors and ignored F.O.Bs (Friends of Bill) like the nation’s colleges, which conspire to fix prices. At the same time, Justice struggled mightily to blind itself to all of Clinton’s illegal Chinese donors, some of whom apparently had ties to Chinese Intelligence, e.g. John Huang, Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung and Maria Hsia.

Under Holder, the Civil Right Division has become an agent of black racism. This was shown by testimony from Justice Department employees, who confirmed that Justice only sees the nation’s civil rights laws as protecting blacks from whites and not the reverse. Of course, you could also have seen this from the way Justice subverted any investigation into voter intimidation by blacks, e.g. the Black Panther case. Justice couldn’t even be bothered to examine ACORN, which was caught red-handed, and it continues to attack any attempt to require minorities to show voter identification.

Holder also sued Arizona, on behalf of Obama’s illegal alien friends, to stop Arizona from enforcing the very laws the Justice Department is sworn to uphold. And we understand INS has all but stopped deporting illegal aliens.

Holder also stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act, as a sop to Obama’s gay supporters.

In Operation Fast and Furious, we see the Justice Department’s ATF allowing the sale of guns to criminals in the hopes of generating political data to be used to support gun control advocates.

Meanwhile, Holder has been pursuing peaceful pro-lifers who march outside clinics, while refusing to investigate union thugs beating people up at townhall meetings or intimidating employers or acting like racketeers against private companies or making death threats to Republican legislators in Wisconsin.

And now we have the Gibson Guitar case.

To make its guitars, Gibson imports rosewood from India and Madagascar. The wood it imports is certified for export by both countries as being from sustainable sources. That makes it legal for import into the United States.

But the Justice Department just swooped in and seized over a million dollars in wood and equipment from Gibson. What was Justice’s reasoning? No one knows. They won’t tell Gibson. This is a complete violation of our Constitution, which requires that you be informed of the charges against you and that you be given an opportunity to defend yourself. It is also an obscenity because if Justice won’t tell Gibson why it has done this, then the only reasonable answer is intimidation. People need to be fired for this!

And it gets worse. It turns out that Gibson is a well-known Republican contributor. Its primary competitor, C.F. Martin & Company, is a well-known Democratic contributor. Martin gets its wood from the exact same sources as Gibson. Yet, Holder’s Justice Department has not raided Martin. . . it only hassles Gibson. It would be stupid to think this wasn’t politically motivated. The message is clear: this is an attempt to intimidate Republican business to keep them out of politics.

So what do we do about Obama/Holder deeply politicizing the Justice Department? The usual Republican response would be to swear that we will put a stop to this. Then we act scared as soon as the Democrats accuse us of interfering with Justice. Let me suggest a smarter way to handle this: fight fire with fire.

Appoint a seasoned political operative to lead the Justice Department. This person’s job will be to focus the Justice Department on unions, race lobbyists, and fake non-profits that are really hidden Democratic support organizations. Start investigating George Soros for any number of his crimes, real or suggested. Target groups like the New York Times, in retaliation for Holder’s political attacks on News Corp. Use the full resources of the United States to tie up and pursue these organizations.

This may make Republicans queasy, but this is the only way the Democrats will ever stop politicizing parts of the government. So long as they can keep doing this and the only Republican response is to promise not to do it themselves, they will keep doing this. Only by teaching the Democrats that there are consequences, i.e. that we can take the weapons they create and use them to much greater effect will the Democrats begin to respect the non-partisan nature of government. There must be consequences. And if some Democrats end up in jail in the meantime. . . that's just too bad for them.

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