Over the July Fourth weekend, there was a major development in the Fast and Furious investigation when BATF head Ken Melson made a surprise July 4th appearance before Darrel Issa and Chuck Grassley’s congressional committee put together to investigate Fast and Furious.

That operation involved BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) agents allowing straw purchasers to buy over two thousand automatic weapons and then smuggle them illegally across the border to Mexican Drug cartels. The operation led to a spike in violence in Mexico, the killing in Arizona of a U.S. Border Patrol agent last December and a possible attempted cover up by the BATF and the US Department of Justice.

BATF head Melson was placed in a particularly bad light by the earlier testimony of agents, some of whom depicted him watching the illegal gun deals go down on closed circuit TV and literally rubbing his hands with glee. Melson, a temporary appointee, was set up to fall on his sword for Fast and Furious and was apparently under a great deal of pressure from the Obama Administration to ‘resign’. Instead, he resisted and said he wanted to testify before the investigative committee, but in order to do that, he needed clearance from the Department of Justice.

In a particularly revolting display of partisan horse trading and disregard for justice, the ranking Senate Democrat on the committee, Patrick Leahy made a deal with Republican Senator Chuck Grassley to allow access to certain documents and allow Melson and other witnesses to testify – in exchange for releasing holds on three Obama Administration DOJ nominees.

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Late last week, at the 11th hour, the Senate removed an amendment that would have required the inspector general of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to investigate the corrupt ShoreBank bailout, as well as every other bailout since January 2009. It is the clearest sign yet that the White House and Democrats in Congress are covering up the truth. If there is nothing to hide, why block the ShoreBank investigation?

Even Rep. Barney Frank had publicly given his support to a ShoreBank probe. The bank claimed an investigation would delay the arrival of funds needed to keep it afloat. Yet Frank made sure that none of the banks being investigated would have had their federal assistance suspended (as the amendment originally provided). So there was no chance that ShoreBank’s bailout–if it were to be approved–would have been stalled.

Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times–who is close to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), the main political sponsor of the ShoreBank bailout–asks: “What exactly does Chicago’s ShoreBank have to do to survive?” But the real question she and other journalists must ask–and would ask, if this were any other bank–is: “What exactly are Democrats trying to hide?” If this Congress won’t investigate corruption, we ought to elect one that will.

My suspicion earlier this week that White House attorney and Islam Envoy Rashad Hussain was involved in covering up controversial comments he made in 2004 turns out to have been well-founded. Josh Gerstein from Politico reports:

President Barack Obama’s new Islamic envoy, Rashad Hussain, changed course Friday – admitting he made sharply critical statements about a U.S. terror prosecution against a Muslim professor after initially saying he had no recollection of making such comments.

“I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated,” Hussain said, referring to a 2004 conference where he discussed the case.

Hussain’s reversal came after POLITICO obtained a recording of his presentation to a Muslim students’ conference in Chicago, where he can be heard portraying the government’s cases towards professor Sami Al-Arian, as well as other Muslim terrorism suspects, as “politically motivated persecutions.” Al-Arian later pled guilty to aiding terrorists.

First of all, major kudos to Gerstein for following through on this story. I do not think there are very many people in the MSM who would have continued to pursue a story such as this that originated in “conservative” media (CNS and Fox). And while Gerstein goes to great lengths in his latest post to present a balanced perspective on Hussain’s views as expressed in 2004, it is his job to do so and he does it commendably as far as I am concerned. The one complaint I would make is that the timing of this release (Friday 10:00 pm EST) strikes me as a weekend news dump, but its quite possible that Gerstein had little if anything to do with this.

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George Santayana said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  This is certainly true in Missouri where the governor is embroiled in a burgeoning scandal dubbed ‘Ecoligate.’  His top staff apparently decided to keep secret a health report about a lake infected with higher-than-safe levels of E. coli.  As every political junkie knows, it’s rarely the infraction that brings down a politician, it’ the coverup that ensues.  Not only is Missouri’s governor a former 16-year attorney general, his name is Nixon.

These are the facts: On May 28, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) learned that regular tests of the Lake of the Ozarks found dangerous levels of E. coli.  In two areas, tests indicates levels 19 times greater than state standards, and half the swimming areas tested higher than federal standards.  In fact, some of the tests hit the ‘maximum sample limit.’ Department procedure dictates that this report should be released to the public.

But the results were not released.  Instead, the DNR deputy director and general counsel, Joe
Bindbeutel, claims he believed recent rainfall might have only temporarily elevated the levels and that an announcement could scare away tourists.  The results were kept secret.

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