To date, in the Fast and Furious investigation, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and his fellow Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have done yeoman’s work in trying to get to the bottom of the operation that placed approximately 2,500 weapons in the hands of criminals. And Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ), also member of Oversight Committee, has begun pushing for a vote of “no confidence” in Attorney General Eric Holder (which has yet to reach the House floor).

Of course Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has been right there in the fight as well, and cannot be overlooked. But as the investigation has unfolded throughout the last year, many have asked: “Where is Speaker John Boehner on this?”  Today, during a press conference held by the Speaker, we found out.

Boehner was asked: “Will you support the 100-plus members [of Congress] who have called for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign and bring…Rep. Gosar’s resolution of no confidence to the floor?”

To this the Speaker replied:

Chairman Issa and the members of [the House Oversight] Committee, have done a very good job of investigating this abuse of government power. I continue to support their efforts, and believe that this Justice Department must be held accountable.

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On February 14th I received an email from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) office, containing a copy of a letter the Congressman just sent to Attorney General Eric Holder. In it, Issa points out Holder’s “lack of good faith,” in not complying with document requests heretofore, and to the fact that the DOJ as a whole appears “more concerned with protecting its image through spin control than actually cooperating with Congress.”

Wrote Issa:

The Justice Department’s request for additional time has, unfortunately, not been followed by efforts to bridge the significant differences between its legal obligation to Congress and the reality of its stonewalling. The [House Oversight and Government Reform Committee] is determined to know what happened in Operation Fast and Furious and how the Justice Department responded when it was publicly confronted with evidence of reckless conduct after Agent Terry’s death. If the Justice Department cannot commit to providing, at a minimum, a detailed description of documents it is withholding, and the legal basis for doing so, then the committee has no other option than to move forward with the contempt process against Attorney General Holder.

In addition, the letter sets forth central questions that have to be answers, among which are:

1. Exactly how and when did senior Department officials learn the truth of what happened?

2. Did Department officials retaliate against whistleblowers?

3. Why did Department officials decide to move forward with prosecuting old cases involving highly objectionable tactics when line prosecutors had refused to do so?

4. Why did senior Department officials fail to see the clear connection between Fast and Furious and prior flawed operations they have admitted they knew about?

5. When did the Department first learn about Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer’s February 2011 suggestion of gunwalking, and why did the Department wait so long before telling Congress about it?

6. A year later, will the responsible senior Department officials be held accountable?

The letter also contains a specific line of questions about Patrick Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, who pled the 5th when subpoenaed by Issa. Apparently, Cunningham did his own “comprehensive review” of Fast and Furious in April 2011, and Issa wants to know what he found out.

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At CPAC over the weekend, Pima County Sheriff Paul Babeu (AZ), also a Republican congressional candidate for the upcoming 2012 election, was asked about Attorney General Eric Holder and Fast and Furious.

His answers were to the point:

I believe…and many sheriffs in Arizona believe that, he…perjured himself. His story has changed. After there was evidence produced that he did know — he was given briefings, he was given emails — he then started to walk back his statements to say that, “well, I misunderstood the question.”

This is a reference to Holder’s original May 3rd testimony wherein he told Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) that he only learned about Fast and Furious “a few weeks ago,” i.e., sometime in April. But as facts continued to emerge, facts like President Obama’s braggadocios snippet about talking to Holder about Fast and Furious in March, Holder back peddled on his timeline, saying he’d misunderstood Issa’s question, and that he’d actually learned of Fast and Furious in late January / early February. (And since the new timeline was introduced, in congressional testimony Holder has admitted that “in early March [he] ordered that a directive be sent to law enforcement agents and prosecutors prohibiting [gun walking].”)

Sure makes the excuse, “Well, I misunderstood the question,” seem a bit weak doesn’t it?

That’s certainly Sheriff Babeu’s opinion:

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For nearly a year now, House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R=CA) and Attorney General Eric Holder have locked horns over Operation Fast and Furious.  Throughout this time we have seen heated exchanges between the two during Congressional hearings, watched the DOJ’s narrative change more than once, and wondered why Holder has thus far been allowed to dictate the speed at which the committee can investigate him.

As of late, when Holder dug in and simply refused to the turn over the documents the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed, the contest between he and Issa turned into nothing less than a battle of wills. And Issa upped the ante when he drew a line in the sand and gave Holder until 5 pm on February 9^th to comply with the subpoenas or face charges of contempt of congress.

And so they squared off, and for any of you who wondered which man would blink first the answer has been revealed—Issa blinked, and gave Holder & Co. a time extension for turning over the documents.

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While Attorney General Eric Holder continues to “stonewall,” as Congressman Issa (R-CA) describes it, and make excuses concerning Operation Fast and Furious, the Mexican Government is making arrests.  According to the LA Times, over the weekend Mexican authorities arrested Jose Antonia Torres Marrufo, “a reputed enforcer for the country’s most powerful drug cartel — a man also alleged to have amassed weapons from the U.S. government’s failed Fast and Furious gun-smuggling operation.” (Italics mine)

Torres  “was in charge of operations in the border state of Chihuahua,” which includes the crime-ridden city of Juarez: a city that is just across the border from El Paso, TX, and one to which Fast and Furious weapons were believed to have been transported. Moreover, Torres, “[who] was wanted in connection with numerous crimes including murder, extortion, kidnapping and the sale and distribution of drugs,” had “two assault rifles and two  [semi-automatic] pistols” with him.

I can’t help but wonder, “Where did Torres get the rifles and the pistols?” Let’s see, he was “alleged to have amassed weapons” via Fast and Furious and he admits to taking over “armed operations for the organization in Chihuahua during the last two to three years.” Hmmm…it doesn’t seem like it should be difficult to figure this one out.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Congressman Dennis Ross to discuss Obamacare, Eric Holder’s involvement in Fast and Furious and the end to insider trading in Congress.

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At one point during the hearings before the House Oversight Committee on February 2nd, Attorney General Eric Holder said he hadn’t learned of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death until 24 hours after it happened. However, this timeline seems questionable at best when you consider that at 2:31 a.m. on very night of Terry’s death (Terry was shot on the night of December 14/15, 2010), then U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke received an email from an unnamed official that read:

On December 14, 2010, a BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol operations 18 miles north of the international boundary when he encountered [redacted word] unidentified subjects. Shots were exchanged resulting in the agent being shot. At this time, the agent is being transported to an area where he can be air lifted to an emergency medical center.

Approximately one hour later, Burke received a follow-up email which said “our agent is dead.” The email was sent to Monty Wilkinson, Holder’s Deputy Chief of Staff at the time. And a few hours later, Wilkinson responded that the incident was “tragic” and added: “I’ve alerted the AG [Holder], the Acting DAG, Lisa, etc.”

Here’s the problem: the timeframe doesn’t match up. What I mean is, if we go by the times the emails were sent and the time at which Wilkinson responded to say he had alerted Holder about Terry’s death, it’s not unreasonable to suppose Holder knew within 12 hours of the murder. Claiming that he didn’t learn about Terry’s death until 24 hours after the fact gave him 12 extra hours in which he could go golfing or play tennis or perhaps even get his team at the DOJ on the same page before news of Terry’s death broke(?).

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As Attorney General Eric Holder sat before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday February 2nd, his answers were as predictable as they were unacceptable: predictable because they were the well-rehearsed answers he gives each time he’s asked about Fast and Furious (except when he gives different answers because the timeline demands it) and they were unacceptable because many of his answers were simply contrary to reality.

For example, consider how Holder continued to defend (and rationalize) the speed at which the DOJ is releasing subpoenaed documents to the committee. How he simultaneously maintained that the DOJ has “shared huge amounts of information” and promised to share more, albeit on the DOJ’s timetable rather than that of the Oversight Committee.

But the reality is that the DOJ has only released 8% of the subpoenaed documents, or approximately 6,000 documents. And according to a report from the Oversight Committee, among these 6,000 were many which consisted “of blacked-out pages containing no information,” as well as “many duplicate documents” meant only “to bolster [the DOJs] page count.” (In other words, among the measly number of documents delivered, many contain no information on them.)

At the same time, Holder & Co. have turned over 92% more materials (about 80,000 documents) to the DOJ’s in-house Inspector General. And I’m not the only one who views this through a skeptical lense, especially since the IG falls under the auspices of the DOJ. In fact, it’s easy to assume that Holder’s being more open with the DOJ’s IG because he fears them less than he fears Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and others on the Oversight Committee.

Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) certainly believes this is so. Thus during his exchange with Holder last week he said: “I think you’re hiding behind something here.  There [are] things you don’t want us to see.” Added Burton: “You ought to give us the documents.”

Stop for a moment and think about this: What would happen to the average American if they only provided a court or a federally-backed investigative committee with 8% of what that court or investigative body requested? Moreover, what if a portion of the 8% of documents they turned over were blacked-out pages “containing no information”?

Why then should Holder receive special treatment? (It’d be nice if the law were applied equally, to the ruling class as it is to the country class.)

The good news is that Issa is on record saying that if Holder hasn’t reversed course and complied with the document subpoenas by February 9th, the “committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold [Holder] in contempt of Congress.” Therefore, between now and the 9th Holder needs to hand over the documents  and we need to remind Issa that we expect him to follow through with the contempt charges if Holder simply thumbs his nose at the Oversight Committee again.

During the House Oversight Committee hearings yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder denounced what he called a “political gotcha game.” And he was not without his defenders, Democrats all, who also tried to spin the hearing into nothing more than an election year sideshow orchestrated by Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA). Yet ironically, even as Holder and his defenders tried to make Issa and his Republican colleagues look like naïve political opportunists, the rhetoric of the Democrats was little more than a politically charged lesson in sycophancy 101.

For example, when Congressman Gerald Connolly’s (D-VA) time began, he addressed the room, and Holder, thus: “Thank you for being here and showing such dignity and honor in the face of some who are suggesting that you are other [than dignified and honorable].” And Congressman Mike Quigley (D-IL)  opened his time by referring to yesterday’s hearing as a “bonfire of the vanities.” He said this was so because “after nearly six hearings, [by those who] are looking for the perfect case to embarrass the AG and the President,” all that’s been learned is that “this is not it.” These two examples were indicative of the praise Democrats heaped upon Holder, and they clearly demonstrated that the facts don’t matter. Rather, they put party and power above the truth.

Yet as stomach turning as this was, perhaps even worse was the Democrats’ unabashed, open pursuit of more gun control during yesterday’s hearings. Almost to a man, once they finished praising Holder they took turns trying to alleviate the pressure he’s under by suggesting Fast and Furious couldn’t have happened if we had more stringent gun control laws. (In making this point, they conveniently overlooked the number of gun control laws that violated with impunity during Operation Fast and Furious.)

So as the saga unfolded yesterday, once Connolly had praised the “dignity and honor” of Holder, he and the AG basically had a conversation in front of the world about the supposed need for a new federal firearms trafficking law.

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The highlight of the exchanges today between members of the House Oversight Committee and Attorney General Eric Holder came when Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY) was given her time to question the AG. Her questions are important because she speaks for a district in New York, far removed from the border mayhem and violence connected to Fast and Furious. The fact her constituents are outraged goes a long way in describing how widespread the angst and disgust over Fast and Furious really is.

After opening her time by pointing out that Holder had frequently responded to charges in a dismissive way, by saying they were all part of a political game, or an election year charade, Buerkle said:

I think it’s important to recognize that you, as the Attorney General, with all due respect, need to  be held accountable, or someone does, as to what happened. Of all the issues that face this country, this is the issue that I hear from my district so frequently about. In fact, today I have no fewer than 30 questions from folks in my district who want to know what happened, why it happened, and who’s going to be held accountable.

She then stated that she’d been “taken aback” by Holder’s haughty declarations to others on the committee, wherein he said “I am the Attorney General,” as if that meant he were above reproach. Said Buerkle: “With all due respect, yes you are [the Attorney General], but you are also accountable not only to the folks in my district, but to the American people.

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I just received an email from Congressman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) office, and as I alluded to in my last post on Big Government, zero hour is fast approaching for Attorney General Eric Holder. He is to appear before the  House Oversight Committee for questions over Fast and Furious this Thursday at 9 am, and the closer we get to that time, the greater the pressure that seems to be mounting on Holder.

At the head of the crowd applying pressure to Holder is Issa himself, who has simply grown sick and tired of waiting on Holder to comply with the numerous subpoenas he’s received for documents related to Fast and Furious. As a result, Issa has moved from a “wait and see” approach to one of demanding Holder comply or else. To that end Issa sent Holder a letter on January 31 warning him that he has until Feb. 9 to turn over all documents or face “contempt” charges.

Wrote Issa to Holder:

[Your] actions lead us to conclude that the department is actively engaged in a cover-up. If the department continues to obstruct the congressional inquiry by not providing documents and information, this committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold you in contempt of Congress.

Issa has plenty of reasons to suspect a cover-up, and he’s not alone in doing so.  After all, the most recent DOJ document dump (on Friday, January 27), proved that despite months upon months of denials, the DOJ did have knowledge of gun-running all along. Not only that, but the DOJ’s own Lanny Breuer actually suggested gun-running at a tactic.  Who knows how many more revelations await us if Holder will only hand over the rest of the documents Issa has subpoenaed?

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February 2nd is fast approaching for Attorney General Eric Holder, who is set to appear before the House Oversight Committee for questioning on Fast and Furious. This will put him in the hot seat in front of Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and other congressional members like Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who have been steady on Holder’s trail since details of Fast and Furious became public.

Holder’s last appearance before a congressional committee was on December 8, when Issa made it clear how irritated he was over the changing timeline, Holder’s perceived arrogance, and the ongoing refusal to turn over subpoenaed DOJ documents. In one of the best exchanges on Dec 8, Issa looked at Holder and asked, “Have you no shame?” That was also the hearing in which Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), expressed his outrage over the fact that Holder’s DOJ had submitted inaccurate testimony then withdrawn it in an attempt to avoid being charged with providing false testimony.

But a lot has changed since that early December hearing. Most recently, the last minute release of subpoenaed documents which show that Holder learned about Border Agent Brian Terry’s death on the day it happened: a point Holder has heretofore denied. (Emails between Dennis Burke, former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, and Holder’s then-deputy chief of staff prove this.) Additionally, other emails in the recently released DOJ documents show that the head of DOJ’s “criminal division, Lanny Breuer, suggested letting some illicit ‘straw’ weapons buyers in the U.S. [to] transport their guns across the border into Mexico where they could be arrested.”

Then there’s Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, who was subpoenaed to appear for testimony on January 24, but pleaded the 5th in order to avoid being “compelled to be a witness against himself.” As a result, a determined Congressman Issa has demanded that Cunningham’s underling, Michael Morrissey, Assistant United States Attorney, “speak with Committee investigators about his role in and knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious.”

All this to say, as I watch the hearings this Thursday I hope to see the committee place Holder under oath and then ask tough, pointed questions about these and other recently revealed matters. For example, in light of the emails, Holder needs to give a clear and binding answer regarding when he found out about Terry’s death. He needs to explain how the DOJ can claim ignorance regarding “gun running” while their own man, Lanny Breuer, was pushing it as a means making arrests. He needs to explain what, if any, interaction he or other DOJ officials/affiliates had with Patrick J. Cunningham between the time Cunningham was subpoenaed and the time his attorney announced he would plead the fifth. And he needs to describe what, if any, interaction he or other DOJ officials/affiliates have had with Michael Morrissey at this time regarding the testimony Morrissey is expected to give when he speaks with investigators.

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Operation ‘Fast and Furious’ has taken a new turn.

Late Friday night, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released documents that show Attorney General Eric Holder was alerted of border patrol agent Brian Terry’s death the day it occurred- contradicting Holder’s statements when he testified before the House Judiciary Committee on May 3, 2011. At the time, Holder said he was informed of Terry’s murder only “a few weeks” before the hearing.

Matthew Boyle at the Daily Caller has the story:

“An email from one official, whose name has been redacted from the document, to now-former Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke reads: “On December 14, 2010, a BORTAC agent working in the Nogales, AZ AOR was shot. The agent was conducting Border Patrol operations 18 miles north of the international boundary when he encountered [redacted word] unidentified subjects. Shots were exchanged resulting in the agent being shot. At this time, the agent is being transported to an area where he can be air lifted to an emergency medical center.”

That email was sent at 2:31 a.m. on the day Terry was shot. One hour later, a follow-up email read: “Our agent has passed away.”

Burke forwarded those two emails to Holder’s then-deputy chief of staff Monty Wilkinson later that morning, adding that the incident was “not good” because it happened “18 miles w/in” the border.

Wilkinson responded to Burke shortly thereafter and said the incident was “tragic.” “I’ve alerted the AG [Holder], the Acting DAG, Lisa, etc.”

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Just received an email from Congressman Darrell Issa’s office, which indicates that the House Oversight Committee “demands“ that Assistant United States Attorney Michael Morrissey “speak with Committee investigators about his role in and knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious.”

As stated in the email:

[Morrissey’s] supervisor, Patrick Cunningham, has stated he will exercise his Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer any questions pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious – such an assertion is extremely rare and suggests possible criminal culpability on the part of a high ranking Justice Department official.  Morrissey, who reported directly to Cunningham’s and was intimately involved with Operation Fast and Furious.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Issa wrote:

Since August, the Department has identified Patrick Cunningham as the best person in the U.S. Attorney’s Office to provide information about Fast and Furious to the Committee. The Department has refused to make Michael Morrissey and Emory Hurley, both Assistant United States Attorneys supervised by Mr. Cunningham, available to speak with the Committee, citing a policy of not making “line attorneys” available for congressional scrutiny.  Mr. Morrissey, however, was Mr. Hurley’s direct supervisor, and an integral part of Fast and Furious.  Importantly, both Morrissey and Hurley are unique in their possession of key factual knowledge about Fast and Furious not readily available from any other source.

For anyone not familiar with Hurley, he was a member of the three-person shuffle Holder tried to pull to get the dogs off the scent back in August 2011. (That’s when Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson was re-assigned, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke retired, and Emory Hurley was moved from “the criminal division in the U.S. attorney’s office in Phoenix” to the civil division.

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As I wrote in a post for Big Government this past Sunday, January 22, the Arizona’s legislature has decided once more to do the job the feds won’t do, and has launched its own investigation into Fast and Furious. And during an appearance on FOX NEWS this morning, Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin explained why they’ve taken this step. He said that constituents were flooding their offices with questions about the gun-running operation, and he said one recurring question was, “You’re not waiting for the feds [to do something] are you?” He then said the answer to that question was “No.”

Said Tobin:

This is an incident that occurred on Arizona soil, with Arizona business owners, [where we lost] an Arizona agent (Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry), and quite frankly we felt it needed a lot more attention. We felt our citizens needed a place to go to share their stories. Maybe there’s more there. This was a failed program right from the start and I think the idea is to put more light on it.

Tobin explained that as he’s watched this story unfold, and learned about the tactics used in Fast and Furious, it just hasn’t made sense: “I’m from the family of a law enforcement officer and I don’t think that the process by which they were going was the direction in which we fight back on border security and drug infiltration.”

He went on to explain that the Arizona House has been disappointed in the way Eric Holder has handled things up till now, and added:

It doesn’t appear he had a grasp on it right from the beginning when the inquiries started coming in. And forgive me for being concerned when I hear that the federal government’s here and they’re here to help. [We’re] the state that had to pass S.B. 1070 so we could help secure our borders, and the fed sued us…we’ve lost millions of acres of forest land [to fires] because the feds won’t let us clean them, we’ve got a Navajo power plant that the EPA may close…I meant the list goes on and on.

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Yesterday, I had a post on Big Government which focused on a subpoena Rep. Darrell Issa had sent to Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. In both the subpoena and a letter accompanying it, Issa made two complaints: 1. That Cunningham had theretofore refused to voluntarily testify before the House Oversight Committee, and 2. That members of the DOJ had informed Issa that some of their inaccuracies in testimony were due to false information they’d been provided by Cunningham.

The subpoena demanded Cunningham testify before the committee on January 24, 2012. And yesterday, Cunningham’s attorney, Tobin J. Romero, made it known that although his client will show up as demanded, he will not be providing any information to Issa and the rest of the committee.

Here’s an excerpt from Romero’s letter:

My client, Patrick Cunningham, has spent his entire 32-year career in government service, including as a JAG officer in the United States Army, as a state court prosecutor, and as a federal prosecutor. He also served on the State Bar of Arizona’s Committee on Rules of Professional Conduct (Ethics Committee) from 1995 to 2002. When he returned to the United States Attorney’s Office in 2010, he did so to advance the law enforcement interests of the United States. Regrettably, he now finds himself caught in the middle of a dispute between the Legislative Branch and the Executive Branch, with both, according to the allegations in your letter, finding it convenient to make accusations that are inconsistent with the documentary evidence and the public record.

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I just received an email from Congressman Darrel Issa’s office, containing a copy of a letter that was just sent Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. The letter announces that Cunningham has just been subpoenaed for “repeated refusals to testify voluntarily” before the House Oversight Committee, concerning accusations that he relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Justice Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.

Wrote Issa to Cunningham:

During the course of our investigation, the Committee has learned of the outsized role played by the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office – and you specifically – in approving the unacceptable tactics used in Fast and Furious. Senior Justice Department officials have recently told the Committee that you relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.

These officials told us that even after Congress began investigating Fast and Furious, you continued to insist that no unacceptable tactics were used.  In fact, documents obtained confidentially just last week appear to confirm that you remained steadfast in your belief that no unacceptable tactics were used, even after the Department’s initial response to the congressional inquiry.  Given that the Attorney General has labeled these tactics as unacceptable and Fast and Furious as “fundamentally flawed,” this position is startling.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Matt Boyle to discuss Fast and Furious, how Eric Holder has publicly dodged any involvement, and whether or not someone will be held accountable.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Fast and Furious Roundtable with Katie Pavlich and Matthew Boyle
Holder may be holding on to private emails about Fast and Furious
Justice Dept. silent as Holder charges critics with racism

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The Republican primaries are upon us. And while we’re asking if it will be Newt, Santorum, Perry, or Romney, we have to remember that no matter which Republican finally comes out on top, the cold hard truth is that there’s a fast pitch down the middle waiting on him. All that’s needed is for someone to take a homerun swing and knock it out of the park. What am I talking about? I’m talking about Obama’s dismal record and languishing approval numbers, his literal war on the Constitution, and the fact that hope and change has become “better luck next time.”

Seriously folks, could there be a more beatable incumbent than Barack Obama has proven to be?

Just think it: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, since Obama took office 1.7 million jobs have been lost, “the unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent for 35 months, and the average duration of unemployment has increased from 19.9 weeks to 40.8 weeks.” (Keep in mind that Obama sold his more than $800 billion stimulus package with the promise that passing it would keep unemployment at 7% or below.)

And if such economic incompetence isn’t enough to convince you Obama is beatable, you’re in the minority. Recent Gallup polls have shown that when given a choice between the type of policies that Obama has implemented and “pro-growth” policies (i.e., policies built upon less regulation and lower taxes), voters prefer the “pro-growth” policies by a margin of 52 to 40.

Consider his approach to the military. There he has cut so much funding that we suddenly find ourselves in a position where we can no longer fight two ground wars simultaneously. He has thrust a Carter-like weakness upon our men and women in uniform, and to be sure they comply has initiated a downsizing of the military that will result in cutting 50,000 troops by 2015.

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I just received an email update from Congressman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) office, stating that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on February 2. The questions will center on the Department of Justice’s knowledge of, and response to, the gunwalking tactics that were used in Operation Fast and Furious. The A.G. will also be asked to address the DOJ’s   “steadfast refusal to disclose information following the February 4, 2011 letter to Senator Grassley, which the [DOJ] has withdrawn because it contained false information denying allegations made by whistleblowers about Operation Fast and Furious.”

Wrote Issa:

The Department of Justice’s conduct in the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious has been nothing short of shameful. From its initial denials that nothing improper occurred, to efforts to silence whistleblowers who wanted to tell Congress what really happened, to its continuing refusal to discuss or share documents related to this cover-up, the Justice Department has fought tooth and nail to hide the full truth about what occurred and what senior officials knew.  Attorney General Holder must explain or reverse course on decisions that appear to put the careers of political appointees ahead of the need for accountability and the Department’s integrity.

The last portion of the letter provided me via Issa’s email highlights new (and startling) information on the DOJ’s refusal to cooperate with investigators to date.

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