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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Once Lamar Smith (R-TX) opened the hearings with comments on Fast and Furious and then passed the baton to Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), it seemed the hearings would be a wash.  That’s because it was evident from the start that Conyers was there to carry water for Holder. For example, Conyers used his opening comments to highlight the “life and contributions” of Holder, and to highlight the need for more gun control in the United States. He particularly supported the new requirement for border state gun stores to file special reports on customers who make multiple long gun purchases. (Conyers made no mention of the thousands of long guns transferred to criminals via the DOJ/ATF operation Fast and Furious.)

Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA) used his opening comments to call for more gun control, and was particularly critical of concealed handgun laws and of Republican support of concealed handgun laws. Moreover, Scott actually defended Holder by blaming gun walking on President Bush. (For the record, there was an operation called Wide Receiver under Bush, but it was very small and was done in conjunction with the Mexican government rather than by keeping the Mexican government in the dark as Holder did with Fast and Furious.)

Folks, the whole tone of the hearing changed when Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) was allowed to make his opening statement. He contented that gun control was not the important matter before the committee. Rather, “what is important is the 2nd Amendment.”  Added Issa, “ATF Used Fast and Furious to make case for gun regulations”

After this opening salvo, Issa was on a roll:

This administration is more interested in building data bases, in talking about control, than controlling the flow of guns they had control over. …[Fast and Furious] was not an accident. This project was failed and flawed from the beginning.

Issa went on to make the point that “Brian Terry is dead today because of this program,” yet Holder and Co. are hesitant to investigate Terry’s murder for fear of uncovering their own culpability to a greater degree. Said Issa: “This justice department is not looking for who killed Brian Terry” in order to preserve their own “plausible deniability.”

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I just received an email with a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder attached to it.

The hard copy of the letter was sent to the House Oversight Committee in what appears to be a rather strained attempt to quell the storm surrounding Fast and Furious.

Addressed to Congressmen Darrell Issa (R-CA), Lamar Smith (R-TX), and Elijah Cummings (D-MD), as well as Senators Patrick Leahy (D- VT), Charles Grassley (R-IA), and John Conyers Jr. (D-MI), the letter is basically an overview of everything that’s wrong with Fast and Furious as well a collection of criticisms regarding the way the investigation is being run. Not surprisingly, it’s missing the one component we’d all like most to see – Holder’s admission of guilt.

Although the letter is benign at points, those benign sections are eclipsed via the obvious goal of using the letter to turn public sentiment against the Congressional investigators and thereby undercut the investigation.

Consider one excerpt from the letter:

I simply cannot sit idly by as a Majority Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform suggests, as happened this week, that law enforcement and government employees who devote their lives to protecting our citizens be considered “accessories to murder.” Such irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric must be repudiated in the strongest possible terms. Those who serve in the ranks of law enforcement are our Nation’s heroes and deserve our Nation’s thanks, not the disrespect that is being heaped on them by those who seek political advantage.

This paragraph merits a few comments.

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From FoxNews:

House Republicans are calling for a special counsel to determine whether Attorney General Holder perjured himself during his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Operation Fast and Furious, Fox News has learned.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, was sending a letter to President Obama on Tuesday arguing that Holder cannot investigate himself, and requesting the president instruct the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel.

The question is whether Holder committed perjury during a Judiciary Committee hearing on May 3. At the time, Holder indicated he was not familiar with with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives program known as Fast and Furious until about April 2011.

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Patent Reform legislation is being championed in Congress by liberal Pat Leahy (D-VT) in the Senate and Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) in the House. Its disturbing that Smith seems to have gone native – going so far as to write editorials with Leahy – the man who savaged Clarence Thomas and dozens of conservative judicial nominees before his committee.

There is nothing conservative about Patent Reform and Leahy knows it. Too bad Smith doesn’t. In fact, Smith is pushing the House to vote on Leahy’s bill this week.

The legislation is a direct affront to American constitutional values and precedents, violates the Constitution and contains massive giveaways to big banks and the other Wall Street finance companies – each of them TARP recipients.

The House Leadership – flush with corporate cash – appears willing to turn their back on Tea Party principles in order to reward their K-Street benefactors.  The legislation has some stalwart conservative opponents but some Republican Study Committee members appear to be sitting on their hands – or worse.

HR 1239 Turns American Patent Law into European Patent Law

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Sources on Capitol Hill have told Big Government that the House Leadership is pushing for a fast-track vote on radical Patent Reform legislation and the bill could come to the floor as early as this Wednesday. The bill is an affront to conservative values and principles and the Speaker must derail this freight train.

Patent Reform is a long time dream of lobbyists for multinational corporations and Fortune 100 companies looking to get out of the burden of paying inventors for this innovative discoveries. To achieve this goal, the bill will change 250 years of American patent law by turning our constitutional system of “first to invent” into the European version of “first to file.” Under a “first to file” system, lawyers win. Under the American system, inventors and innovators win.

Conservatives have pushed back against this scheme. Phyllis Schafly and Ed Meese are leading the charge on the constitutional principles and last week the Supreme Court signaled their objections are valid. Writing for the Supreme Court in Stanford v. Roche, a patent infringement case Chief Justice John Roberts held that “[s]ince 1790, the patent law has operated on the premise that rights in an invention belong to the inventor.”

In addition to the push to “harmonize” our system with Europe (what’s next the metric system?), the bill contains a special interest handout available only to big banks and Wall Street firms. Section 18 of H.R. 1249 is another billion-dollar bailout for the biggest banks in the nation. Attacking the provision as “special interest legislation, pure and simple,” legal scholar Jonathan Massey argues that it would “shift the cost of patent infringement from financial services firms to the U.S. Treasury,” requiring the public to once again pick up the tab for the banks’ wrongdoing.

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Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post:

In a five-page letter, Smith notes that there has been “little oversight” as to how the civil rights division has used its budget increases ($22 million in FYI 2010 and $17 million requested in FYI 2011) and why the need for some 164 new positions.

He then gets to the heart of the matter. As I and other outlets have reported, he notes that in the New Black Panther Party case investigation, it came to light that a political appointee, Julie Fernandes, directed Justice Department attorneys “not to bring cases against black defendants for the benefit of white victims.”

Smith then details allegations by former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams that the department declined to enforce the National Voter Registration Act and its provisions relating to “voter integrity.”

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Incoming House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tx) appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show today.  When asked about the Pigford Settlement the congressman said “There are still a lot of questions about that money that was spent and whether individuals were discriminated against or not and that would be a right subject for an oversight hearing.”

In May 2009, the Obama/Holder Justice Department dropped charges in a voter intimidation case against Malik Shabazz, a leader of the New Black Panther Party, despite having already won a summary judgment against him, and his New Black Panther Party colleagues King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson who were video-taped outside polling place in Philadelphia intimidating voters as they arrived on election day, 2008.  In July 2009, when Congress began looking into the matter, someone named Malik Shabazz visited the private residence at the White House.

When news of the visit was released under the auspices of transparency, the White House denied that the Malik Shabazz on the visitor’s log was the same Malik Shabazz involved in the New Black Panther voter intimidation case.  According to Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, the records contained “a few “false positives” – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else.”  He specifically cited Malik Shabazz as an example of one of these “false positives”.

At the time, the media did not challenge the White House on the veracity of this claim.  The White House’s position was, basically: “We’re being transparent, here are all the visitor logs, and this guy is not the guy you think he is, TRUST US.”

The great thing about transparency – when there is actual transparency – is that it renders trust unnecessary.  We ask that the White House identify which Malik Shabazz visited the White House residence on July 25, 2009.

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Attorney General Eric Holder testified the other day before the House Judiciary Committee.   Republican congressman Lamar Smith asked him what seemed to be a pretty simple question.

Regarding the perpetrators in the last three terror attacks (two, thank God, unsuccessful) on our homeland (Fort Hood, the Christmas day bomber, and the Times Square bomber), Smith asked our Attorney General “Do you feel these individuals…might have been incited to take the actions they did because of radical Islam?”

Holder feigned to not understand.   “ Because of…?”

Smith:  “Because of radical Islam.”

Holder: “There are a variety of reasons people do these things.”

Smith re-worded the same question and re-asked it six times, with Holder refusing to acknowledge what is as obvious as the fact that I am typing these words and you are reading them.  That every major incident of terror of recent years has been performed by Muslims and that all of them associate their particular theology with their acts of terror.

The real question today is who is governing America and what exactly is the agenda of those who sit in the seat of power of our own country?

It is no wonder that most Americans are squirming around with the most profound sense of uneasiness.  When the chief law enforcement officer of the United States refuses to acknowledge what is clear and true – that those perpetrating terror today are uniformly Muslim and motivated by Islamic theology of one form or another – how in the world can we possibly feel safe?

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From The Hill:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has informed two House Republicans that it will investigate ACORN’s use of federal funds.

The GAO sent a letter to Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, informing them of its decision. Smith and Issa on Thursday released the letter, dated Dec. 7

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Washington News Observer covered yesterday’s  forum on ACORN, which was hosted by the House Judiciary Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee . The US Department of Justice has thus far refused to lead an investigation into the improper allegations of ACORN. This is a brief video reel of the highlights from the two hour forum.

On Friday, the Department of Justice released a ruling it issued Monday, outlining its arguments that federal agencies can continue providing taxpayer funds to ACORN.

obligations-public-law11168 -

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From The Hill:

ACORN and its affiliates received $200,000 in Justice Department grants between 2002 and 2009, according a report issued today by the department’s Inspector General.

No DOJ grants went directly to ACORN, but a handful of grants were awarded either to ACORN affiliates or to other organizations that sub-contracted with ACORN.

The report, requested by House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), also found a few instances of ACORN mismanagement of federally contracted work.

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On Thursday, the United States House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution funding the Federal Government through December 18^th.  The continuing resolution was passed as part of the behemoth Interior-Environment Appropriations conference report.

A continuing resolution is a stop-gap provision which allows the government to continue its operations until Congress can determine the next year’s appropriations.  The actions taken today merely extended the expiration date of the resolution which went into effect on October 1^st.

By extending the existing continuing resolution Congress has continued to deprive ACORN and its affiliates of federal funds until December 18^th.

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