Holder Hearings, Opening Salvo: Issa Goes for the Jugular, Democrats Attempt Smoke Screen for Holder
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Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) opened this morning’s hearings by providing a timeline for Fast and Furious: a timeline that briefly described the role of every law enforcement agency involved. He spoke about the debt we owe Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, and agent Terry’s family. And he announced that ATF whistleblower John Dodson was present in the room for the hearings today. (Dodson is the Phoenix agent who risked his career and his life to inform Congress about details of Fast and Furious as they were visible to him on the street.)
Then Issa dug in deeper:
On Oct 11, 2011, after months and months and months of this committee trying to get further documents, we issued subpoenas for documents and were told they’re hard to get. Yet, ten times as many documents have been provided to the Inspector General. Mr. Attorney General, when is the primary investigative committee of congress going to be allowed the same access that the IG has? That the twelve thousand members of the IG have? We ask very little of government by contrast, ?but we believe we deserve those answers in at least as timely a fashion as your own IG gets.
A top official with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix, AZ who has repeatedly declined to voluntarily testify to Congressional investigators about Operation Fast and Furious has been subpoenaed, according to the office of Congressman Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The development comes as the American firearms industry is gathered here at the Sands Convention Center for its annual Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, and Fast and Furious is a hot topic. This announcement will make it hotter, primarily because the industry, and particularly gun dealers from across the Southwest, have been blamed by the Obama administration for the flood of firearms heading south to Mexico.
Students can sue their public school district for violating their First Amendment right by eliminating a radical La Raza studies program that ignites racial hostility, teaches disdain for American sovereignty and illegally segregates students by race.
Only in America would a federal judge rule that a U.S. taxpayer-funded institution can get sued for refusing to provide such a divisive program that one instructor denounced for igniting racial hostility. The case involves the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican Raza Studies program, nixed after state legislators banned funding for ethnic studies curriculums that advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Tucson’s controversial La Raza curriculum was created in 1998 to promote the Chicano agenda. Years later it was renamed “Mexican-American Studies” to sound less extremist. In 2010 Arizona’s legislature passed a measure (HB 2281) banning taxpayer-funded schools from offering classes that are designed for students of a particular race and promote resentment toward a certain ethnic group (in this case whites).
Signing of the preliminary Treaty of Paris, 30 November 1782.
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on the one hand and the United States of America and its allies on the other. The other combatant nations, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements; for details of these, and the negotiations which produced all four treaties, see Peace of Paris (1783).[1][2] It is most famous for being “exceedingly generous” to the United States in terms of enlarged boundaries.
Read the rest.
U.S. Rep. Raul “Mr. Boycott Arizona” Grijalva says he may appeal directly to the White House for funds to expand and modernize the U.S. Port of Entry at San Luis, Ariz., since he can’t get Republican backing to fund the upgrades.
In a visit Friday to Somerton and San Luis, Ariz., Grijalva said he has gotten no support from Republican lawmakers for legislation he introduced in October, the Border Infrastructure and Jobs Act of 2011, which would earmark $80 million for upgrades and additional personnel at the San Luis port of entry.
”Unfortunately not one Republican congressman has responded, even though we have told them that if there’s some change to the proposal (that they want), we will be happy to do it,” said the Tucson Democrat, whose district includes Yuma County.
Read the rest.
In a scathing letter sent to Barack Obama this morning, Senator Marco Rubio said that under the President’s first term in office, “more and more people have come to believe that America is becoming a deadbeat nation.”
Rubio went on to pledge that he would challenge any further increase in the debt ceiling, arguing that “we [Congress] need to make it routine to actually spend no more than we take in.” In the letter obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, the Florida Senator said that President Obama’s upcoming request to increase the debt ceiling by a whopping $1.2 trillion will cause the nation’s public debt to surpass the $16 trillion mark.
“I will oppose your request to continue borrowing and spending recklessly.”
President Obama is expected to request the new borrowing power from Congress once the Senate and House return from their holiday recess.
The Mexican army announced Sunday that it had captured the head of security for Sinaloa drug cartel head Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, one of the world’s most wanted men.
The suspect, who was not identified by name, was captured in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan and will be presented to the media Monday morning, the army said.
Guzman, Mexico’s top drug lord, is one of the world’s richest men, and has eluded authorities by moving around and hiding since his 2001 escape from prison in a laundry truck.
The army said the man they had arrested also ran cartel activities in Durango and southern Chihuahua state, and was responsible for carrying out secret burials of cartel victims, kidnapping, extortion and arson. They did not say if the arrest moved the military closer to capturing Guzman, an arrest that would be seen as a major victory for the government of President Felipe Calderon.
A federal appeals court has ruled against an Arizona law that requires residents to prove their U.S. citizenship to register to vote, but upheld a part of the same law that mandates residents to show identification before voting.
The decision made by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Tuesday was part of an ongoing court battle surrounding Arizona’s Proposition 200.
Arizona passed the law in 2004, prompting legal challenges.
Several people wrote letters to the BoS about how inappropriate the entire episode was. Below is one that seems to have captured the event:
Dear Chairman Kunasek,
We must express our disappointment with the permitted conduct of the Democrat related attendees during the December 14, 2011 Maricopa County Supervisors meeting. The regulations require maintaining order at all such meetings, and prohibit signs and disruptions. Nonetheless, respectful conservative attendees were the victims of negative signage and planned disruptions of coughing and laughter, demeaning their presence and impeding their speech. Indeed, independent citizens and the Supervisors themselves had their ability and right to hear both sides of the issue diminished. The irony should not be lost that those not obeying regulations that [morning] were doing so in support of an allegation that some county officials they oppose had not obeyed regulations.
These Department of Justice allegations against the Sheriff seem politically motivated and some might label them a “political witch hunt”; time will tell. Like ALL accusations, they require vetting fairly, honestly and according to the law. Meeting that objective seems to be partly your job and in the review, please consider the following about the source of the complaint, the Department of Justice.
Late yesterday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s office sent me an email with a copy of a letter the Congressman had sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on December 15 – a letter to which the A.G. has yet to respond. In it, Issa informs Holder that the Committee would like him to appear for more testimony on January 24, 2012.
In other words, Fast and Furious isn’t going away any time soon.
Issa wrote:
The hearing will examine flaws in the management structure of the Justice Department as demonstrated in the genesis and implementation of ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious. Specifically, the hearing will focus on what senior Department officials could and should have done to put a stop to this reckless program, as well as the specific areas where failures in communication and management occurred.
