Northwest Indiana Discussion

Congressman attempts to transfer
Fast and Furious blame onto
NRA ‘radicals,’ the Senate — Holder obliges
Daily Caller, by Matthew Boyle & Michelle Fields

Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson accused the tea party movement and the National Rifle Association of creating an “manufactured” controversy over Operation Fast and Furious Thursday.

Johnson’s comments came during an interview with The Daily Caller outside the House Judiciary Committee hearing room. Attorney General Eric Holder was testifying before the committee about Fast and Furious — a Justice Department program where Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents facilitated the sale of about 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels.

“I think this is another manufactured controversy by the second amendment, NRA Republican tea party movement,” Johnson said.

Johnson sung a different tune during the hearing, though, comparing the scandal to what he considers a surge in illegal gun sales to criminals.

After asking Holder for the specific number of guns the Justice Department and ATF helped smuggle into the hands of drug cartels — to which Holder responded there were about 2,000 — Johnson alleged that the “gun show loophole” was far worse.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/09/congr ... z1g4qp1why
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Beating of Alabama man not seen
as hate crime, despite claim
'Trayvon' invoked
Fox News, by Joshua Rhett Miller

A racially charged beating of a white Alabama man by a throng of African-Americans is not being investigated as a hate crime, despite one witness' claim that she heard an assailant exclaim: "Now that's justice for Trayvon."

Matthew Owens, of Mobile, Ala., was assaulted with baseball bats, paint cans and other weapons at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday after telling a group of children to stop playing basketball in the middle of Delmar Drive, according to Ashley Rains, public information officer for the Mobile Police Department.

After the children left the area, a group of adults armed with weapons returned and confronted Owens, 40, in his front yard, where he was assaulted. Owens' sister, Ashley Parker, told WKRG she witnessed the attack and that there were as many as 20 assailants. Parker said she overheard one of them say, "Now that's justice for Trayvon."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/24/po ... z1t4BDmhGB

The Justice Department’s Fast and Furious operation was conceived as a way to catch illegal gun runners but instead put guns in the hands of Mexican drug criminals. Congress wants to know why and has been battling with Attorney General Eric Holder for more information. A sizable number of voters now think Holder should resign.

In fact, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 27% of Likely U.S. Voters oppose Holder’s resignation. Forty percent (40%) are in favor of the attorney general stepping down, but another 33% are undecided.

Taking a stand for what is right sometimes comes with grave consequences.

Since taking office as United States Attorney General in 2009, Eric Holder has successfully restored the integrity of the U.S. Department of Justice. He has revitalized the Civil Rights Division, fought governors seeking to block millions of Americans from voting and worked to advance and protect the promise of America for all.

Sadly, extreme elements within the U.S. House are threatening to issue and vote on a contempt of Congress citation against Attorney General Holder. They say he has not been forthcoming with information about the botched “Fast and Furious” illegal arms trafficking program.

The NAACP supports accountability and transparency at every level. However, this crusade in Congress reeks of partisan politics. All signs indicate the AG is complying with Congress on the “Fast and Furious” program. He has supplied Congress with thousands of pages of documents about the program and testified on the issue eight times in the past eighteen months.

Threatening to hold a sitting US Attorney General in contempt of Congress has serious consequences — in addition to being a criminal conviction, the citation carries up to 12 months in prison. These unwarranted attacks on the AG are nothing more than attempts to distract and prevent him from continuing to enforce the nation’s civil and voting rights laws.

The extremists in Congress threatening to file a contempt of Congress citation are the same members who led the movement to pass legislation that would prohibit the U.S. DOJ from going to court to protect our right to vote, stop state-sponsored racial profiling by law enforcement, defend gains made in comprehensive healthcare coverage or enforce an EEOC directive to help ex-offenders gain employment.

It is a dangerous, destructive and distractive political ploy that must end now.

House Republicans are charging head first into their most direct conflict with President Barack Obama’s administration over the extent of executive branch power, as they prepare to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress on Wednesday.

Holder and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) failed to reach an agreement on what documents the administration would fork over to help Republicans investigate the Fast and Furious program, a joint Justice Department-Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives operation that put guns into the hands of Mexican cartels.

>The two sides remained at loggerheads Tuesday evening, after a 20-minute huddle in Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s third-floor Capitol suite. Holder later called Issa’s position “political gamesmanship” and not a true attempt to resolve the dispute.

After the session, Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said no deal was in hand and Wednesday’s vote would move forward, barring a last-minute reversal.

The contempt fight with Holder and the White House is a big moment for House Republicans. With stubbornly high unemployment, a president with weak approval ratings, a redistricting process that has shored up Republican seats from coast to coast and a worse-than-expected economic recovery, GOP officials think they’re poised to keep the House in their control, and many believe they have a shot at taking the Senate and White House.

The White House didn't have anything to do with Fast and Furious.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10550&p=134560&hilit=fast+furious#p134560

Been there, done that. Nothing more than right-wing, partisan witch hunts that nobody gives a crap about.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8531&p=139898&hilit=fast+furious#p139898

In the aftermath of a Wednesday vote by a House committee accusing Attorney General Eric Holder of being in contempt of Congress, the attorney general accused the panel’s top Republican Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) of provoking a partisan showdown between the branches of government.

“He has chosen to use his authority to take an extraordinary, unprecedented and entirely unnecessary action, intended to provoke an avoidable conflict between Congress and the Executive Branch,” Holder said in a statement.

“This divisive action does not help us fix the problems that led to this operation or previous ones and it does nothing to make any of our law enforcement agents safer. It’s an election-year tactic intended to distract attention — and, as a result — has deflected critical resources from fulfilling what remains my top priority at the Department of Justice: Protecting the American people,” Holder said.

The conflict between Issa and Holder stems from a Mexican gun running operation nicknamed “Fast and Furious.” Earlier in the day, the Obama administration invoked executive privilege to avoid turning over a number of internal administration documents.

Holder said in a statement that the Department of Justice had already given the House Oversight and Government Reform committee ample cooperation in their investigation.”

“In recent months, the Justice Department has made unprecedented accommodations to respond to information requests by Chairman Issa about misguided law enforcement tactics that began in the previous administration and allowed illegal guns to be taken into Mexico,” Holder said.

“Simply put, any claims that the Justice Department has been unresponsive to requests for information are untrue. From the beginning, Chairman Issa and certain members of the Committee have made unsubstantiated allegations first, then scrambled for facts to try to justify them later. That might make for good political theater, but it does little to uncover the truth or address the problems associated with this operation and prior ones dating back to the previous administration,” Holder said.