Eric Holder's Legacy Is What?

There was an interesting article at Politico the other day. The article was written by a liberal who tried to explain Eric Holder's legacy. Despite being an attempt to make Holder look good, and even claiming that Holder was leaving "on a successful note," what struck me was how poor the article was at actually finding a positive legacy. Observe...

The article begins by admitting that not everyone views Holder positively... talk about understatement. The Republicans treated him like "a punching bag" over the "gun-tracking operation" Fast and Furious. They held him in contempt for not turning over documents related to that too, which is something that "will never totally be erased from his record." Oh, and he wasn't tough enough on Wall Street. But beyond that, Holder did some great stuff. Here's the list:

(1) His primary legacy will be his commitment to equal justice for all Americans.

(2) He had a prominent place in Obama's administration and lasted longer than most of Obama's Cabinet secretaries.

(3) He's black.

(4) His handling of Ferguson solidified his civil rights record as someone who cares about equal justice for all Americans.

Hmm. Ok. Let's examine these "four" points.

First, points one and four are the same. You can't double count his support for equal justice for all Americans by separating out instances. Hence, there are only three points here. Further, this claim is utter horse poop. Holder is notorious for taking the position that the nation's civil rights laws do not protect whites. His Justice Department pursued no cases of abuses by minorities. So the only way to say this is true is if you assume that whites are excluded from his commitment to equal justice. In other words, praise for his commitment to justice for "all" requires and asterisk that says: "statement does not apply to 72% of the population".

Further, let me add that Holder wasn't pro-gay when it came to marriage or benefits until five years into Obama's term. I guess they don't count either. And this is the same man who tried to argue that the terrorists at Gitmo had no rights... a position Bush never came close to taking. Clearly, they don't count either.

I would say honestly that what characterized Holder's term was an unprincipled laziness and indifference combined with a knee-jerk pro-black impulse. That's about it. And let's take a look at Ferguson. How brave has Holder really been? From the sound of things, the Ferguson police force is an epic mess. They clearly have not learned any of the policing lessons other departments have learned over the past 50 years. So what did Holder do to change that? Gee, he said he would send in DOJ to examine the department and put them under a form of super secret probation. But here's the thing, for as long as I can recall, most state and local police departments have already been subject to this. So this is nothing new. And what has this new plan done? Well, to hear the locals whine about it, nothing has changed. The police don't seem to have changed either. Essentially, Holder showed up, lectured us that we're all racists, did what Justice always does, and went back to his office to play with himself. Nice legacy.

And speaking of race, Holder is the guy who bizarrely claimed that America wasn't brave enough to talk about race when that's almost all we've been talking about since the 1960s... if not the 1860s. What else did he do to bring the country together or fix the racial divide? Nada... zip... jacksh*t. Again, nice legacy: one stupid speech and doing what DOJ already does one time.

As for number two, what kind of legacy is that? He was a lackey. Gee, thanks. Seriously, outlasting other cabinet secretaries is not evidence of quality. To the contrary, it's more likely evidence of anti-quality, of a man who never raises his head to cause problems or draw attention. As for being prominent, Holder is no more prominent than most other recent Attorneys General, and he's far less prominent than the dozens who actually did their jobs. In fact, had Holder done his job, he would have had bunches of things to investigate within the administration, but he chose the lackey route over the integrity root... and being a lackey never scores you a positive legacy.

As for being black, give me a break. That's the kind of "accomplishment" losers hide behind. If Holder had real achievements, the last thing anyone would be saying is, "Gee, his big accomplishment is being black and holding the job," especially as he didn't really earn the job -- he was appointed by his friend.

So seriously, where is Holder's positive legacy? His race is irrelevant to his accomplishment, except among liberals. His time in office produced no real groundbreaking changes of any sort. To the contrary, his department seems to have presided over a period when the Supreme Court took great delight in bitch-slapping everything Holder and friends thought would be law forever, and Holder did squat to fix it. He turned a blind eye as incompetence and law breaking ran rampant in Obama's administration. His pronouncements on race were rare, awkward, wrong and racist. His pronouncements beyond race were even more rare. He did nothing to clean up Wall Street, something both left and right would have agreed needed to be done. In fact, despite the left claiming he scored "record settlements" from some of the bigger banks, the stock of each shot up when the dollar amounts were announced. He took the "human rights outrage" of Gitmo and basically punted to the next administration. The legal advice he gave Obama about the filling of appointments was so bad that everything Obama did ended up being overturned by the courts. And so on.

Beyond that, I'm simply not sure what else to say about the man? He's an arrogant turd with the record of a lazy fool who likes the smell of his own farts. I would tend to think that almost anyone would have been a more effective Attorney General in almost every way.

Am I missing something?

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Primer: Obama/Holder v. Iran

I figured you might like a primer on the new Iranian issue, as it’s all over the headlines and it’s an issue which could actually lead to war if mishandled -- although that’s extremely unlikely. Here’s what’s up:

● What Happened: On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the DEA and FBI had foiled a plot to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador and blow up the Saudi and Israeli embassies. This plot was supposedly masterminded by Iran’s “elite” Quds military unit. The Quds are a special unit within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard whose job it is to “export” Iran’s Islamic revolution to other countries.

According to Holder, Manssor Arbabsiar (a Corpus Christi, Texas car salesman) was tasked by the Iranian government with finding someone to carry out the killing and the bombings. Arbabsiar turned to the nastiest of the Mexican drug cartels, Los Zetas, a group of former special forces soldiers who started their own cartel. I wrote about Los Zetas here: LINK. Arbabsiar wanted Los Zetas to do both the killing and the bombings and he wanted them to agree to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East into Mexico.

However, the person Arbabsiar contacted turned out to be a DEA informant. Whoops.

● Team Obama’s Response: The administration accuses Iran and describes this as: “a dangerous escalation of Iran's long-scale use of violence.” The reason they claim Iran did this was “the Iranians watch the Saudis roll tanks in Bahrain, and they see a key ally in Syria going down, so they step up the Quds Force.”

Joe Biden has been sent forth from the Idiotorium to take the lead on this. He described this as “really over the top” and said it was “an outrage that violates one of the fundamental premises on which nations deal with one another.” He also said that “no options have been taken off the table” for dealing with this, though the administration has already ruled out military action. Instead, they are considering sanctions, the standard response by liberals when they don’t know what to do.

● The Saudi Response: Saudi Arabia and Iran are bitter regional rivals largely because their versions of Islam consider the other to be heretics. The Saudi embassy said this was “a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions,” and their former head of intelligence said Iran will have to “pay the price.” They have not been more specific yet. However, Saudi Arabia does not have a military capable of defeating Iran.

● The Iranian Response: For its part, Iran denies involvement. They told the UN they are “outraged” and “strongly and categorically reject these fabricated and baseless allegations, based on the suspicious claims by an individual.” Tehran claims Obama has fabricated this to “divert attention from the Wall Street uprising.” Ha ha! They also repeated claims the US has assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists in the past two years.

For the record, the only link so far to Iran is that the car dealer apparently is a cousin of someone in the Qud and he visited Iran right before $100,000 was wired into the informant’s account by the car dealer. The FBI claims this was wired from a Qud bank account.

● The World Reaction: The world reaction has been skeptical. Iranian experts say that Arbabsiar does not fit the profile of the typical Iranian agent, who tend to be professionals. And they say it’s unlikely Iran would be behind such a plot. Similarly, an Iranian expert in Berlin said these claims would be viewed with skepticism as “everyone is extremely skeptical about US intelligence revelations” and added, “I don’t regard it as impossible but rather improbable, even if the details of the story presented by the attorney general are essentially true.”

One western diplomat said: “I don't believe Iran's regime was behind the plot. If we assume it was Iran's plot, it would seem like a group of professional gangsters hiring a careless agent for their most important project. It's impossible.”

Even a senior American law enforcement official said (on condition of anonymity) that the US isn’t quite sure what this was and it was likely a “rogue plan. . . so outside their normal track of activity.”

● Some Questions: This all leaves us with some odd questions. If we assume Holder is correct, then what will Obama do about it? Even Clinton dropped a few cruise missiles on Sudan after the embassy bombings in Africa. So Obama can’t just pretend this didn’t happen.

But if Holder is wrong, then is he simply wrong or is there more to this?

I never like conspiracies as an answer, especially when there are more likely answers -- such as this guy just being a nut job. But it is extremely coincidental that the day after Darrell Issa starts talking about subpoenaing Holder to answer for what are likely criminal acts related to Fast and Furious, that Holder manages to unveil a huge distraction involving the very elements of Fast and Furious -- DEA, drugs, Mexican cartels and cross border crime. This is one of those coincidences you can’t put in films or people will lose their suspension of disbelief.

My normal response would be to trust professional law enforcement. BUT we’ve already seen how compromised they’ve been by Democratic Justice bosses, such as when Janet Reno ordered the Branch Davidian attack to show that she was tough or the Elian Gonzalez deportation to show Castro goodwill or Holder’s actions in Fast and Furious itself, where potentially hundreds of lives have been taken or destroyed by Holder’s attempt to use the ATF for political purposes. Trust is in short supply here.

So I think we should keep an open mind at this point and not assume anything unless and until strong, verifiable, independent proof is provided.

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Politicized Justice

The United States is free and stable because we depoliticized the most dangerous parts of our government: the power to tax, the power to police and make war, and the legal system. The power to tax is the power to destroy. The power to police and make war is the power to kill. And the legal system controls every other aspect of our lives. If you control the legal system, then there are no rights, only privileges given at the whim of our masters. The Democrats are trying to undo this, as shown by the Gibson Guitar case.



It took our country a long time to depoliticize much of our government. Until the 1930s, both the army and the federal bureaucracy were considered spoils to be exploited by the political victors, and they would appoint their supporters to government jobs or give them military commissions. Changing this was a monumental achievement. Unfortunately, in the past 20 years, the Democrats have worked hard to re-politicize these government functions.



Clinton took the first big steps in this regard, when he sent the IRS after churches because they were seen as supporters of Republicans -- the Republicans never counter-attacked, despite the fact that so many leftist groups are hiding behind non-profit labels, which cannot by law be partisan. Clinton’s Justice Department's Civil Rights Division spent its time doing the bidding of feminists, while its Antitrust Division went after the competitors of campaign donors and ignored F.O.Bs (Friends of Bill) like the nation’s colleges, which conspire to fix prices. At the same time, Justice struggled mightily to blind itself to all of Clinton’s illegal Chinese donors, some of whom apparently had ties to Chinese Intelligence, e.g. John Huang, Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung and Maria Hsia.



Under Holder, the Civil Right Division has become an agent of black racism. This was shown by testimony from Justice Department employees, who confirmed that Justice only sees the nation’s civil rights laws as protecting blacks from whites and not the reverse. Of course, you could also have seen this from the way Justice subverted any investigation into voter intimidation by blacks, e.g. the Black Panther case. Justice couldn’t even be bothered to examine ACORN, which was caught red-handed, and it continues to attack any attempt to require minorities to show voter identification.



Holder also sued Arizona, on behalf of Obama’s illegal alien friends, to stop Arizona from enforcing the very laws the Justice Department is sworn to uphold. And we understand INS has all but stopped deporting illegal aliens.



Holder also stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act, as a sop to Obama’s gay supporters.



In Operation Fast and Furious, we see the Justice Department’s ATF allowing the sale of guns to criminals in the hopes of generating political data to be used to support gun control advocates.



Meanwhile, Holder has been pursuing peaceful pro-lifers who march outside clinics, while refusing to investigate union thugs beating people up at townhall meetings or intimidating employers or acting like racketeers against private companies or making death threats to Republican legislators in Wisconsin.



And now we have the Gibson Guitar case.



To make its guitars, Gibson imports rosewood from India and Madagascar. The wood it imports is certified for export by both countries as being from sustainable sources. That makes it legal for import into the United States.



But the Justice Department just swooped in and seized over a million dollars in wood and equipment from Gibson. What was Justice’s reasoning? No one knows. They won’t tell Gibson. This is a complete violation of our Constitution, which requires that you be informed of the charges against you and that you be given an opportunity to defend yourself. It is also an obscenity because if Justice won’t tell Gibson why it has done this, then the only reasonable answer is intimidation. People need to be fired for this!



And it gets worse. It turns out that Gibson is a well-known Republican contributor. Its primary competitor, C.F. Martin & Company, is a well-known Democratic contributor. Martin gets its wood from the exact same sources as Gibson. Yet, Holder’s Justice Department has not raided Martin. . . it only hassles Gibson. It would be stupid to think this wasn’t politically motivated. The message is clear: this is an attempt to intimidate Republican business to keep them out of politics.



So what do we do about Obama/Holder deeply politicizing the Justice Department? The usual Republican response would be to swear that we will put a stop to this. Then we act scared as soon as the Democrats accuse us of interfering with Justice. Let me suggest a smarter way to handle this: fight fire with fire.



Appoint a seasoned political operative to lead the Justice Department. This person’s job will be to focus the Justice Department on unions, race lobbyists, and fake non-profits that are really hidden Democratic support organizations. Start investigating George Soros for any number of his crimes, real or suggested. Target groups like the New York Times, in retaliation for Holder’s political attacks on News Corp. Use the full resources of the United States to tie up and pursue these organizations.



This may make Republicans queasy, but this is the only way the Democrats will ever stop politicizing parts of the government. So long as they can keep doing this and the only Republican response is to promise not to do it themselves, they will keep doing this. Only by teaching the Democrats that there are consequences, i.e. that we can take the weapons they create and use them to much greater effect will the Democrats begin to respect the non-partisan nature of government. There must be consequences. And if some Democrats end up in jail in the meantime. . . that's just too bad for them.



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The Death Of Fox News??

Never let a crisis go to waste, especially somebody else’s crisis. That seems to be the motto of this administration. The latest example involves the implosion of News Corp.’s News of the World. Indeed, the Democrats are pulling out all the stops to use this to remove Rupert Murdoch from the helm of News Corp. and thereby, they hope, get FOX News under liberal control. Here’s what you need to know.

The scandal began when it was revealed that reporters at the 168 year old British tabloid News of the World had been hacking into phone accounts of famous celebrities and politicians to find dirt. This violates multiple British laws.

Things recently hit fever pitch when it was learned that the News of the World had bribed police for information AND had hacked into the phones of 9/11 victims and into the phone of a murdered British teenager (Milly Dowler). The outrage that followed forced the paper to close and led to the resignation of the latest editor, Rebekah Brooks, and of Les Hinton, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, who was an editor of the News of the World during part of the period in question -- there is no evidence of wrongdoing at the Journal. This weekend, Brooks was arrested and London's police chief resigned.

The scandal reaches Rupert Murdoch because Murdoch acquired the News of the World in 1969 and made it part of his News Corp. empire. That empire includes the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, among others. These are largely conservative organizations and, thus, the Democrats hate them with the passion of a 1,000 low-carbon suns. And with this scandal, the Democrats see a chance to attack their favorite bogeymen. Indeed, they are hoping to parlay the News of the World scandal into an attack on Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and Murdoch himself, who they hope to dislodge from the ownership of these organizations.

To that end, Eric Holder has announced that the Obama-controlled Department of Justice intends to investigate whether the Wall Street Journal or the New York Post were engaged in similar hacking. Can you say... fishing expedition? He also claims he will investigate whether 9/11 victims’ phones were hacked. Keep in mind, by the way, this is the same Justice Department that routinely turns a blind eye to any and all crimes committed by leftist groups or this administration.

Other Democrats are jumping in as well. The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee has launched an online petition to demand that “Murdoch come clear.” A group of leftist “journalists” has launched a similar effort. John Podesta, the president of the Centre for American Progress, a leftist crackhouse, claims: “This is not one rogue editor. This is an empire that was built on a set of journalistic ethics that’s beginning to explode and unravel. They were routinely bribing public officials.” Of course, he has no evidence. But then, if anyone should know about bribery and a lack of ethics it would be Podesta, who helped Obama transition to the White House.

This is standard liberal crappola, and mainly it’s just liberals playing with themselves. But there is reason for concern.

The SEC (also under Obama’s control) could attack News Corp. for its subsidiary engaging in bribery of the British police, which would violate foreign bribery laws, specifically the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. A violation of the FCPA might require Murdoch to resign or even give up his ownership.

Also, under federal law, holders of television and radio licenses have to undergo character tests to show that they are fit to be media owners. If the SEC (or the Justice Department) finds a violation of the FCPA, the FCC (also under Obama’s control) could deny Murdoch his television and radio licenses, which would again result in him surrendering control.

At this point there is no evidence that Murdoch did anything wrong and he is doing all the right things. They closed the paper that had clearly spun out of control. The editors directly responsible, whether they had knowledge or not, have resigned. And his papers have issued a public apology. The committee that monitors The Wall Street Journal has already said they have no evidence of wrongdoing at the Journal or at Dow Jones, the Journal’s parent company (which is owned by News Corp.). And it’s unlikely Fox was involved because, frankly, they’ve never reported anything that didn’t come over the wire.

But doing the right thing does not insulate you from an aggressively partisan government. So expect Team Obama to pull out all the stops to use the power of government to shut down the one part of the MSM that isn’t in the tank for them.

This could get interesting.

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Jamie Gorelick?! Is Obama Kidding?

The latest rumor has Obama looking at appointing Jamie Gorelick to be the next director of the FBI. Good grief. This pick should bother everyone. Gorelick’s career has been an unending series of conflicts of interest, abuses of power, and questionable decisions. Let’s look at the highlights of Gorelick’s reign of error.

1. Gorelick's Wall of Silence

Between 1994 and 1997, Gorelick was Clinton’s Deputy Attorney General, the number two position at the Justice Department. In 1995, Gorelick wrote a memo outlining what would become known as “Gorelick’s Wall.” This memo interpreted court decisions on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and recommended a set of restrictions on the ability of criminal investigative organizations, like the FBI, to share information with intelligence agencies, like the CIA. Gorelick’s Wall prevented intelligence agencies from accessing the computer of Zacarias Moussaoui, a computer which could well have led to the discovery of 9/11 before it happened.

But wait, says Gorelick in an editorial, the 9/11 Commission found that this wall already existed under Reagan and Bush I, and it never found this wall to be that big of a deal. What Gorelick fails to mention, however, is that she was on the 9/11 Commission AND that she never disclosed her 1995 memo to her fellow Commissioners.

This is not only an incredible conflict of interest that never should have been allowed, but it shows exactly why such conflicts must be avoided. By accepting the position on the 9/11 Commission, Gorelick essentially placed herself in the position of investigating herself. The fact she ignored such an obvious conflict of interest speaks poorly of her judgment. Moreover, her failure to disclosed this key memo to the Commission makes any conclusion they reached on this issue meaningless.

Further, Gorelick tries to defend herself by blaming Reagan and Bush for creating the policy, even though she is the one who provided the new interpretation. Then she tries to blame Janet Reno by claiming that her memo was less restrictive than what Reno ultimately put out (an argument which contradicts her attempts to blame Reagan or Bush). Also, she attacks her critics as “partisans” and blames “public rancor” for the allegations against her, which is an evasive tactic.

This incident is an ethical disgrace, and it calls into question whether she can put the interests of the FBI and the nation above her own self-interest.

2. Gorelick Champions Governments’ Right To Know

Also while serving as Clinton’s Deputy Attorney General, Gorelick tried to give the government control over the internet. Arguing that the internet was “transmitting child pornography into our homes,” that terrorists could use the internet to communicate, and that the internet could allow hackers to “shut down the banking system,” Gorelick fought for a ban on the domestic use of strong encryption and tried to force companies to put their encryption codes into escrow so the government could get at them. This is evidence of a mind that cares little for civil liberties and Constitutional rights.

(FYI, internet expert Gorelick didn’t even know her own e-mail address at the time.)

3. Fannie Mae Pay Day

Moving on from the Justice Department, Gorelick took a job as the Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae between 1997 and 2003. Guess what Fannie Mae started doing while Gorelick was there? Yep: bundling subprime loans into securities. . . the same securities that blew up the world economy in 2008. In March of 2002, Gorelick defended this practice in an interviewed with Business Week: “We believe we are managed safely. . . . Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions.” She was paid $26,466,834 during her time at Fannie Mae. We would pay $338 billion to bail them out (and take on $5 trillion in loan guarantees).

Moreover, during this period, a $9 billion accounting scandal arose at Fannie Mae. According to the Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, false signatures were used by Fannie Mae to shift expenses into the future and wrongly increase profits. During 1998, these false profits triggered $27.1 million in bonuses to a handful of Fannie Mae executives, including Gorelick, who received $779,625 of that.

This scandal eventually resulted in $9 billion in profits being removed from Fannie Mae’s books. And while there is no direct proof of Gorelick’s involvement, let me point out that direct proof was not considered necessary in scandals like Enron or under Sarbanes-Oxley, where executives are considered responsible for the actions that occur under their watch. Further, her senior position and the unwillingness/inability of Fannie Mae to investigate who faked these signatures or who was aware of what, call into question her role, especially as she apparently made no attempt to expose this issue.

4. Railroading White Kids At Duke

Following her departure from Fannie Mae, Gorelick returned to a big DC law firm. In 2006, she joined the defense team that represented Duke University in the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case. This was the incident where Duke railroaded 47 Duke University students on flimsy and contradictory rape allegations by a stripper with a history of mental problems, who actually identified people who were not present as the rapists, who then confessed to a friend that she was lying to get money from the “white boys,” and who later tried to set fire to her live-in boyfriend. Despite this, Gorelick’s client suspended the entire lacrosse team, took no action to stop threats made against the players, their families and the team’s coach, and sent out e-mails stoking racial tensions.

5. International Peace Through Superior Firepower

Gorelick now serves on the board of directors of United Technologies Corporation, a defense contractor with $5 billion in defense contracts, while also serving on the board of directors of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, organizations dedicated to (leftist) international peace. Do you see any conflict there?

6. Student Loan Lobbyist

Finally, Gorelick is currently a lobbyist for the lending industry fighting student loan reform. Remember the whole “no lobbyist” thing from Obama? No? Well, neither does Obama apparently. Oh, and she represents BP.

Gorelick has shown a lack of judgment when it comes to conflicts of interest, a penchant for passing blame to others, questionable business ethics, and an utter indifference to the rights of individuals. This is not someone who should be running the FBI.

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