The letter, spearheaded by Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), highlights Holder’s role in the botched gun-tracking operation known as Fast and Furious, which was run under the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Republicans have been investigating who authorized and had knowledge of Fast and Furious, which oversaw the sale of thousands of weapons in the Southwest region to known and suspected straw buyers for Mexican drug cartels. The majority of the weapons were never tracked, and two of the guns were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December.

“We call on you today to hold Attorney General Eric Holder accountable for Operation Fast and Furious — and urge you to ask for his immediate resignation,” the letter reads.

“In intentionally letting over 2,000 firearms ‘walk’ across the border into Mexico,” it continues, “the [ATF] — under the leadership of Attorney General Holder — carried out an operation that left a U.S. Border Patrol agent dead, broke federal law and attempted to build a case for gun control. Operation Fast and Furious has proved to be one of the most serious errors in judgment carried out in recent history by a federal agency.”

At first, Holder didn’t even admit that he knew about this operation, despite having received several operational memos from the field office conducting the operation. Instead, he claimed that he never saw the memos because they go to his underlings first, so they can make sure that he only sees the important stuff. Under tough questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee, he “clarified” this claim to mean that he really meant that he heard about it when it started appearing in the press.

Its easy to see how Holder can claim ignorance of these things. He has constructed a circle of  “plausible deniability” around him by having the information sent to him filtered by underlings. This way, he can claim that he never heard about it because someone else decided it wasn’t important enough to pass on. Seems to me, that if a field office sends information to the Attorney General, it is because he thinks that the Attorney General needs to know about something. If Holder’s people are preventing him from being fully informed about the government agency he is in charge of, then they need to be held accountable along with Holder.

Of course, after the whole Black Panthers episode after the 2008 Election, it isn’t surprising to see Holder’s incompetence on display like this. Apparently, he’s more interested in “social justice” than real justice, which is troubling given that he is in charge of the Department of Justice.

The undersigned groups would like your company to publicly oppose Governor Walker’s efforts to virtually eliminate collective bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin. While we appreciate that you may need some time to consider this request, we ask for your response by March 17. In the event that you do not respond to this request by that date, we will assume that you stand with Governor Walker and against the teachers, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, and other dedicated public employees who serve our communities.

In the event that you cannot support this effort to save collective bargaining, please be advised that the undersigned will publicly and formally boycott the goods and services provided by your company. However, if you join us, we will do everything in our power to publicly celebrate your partnership in the fight to preserve the right of public employees to be heard at the bargaining table. Wisconsin’s public employee unions serve to protect and promote equality and fairness in the workplace. We hope you will stand with us and publicly share that ideal.

This particular letter was sent by the executive director of the police officer’s union, president of the fire fighter’s union, as well as other union heads. The threat also implies that the services rendered by these public employees may also be affected by the business’ decision. Can there be any doubt that should a business who refused to publicly support the unions catch fire, that the fire fighters may just take their time getting there? That the police may fail to solve a crime perpetrated against this business?

The fact is, these unions are acting like criminals who offer to “protect” a business in exchange for money. They should, therefore, be treated as such and be cut off at the knees. These unions should be decertified as quickly as possible. The heads of these unions should be prosecuted to fullest extent of the law and be sentenced to substantial jail time.

Failure to prosecute will only encourage these thugs to continue to use criminal tactics to intimidate the populace and increase the violence. Swift prosecution and sentencing may, on the other hand, may end the unions’ reign of terror.

For the reasons stated, I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate. That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and inequities in our health care system. The health care market is more than one sixth of the national economy, and without doubt Congress has the power to reform and regulate this market. That has not been disputed in this case. The principal dispute has been about how Congress chose to exercise that power here.

Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.

Score one for Liberty and Freedom of Choice.

Obviously, The Obamasiah© and his cohorts will appeal this decision to the Supreme Court, where I figure the decision will be upheld 5 to 4. This should happen this fall, which means it will happen just as Obama kicks off his re-election campaign (wait, did his election campaign ever really end?). If people are paying attention, this should also be one of the last nails in his Presidency’s coffin. (NOTE: I am not now, nor have I ever, advocated the use of violence against this or any other President or politician. Chill out, dudes and  dudettes, it’s just a form of expression!)

One of the main points of this decision is worth bringing up. The Commerce Clause cannot be used to justify the Federal Government’s regulation of inactivity, as currently interpreted by Supreme Court case law. If this were to be allowed, there would be absolutely no limits whatsoever on Congressional power. Care must be taken to ensure that judges who think that the Constitution is a “living, breathing document” are kept from being placed on the Federal Bench and Supreme Court. All it takes is one liberal activist judge to find a way to change this, and everyone’s freedom and liberty are in question. I mean, would you like it if the government fined or otherwise punished you for NOT doing something?

In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.

J. Christian Adams, testifying Tuesday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said that “over and over and over again,” the department showed “hostility” toward those cases. He described the Black Panther case as one example of that — he defended the legitimacy of the suit and said his “blood boiled” when he heard a Justice official claim the case wasn’t solid.

“It is false,” Adams said of the claim.

“We abetted wrongdoing and abandoned law-abiding citizens,” he later testified.

If you’ve seen the video from the polling station that was the center of the investigation, you can’t help but wonder what else the higher-ups in the Justice Department think they needed to proceed with the case, especially given this:

The Bush Justice Department brought the first case against three members of the group, accusing them in a civil complaint of violating the Voter Rights Act. The Obama administration initially pursued the case, winning a default judgment in federal court in April 2009 when the Black Panther members did not appear in court. But then the administration moved to dismiss the charges the following month after getting one of the New Black Panther members to agree to not carry a “deadly weapon” near a polling place until 2012.

That’s correct — the Justice Department had already won default judgments in the case before it dismissed the charges. You say, “Maybe they were just observing the polls to make sure everything was on the up-and-up”? Here is a picture of what we’re talking about:

Notice, please, the night-stick and military-style footwear the thug in front is wearing.

Yeah, he isn’t trying to intimidate anyone.

The attorney in charge of the case was ready to go to trial, but word came down from above that cases involving black defendants would not be prosecuted. So, the Civil Rights Commission is investigating. I can’t wait to see what they find, especially given the Holder is refusing to let his lawyers testify to the commission. Adams says that the other lawyers from his section will verify what he has claimed. How convenient is it that Holder won’t let them testify?

For many years, whenever the left wanted to discredit someone on the right, all they did was start calling them racist whether it was true or not. Then, by shear repetition the perception was created. Now, when it is leftists who are black, and who are leaving no doubt that they are racist, what do they do? Are they denouncing them on the TV? No. Writing posts and articles denouncing them? No. Instead, they are ignoring them and continuing to smear people on the right:

The statement, which was submitted by the NAACP’s Kansas City, Mo., branch, did much to get a hot debate going. It says members of the movement have “displayed signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically” and says “the racist elements” within the tea party are “a threat to progress.”

Authors of the statement cite as examples the reports by some black members of Congress that they were spat upon and subjected to racial epithets before they voted on the health-care overhaul. No charges were filed, and some tea party supporters have denied the claims, saying there is no evidence that they occurred.

Desperate times require desperate measures, I guess. Ever since Obama won election, the NAACP has been trying to prove that they are still relevant and should still exist. It seems that they have chosen to gin-up charges of racism against whomever is prominent on the right, to wit Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.

Why is it that people on the left seem hell-bent to destroy Martin Luther King’s dream of people being judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin? Why is it that people on the left are so quick to ignore or overlook things done by blacks which, if done by whites, would be immediately chastised? Why are blacks getting a free pass when they engage in racism by liberals and the press? These, my friends, is the $64,000.00 questions.

Whoopi Goldberg is facing a fierce backlash after saying that film director Roman Polanski didn’t commit “rape-rape” when he had unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Goldberg, star of The Color Purple and Sister Act, said: “I know it wasn’t rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.

“He pled guilty to having sex with a minor and he went to jail, and when they let him out he said ‘You know what, this guy’s going to give me 100 years in jail. I’m not staying’. And that’s why he left.” Polanski was arrested in Zurich, Switzerland on Sunday and faces extradition to the United States. He fled the US in 1978 before being sentenced for the crime and has been pursued around the globe by prosecutors ever since.

You read that correctly — Goldberg doesn’t think raping and sodomizing a 13 year old girl after giving her drugs and alcohol is “rape – rape.” To top it off, it seems like most of Hollywood thinks the same thing:

More than 100 film industry figures have now signed a petition calling for the release of Polanski, the acclaimed director of Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby and The Pianist.

They include leading Hollywood figures Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen, David Lynch, Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodovar, Tilda Swinton and Monica Bellucci.

One celebrity supporter, the actress Debra Winger, said it was a “three-decades-old case that is dead but for minor technicalities. We stand by him and await his release and his next masterpiece.” Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein said Polanski was a “humanist” who had been the victim of a “miscarriage of justice”. He said: “We will have to speak to our leaders, particularly in California. I’m not too shy to go and talk to the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and to ask him once and for all to look at this.” However, the views of the Hollywood elite seemed out of step with those of ordinary Americans and they now face a backlash.

These people are so out-of-touch with the American public, is it any wonder why the movie industry is held in such low regard?

For the record, regardless of who you are or what movies you have created, if you give drugs to a 13 year old girl, then give her alcohol, and then rape and sodomize her, I believe you belong in jail for as long as the law allows. Not country-club celebrity jail, but Federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison. I don’t care if you ran away for thirty years to France, where apparently this type of thing is considered normal, and continued to make movies. In the America I believe in, people who commit crimes like this are dealt with harshly, regardless of who long ago they committed the crime, and especially if they publicly proclaim this:

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”

You know Whoopi, I wonder if you would be so cavalier about this if the victim had been someone near and dear to you. These Hollywood morons have no clue about right and wrong in the liberal paradise bubble they exist in out there in California.

But don’t take my word on this; read the transcript of the victim’s testimony and decide for yourself if it was “rape – rape” (whatever the hell that is) or not.

Just amazing, isn’t it?

That’s right, S. 909 — aka, the “hate crimes bill” — being pushed through by the Obama Administration as one of its highest legislative priorities would make it a federal crime to commit a violent act against anyone based on race or gender orientation – unless the race was Caucasian and the orientation was towards the opposite sex.

Lest anyone have any doubts about Mr. Obama’s primary intention to target those who don’t share his pigmentation or gender orientation biases, the President’s own Attorney General journeyed to Capitol Hill on June 29 to set the record straight. Here, in fact, word for word, is how AG Eric Holder described the intent of the Obama hate crimes bill when put to the test by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

“We are talking about, if in fact the person, we are talking about crimes that have a historic basis. Groups who have been targeted for violence as a result of their skin color, sexual orientation, that is what this legislation is designed to cover.”

You know, I’ve never understood these types of laws. If one person is murdered by another, and the murderer is caught, tried, convicted, and then sentenced to death, what else are you going to do? Use dirty needles if his crime was motivated by hate? Make the murderer eat really bad Chinese takeout for his last meal? I mean, death is death and you can’t really punish someone any more than that.

So, it looks like the Obama Administration wants certain victims of crime (i.e. “protected classes”) to be taken more seriously than others. That is, if you are a white, heterosexual Christian, your murder, in the eyes of the Obama Administration, is less horrific to society and is less of an offense against the law than a non-white, gender bending pagan.

Here’s another example of “justice” under this proposed bill:

For example, Mormons living in California who have been the targets of various criminal acts committed by gay extremists including vandalism, extortion, and verbal and physical attacks would not be victims of “hate crimes” per se, even though they were targeted by gay extremists solely because of their affiliation with the Mormon church.

So, even if a white person’s murder was motivated by hate, the bill won’t apply to his murderer. How’s that for equal protection under the law? Didn’t Obama claim that he was a Constitutional Law Professor? Man, do I feel sorry for anyone who he has “educated” regarding our Constitution. Then again, if you’re going to destroy something, it is probably easier to do if you know exactly what it is you’re destroying.

The damage this “man” is doing to our country, our way of life, our judicial system, and economy will take many decades to repair, if it can be repaired at all.

This past Thursday, March 5, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut State Legislature, which is chaired by Sen. Andrew McDonald of Stamford and Rep. Michael Lawlor of East Haven, introduced a bill that directly attacks the Roman Catholic Church and our Faith.

This bill violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. It forces a radical reorganization of the legal, financial, and administrative structure of our parishes. This is contrary to the Apostolic nature of the Catholic Church because it disconnects parishes from their Pastors and their Bishop. Parishes would be run by boards from which Pastors and the Bishop would be effectively excluded.

This bill, moreover, is a thinly-veiled attempt to silence the Catholic Church on the important issues of the day, such as same-sex marriage.

This is mind-boggling. One of the few issues that people of all political stripes agree on is that the government has no role in religion, and is forbidden by the Constitution from interferring with religion.

In defense of their actions, Democrat Mike Lawler, one of the people who introduced the bill, offers this lame explanation:

… the current state statutes governing Roman Catholic corporations … were enacted in 1955. SB 1098 is a proposal to make changes in that law, which was suggested by parishioners who were the victims of theft of their funds in several parishes, and these parishioners feel that the state’s existing Roman Catholic Corporate laws prevented them from dealing with the misuse and theft of funds.

I agree with you that the whole notion of having a statute governing the church seems like an intrusion on the separation of church and state, but the current law does that already. Perhaps we should repeal the whole thing, but if we are going to have a corporate law of this type, it probably should make sure there cannot be deception of parishioners.

As pointed out by Cassi Fiano at Wizbang:

Here’s the problem with that reasoning. Theft and fraud are already against the law. If a parishioner believes that theft and/or fraud has taken place, then they can take legal action. If they feel they’ve been deceived, then obviously there’s no legal action they can take — there’s no law against lying or deception, even if it’s not very nice to lie to or deceive someone.

This bill needs to be defeated by a landslide. Although this bill targets the Roman Catholic Church, tomorrow it could be applied to the Methodist Church, and then the Luthern Church, and so on. People of all faiths need to rise up against this unconstitutional attempt to usurp the authority of the Catholic Church over their Parishes.

UPDATE: Due to the public outcry, the bill has been killed for this session.

The Supreme Court declared Wednesday that executions are too severe a punishment for raping children, despite the “years of long anguish” for victims, in a ruling that restricts the death penalty to murder and crimes against the state.

The court’s 5-4 decision struck down a Louisiana law that allows capital punishment for people convicted of raping children under 12. It spares the only people in the U.S. under sentence of death for that crime — two Louisiana men convicted of raping girls 5 and 8.

The ruling also invalidates laws on the books in five other states that allowed executions for child rape that does not result in the death of the victim.

However devastating the crime to children, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion, “the death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child.” His four liberal colleagues joined him, while the four more conservative justices dissented.

Unbelievable! The liberals on the Supreme Court don’t think that the rape of a child is bad enough to warrant capital punishment. Therefore, a man who shoots and kills an intruder in his own home to protect his family can be sentenced to death in some states, but if a man intentionally breaks into a home and rapes the children, he’ll just spend some time in jail (on the taxpayer’s dime). How in the world does this make any sense at all?

Justice Samuel Alito puts this all in prespective in his dissent:

The Court’s final—and, it appears, principal—justification for its holding is that murder, the only crime for which defendants have been executed since this Court’s 1976 death penalty decisions, is unique in its moral depravity and in the severity of the injury that it inflicts on the victim and the public. But the Court makes little attempt to defend these conclusions. With respect to the question of moral depravity, is it really true that every person who is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death is more morally depraved than every child rapist? Consider the following two cases. In the first, a defendant robs a convenience store and watches as his accomplice shoots the store owner. The defendant acts recklessly, but was not the triggerman and did not intend the killing. In the second case, a previously convicted child rapist kidnaps, repeatedly rapes, and tortures multiple child victims. Is it clear that the first defendant is more morally depraved than the second?

…

With respect to the question of the harm caused by the rape of child in relation to the harm caused by murder, it is certainly true that the loss of human life represents a unique harm, but that does not explain why other grievous harms are insufficient to permit a death sentence. And the Court does not take the position that no harm other than the loss of life is sufficient. The Court takes pains to limit its holding to “crimes against individual persons” and to exclude “offenses against the State,” a category that the Court stretches — without explanation — to include “drug kingpin activity.” But the Court makes no effort to explain why the harm caused by such crimes is necessarily greater than the harm caused by the rape of young children. This is puzzling in light of the Court’s acknowledgment that “[r]ape has a permanent psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical impact on thechild.” As the Court aptly recognizes, “[w]e cannot dismiss the years of long anguish that must be endured by the victim of child rape.”
All citations omitted.

As a result of this decision, you are now guaranteed to see more lawyers like this defending child rapists, all courtesy of the liberals on the court:

A Massachusetts politician and defense attorney has touched off a firestorm with his shocking public vow to torment and “rip apart” child rape victims who take the witness stand if the state legislature passed stiff mandatory sentences for child sex offenders.

Rep. James Fagan, a Democrat, made the comments during debate last month on the state House floor.

“I’m gonna rip them apart,” Fagan said of young victims during his testimony on the bill. “I’m going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they’re 8 years old, they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.”

Fagan said as a defense attorney it would be his duty to do that in order to keep his clients free from a “mandatory sentence of those draconian proportions.”

As if I needed to tell you, this guy is both a Democrat and a trial lawyer. Also, he is the Chairman of the Massachusetts State House Ethics Committee. Yes, that’s right; he is responsible for telling other lawmakers how to conduct themselves.

So, what have we learned today? Well, we’ve learned that liberals like child rapists more than they like the rapist’s victims, families, or the concept of justice. We’ve learned that liberals will bend and twist and mold the law into unrecognizable forms to achieve by judicial fiat what they cannot achieve in the legislatures or the ballot box (elimination of the death penalty, except for unborn children). Finally, we’ve learned that liberal trial lawyers will sink to the lowest forms of human behavior just to make a buck and get their picture in the media.

What do liberal bloggers think of the decision? Well. if this is any indication, they like it fine. I’ll leave you to come to your own conclusions.

Not to put too fine a point on all of this, but if the Obamessiah gets elected in November, you’re probably going to get two or three more justices on the Supreme Court who have the same low-regard for children who are raped and high-regard for child rapists as the 5 clowns who decided this case.

Sleep well.

In a 6 – 3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the state of Indiana’s tough voter-identification law which requires voters to show a picture ID before casting their ballot:

WASHINGTON — By a 6-3 vote in a closely watched election-year case, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld Indiana’s strict voter-identification law, rejecting the claims of Democratic and civil-rights challengers that the law infringes on the right to vote.

The decision by Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the most liberal members of the court, emphasized that the challengers had not presented sufficient evidence that voters were kept from the polls or otherwise hurt by the law Indiana says prevents fraud.

…

Indiana’s statute, adopted in 2005, bars people from casting a ballot unless they present certain photo identification issued by the state or federal government, such as a driver’s license or passport. If a person does not have such an ID, he or she can get an alternative but generally needs a birth certificate to proceed.

The Indiana Democratic Party and other groups brought a broad-based challenge to the law, saying it infringed the right to vote under the 14th Amendment. They emphasized the difficulty of obtaining the required documentation, particularly for poor, elderly, disabled, and minority voters.

They said that the state’s interest in-person fraud at the polls — the specific type of problem at issue in the case — could not justify the hurdles to voters who cannot easily obtain the proper documentation, such as a birth certificate.

Yet, Stevens noted that the challengers did not bring in evidence from particular individuals. “On the basis of the evidence in the record,” he wrote, “it is not possible to quantify either the magnitude of the burden on … voters.” He said the record lacks even the number of registered voters without photo identification.

Conservatives have been advocating these types of laws for years as a common-sense measure to prevent voter fraud at the polls. Democrats have always opposed these laws because they say that minority and elderly voters would have too many problems trying to obtain the needed photo identification card. However, it turns out that the challengers to this law failed to provide evidence that the law would actually cause insurmountable problems for these people. In fact, the challengers’ case was so weak that you have the most liberal member of the Supreme Court writing the majority opinion on this case.

This ruling should clear the way for a similar law here in Texas, which I hope the State Legislature will pass the next time they are in session. It simply amazes me that people actually have a problem with this law; you’d think that preventing fraudulent votes from being cast would be something both parties could support. Yet, the Democrats oppose it.

Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

Lead attorney Chuck Cooper said the private university turned its back on the players to protect the school’s image.

“These young men want an acknowledgment that they were wronged by institutions and individuals that they trusted to treat them honestly,” Cooper said in a statement. “They were victimized by a corrupt investigation that ignored or suppressed evidence that would have cleared them.”

The lawsuit filed on behalf of 38 unindicted players and nine members of their families seeks unspecified damages for invasion of privacy, emotional distress and other injuries. Cooper planned to discuss the lawsuit later Thursday at a news conference in Washington, D.C.

The players accuse Duke of ignoring, suppressing and discrediting evidence that proved the players innocence, with idly standing by while the players suffered abuse and harassment on campus, and with imposing discipline that implied the team was guilty. Duke suspended and then canceled the highly ranked team’s season in the wake of the rape allegation.

Remember, none of these lacrosse players were charged with anything. They are claiming that because the former district attorney conducted a witch hunt against their three teammates, they are entitled to compensation as well.

Its a bit of a reach, but these guys might have a case against the City of Durham, but I don’t think they have a prayer against the school. The school canceled the team’s season during the course of the investigation, but by the time the allegations were overcome by a mountain of evidence showing their falsehood, it was too late to do anything. The school was in a no-win situation; if they had not canceled the season and it turned out that the players were guilty as charged, they would have caught hell for not suspending the team. In any case, I don’t think that missing a season of lacrosse constitutes egregious enough harm to warrant an award of cash to the players. The school had no control over the conduct of the district attorney’s investigation and had no say in whether or not the case would go to court.

This reminds me of the idiots who keep claiming that they are due slavery reparations because their long-dead relatives were once mistreated. Just like these players, they haven’t suffered 1/100th as much as the people who were actually involved, yet they want all the money they can get for other people’s suffering.

These people should take their Duke degree and move on with their lives.