Calls for Eric Holder to resign focus on down and dirty gunrunning deal in Mexico.

Verne Strickland Blogmaster    July 12, 2011

ALLEN WEST PULLS NO PUNCHES -- GET ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER OUT!

The Florida Republican says Holder handled a gun trafficking operation ineptly.

 

By Joyce Jones
BET NEWS

 

Posted: 07/11/2011 12:16 PM EDT

Filed Under Allen West, Eric Holder

Rep. Allen West, one of two Black Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, thinks President Obama should force Attorney General Eric Holder to resign because of the controversy surrounding a program conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Explosives Firearms (ATF) called “Operation Fast and Furious.”

The program was essentially a sting operation that allowed “straw purchasers” authorized by the agencies to run guns in Mexico to find weapons and drug traffickers. Unfortunately, the ATF, which is part of DOJ, didn’t adequately monitor of all of the guns and some of them are turning up in crime scenes, including the Arizona-Mexico border where a border patrol agent was killed in December.

In an interview with Nashville radio host Steve Gill last week, West said, “The president needs to realize that Eric Holder needs to be removed from the Department of Justice,”The Daily Caller reports.

If Obama doesn’t push Holder out, West added, the president would be “complicit” in what he called Justice Department’s attempts to thwart a congressional investigation of the operation.

“This is just another sad chapter in the Eric Holder book of ineptness and incompetence,” West said.

Acting ATF director Kenneth Melson and his personal attorney met secretly with congressional lawmakers on July 4 and testified that DOJ has sought to “limit and control his communications with Congress,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-California) and Sen. Charles Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a letter to Holder.

“The evidence we have gathered raises the disturbing possibility that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons but that taxpayer dollars from other agencies may have financed those engaging in such activities,” they said, and urged the Department of Justice to be “much more candid and forthcoming” as their investigations continue.

http://www.bet.com/news/politics/2011/07/11/west-calls-for-resignation-of-attorney-general-eric-holder.html

Top Obama Nominee at Justice Department Blocked by Republicans. That'll Work.

 Verne Strickland Blogmaster

 By Trish Turner  /  Fox News / May 09, 2011

President Obama's nominee to be Attorney General Eric Holder's top deputy at the Justice Department crashed into a Republican roadblock in the U.S. Senate on Monday, garnering just 50 votes, 10 short of the number needed to break a GOP-led filibuster.

Dick Lugar of Indiana was the lone Republican to support the nomination. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., switched his vote at the last minute to 'no' in order to have the vote reconsidered at a later date.

James Cole, a veteran Washington attorney nominated in May, had been serving in the position since late December courtesy of a presidential recess appointment, one that expires at the end of the current session of Congress. And despite the bipartisan support of eight former attorneys general, Republicans remained steadfast in their opposition, though nothing about Monday night's vote changes Cole's temporary job status.

GOP problems with the deputy attorney general are two-fold. Not only is there concern about Cole's tenure as an independent consultant to insurance industry giant AIG prior to the company's near-collapse in 2008 and its subsequent government bailout, but Republicans also voiced strong concern about what they believe to be his soft-on-terrorism stance.

Republican senators repeatedly referred to an op-ed the nominee penned in 2002 in the Legal Times in which Cole referred to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks as "criminal acts of terrorism against a civilian population," and included the attacks in the same vein as "many other devastating crimes" like rape, drug trade, organized crime, and child abuse.

Cole told Judiciary Committee members in his confirmation hearing last year that decisions to try alleged terrorists should be made on a case-by-case basis, not ruling out military commissions for some. The Obama administration has since said it will try the alleged 9/11 terrorists imprisoned at the Guantanamo facility in military commissions.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., defended Cole and said, "There's no justification for a failure to act on this critical national security nomination."

But Republicans balked.

Sen. Charles Grassley, top Republican on the Judiciary Committee and primary opponent of the nomination, read out a laundry list Monday of his concerns about the nominee, including his AIG stint, which the senator called "troubling," and Cole's position on captured terrorists.

The Iowa Republican also expressed an opposition to recess appointments, in general, and cited another concern regarding a DOJ oversight issue unrelated to the nominee as reasons for his blockade of the appointment.

The top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, has also lead the fight against Cole. Chambliss has been fighting to get classified information related to the administration's Guantanamo Bay Detainee Review Task Force.

Still others voiced fear about what they see as a growing trend at DOJ.

"I'm not voting for another nominee, and I'm not going to vote for this one, who spent their time defending terrorists," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., proclaimed, citing "a tilt in the leadership of the department" that the senator said gives him "great concern" that the department is "getting off base."

Leahy warned that the global war on terror could be impacted by the GOP filibuster.  In a statement to reporters after Monday night's vote, Leahy said, "One week ago, a successful operation led to the death of the world's number one terrorist. Experts and the American people believe that we are now facing a heightened terrorism threat in the wake of the raid upon Osama bin Laden's compound. "

Our success in protecting our Nation depends on the ability of the President to rely on his national security team. Jim Cole is a key member of that team, with a well-deserved reputation for toughness, fairness, and integrity. He has demonstrated the leadership skills and clear-eyed focus on the mission that we need against al Qaeda."

Cole previously served in the Justice Department for more than a dozen years before heading into private practice in 1992. He also served on former President Bill Clinton's transition team in 1992.

http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/05/09/top-obama-nominee-justice-department-blocked-republicans

FEDS ORDER BORDER PATROL TO ARREST FEWER ILLEGALS TO MASK SIZE OF PROBLEM.

Verne Strickland Blogmaster

Friends, each day a new and puzzling story (or three or four) crops up revealing the insane situations allowed to develop due to federal leniency regarding "control" of our borders with Mexico. As a result, a full-scale war between dangerous Mexican career criminals and the "law" rages and threatens Southwestern States. Now word has it that our freakishly liberal Attorney General Eric Holder is working tirelessly to shackle U.S. law enforcement struggling to contain the problem. Here is just one story of this scandalous situation:

Friday, 06 May 2011 04:52 PM

By Jim Meyers and Ashley Martella

 / Newsmax

The U.S. Border Patrol has told its agents to stop arresting illegal aliens crossing the border from Mexico to keep the illegal immigration numbers down, Arizona Sheriff Larry Dever tells Newsmax.

He also charges that Attorney General Eric Holder is “holding hands with the ACLU” to protect illegal aliens from prosecution, says illegals are committing “heinous crimes” across America every day, and calls claims that the federal government should be solely responsible for controlling illegal immigration “balderdash.”

Dever is sheriff of Cochise County, which shares an 83-mile border with Mexico, and he says his Border Patrol sector is responsible for half of all illegal aliens caught trying to enter the country and halt the narcotics entering the United States.

Story continues below video.

Cochise County, Ariz., Sheriff Larry Dever discusses his departments battle against the Obama administrations efforts to stop immigration law enforcement. He accuses the Department of Homeland Security of hypocrisy in selective prosecution of crimes.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, he was asked about the Obama administration’s bragging that the border is more secure than ever.

“For the secretary of homeland security to say the border is more secure than ever, well, I’ve been there forever and there was a happier time than what it is today. We have a long, long way to go.

“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid and buy into 'this border is secure' nonsense.

“There’s a bad element in the mix of the aliens that are crossing that border and they don’t stay there, they move into communities throughout the country. And every day there are travesties and heinous crimes being committed by those people. If we don’t stop it at the border, it’s just going to continue to grow.”

Dever recently told Congress that in one district in Texas, illegals are allowed to be caught crossing the border 14 times before being charged with a felony, and federal smuggling charges are not considered unless at least six illegal aliens are being smuggled into the country.

“It doesn’t surprise me because we’ve been seeing that every day in Arizona, with artificial thresholds for narcotics, for human smuggling,” he tells Newsmax.

“For that to be issued as a written solid order, it’s outrageous.”

He also explains how he has heard that the Border Patrol has told officers to stop arresting Mexican illegals to keep official illegal immigration figures down.

“That comes from agents on the ground, who have told me, told my deputies, told citizens in the area.

“They have in the past been instructed to scare people back or turn them back south versus arresting them.”

Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher’s has denied that agents have been told not to arrest Mexican illegals. Dever responds: “I tend to believe there is no written order to that effect. But if your agents on the ground have that perception and that understanding, then you need to go back and change it.

“If they’re lying, shame on them, and shame on me for bringing it up. But frankly, my staff, when they heard this, they said what’s the big deal? We’ve been hearing this forever. And people who live in my county say the same things.

“So something’s going on and it needs to be rectified and fixed so these people are brought to justice.”

Dever tells Newsmax that the Mexican drug cartels are freely operating many miles from the U.S.-Mexican border.

“You can go up to 70 miles north in Pinal County, which isn’t even a border county, and the Bureau of Land Management put up signs on public land warning people not to travel there because of the threat from drug cartels.

“If you travel into the recreational areas in my county, those same signs are up warning people they could encounter drug and human smuggling. I think we ought to point the signs south and tell the folks who are coming here that this is not a safe place for you to come.”

Referring to “roadblocks” Eric Holder has been erecting against Arizona’s attempts to deal with the immigration problem, Dever says: “He’s the guy who sued us, sued the state of Arizona, holding hands with the ACLU. It doesn’t do any good to arrest people if all you’re going to do is kick them back. If they’re not going to be prosecuted and held accountable, where’s the teeth in the enforcement effort?”

When Arizona passed its tough anti-illegal immigration legislation last year, the ACLU “sued every Arizona sheriff and every Arizona county attorney independently to enjoin us from enforcing the law should it pass constitutional muster,” Dever adds.

“Then the Department of Justice sued the state of Arizona. Here’s what’s absolutely bizarre and hypocritical: The Department of Homeland Security since Sept. 11, 2001, has been on an outreach effort to empower and partner with state and local law enforcement to help defend and protect our homeland.

“When it comes to gun-running, money-laundering, kidnapping, murder, all those border-related crimes that we have, they wrap their arms around us and say let’s go get these guys. When it comes to illegal immigration, they sue us. They say back off, that is our sole responsibility. And I say balderdash.”

Dever encourages Americans to “keep pressure on your congressional representatives” to deal effectively with illegal immigration. “It’s beginning to work. It’s beginning to take hold.”