Gov't's Amber Alert Site Shuttered: WH First Targets Veterans, Now Targeting Children, in Shutdown

Department of Justice shuts down government Amber alert system

EXAMINER.COM - The Obama administration and the Democrats have been working to force the Republicans to cave into their demands and as a result, Obama’s Justice Department, led by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, decided to make it hurt even more that if a child goes missing, don’t count on the Amber Alert support system to notify the public.

The Washington Examiner reported on Sunday that the Amber alert support system, the national missing-child warning program, has been offline because of the government shutdown.

In viewing the Justice Department amber-alert website, visitors are greeted with, “Due to the lapse in federal funding, this Office of Justice Programs website is unavailable”.

Ashe Schow of the Washington Examiner said, “So, union members could return to work, but the website to alert Americans to missing children had to be taken down?”

Via: Fox News

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JW Sues DOJ for Records of Holder Contempt Settlement Talks

Judicial Watch has sued the “most transparent administration” in history for details of Attorney General Eric Holder’s efforts to settle contempt charges filed against him for refusing to give Congress documents related to a scandalous gunrunning experiment that let Mexican drug traffickers obtain U.S.-sold weapons.

The goal behind this disastrous Obama administration plan— known as Fast and Furious—was to then trace the guns back to Mexican cartels. Instead the agency responsible for monitoring the guns, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), lost track of hundreds of weapons that later surfaced in a number of crimes, including the murder a U.S. Border Patrol agent (Brian Terry) in Peck Canyon Arizona.

Judicial Watch has an ongoing investigation into this huge Obama administration scandal and has filed a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with various agencies. JW has been forced to sue both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the ATF for failing to provide records in a timely manner allotted by FOIA laws. Undoubtedly, the administration is in full cover-up mode and that includes blowing off a congressional probe.  

In fact, last June President Obama made a highly controversial decision to assert Executive Privilege to shield the DOJ’s Fast and Furious records from disclosure. Executive privilege is reserved to “protect” White House records, not the records of federal agencies, which must be made available, subject to specific exceptions under FOIA. None of this seems relevant to the commander-in-chief who has repeatedly broken his promise to run the most transparent administration in history.

The stonewalling continues and this month JW filed a FOIA lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to shed light into the closed-door proceedings where the DOJ tried to settle a contempt of Congress citation against Holder. JW is seeking access to all records of communications between the DOJ and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which issued the citation.  

In August 2012 the House Oversight Committee sued Holder to enforce subpoenas in its probe of the Fast and Furious operation. The Attorney General essentially flipped the finger at Congress and in its complaint the investigative congressional committee accuses Holder of obstruction and a “contumacious refusal to comply” with a subpoena and produce documents involving Fast and Furious. In March a federal judge ordered the two sides to enter mediation but it has done little to solve the matter because the DOJ is apparently dragging it out. Holder continues using his legal battle with Congress to keep the American people from knowing the truth about the Fast and Furious.

Via: Judicial Watch

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Eric Holder, IRS officials coached tax-exempt black ministers on how to engage in political activity

Attorney General Eric Holder and IRS officials advised black ministers on how to engage in political activity during the 2012 election without violating their tax-exempt status.

Holder, then-IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, and Peter Lorenzetti, a senior official in the scandal-plagued agency’s exempt organizations division, participated in a May 2012 training session for black ministers from the Conference of National Black Churches at the U.S. Capitol hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Holder spoke at the event.

“We’re going to, first of all, equip them with the information they need to know about what they can say and what they cannot say in the church that would violate their 501(c)(3) status with the IRS,” said then-CBC chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri. “In fact, we’re going to have the IRS administrator there. We’re going to have Attorney General Eric Holder there…the ACLU.”

Cleaver’s session advised black ministers on “draconian laws” including voter ID laws. Cleaver was a sharp critic during the 2012 campaign of Republican Mitt Romney’s policies.

As The Daily Caller has extensively reported, the IRS harassed conservative and tea party groups during the 2012 election cycle with improper reviews of their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt applications.

“[The CBC] had the IRS members there specifically to advise them on how far to go campaigning without violating their tax-exempt status,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told The Daily Caller.

“I viewed the meeting as highly problematic. Eric Holder heads the agency that prosecutes organizations who give false information to the government. The Justice Department coordinates with the IRS on actions taken against not-for-profits. These ministries are given not-for-profit status on the basis that they are not engaging in any political activities. Here, the Obama administration was clearly encouraging them to maximize their efforts by showing them where the lines were drawn in federal case law,” Turley said.

“It is a fundamental precept that cabinet members should not engage in political activities. The most important of those cabinet members would be the attorney general of the United States. To have the attorney general actively advising political allies of the president showed remarkably poor judgment on his part,” Turley told TheDC.

Via: Daily Caller

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Holder Names Benghazi Victims in 9/11 Memorial Remarks

Attorney General Eric Holder added the names of the Benghazi fallen to his short 9/11 remembrance speech at the Justice Department this morning, while President Obama mentioned the attack in his remarks at the Pentagon’s wreath-laying ceremony.

“Especially this morning, here at the United States Department of Justice, as we lift up the memories of those who were taken from us so suddenly, we must also renew our shared commitment to the uniquely American values that have always defined this great nation, and must guide this department’s work every single day,” Holder said in remarks to department staff.

“This is the only fitting legacy we can build for the innocent victims of that terrible morning. The public servants and the military personnel who lost their lives at the Pentagon. The workers who were struck down in their offices at the World Trade Center. The heroic passengers who brought down a hijacked airliner in a field in Pennsylvania. And so many first responders and ordinary, but really extraordinary, citizens who ran toward burning buildings and saved countless lives, as so many others were racing away,” the attorney general continued.

“We pay tribute to each of them, and to many others who have given their lives in the service of this country since 9/11, from the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have fought on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, to patriots, like Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, Sean Smith, and Ambassador Chris Stevens, who were taken from us just one year ago in Libya.”

Via: PJ Media

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Joe Biden wants Janet Napolitano on SCOTUS

Vice President Joe Biden has plans for the next career move of outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, saying he’d like to see her on the nation’s highest court.

“I think Janet Napolitano should be on the Supreme Court of the United States,” he said Friday morning at her farewell ceremony, according to CNN.

The room reportedly burst into applause, with a crowd that included Attorney General Eric Holder and other Cabinet members, past and present.

But Napolitano is headed west instead, where she will take over as the president of the University of California system, the first woman to take the helm. She announced she was stepping down in July.

The former governor of Arizona has practiced law and clerked for an appellate judge, though she has never served as a judge.

She was an original member of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet.

Via: Politico

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Colorado Republican Rips Holder on Marijuana

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s decision not to challenge marijuana legalization laws in Colorado and Washington has one Centennial State Republican fuming.

On Tuesday, Rep. Cory Gardner of Colorado penned a pointed letter to Holder torching the DOJ’s decision, given that federal law makes possession of the drug a criminal offense.

“Do you believe the DOJ has the authority to override federal law?” Gardner asked in his correspondence with Holder. “Do you believe you have the authority to change the law without the approval of Congress?”

Gardner, as you might expect, opposed the Colorado ballot initiative last November legalizing marijuana in the state.

In the letter, he goes on to question “whether this action sets precedent to allow states to opt out of other federal laws,” and, as William Shakespeare might say, therein lies the rub: In what other case might a state want to opt out of a federal law? Obamacare, anyone?

He writes:

“The new DOJ policies seem to imply that federal authorities will not preempt state laws. Does this set precedent of other areas? For example, several states have passed laws to opt out of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, yet the federal government has consistently said it will take over health insurance industries regardless of states that contest the law. If you do not agree that there is a precedent set, would you explain the inconsistencies of why in certain areas federal law may be deemed irrelevant, but not in others?”

Via: Roll Call

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Sequestration's Latest Victim: The American Justice System

The country’s political class has been engaged in a rare bout of bipartisan self-congratulation of late over the growing consensus around the need for prison reform. Republican governors and state legislators who once championed lock ‘em up policies are now taking a softer line, citing the high cost of prisons and their personal belief in the power of redemption. And when Attorney General Eric Holder came out last week and instructed federal prosecutors to essentially ignore the letter of the law and start seeking shorter sentences for many offenders, there was nowhere close to the outcry one might have expected from the right.

Well, today Holder offered an oblique reminder that all of this good feeling around sentencing reform is pretty hollow unless something is done to restore funding to the nation’s federal public defender offices. Having prosecutors seek somewhat shorter prison sentences is all well and good, but first of all defendants need capable counsel, and our system is coming close to shirking that guarantee today, thanks to the indiscriminate cuts of budget sequestration.

Holder writes in the Washington Post:

In stark contrast to many state defender programs, the federal public defender system has consistently served as a model for efficiency and success. According to court statistics, as many as 90 percent of federal defendants qualify for court-appointed counsel, and the majority of criminal cases prosecuted by the Justice Department involve defendants represented by well-qualified, hardworking attorneys from federal defender offices. Yet draconian cuts have forced layoffs, furloughs (averaging 15 days per staff member) and personnel reductions through attrition. Across the country, these cuts threaten the integrity of our criminal justice system and impede the ability of our dedicated professionals to ensure due process, provide fair outcomes and guarantee the constitutionally protected rights of every criminal defendant.

Via: New Republic

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Holder looking to require Texas to get federal approval before changing voting laws, citing a history of racism

In response to the Supreme Court’s recent decision that states are innocent of institutional racism until proven guilty, Attorney General Eric Holder is arguing that Texas’ “history of pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities” should make its voting laws subject to the Department of Justice’s oversight indefinitely.

While speaking before the National Urban League in Philadelphia on Thursday, Holder said his agency would ask a federal judge to require Texas to submit all its voting laws to the DOJ for review before they can be legally enacted because the state has a supposed history of discrimination and racism.

“And today I am announcing that the Justice Department will ask a federal court in Texas to subject the State of Texas to a pre-clearance regime similar to the one required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” Holder said at the organization’s annual conference.

The Attorney General cited “evidence of intentional racial discrimination” found following the case Texas v. Holder, in addition to a ”history of pervasive voting-related discrimination against racial minorities.” He continued, saying the state would need to acquire “pre-approval” from either the Department of Justice or a federal court before implementing any future changes in voting laws.

In the case Shelby County v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Section 4b of the Voting Rights Act, which defined a formula to single out states to undergo a pre-clearance for voting laws based on previous discriminatory practices — much like that alleged in the case Texas v. Holder — was unconstitutional. Without this provision, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — which Holder referenced in his remarks — becomes near impossible to implement until Congress outlines a new formula, which it has yet to do.

Via: Red Alert

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