Why Did Obama Free a Black Liberation Army Member?
J. Christian Adams, BigGovernment.com
Marilyn Buck was a Marxist terrorist who participated in conspiracies that led to the deaths of multiple police officers. Buck helped the Black Liberation Army, a violent Marxist offshoot of the black panthers, acquire weapons and ammunition. She participated in the robbery of an armored car where a guard was murdered. If that wasn’t enough, Buck was also charged with the bombing of the U.S. Senate, Ft. McNair, the Washington Navy Yard Officer’s Club and a New York City federal building. In many states, Buck’s behavior might have led to a midnight reservation in the electric chair.
Yet Holder’s DOJ unlocked Buck’s jail cell and set her free last summer. Justice concluded that Buck “expressed a dramatic change from her previous political philosophy.” Releasing Buck reflects an alien attitude that has caused the Obama years to be characterized by an ideological disconnect with most Americans.
The letters which persuaded the Justice Department were stuffed with crackpot arguments and have yet to be reported over the last year. They are full of lawlessness and arguments from extreme fringes of political thought. What’s worse, the letters are on the letterhead of government and private institutions, institutions most Americans incorrectly think are worthy of respect.
Consider Jill Elijah. She writes on behalf of Buck’s release that “a warm nurturing living arrangement is available to Ms. Buck in my home located in Brooklyn. . . . I and my family look forward to her joining our home.” The letterhead? Harvard Law School, where Elijah runs the criminal justice institute.
Also on the letterhead in the Elijah letter to the Justice Department is Charles Ogletree, President Obama’s dear friend and mentor. Having Ogletree’s name associated with such a request was like mailing Buck the keys to her jail cell. Ogletree’s daughter Rashida was recently hired into Holder’s Justice Department as a lawyer.
Note the efforts of James Kyung-Jin Lee. He seeks Buck’s release hoping she can visit Southern California: Buck “would benefit from the refreshing environment and welcoming community, she would also, I believe, enhance the community through her example and fortitude in prison.” The letterhead on Lee’s lunacy? University of California at Santa Barbara, Department of Asian Studies. How reassuring that professors at California’s state university admit they would welcome a Marxist terrorist and feel sufficient sympathy on campus to use school letterhead.
Joseph Velasco, a self described “teacher, storyteller and artist” sent a letter to DOJ arguing for Buck’s release saying: “someone like Marilyn is a role model . . . . I welcome the creativity and intellect that she will bring to our community. . . . Marilyn will find a welcoming home here.” The letterhead on Velasco’s letter to DOJ? The official stationary of the Santa Barbara School District, Santa Barbara High School.
A letter from Das Williams states Buck “participated in many educational and cultural activities. . . . Having her serve any more time is pointless and will accomplish nothing more than wasting of government funds.” Williams sends this letter on the letterhead of the City Council of Santa Barbara, where Das served on city council. Williams now serves in California’s State Assembly.
There are many more….
Eric Holder’s New Witch Hunt
Bob Beauprez, Townhall.com
The Department of Justice is executing a “Witch Hunt” against banks. Through the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Attorney General Eric Holder is forcing banks to “relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination,” according to a published report by Investor’s Business Daily after reviewing court documents.
The DOJ has already extorted $20 million for weak and poor credit loans from banks that “settled out of court rather than battle the federal government and risk being branded racist.” The DOJ admits another 60 banks are already under “investigation.” Holder’s demanding the banks sign “non-disclosure” settlement agreements barring them from talking while allowing the DOJ to operate behind a curtain of secrecy.
The settlements already extracted from banks force them to make “prime-rate mortgages to low income blacks and Hispanics” with credit problems, even if they are living on welfare. According to IBD, the DOJ has ordered banks to advertise that minorities cannot be turned down for a loan “because they receive public aid, such as unemployment benefits, welfare payments or food stamps.” No job; no problem!
In other words, the DOJ is forcing banks to make loans to people that they know don’t qualify for them and likely won’t be able to afford to repay them, which is precisely the kind of failed public policy that precipitated the financial collapse and recession in 2008.
The DOJ ordered Midwest BankCentre to provide “special financing” in the predominantly black areas of St. Louis for fixed prime rate conventional home loan financing for borrowers “who would ordinarily not qualify for such rates for reasons including the lack of required credit quality, income or down payment.”
Eric Holder and the head of his Civil Rights Division, Tom Perez were both protégés of Janet Reno who launched a similar attack on banks in the early years of the Clinton Administration. That led to an expansion of the Community Reinvestment Act, CRA, and an explosion of forced lending to low-income, poor credit risk borrowers and the sub-prime mortgage industry that collapsed in 2008. Under the weight of massive guarantees of poor quality and defaulted mortgages, the federal government was forced to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. To date about $150 billion has been required to bailout the two agencies to keep them solvent.
Obama/Holder Could Face Felony Charges for Fast and Furious
Doug Book, FloydReports.com
Why waste time asking “What did you know and when did you know it?” when the Obama Regime might already face felony charges?
That’s the question Attorney David Hardy and others are asking those investigating the role of Regime members in the deadly gun walking fiasco, Fast and Furious.
Since whistleblowers brought this scheme to the attention of Congress early this year, Senator Charles Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa have been frustrated by Department of Justice stonewalling, subterfuge, and misrepresentation.
As Grassley wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder in a July 18th correspondence, “If the attorneys working on the [Justice] Department’s response to the Committee spent less time redacting documents and more time producing them, we would be much closer to understanding the failures in leadership surrounding Operation Fast and Furious.”
But it is Hardy’s contention that….
RNC Head Demands Holder Investigate Obama’s “Apparent Crime”
Ben Johnson, The White House Watch
Although the Republican Party is often too complicit or cowardly to hold President Obama accountable for his actions, it is finally showing some tenacity in investigating Obama’s “apparent crime” of partisan fundraising inside the White House. On Monday, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder “to request a Department of Justice investigation into an apparent crime committed by President Barack Obama.” In late June, Obama recorded the “Dinner with Barack and Joe” video, asking Democratic donors to enter a raffle to win dinner with the president and vice president, in the White House Map Room.
The Hatch Act makes it illegal to “solicit…a donation of money or other thing of value in connection with a Federal, State, or local election, while in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties.”
Priebus wrote, “The Map Room has been used for a myriad of official duties, including the administration of the oath of office to President Obama by Chief Justice Roberts and the launch of ‘The Campaign to Cut Waste.’”
“If President Obama recorded the video in the Map Room, then it appears he has committed a crime under federal law.”
Priebus noted in the letter he could have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor….
Melson’s Testimony Proves Fast and Furious was an Obama Plot
Doug Book, FloydReports.com
On July 4th, Acting ATF Director Ken Melson testified for hours before representatives of the Grassley/Issa congressional committees. Personal counsel in tow, Melson made a number of allegations concerning the Department of Justice and two agencies under DOJ control—the FBI and the DEA.
According to his testimony, not only did the DOJ refuse his repeated requests that the ATF be permitted to provide information demanded by the congressional committees, the Department also arranged for tax dollars from the FBI and DEA to help finance Fast and Furious straw buyers.
And as Fast and Furious supplied weapons were found at the murder scenes of both ICE agent Jaime Zapata and Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, it means that both killings were financed by American taxpayers.
Equally disturbing to Sen. Chuck Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa is the fact that the Justice Department tried to “conceal from Congress the possible involvement of other agencies in identifying and maybe even working with the same criminals that Operation Fast and Furious was trying to identify.”
That is, the FBI and DEA were working with the same drug dealing, gun trafficking higher ups the ATF was ostensibly targeting and hoping to unmask with Fast and Furious.
One such individual, deported years earlier by the DEA, is now working as a “counter terror informant,” tasked with reporting to the FBI the possible presence of dirty bombs and al-Qaeda members crossing the Mexican border into the U.S. Yet neither agency shared this information with the ATF. And, of course, neither did Eric Holder’s Department of Justice.
Two days after Melson’s testimony, the story broke of guns being walked out of the ATF office in Tampa, Florida. Their destination, Honduras, has become a major gateway for Colombian drugs entering Mexico and the United States. The weapons presumably went to Honduran M-13 and M-18 gangs, which have taken over the drug trade in the nation, making deals with Mexican and Colombian cartels.
So, these are the facts….
Cartoon of the Day: Murdoch’s Spying? Obama Doesn’t Like Competition
Video: Allen West to Obama, Fire Holder or You’re Complicit!
As always, Allen West is the man.
Issa: Holder May Have Lied Under Oath
Fred Lucas, CNSNews.com
House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) says he does not believe Attorney General Eric Holder gave accurate testimony when Issa questioned him in the House Judiciary Committee on May 3.
In that testimony, Holder told the Judiciary Committee he had “probably” heard only in the “last few weeks” about the Justice Department’s “Operation Fast and Furious.” Issa told CNSNews.com he is convinced—“absolutely”—that Holder knew about the operation earlier than he claimed…
on Jan. 27, 2011, Senate Judiciary Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R.-Iowa) wrote a letter to ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson asking him to explain Operation Fast and Furious in light of the weapons found at the scene of Terry’s murder. Five days after that, on Feb. 1, 2011, the story of Operation Fast and Furious broke in the press—with multiple reports referencing Grassley’s letter to Melson. By Feb. 3, 2011, the operation, its link to the murder of Border Patrol Agent Terry, and Grassley’s inquiry to the ATF about it, had been reported in USA Today, The Arizona Republic, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Associated Press.
Yet, three full months after these public news reports, at a May 3 Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General Holder, under questioning by Issa, testified that he had “probably” only learned about Operation Fast and Furious in “the last few weeks.”
“We believe that he was aware of it much earlier than he said in his testimony and questioning before the Judiciary Committee,” Issa told CNSNews.com in an interview.
“Are we confident that Eric Holder knew it much earlier? No,” said Issa. “Did he know it earlier than he testified? Absolutely.”
Whistleblower Testifies Obama Obstructed Fast and Furious Investigation
Ben Johnson, The White House Watch
The chief congressional investigators of Operation Fast and Furious released explosive testimony from the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that they say indicates the Obama administration tried to stonewall Congress, deny witnesses the ability to testify freely, and fire employees who refused to conceal damning information. According to acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson not only did the Justice Department play fast-and-loose with Fast and Furious, but other government agencies may have known – and funded – the straw purchasers the ATF program was designed to catch. The agency’s investigation, which has resulted in at least two deaths, may have been entirely unnecessary.
Scorn on the Fourth of July
Congressman Darrell Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley sent a joint letter to Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday, revealing that Melson gave a transcribed interview on the Fourth of July, with only his personal lawyer present. The news must have come as a shock to Holder. Melson’s testimony had been scheduled to take place July 13, with Melson’s counsel and Obama administration lawyers from the DoJ and ATF taking part.
According to the letter, Melson testified that the administration had not informed him of his legal right “to attend a voluntary interview with [his] own lawyer… rather than participate with counsel representing the Department’s interests.”
“We are disappointed that no one had previously informed him of that provision of the agreement,” they wrote. “Instead, Justice Department officials sought to limit and control his communications with Congress. This is yet another example of why direct communications with Congress are so important and are protected by law.”
(Obstruction of) Justice Department
The Congressmen’s recounting of Melson’s testimony includes mistakes he admitted making, including not personally reviewing hundreds of documents relating to Fast and Furious until March of this year. “By his account, he was sick to his stomach when he obtained those documents and learned the full story,” they write.
In the most stinging passage of the letter, Issa and Grassley accuse the administration of a concerted cover-up….
Obama’s Fast and Furious Fall Guy Refuses to Fall
Doug Book, FloydReports.com
Barack Obama has spent a political lifetime profiting from underhanded deals made with one or another fellow incarnation of the devil.
So in 2009, when Obama appointed Ken Melson to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, he once again did what arrogant, would-be dictators do…he made a criminally irresponsible deal with a fellow egotist and power hungry usurper.
Melson had spent 12 years as a director of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board, lecturing throughout the nation on the wisdom of giving his organization absolute authority over procedural, ethical and certification requirements governing forensic labs in the United States.
So upon Melson’s appointment to the ATF, Obama created the White House Subcommittee on Forensic Science, designating Melson a co-chair with authority over staffing and agenda. Armed with the power and prestige of a supportive president, Melson could now dictate policy to forensics practitioners across the nation.
And in return for this little fringe benefit, Melson had only to manage the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious. And that was quite simple. Just place a few thousand guns in criminal hands, ensure their safe conduct across the Mexican border and keep track of the body count as the weapons appeared at crime scenes throughout two countries.
The purpose: keep Obama’s gun-grabbing base happy by manufacturing an outcry for more restrictive gun legislation in the U.S.
But now that Fast and Furious has been exposed and a number of its illegally trafficked rifles linked to the deaths of two American federal agents, the Obama regime needs a fall guy. And Melson is tailor made for the role.
The smart money said he would resign under pressure a week ago, taking one for the team. But Melson had other ideas….
