Do You Know Attorney General Eric Holder?

Our current Attorney General, Mr. Eric Holder has been active just behind the scenes in our Government in Politics for many years. He has been instrumental in President Clinton’s pardoning of terrorists, taken a position against the 2nd amendment, twists the first amendment,  as well as calling Americans “cowards” about race.  When chosen by Obama to be the Attorney General Eric Holder gave the following speech.

“We look forward to actually restructuring policies that are both protective and consistent with who we are as a nation. ”

“I also look forward to working the men and women of the Department of Justice to revatialize the depts efforts in those areas where the Department has unique capabilities and responsibilities in keeping our people safe, ensuring fairness, and in protecting our environment.”

A little wishy-washy but sounds fair enough. However his recent moves and positions show that he is hardly comitted to keeping to the above rhetoric.

First heres an interview he gave to Katie Couric in 2009

Although a softball interview you can see his 2nd amendment stance emerge when pushed by Katie Couric as well as a border security strategy that does nothing to secure the border and ideas on moving Guantanamo detainees and civilian trials for them.

His stance on what to do with terrorists and on the 2nd Amendment are alarming indeed prompting a look into his past.

Here is an extensive bio on him from Discover The Networks: (Emphasis mine)

Eric H. Holder, Jr. was born on January 21, 1951 in the Bronx, New York. His father, Eric Himpton Holder, Sr. (1905 – 1970) hailed from Barbados and worked as a real estate broker. His mother, Miriam, was the American-born daughter of immigrants from Saint Philip, Barbados.

Eric Holder graduated from Columbia University in 1973 with a degree in American history. Three years later he graduated from Columbia Law School. During one of the summers between his law school academic years, he worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Holder was employed by the U.S. Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section from 1976 to 1988. In 1988 President Ronald Reagan appointed him as a Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Five years later Holder left this position when President Bill Clinton appointed him U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. In 1997 Clinton nominated Holder to replace Jamie Gorelick, the retiring Deputy Attorney General in Janet Reno’s Justice Department. Holder was confirmed in the Senate by a unanimous vote.

As Deputy Attorney General, Holder, as The Washington Post explained, “was the gatekeeper for presidential pardons.” Indeed, Holder was a key figure entrusted with the task of vetting the Clinton administration’s 176 last-minute pardons in January 2001. The beneficiaries of those pardons included such notables as former Weather Underground members Susan Rosenberg (who was involved in the deadly 1981 armed robbery of a Brink’s armored car) and Linda Evans (who had used false identification to buy firearms, harbored a fugitive, and was in possession of 740 pounds of dynamite at the time of her arrest in 1985).

So for the record, Holder was instrumental in the pardoning of two terrorist associates of Bill Ayer’s Marxist terrorist group, The Weather Underground. Continuing with the bio:

Holder and the Pardon of Marc Rich

Holder also played a role in the presidential pardon granted to the billionaire financier Marc Rich, a fugitive oil broker who had illegally purchased oil from Iran during the American trade embargo — and who then proceeded to hide more than $100 million in profits by using dummy transactions in off-shore corporations. Rich later renounced his American citizenship and fled to Switzerland to avoid prosecution for 51 counts of racketeering, wire fraud, tax fraud, tax evasion, and the illegal oil transactions with Iran.

Over the years, Rich’s ex-wife Denise had funneled at least $1.5 million to Clinton interests. Some $1.2 million went to the Democratic National Committee, $75,000 went to Hillarymoney cartoon Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, and $450,000 helped finance the Bill Clinton Library in Arkansas.  Mrs. Rich also had given expensive gifts to the Clintons and, according to some rumors, had a very close relationship with the President.

According to The New York Times:

“Mr. Holder had more than a half-dozen contacts with Mr. Rich’s lawyers over 15 months, including phone calls, e-mail and memorandums that helped keep alive Mr. Rich’s prospects for a legal resolution to his case. And Mr. Holder’s final opinion on the matter — a recommendation to the White House on the eve of the pardon that he was ‘neutral, leaning toward’ favorable — helped ensure that Mr. Clinton signed the pardon despite objections from other senior staff members.”

The Times details the sequence of events:

“Holder’s role in the Rich issue actually began … [a]t a corporate dinner in November 1998, [where] Mr. Holder was seated at a table with a public-relations executive named Gershon Kekst, who had been trying to help Mr. Rich resolve his legal troubles. When Mr. Kekst learned that his dinner companion was the deputy attorney general, he proceeded to bring up the case of an unnamed acquaintance who had been ‘improperly indicted by an overzealous prosecutor.’ … A person in that situation, Mr. Holder advised, should ‘hire a lawyer who knows the process, he comes to me, we work it out.’ Mr. Kekst wanted to know if Mr. Holder could suggest a lawyer. Mr. Holder pointed to a former White House counsel sitting nearby. ‘There’s Jack Quinn,’ he said. ‘He’s a perfect example.’ Months later, Mr. Rich’s advisers settled on Mr. Quinn to lead the legal efforts …

“In February 2000, Mr. Quinn sent Mr. Holder a memorandum entitled ‘Why D.O.J. [Department of Justice] Should Review the Marc Rich Indictment.’ About a month later, Mr. Holder spoke with Mr. Quinn again and told him that ‘we’re all sympathetic’ and that the legal ‘equities’ in the issue were ‘on your side.’ … By the fall of 2000, efforts to re-open the criminal case were dead, and Mr. Rich’s lawyers had moved on to the idea of a pardon. Again, Mr. Quinn turned to Mr. Holder. On Nov. 21, 2000, at the close of a meeting on a separate topic, Mr. Quinn took Mr. Holder aside, told him he was planning on filing a lengthy pardon petition with the White House and asked whether the White House should contact Mr. Holder for his opinion … In a separate e-mail message that Mr. Quinn [had] sent three days before that to other members of the Rich team,… he wrote: ‘Spoke to him last evening. Says to go straight to W.H. [White House]. Also says timing is good.’ …

“For the next months, Mr. Rich’s team pressed ahead with the pardon … On Jan. 19, 2001, Mr. Quinn called Mr. Holder and let him know that the White House would be contacting him for his recommendation on the pardon, which he said was receiving ‘serious consideration.’ Mr. Holder told him that he did not have a personal problem with the pardon, and Mr. Quinn quickly passed on the gist of the conversation to the White House. Minutes later, Mr. Holder received a call from Beth Nolan, the White House counsel, who had opposed the pardon idea and was surprised to hear that Mr. Holder apparently felt differently.

“Mr. Holder, according to Ms. Nolan’s testimony, told her that if the Israelis were in fact pushing for the pardon, he would find that ‘persuasive’ and would be ‘neutral leaning toward’ favorable.”

The next day, President Clinton signed the pardon. Clinton later cited Holder’s assessment as one of the factors that had persuaded him to issue the pardon. And once the pardon was granted, Holder sent his congratulations to Quinn.

A March 2002 congressional report concluded that Rich’s lawyers had tried to circumvent prosecutors (who they knew would oppose the pardon), and instead had chosen to take their case directly to the White House. Holder’s assistance in this process, coupled with his failure to alert prosecutors of a pending pardon, was crucial, said the report.

So a real criminal “Fat-Cat” gets to go free as long as his money finds it’s way into the hands of the Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party? Can we say Double Standard? Moving on:

Holder and the Pardon of FALN Terrorists

Holder was also intimately involved in President Clinton’s August 11, 1999 pardon of 16 members of the FALN, acronym for the Armed Forces of National Liberation—a violent terroristFALNorganization (as designated by the FBI) that was active in the U.S. from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s.

The FALN was a Marxist-Leninist group whose overriding mission was to secure Puerto Rico’s political independence from the United States. Toward that end, between 1974 and 1983 the group detonated nearly 130 bombs in such strategically selected places as military and government buildings, financial institutions, and corporate headquarters located mainly in Chicago, New York, and Washington DC. These bombings were carried out as acts of protest against America’s political, military, financial, and corporate presence in Puerto Rico. All told, FALN bombs killed six people—including the Chilean ambassador to the United States—and wounded at least 80 others.

On April 4, 1980, eleven FALN members were arrested in Evanston, Illinois. More of their comrades would also be apprehended in Chicago in the early 1980s. All were charged with seditious conspiracy, but they refused to participate in their own trial proceedings—claiming defiantly that the U.S. government was an illegitimate entity and thus had no moral authority by which to sit in judgment of them. All the defendants were found guilty and were sentenced to federal prison terms ranging from 35 to 105 years.

On November 9, 1993, a self-identified “human rights” organization named Ofensiva ’92 filed a petition for executive clemency on behalf of 18 members of the FALN and another violent organization seeking Puerto Rican independence, Los Macheteros (“The Machete-Wielders”). According to a December 12, 1999 report issued by the House Committee on Government Reform, the prisoners themselves “refused to take part in any process that would legitimize the government’s actions against them, therefore they refused to file their own petitions.”

This presented a problem because the Department of Justice (DOJ) traditionally stipulates that clemency will be considered only if a prisoner first files a petition on his or her own behalf, an act which the Department views as a sign of contrition. Nonetheless DOJ made an exception in this case and accepted Ofensiva ’92’s petition, a document which cast the FALN prisoners as blameless freedom fighters analogous to those Americans who had fought in the Revolutionary War against Britain.

Among the notables who joined Ofensiva ’92’s clemency crusade were Cardinal John O’Connor, Coretta Scott King, Jimmy Carter, and the National Lawyers Guild. Perhaps the most passionate support came from Democrat Representatives Luis Gutierrez (IL), Jose Serrano (NY), and Nydia Velazquez (NY), each of whom echoed Ofensiva ’92’s claim that the FALN members were “political prisoners” who deserved to be released.

The attorneys and advocates who were fighting for the freedom of the FALN prisoners first met with the Justice Department’s Pardon Attorney on July 19, 1994. In October 1996 they met with Jack Quinn, Counsel to the President. They were unsuccessful, however, in their efforts to convey the legitimacy of their cause to the Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA), which in 1996 contacted the Justice Department and recommended against clemency; that recommendation, in turn, was forwarded to the White House.

But the matter was not over; OPA continued to meet with groups and individuals lobbying for clemency on behalf of the FALN terrorists. Then in 1997, Eric Holder — who was President Clinton’s new Deputy Attorney General (in the Justice Department headed by Janet Reno) — became involved in the case.

In this role, Holder was responsible for overseeing clemency investigations and determining which of those requests were ultimately worthy of President Clinton’s attention. As evidenced by a September 1997 memorandum from the Pardon Attorney, the Justice Department was, at this point, receiving numerous inquiries about the FALN and Macheteros—from the White House and from supporters of the prisoners. The aforementioned House Committee on Government Reform report stated: “Throughout the closing months of 1997 it appears that Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder was active in the issue. The privilege log reflects at least two notes regarding his questions on the clemency or his thoughts on the matter.”

On November 5, 1997, Holder met with Representatives Gutierrez, Serrano, and Velazquez to discuss the clemency issue. He advised the legislators that they might greatly increase the likelihood of a presidential pardon if they could convince the prisoners to write letters testifying as to the personal remorse they felt for their past actions. But no such letters would be produced for five months, during which time the clemency issue remained on hold. Meanwhile, in a January 6, 1998 letter a senior Justice Department official expressly referred to the FALN members as “terrorists.”

Then on April 8, 1998, Holder again met with FALN supporters. This time, they finally delivered statements from the prisoners as Holder had advised in November. But all the statements were identical—indicating that not one of the prisoners had made an effort to craft his own personal expression of repentance.Undeterred, Holder then raised the question of whether the prisoners might at least agree to renounce future violence in exchange for clemency. One of the prisoners’ backers, Reverend Paul Sherry, made it clear that they surely “would not change their beliefs”—presumably about the issue of Puerto Rican independence—but was vague as to whether they were apt to eschew violence altogether.

Over the next few weeks, Holder and the Justice Department continued to meet with numerous advocates of clemency and to review pertinent materials which the latter brought forth on behalf of the prisoners. Holder clearly was the point man for these clemency negotiations. As Brian Brian Blomquist wrote in the New York Post, “A list of FALN documents withheld from Congress shows that many memos on the FALN clemency decision went directly to Holder, while [Janet] Reno’s role was minimal.” Similarly, New York Daily News reporter Edward Lewine wrote that Holder was “the Justice Department official most involved with this issue.”

Throughout the clemency review process, neither Holder nor anyone else in the Justice Department contacted any of the people who had been victimized (or whose loved ones had been victimized) by the FALN. Most were never aware that clemency for the terrorists was even being contemplated. And those few who were aware of the possibility were rebuffed in their efforts to participate in the review process.

On May 19, 1998, the Pardon Attorney sent Eric Holder a 48-page draft memorandum “concerning clemency for Puerto Rican Nationalist prisoners.” Seven weeks later, on July 8, Holder sent President Clinton a “memorandum regarding clemency matter.” Indeed the Deputy Attorney General was methodically spearheading the march toward clemency — despite the fact that the sentencing judges, the U.S. Attorneys, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the FBI were unanimous in their opposition to pardoning the individuals in question.

In late July 1999 an attorney from Holder’s office spoke to White House Counsel Charles Ruff regarding the clemency matter. On August 9, 1999, Holder’s office and OPA held one final meeting to hammer out the details, and two days later the President made his announcement: clemency was granted to sixteen terrorists, most of whom had served only a fraction of their prison terms. Of the sixteen, twelve accepted the offer and were freed, two refused it, and two others, who already were out of prison, never responded.

Congress, for its part, was not pleased—condemning the clemencies by votes of 95-2 in the Senate and 311-41 in the House.

In the aftermath of August 11, 1999, a report by the Justice Department stated that the FALN posed an “ongoing threat” to national security. And in late October 1999 the Senate Judiciary Committee released a report from Attorney General Janet Reno stating that the FALN members’ “impending release from prison” would “increase the present threat” of terrorism.

In an October 20th Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, and again with reporters the following day, Eric Holder denied that Reno was referring to the same FALN terrorists whose pardons he had worked so long and hard to secure. Yet when Holder was asked to identify whom Reno was in fact talking about, he responded as follows:

“I don’t know, no, I don’t know that. We might be able to get you some more information on that, but, I mean, you know, there were certain people who are due to be released, or who were at least eligible for parole, had a release date in the next, as I said, three, four years. I don’t know exactly who they were. Maybe—we might be able to get you that information.”

Neither Holder nor the Justice Department ever provided any additional names.

The December 1999 House Committee on Government Reform report stated:

“The 16 [FALN] terrorists appear to be most unlikely candidates. They did not personally request clemency. They did not admit to wrongdoing and they had not renounced violence before such a renunciation had been made a quid pro quo for their release. They expressed no contrition for their crimes, and were at times openly belligerent about their actions…. Notwithstanding the fact that the 16 did not express enough personal interest in the clemency process to file their own applications, the White House appeared eager to assist throughout the process. Meetings were held with supporters, and some senior staff [i.e., Holder] even suggested ways to improve the likelihood of the President granting the clemency. Overall, the White House appears to have exercised more initiative than the terrorists themselves.”

So here we have Eric Holder going out of his way to convince Marxist Terrorists to take an offer of clemency for no apparent reason that anyone can determine. Are you seeing the pattern?

Here’s a look  into the FALN case

And how it became a campaign issue in the Primaries for Hillary Clinton

Holder’s Views on Other Matters

“I don’t think there’s any question that there is the need for the Patriot Act, but I think there’s also the need to re-examine the Patriot Act and see how it has been enforced and whether or not we need to strengthen it, whether or not there are things we need to change…. When you look at some of the things that have done under the spirit of the act, where you detain citizens without giving them access to a lawyer, where you listen in on attorney-client conversations without involving a judge, these are the kinds of things that have been done in the name of the Patriot Act by this administration that I think are bad ultimately for law enforcement and will cost us the support of the American people … You have to deal with this whole question of secrecy and the way in which the administration has conducted itself. You need to involve judges. If you’re going to look at business records or library records, this should not be something that’s simply done by the executive branch without the involvement of judges.”

Holder has condemned the Guantanamo Bay detention center as an “international embarrassment,” even though detainees there are treated more humanely than even the Geneva Conventions require. Despite evidence to the contrary, he has accused the U.S. government of having “authorized torture and … let fear take precedence over the rule of law.” And he has demanded an immediate end to warrantless eavesdropping by intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

In a June 2008 speech to the American Constitution Society (ACS), Holder, who was himself an ACS Board of Directors member, condemned “the disastrous course” which the Bush administration had followed in its efforts to combat terrorism. “Our needlessly abusive and unlawful practices in the ‘War on Terror,’” he said, “have diminished our standing in the world community and made us less, rather than more, safe.”

Holder added that the Bush administration had taken many steps that “were both excessive and unlawful” in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks:

“I never thought I would see the day when a Justice Department would claim that only the most extreme infliction of pain and physical abuse constitutes torture and that acts that are merely cruel, inhuman and degrading are consistent with United States law and policy, that the Supreme Court would have to order the president of the United States to treat detainees in accordance with the Geneva Convention, never thought that I would see that a president would act in direct defiance of federal law by authorizing warrantless NSA surveillance of American citizens. This disrespect for the rule of law is not only wrong, it is destructive in our struggle against terrorism.”

On the subject of the post-9/11 anti-terrorism measure known as the Patriot Act, Holder in April 2004 said the following:

Now isn’t it interesting that he can be against the Bush anti-terror policies and has had a big hand in releasing several terrorists, but seeks to determine if strengthing the Patriot Act is necessary? Just who is he looking for? In the end he divides his stance and says some of the Patriot Act is for the Executive Branch alone “without the involvement of judges.” Now that’s Tyranny.

Here’s Eric Holder getting grilled by Rep Gohmert on Hate Crimes legislation and the First Amendment, Water Boarding, and National Security

Continuing:

Holder has stated that he is personally opposed to the death penalty.

In 2008 Holder campaigned heavily for then-Illinois senator Barack Obama‘s presidential run. In the summer of 2008, candidate Obama tapped Holder to serve on the vice presidential selection team that ultimately chose Joe Biden to be Obama’s running mate. In November 2008, President-elect Obama, who was slated to take his oath of office two months later, selected Holder to serve as his Attorney General.

At the time Obama made this selection, the Washington, DC-based law firm Covington & Burling (C&B), where Holder was a partner, was representing 17 Yemeni detainees (and one Pakistani national) in Guantanamo Bay. A notable former client of Holder’s firm was yet another Guantanamo detainee, from Kuwait, who contributed to an anthology of detainee poetry compiled and published by Holder’s C&B colleague, Marc Falkoff. Falkoff likened the “gentle, thoughtful” poets’ plight to that of the Jews who had been held in concentration camps during World War II. The aforementioned Kuwaiti was released from Guantanamo in 2005 and promptly resumed his terrorist activities. In March 2008 he blew himself up with a truck bomb in Mosul, Iraq, killing 13 Iraqi army soldiers and wounding 42 others.

In a February 18, 2009 speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder alleged that Americans on the whole were afraid to confront racial issues in an honest or meaningful way. Among his remarks were the following:

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards…. [W]e, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race. It is an issue we have never been at ease with and, given our nation’s history, this is in some ways understandable…. [T]his nation has still not come to grips with its racial past … [A] black history month is a testament to the problem that has afflicted blacks throughout our stay in this country. Black history is given a separate, and clearly not equal, treatment by our society in general and by our educational institutions in particular.”

So he continously goes out of his way to get terrorists out of jail, either by Presidential pardon, or direct representation, yet calls the USA a “Nation of Cowards” about race. I think terrorists are cowards and the USA is a beautiful melting pot where, for many, the prejudices of old no longer exist.

In May 2009, Holder announced that Ahmed Ghailani — who was indicted by a federal grand jury for the 1998 bombings (which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans) of two U.S. embassies in Africa — would be transferred from the Guantanamo Bay detention center to New York City for trial. This would make Ghailani the first Guantanamo detainee brought to the U.S. and the first to face trial in a civilian criminal court. Said Holder:

“By prosecuting Ahmed Ghailani in federal court, we will ensure that he finally answers for his alleged role in the bombing of our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya…. This administration is committed to keeping the American people safe and upholding the rule of law, and by closing Guantanamo and bringing terrorists housed there to justice we will make our nation stronger and safer.”

In August 2009, Holder appointed a federal prosecutor to investigate possible abuses by Bush-era CIA interrogators who used harsh tactics on terror detainees.

On November 13, 2009, Holder announced that his Justice Department would try five Guantanamo Bay detainees with alleged ties to the 9/11 conspiracy, in a civilian court — the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The defendants were Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Holder also stated that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a major suspect in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, would be tried by a military commission, along with a few other detainees.

Here is Sen Lindsey Graham confronting Holder on this issue

On April 23, 2010, Arizona’s Republican governor, Jan Brewer, signed into law a bill deputizing state police to check with federal authorities on the immigration status of any individuals whom they had stopped for some legitimate reason, if the behavior of those individuals — or the circumstances of the stop — led the officers to suspect that they might be in the United States illegally. In the ensuing days and weeks, Holder spoke out forcefully against the bill and indicated that the federal government might challenge it. During the weekend of May 8-9, he participated in a number of television interviews in which he warned that the law could lead to racial profiling and might cause Latinos to stop cooperating with police. But in a May 13 House hearing, Holder admitted that he had not read the statute: “I have not had a chance to. I’ve glanced at it. I have not read it.”

On May 13, 2010, Holder testified before the House Judiciary Committee. During his testimony, Rep. Lamar Smith tried to get the Attorney General to acknowledge that radical Islam might have played a role in motivating several recently attempted terrorist attacks against U.S. interests — most notably Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s November 2009 shooting of 13 fellow U.S. soldiers in Fort Hood, Texas; Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab’s attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day 2009; and Faisal Shahzad’s attempted car bombing in New York’s Times Square on May 1, 2010. Holder refused to acknowledge Smith’s assertion. A video and transcript of Holder’s exchange with Smith can be viewed here.

And in this video: Eric Holder: Terrorists and Osama Bin Laden Have Same Rights As Charles Manson

Now it’s very interesting to note how this man that has freed terrorists wants to convince us that these terrorists (many of whom are captured on the battlefield) deserve the same rights and criminal trial of a murderer. Lets take a look at how he feels about us and our rights.

It must also be noted that, counting Holder, there are 10 attorneys now working in the Department of Justice that represented Guantanamo Bay detainees according to the Weekly Standard.

Eric Holder tried to reinstate a ban on assault weapons in Feb 2009 according to ABC:

The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

“As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons,” Holder told reporters.

Holder said that putting the ban back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border.

“I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum.” Holder said at a news conference on the arrest of more than 700 people in a drug enforcement crackdown on Mexican drug cartels operating in the U.S.

The NRA quickly went after the administration for this move and you can hear it in this radio interview.

The Huffington Post reported that Holder backed off the ban due to pressure from the NRA. Whether that is the case or not, but this victory may be short lived as the Obama Administration isrecieving pressure to reinstate the ban from Mexico, according to Reuters:

Thursday May 20, 2010

In a speech to a joint session of Congress, Calderon described efforts to fight organized crime in Mexico, where 23,000 people have been killed in drug violence since he came to power in late 2006 and launched an army offensive.

Washington is also aiding Mexico’s battle against drug gangs with a 2007 pledge of $1.4 billion for equipment and police training to help fight the cartels that ship some $40 billion worth of illegal drugs north each year.

The drug violence has become a major political test for Calderon and a growing worry for Washington and foreign investors as violence has spread across the southwest border.

“There is one issue where Mexico needs your cooperation. And that is stopping the flow of assault weapons and other deadly arms across the border,” Calderon said to a standing ovation from U.S. lawmakers.

Calderon said the increase in violence in Mexico had coincided with the 2004 lifting of a U.S. assault weapons ban.

The 10-year ban on the sale of assault weapons to civilians expired without being extended by Congress. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said the administration favors reinstituting the ban, though guns rights groups oppose it.

Calderon said he respects Americans’ Second Amendment right to bear arms but said many of the guns are getting into the hands of criminals.

SEIZING GUNS

Mexico has seized around 75,000 guns and assault weapons in the last three years, Calderon said. He said more than 80 percent of them came from the United States and noted there were more than 7,000 gun shops along the border.

“I would ask Congress to help us, with respect, and to understand how important it is for us that you enforce current laws to stem the supply of these weapons to criminals and consider reinstating the assault weapons ban,” he said.

This sounds like the perfect excuse for the Obama Administration to use in circumventing the 2nd Amendment.

However, Eric Holder is also against the Right to Free Speech, at least on the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRbTtjoa0JY

So we can expect to see him assissting with any Net Neutrality move on the Administrations behalf.

Another big problem for Eric Holder is the accusation that the Justice Department under his command had orders not to pursue voter intimidation cases where the accusers are white and the accused is black. This all stems from the Dropping of the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case due to lack of evidence.

Here’s some evidence

And Bill O’Reilly on the subject

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BemSmTNDxU

This case has been reignited by DoJ whistleblower J. Christian Adams and been taken up by the Civil Rights Comission who, confronted with “DoJ Stonewalling” have asked for “Expanded Powers” in order to investigate. This case is far from over but is not the only instance of Holder’s DoJ interfering with the voting process.

There is also an accusation that the DoJ is ignoring the voting rights of our military voters. Here’s a look from Fox News:

EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Accused of Stalling on MOVE Act for Voters in Military

The Department of Justice is ignoring a new law aimed at protecting the right of American soldiers to vote, according to two former DOJ attorneys who say states are being encouraged to use waivers to bypass the new federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act.

The MOVE Act, enacted last October, ensures that servicemen and women serving overseas have ample time to get in their absentee ballots. The result of the DOJ’s alleged inaction in enforcing the act, say Eric Eversole and J. Christian Adams — both former litigation attorneys for the DOJ’s Voting Section — could be that thousands of soldiers’ ballots will arrive too late to be counted.

“It is an absolute shame that the section appears to be spending more time finding ways to avoid the MOVE Act, rather than finding ways to ensure that military voters will have their votes counted,” said Eversole, director of the Military Voter Protection Project, a new organization devoted to ensuring military voting rights. “The Voting Section seems to have forgotten that it has an obligation to enforce federal law, not to find and raise arguments for states to avoid these laws.”

Adams, a conservative blogger (www.electionlawcenter.com) who gained national attention when he testified against his former employer after it dropped its case against the New Black Panther Party, called the DOJ’s handling of the MOVE Act akin to “keystone cops enforcement.”

“I do know that they have adopted positions or attempted to adopt positions to waivers that prove they aren’t interested in aggressively enforcing the law,” Adams told FoxNews.com. “They shouldn’t be going to meeting with state election officials and telling them they don’t like to litigate cases and telling them that the waiver requirements are ambiguous.”

The MOVE act requires states to send absentee ballots to overseas military troops 45 days before an election, but a state can apply for a waiver if it can prove a specific “undue hardship” in enforcing it.

Sen. John Cornyn,R-Texas – who co-sponsored MOVE – wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on July 26 saying he is concerned that the Department of Justice is allowing states to opt out of the new law.

“Military voters have been disenfranchised for decades, and last year Congress acted,” Cornyn said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “But according to recent information, the Department of Justice has expressed reluctance to protect the civil rights of military voters under the new law. All our men and women in uniform deserve a chance to vote this November, and the Obama administration bears responsibility for ensuring that they have it.

“For far too long in this country, we have failed to adequately protect the right of our troops and their families to participate in our democratic process. The MOVE Act was supposed to end this sad history. The right to participate in democratic elections is fundamental to the American experience.”

In his letter to Holder, Cornyn cites minutes from the 2010 winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), during which Rebecca Wertz, deputy chief of the DOJ’s voting section, told state election officials that the legislative language regarding waivers is not completely clear. Wertz described the provisions of the law as “fairly general” and “somewhat of an open question as to what type of information” a state needs to submit in order to for their waiver application to be granted. She said it was also unclear whether waivers are for one election only, or if they apply to future elections.

According to the meeting’s minutes, obtained by FoxNews.com, Wertz also said “that the DOJ is working to find effective ways to disseminate any information guidance that can help states with different questions about MOVE interpretation. She invited questions and dialogue from states, and said that litigation is always the last resort.”

Cornyn wrote, “If these are the positions of the DOJ, then they fly in the face of the clear statutory language, undermine the provisions in question, and jeopardize the voting rights of our men and women in uniform.”

He said the language of the law makes it clear that there is no ambiguity when it comes to states’ eligibility for being granted a waiver, and that the statute does not leave room for the Justice Department to decide whether to enforce its requirements.

“If a state is not in compliance with the statute, there is little room for “dialogue” or negotiation, and the Voting Section should take immediate steps to enforce the law and safeguard military and overseas voting rights, including pursuing litigation whenever necessary,” Cornyn wrote. “The comments by the DOJ official, as reported in the NASS minutes, appear to ignore Congress’ clear legislative language and could facilitate the disenfranchisement of our men and women in uniform.”

Cornyn, who discussed Eversole’s allegations at a meeting with Defense Department officials last week, called for Holder to immediately provide guidelines to state election officials; to ensure that states are required to abide by the law; and to provide Cornyn himself with a state-by-state breakdown of which states have already applied for waivers and which are expected to be in noncompliance with MOVE in the November midterm election. He also called for full transparency in the waiver process.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Xochitl Hinojosa, declined to comment, other than to say Cornyn’s letter is being reviewed.

FoxNews.com obtained waiver applications submitted by Washington and Hawaii.

Defense Department spokeswoman Major April Cunningham told FoxNews.com that New York, Delaware, Maryland, Alaska and Virgin Islands had also applied for waivers. (Cornyn’s co-sponsor for the MOVE Act was New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat.)

“All waivers are currently under review. The Defense Department must respond, under the law, after consultation with the Department of Justice, no later than 65 days before the election, which is August 29, 2010,” said Robert Carey, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

“The voting section has taken this haphazard approach to enforcing military voting law,” said Eversole. “The voting section is asserting itself into statute to make a statute that’s not ambiguous, ambiguous. Can you imagine any other agency giving prospective defendants advice like this?”

“Everybody in Washington knows it doesn’t matter how good the law is; it comes down to who’s enforcing it,” said Adams. “This stuff should be transparent and online for the citizens of these states to comment on, the fact that it’s being done behind closed doors tells you everything you need to know about how it will affect the voters.”

Adams and Eversole separately pointed out that the DOJ’s website lacks any mention of the MOVE Act. In fact, the section on military voting includes the outdated and nonbinding 30-day recommendation for sending out ballots. There is no mention of the the current 45-day mandate.

But the DOJ’s online voting section includes a detailed section devoted to helping felons learn how get their voting rights back.

“It is just offensive to most Americans that we can send soldiers to the front lines but they can’t vote,” said Eversole. “This is an issue that tugs at the heartstrings of America and people can’t understand why we can’t get that right. This is something we have to get right.  We should be fighting as hard for their rights as they’re fighting for ours.”

So soldiers do not have a vote but let’s see what we can do for convicted felons. Department of Justice indeed. The Department of Justice responded to the allegations here, but as yet, no progress has been made that I am aware of.

So the Department of Justice under Eric Holder does not represent our traditional blind justice. Instead it’s selective justice and interpretation. Treat terrorists like shoplifters even if they are taken off the battlefield and set them free whenever possible, pardon a billionaire criminal as long as he donates big money to the Democratic Party, ignore voter intimidation when race is an issue, ignore the voting rights of soldiers when convenient but do everything you can to assist convicted felons get their voting rights back, and ignore the 2nd amendment if possible and the 1st if you can make it happen with legislation and internet control. Don’t forget that no state better try and enforce the Illegal Immigration laws that we are intentionally trying to ignore or you will face a lawsuit.

This is not Justice, this is using the law and office to further a left wing agenda. This is Eric Holder’s Department of Justice. This is Eric Holder.

Support Conservative Daily News with a small donation via Paypal or credit card that will go towards supporting the news and commentary you've come to appreciate.

Related Articles

One Comment

  1. That is really fascinating, You are a very skilled blogger. I’ve joined your rss feed and look ahead to looking for extra of your fantastic post. Additionally, I have shared your site in my social networks

Back to top button