Rep. Darrell Issa pressed ahead with a committee vote Wednesday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, despite an 11th-hour move by President Obama to exert executive privilege over the Fast and Furious documents at the heart of the dispute.

The announcement instantly touched off a caustic debate on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as Democrats accused Issa of prosecuting a “political witch hunt” and Republicans stepped up their criticism of Holder’s “stonewalling” over the Fast and Furious probe. Even for Washington, the tone at the hearing was decidedly bitter and accusatory.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was first informed of the president’s decision to exert executive privilege in a letter Wednesday morning, shortly before the contempt vote was scheduled.

Issa said committee staff are evaluating the letter but described the move as too little, too late as he and other GOP lawmakers questioned the basis for the assertion.

“This untimely assertion by the Justice Department falls short of any reason to delay today’s proceedings,” Issa said.

Read More at foxnews.com.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House moved toward approval Tuesday of a bill that would allow the Border Patrol to circumvent more than a dozen environmental laws on all federally managed lands within 100 miles of the borders with Mexico and Canada.

Supporters say the measure is needed to give border agents unfettered access to rugged lands now controlled by the Interior Department and Forest Service. Laws such as the Wilderness Act and Endangered Species Act often prevent agents from driving vehicles on huge swaths of land, leaving it to wildlife, illegal immigrants and smugglers who can walk through the territory undisturbed, they said.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said the restrictions have turned wilderness areas into highways for criminals, who not only bring in drugs but also abuse and rape women and leave behind thousands of tons of trash.

“Drug traffickers couldn’t care less about environmental sensitivities,” he said. “The removal of these criminals from our public lands is a value to the environment as well as the mission of the land managers.”

But opponents, including hunters, conservationists and Hispanic advocacy groups, call the bill a heavy-handed fix that guts important environmental protections. They also question whether the measure is needed along the vast Canadian border, where there is scant evidence that illegal immigrants are hiking through national parks or wilderness areas in an attempt to slip into the U.S.

Read More at OfficialWire. By Matthew Daly.

Attorney General Eric Holder will meet with Fast and Furious nemesis Congressman Darrell Issa at 5:00 this afternoon in what could mark the end of the Congressional investigation of Barack Obama’s deadly gun smuggling scheme.

Last week, House Republican leaders at last agreed to schedule a vote on the Contempt of Congress charge Issa has long sought to bring against the Attorney General for 8 months of refusing to honor Congressional subpoenas. Deputy Attorney General James Cole quickly responded with a letter to House Government Reform Committee chair Issa, requesting a meeting to discuss ways of avoiding the vote. Issa agreed to meet with the Attorney General, but only if the Justice Department were willing to “…submit a serious proposal for how it intends to alter its refusal to produce critical documents subpoenaed by the Committee…”

One day later, on June 14^th, Holder answered with a two page letter outlining the “compromise” offered by the Department. According to the Attorney General, the “extraordinary accommodation” proposed by the DOJ in that letter represents “… a serious, good faith effort to bring this matter to an amicable resolution.”

But based upon the contents of Holder’s letter, the representations of “serious” and “good faith” are outright lies. First of all, Holder’s willingness to “compromise with the Committee” is an insult to the right and authority of Congress to subpoena withheld documents. He then admits that the Department intends to provide documents that are “…outside the scope of the Committee’s interest in the inappropriate tactics used in Fast and Furious…”  In other words, they will be items which the Committee has NOT subpoenaed and in which it undoubtedly has little or no interest!

Instead, Holder will offer an understanding of how the DOJ learned of those “inappropriate tactics” and what eventually prompted it to withdraw its infamous February 4^th,  2011 letter to Congress claiming no gunwalking ever took place. And what this means is obvious—the Department will simply persist in its claim that “…until allegations about the inappropriate tactics used in Fast and Furious were made public, [DOJ] leadership was unaware of those tactics.” The Department didn’t know a thing until it was published in the New York Times! 

Read More at Western Journalism. By Doug Book.

Photo Credit: The Aspen Institute (Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the nation’s most politically active labor unions plans to focus its resources on fewer states this year while working to help re-elect President Barack Obama.

The Service Employees International Union said Tuesday it will target its massive field campaign on turning out voters in just eight battleground states — about half the number it focused on in 2008.

At the same time, the 2.1 million-member union hopes to get 100,000 of its members to volunteer in its political program, twice as many as in the last presidential race.

Overall, the union is expected to spend at least $85 million to help Obama win, similar to what it spent in 2008.

“It’s a matter of figuring out where we can have the greatest impact,” said Brandon Davis, the union’s national political director. “You’ll see an expansion of what we’re able to do on the ground by being more efficient with our resources.”

Read More at OfficialWire. By Sam Hananel.

Photo Credit: SEIU International (Creative Commons)

The fakes in the Obama Administration – you remember them the guys running the most transparent Administration in history – always save their worst news for after 5 PM eastern time on Fridays. That way the Democrat cheerleaders in the media can hide it in the “Cajun Cooking” section in a Saturday newspaper not many people will read.

Friday at 5:36 PM Eastern, the Obama Administration announced the resignation of the stooge who would have been the overseer of implementation of the hated Obamacare. Whether he “fell or was pushed” is immaterial except for the fact that it adds fuel to the fire of speculation that “The most open and transparent Administration in history” KNOWS it will lose its Supreme Court showdown over the Constitutionality of Obamacare in total or part – either way America wins and they lose.

Read More at Western Journalism. By Kevin “Coach” Collins.