In the days immediately after Barack Obama decreed an amnesty for 800,000 illegal aliens, the Democrat cheerleaders in the media have been giddily claiming that it has ignited Hispanic enthusiasm to vote for Obama. According to Obama’s steno pool, this decree solved a problem that has been plaguing Obama’s reelection campaign plans for months.

A Latino Decisions and America’s Voice survey found “registered voters” are “very enthusiastic” about Barack Obama’s announcement granting amnesty to these 800,000 people. Aside from the fact that there is a difference between enthusiasm for a policy and enthusiasm to vote for Obama, the “new surge of enthusiasm” only brings Hispanics’ desire to vote roughly in line with that found among blacks and young voters.

Enthusiasm among none of these groups stands above 48%. Numbers like this will not get Obama re-elected.

Before Obama’s announcement, 53% of Hispanics reported being less enthused about voting next November than they were in 2009. Thirty percent were more enthused to vote. The hidden gem in these numbers shows that an alarming 22% were excited to vote before the BIG announcement. Twenty two percent!

An August 2008 CNN Poll found 62% of Hispanics were looking forward to voting, which they did at a rate of 66% for Obama. By 2010, Hispanic voting patterns had changed as they returned away from Democrats. In 2010, Hispanics voted 63% Democrat, down from 69% in 2006.

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

While the House Oversight Committee has now recommended that Congress hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his conduct during the Fast and Furious scandal, one could make the case that Holder has long held the American public in contempt.

After all, how many cabinet secretaries begin their tenure by calling his fellow Americans “a nation of cowards” where it concerned the question of racism? Never mind that America has become a nation where racism is not only unacceptable but a nation where, outside of being called a murderer or a rapist, nothing is worse than being called a racist.

If anyone has behaved cowardly where it concerns racism, it is Holder. What can one say about a man who sees fit to drop a successfully prosecuted case of voter intimidation? If two members of the Ku Klux Klan had held a baton in front of polling station in Philadelphia, Mississippi, to intimidate black voters, Holder would have spared no effort to prosecute them. But when it comes to two members of the New Black Panthers holding a baton in front of polling station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to intimidate white voters, Holder could not care less. During testimony before a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in March 2011, Holder said:

“When you compare what people endured in the South in the ’60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, to compare what people subjected to that with what happened in Philadelphia… I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line for my people.”

No, the great disservice here is an Attorney General who does not comprehend the basic legal concept of “equal justice under law.” Eric Holder is the Attorney General of the United States, not the Attorney General of his people.

Yet what can we expect of a public official who does not have the courtesy to read legislation he contended would lead to increased racial profiling? Oh, pardon me. Holder did say he “glanced” at the Arizona immigration law. It would have been nice if Holder taken the copy of S.B. 1070 that Texas Congressman Ted Poe so generously offered him. Then again it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. Holder’s Department of Injustice was going to sue Arizona whether he read the bill or not.

Read More at spectator.org. By Aaron Goldstein.

Photo Credit: The Aspen Institute (Creative Commons)

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)