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Holder: Drone Strikes Against Americans On U.S. Soil Legal

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Photo Credit: ryanjreillyAttorney General Eric Holder can imagine a scenario in which it would be constitutional to carry out a drone strike against an American on American soil, he wrote in a letter to Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” Holder replied in a letter yesterday to Paul’s question about whether Obama “has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”

Paul condemned the idea. “The U.S. Attorney General’s refusal to rule out the possibility of drone strikes on American citizens and on American soil is more than frightening – it is an affront the Constitutional due process rights of all Americans,” he said in a statement.

Holder noted that Paul’s question was “entirely hypothetical [and] unlikely to occur,” but cited the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as the type of incidents that might provoke such a response.

“Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the President on the scope of his authority,” he concluded.

Read more from this story HERE.

DOJ Spends Millions On ‘Nonmission’ Luxury Travel For Attorney Generals, FBI Director

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller A Government Accountability Office report reveals that the Justice Department has spent $11.4 million to fly the Attorney General and FBI director on FBI luxury jets for travel unrelated to the agency’s mission.

Iowa Republican and ranking judiciary committee member Sen. Chuck Grassley — who requested GAO look into Justice Department aircraft being used to for “nonmission” reasons — released the report Thursday.

“These luxury jets were supposedly needed for counterterrorism, but it turns out that they were used almost two-thirds of the time for jet-setting executive travel instead,” Grassley said. “Nobody disputes that the Attorney General and the FBI Director should have access to the secure communications, but, for instance, there’s no reason they can’t take a less expensive mode of transportation, or cut their personal travel.”

The GAO looked at nonmission jet use from 2007-2011. In that timeframe, the report explains, the “three individuals who served as Attorney General (AG) and the Director of the Federal Bureau Of Investigation (FBI) accounted for 95 percent (659 out of 697 flights) of all Department of Justice (DOJ) executive nonmission flights using DOJ aircraft at a total cost of $11.4 million.”

According to the report, personal flights accounted for 24 percent of nonmission flights and that the AGs and FBI director reimbursed that travel “in accordance with federal requirements.” Yet, as the report notes, that reimbursement “is generally less than the cost of operating a government aircraft” as it is largely reimbursed at the cost of a commercial rate.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Problems Of The White Paper

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My, how the worm has turned.

Seems like only yesterday that Eric Holder was inveighing against sweeping executive war powers. These were the Bush years, when Holder could readily be found caviling about such odious practices as “secret electronic surveillance against American citizens” and “detain[ing] American citizens without due process of law.” Back then, Holder declared these Bush war crimes so “needlessly abusive and unlawful” that the American people (translation: the Bush-deranged Left) were owed “a reckoning” against the officials who conjured them up.

But once he became attorney general in a Democratic administration, the ever-malleable Mr. Holder decided there was actually no problem killing American citizens without due process of law, based on intelligence gleaned from secret surveillance.

The breathtaking hypocrisy of the Obama Democrats is what screams off the pages of the “white paper” Holder’s Justice Department has served up to support the president’s use of lethal force against U.S. nationals who align with our foreign terrorist enemies. It bears remembering that Holder, like his Gitmo Bar soul mates, once volunteered his services to the enemy. At the time, he was a senior partner at a firm that was among the Lawyer Left’s most eager to provide free legal help to al-Qaeda enemy combatants in their lawsuits against the American people. Holder filed an amicus brief on behalf of Jose Padilla, an American citizen turned al-Qaeda operative who was sent to the United States by Khalid Sheikh Mohamed in 2002 to attempt a post-9/11 “second wave” of mass-murder attacks.

Just so you get the gist of where Holder was coming from, an amicus (or “friend of the court”) brief is not something a lawyer has to file on behalf of a client. Padilla already had other counsel. Holder was a party crasher, gratuitously intervening — exploiting his status as a former Clinton deputy attorney general — to steer the court toward his desired policy.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Eric Holder – ‘Obama Decides Who’s ‘Entitled’ To Second Amendment Rights’

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Attorney General Eric Holder discusses gun violence at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia.

Consonant with Holder’s past statement’s regarding the second amendment, the Attorney General states clearly that gun rights can be qualified and restricted.

But it appears the AG is going further, intimating that he believes the second amendment is an entitlement that the President can extend to some and withhold from others.

While no new explicit groundbreaking statements were made, the language the AG chose to use is instructive of to his attitude and approach to the issue.

Read more from this story HERE.

Eric Holder Failed to Disclose Wife’s Abortion Clinic

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photo credit: donkeyhoteyThe revelations about Attorney General Eric Holder and his connection to an abortion clinic are becoming worse as new information has come to light showing he failed to disclose his wife’s co-owning of an abortion business.

Just before the election, Human Events broke the news that Holder’s wife and sister-in-law co-own, through a family trust, own the building where a controversial abortion practitioner operates. The Holder family transferred ownership to a family trust in 2009, eight months after President Barack Obama’s inauguration and a deed names Holder’s wife and sister-in-law as trustees.

Fulton County tax records show Holder’s wife and sister-in-law own the building, located at 6210 Old National Highway, College Park, Ga. A statement from the Georgia Department of Law shows the building was home to Old National Gynecology, the practice of abortion practitioner Tyrone Cecil Malloy.

Now, Human Events has an update, revealing that Holder failed to disclose his wife’s ownership of the building. The attorney general’s financial disclosure reports for 2008 through 2011 show Holder neglected to report his wife’s co-ownership.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch in Washington, D.C., said he was “surprised there is this trust out there and (Holder) hasn’t reported it.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Complaint of ‘Cronyism’ in Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department Goes Unanswered by Congress, DOJ

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photo credit: Jay TamboliA coalition of business executives and attorneys have been pressing unsuccessfully to get a Congressional review into whether Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department improperly quashed a criminal investigation related to a federal bankruptcy case.

Correspondence in March and May with the House Judiciary Committee, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section suggest that top Justice Department officials may have allowed cronyism to get in the way of an investigation related to the bankruptcy filing for the Yellowstone Club, a private resort in Montana.

So far, no action appears to have been taken to investigate the allegations. The Department of Justice, the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform did not respond to requests from TheBlaze Thursday regarding the status of the complaints.

The letters to the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, chaired by Reps. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) respectively, state that a more than two-year investigation by FBI, IRS and Secret Service agents led to recommendations that criminal charges be filed.

“Days later, however, the Department of Justice abruptly terminated the investigation without explanation,” the letter to the Judiciary Committee states. “The mysterious and sudden change of heart raises serious questions about the impartiality of senior Justice Department officials.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Eric Holder’s Family Tied to One of Georgia’s Most Notorious Abortion Doctors

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Eric Holder Jr.’s family is moving fast and furiously to bury the U.S. Attorney General’s ties to one of Georgia’s most notorious abortion doctors.

Just cleared by an internal report in the “Fast and Furious” gunrunning debacle, the nation’s top lawman now faces allegations that his connection to Dr. Tyrone Cecil Malloy is a conflict of interest that helps explain Holder’s failure to prosecute abortion providers who run afoul of federal law.

Critics say it may also explain why Holder has been eager to prosecute pro-life advocates who counsel women outside abortion clinics.

Documents obtained by Watchdog show that Holder’s wife and sister-in-law co-own, through a family trust, the building where Malloy operated. A Georgia grand jury indicted Malloy on Medicaid fraud charges in 2011. A state medical board twice reprimanded the doctor.

Holder and his wife, Sharon Malone Holder, an obstetric and gynecological doctor at Foxhall OB/GYN in Washington, D.C., failed to respond to several requests for comment.

Read more from this story HERE.

As College Student, Eric Holder Participated in `Armed’ Takeover of Columbia ROTC Office

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As a freshman at Columbia University in 1970, future Attorney General Eric Holder participated in a five-day occupation of an abandoned Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters with a group of black students later described by the university’s Black Students’ Organization as “armed,” The Daily Caller has learned.

Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has not responded to questions from The Daily Caller about whether Holder himself was armed — and if so, with what sort of weapon.

Holder was then among the leaders of the Student Afro-American Society (SAAS), which demanded that the former ROTC office be renamed the “Malcolm X Lounge.” The change, the group insisted, was to be made “in honor of a man who recognized the importance of territory as a basis for nationhood.”

Black radicals from the same group also occupied the office of Dean of Freshman Henry Coleman until their demands were met. Holder has publicly acknowledged being a part of that action.

The details of the student-led occupation, including the claim that the raiders were “armed,” come from a deleted Web page of the Black Students’ Organization (BSO) at Columbia, a successor group to the SAAS. Contemporary newspaper accounts in The Columbia Daily Spectator, a student newspaper, did not mention weapons.

Read more from this story HERE.

Eric Holder’s “Severe Mental Deficiency”

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You don’t have to have a severe intellectual disability to work at the Justice Department. But it helps.

According to a July 31 policy memo titled “Hiring of persons with targeted disabilities,” otherwise problematic mental deficiencies are no barrier to jump-starting a career at Justice. The memo lists a number of “targeted disabilities” that trigger special hiring privileges in compliance with President Obama’s Executive Order 13548. Among them are people with “severe intellectual disability,” “psychiatric disability” or other undefined “current severe physical, intellectual or mental conditions.” Most employers would balk at even minor mental disabilities in hiring a lawyer, let alone severe ones. But the policy states that the Cabinet department run by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. must “achieve a work force from all segments of society,” which includes those who are teetering on the edge of sanity.

Mr. Holder’s crazy new human-resources priority says it’s necessary to ensure that people with targeted disabilities “have equal employment opportunities.” It then goes into detail on all the ways in which they will be given special, exclusive treatment. The disabled are eligible for direct hiring in a “streamlined, non-competitive appointment” process that the policy lauds as a “win-win” for the department and the applicant. Of course, this preferential treatment is a lose-lose for the other, perhaps vastly more qualified applicants who were never let in the door, as well as for American taxpayers who cannot benefit from a superior level of public service.

Targeted mentally challenged individuals may be hired for unadvertised positions in a secret, closed-door process that otherwise would be strictly illegal. Standard requirements for prior work experience may be waived so that those who most need to prove they are up to the task don’t have to. Once hired, some of these special hires may have their privileged Schedule A appointments converted into career civil-service positions.

Read more from this story HERE.

White House: Talk About Anything But Obama’s Record

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Photo Credit: Talk Radio News Service Creative Commons

Ever since the 2009 GM bailout by “progressive” big government ended the pensions of 20,000 retirees at Delphi auto parts manufacturing, the White House and the Department of Treasury have laid the blame on the steps of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Internal government emails have been obtained that show the U.S. Treasury Department, run by Timothy Geithner, was behind those termininations. All 20,000 of the pensions seem to have been ended strictly for the reason that those retirees did not belong to labor unions.

Perhaps the National Labor Relations Board was too busy preparing to harass another private sector company planning to hire non-union workers to get involved.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Eric Holder has yet to file any criminal charges against top Wall Street bankers with connections inside the Department of Justice or who had made political donations to the 2008 presidential campaign of the current White House occupant.

Over the years, both the Oval Office and Holder have talked tough, aggressively attacking big fat cat bankers, blaming their reckless speculation for the 2008 financial collapse. The Government Accountability Institute has found that Holder still has not “filed a single criminal charge against any top executive of an elite financial institution.”

All talk, no action. Sound tough for the union organized OWS crowd, but do nothing to upset potential campaign donors. The heck with credibility, the “progressive” Party Pravda will run interference for the re-election campaign.

Overseas, Iran has vowed it will not allow Assad to fall in Syria.

“Iran will never allow the resistance axis – of which Syria is an essential pillar – to break,” said Saeed Jalili, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary. The “axis of resistance” includes Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, all of which are anti-Western and openly hostile towards Israel and the United States.

Assad reassured Jalili by saying: “The Syrian people and their government are determined to purge the country of terrorists and to fight the terrorists without respite.”

If Assad is overthrown, Iran will lose influence over Syria and a crucial link to Hezbollah.

Could it be that Muslim Brotherhood influence over the White House has surreptitiously led to policies that support the creation of a regional Caliphate? What other way is there to logically explain policies that support rebellions to overthrow some Middle Eastern dictators, but not support rebellions hostile to the Iranian regime or its allies?

With so much baggage for the White House to carry through the campaign, their “Priorities” are to have their “progressive” allies run misleading ads that attempt to tie Mitt Romney to death.

Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting the Oval Office is running a new ad that blames Mitt Romney for a family losing health insurance which contributed to a woman dying from cancer.

It apparently makes no difference to the “progressive” super PAC that Romney left Bain Capital years before the GST Steel bankruptcy in 2001. In addition, the cancer casualty Ranae Soptic died in 2006, long after the GST plant had been closed.

In another move to distract attention away from the dismal economic performance of the White House, the Oval Office occupier was overheard whispering to a top fundraiser that GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney wanted to name Gen. David Petraeus as his choice for Vice President.

The White House was more than happy to clutter the news cycle by dismissing the Drudge Report. Anything to keep the pathetic economic record of the White House out of the headlines will suffice.

Press Secretary Jay Carney reminded reporters to “be mindful of your sources” when asked about the Petraeus rumor. “I can say with absolute confidence, such an assertion has never been uttered by the president. And again be mindful of your sources” said Carney.

And so it goes for the most open, transparent White House in American history. They are more than happy to talk about anything but their own record.

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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/