Month: June 2012

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Contempt Vote Will Continue As Scheduled

June 19, 2012 by 2 Comments

Attorney General Eric Holder met at 5pm today with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) along with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to discuss the production of certain documents related to Operation Fast and Furious in an attempt to stave off the vote on the contempt citation. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to vote on a contempt citation for Holder for failing to produce subpoenaed documents.

The only thing that could postpone or stop the vote on the contempt citation would be for Eric Holder to deliver a subset of the documents requested by the committee. As of the 5pm meeting, he hadn’t done that and indicated in the meeting that he wasn’t prepared to produce them.

The following is the statement from Chairman Issa on the meeting and the contempt vote.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa made the following statement after his meeting with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder:

“I had hoped that after this evening’s meeting I would be able to tell you that the Department had delivered documents that would justify the postponement of tomorrow’s vote on contempt. The Department told the Committee on Thursday that it had documents it could produce that would answer our questions. Today, the Attorney General informed us that the Department would not be producing those documents. The only offer they made involved us ending our investigation.

“While I still hope the Department will reconsider its decision so tomorrow’s vote can be postponed, after this meeting I cannot say that I am optimistic. At this point, we simply do not have the documents we have repeatedly said we need to justify the postponement of a contempt vote in committee.”

While Issa is still holding the door open for postponing the vote on contempt it appears to be closing fast. If his description of what Holder said is accurate – and there is no reason to believe it isn’t – then Holder just thumbed his nose at the Committee again. I think all that Holder accomplishes with his stonewalling is to unite the Committee’s Republicans.

UPDATE: Sen. Chuck Grassley didn’t think much of Eric Holder’s decision to continue withholding the documents.

“The Attorney General wants to trade a briefing and the promise of delivering some small, unspecified set of documents tomorrow for a free pass today. He wants to turn over only what he wants to turn over and not give us any information about what he’s not turning over. That’s unacceptable. I’m not going to buy a pig in a poke. Chairman Issa is right to move forward to seek answers about a disastrous government operation.”

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Restaurant Carry Still Delayed In NC

June 18, 2012 by 4 Comments

While the North Carolina State Senate ponders (and ponders) HB 111 – the restaurant carry bill – another restaurant was robbed. Grass Roots North Carolina just sent out another alert about it last night.

They choose to block important legislation while restaurant patrons and employees
continue to be victimized

News released on Friday, June 15, 2012 reports that several local and surrounding Fayetteville area restaurants have been hit in a string of robberies in the past 30 days. On Friday, surveillance video was released showing the suspects clearly wielding handguns during the most recent robbery at a Fayetteville Hardee’s Restaurant on June 1st.

Had this crime happened while you were having dinner with your family at your favorite restaurant, would state law have prevented you from legally protecting yourself and your family?

While criminals continue to ignore laws and endanger the lives of citizens in restaurants around the state in crimes conducted regularly, Senator Phil Berger and the Senate Republican leadership have intentionally blocked HB 111 for no other reason except cowardice. They have decided that Democrats might just say bad things about them during the upcoming election cycle if the bill is passed. Instead of honoring their promises to law-abiding gun owners who helped put them in power, they have decided that they are too busy to deal with the bill on the Senate floor in the form of a vote.

Enough is enough!

Accept no more attempts to dodge the issue by the Republican leadership in the Senate. They’ve passed the budget, they’ve worked hard in the current session and have announced that there is finally an official state “Livermush Festival”, and now they have run out of excuses. Now is the time for the Senate Republican leadership to lead as they have promised.

We do not have the luxury of waiting for politicians to decide our fate. We do not have the time to be brushed aside, hoping that HB 111 will be taken to the Senate floor for a vote at a later time. Republican leaders must know that they have run out of places to hide and must bring HB 111 out of the Finance Committee where it is being held hostage. This Bill must go to a full Senate floor vote NOW!

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!

* CALL PRESIDENT PRO TEM PHIL BERGER (919.733.5708) & RULES CHAIR TOM APODACA (919.733.5745): Tell them to send HB 111 to the Senate floor IMMEDIATELY!
* EMAIL ALL SENATE REPUBLICANS using the copy-and-paste email list and message below to deliver either the pre-written message or your own.
* CALL YOUR STATE SENATOR, whom you can find by going to: http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/representation/WhoRepresentsMe.html
* (Note: You will need your 9-digit zip, which can be found on your driver’s license.)
* HELP GRNC DEFEND GUN RIGHTS: We are now reaching over 60,000 gun owners with every alert (like this one). This costs $500 per alert – serious money. Please join or contribute by going to: https://ssl4.westserver.net/grnc.org/join.html!

CONTACT INFO

Austin.Allran@ncleg.net, Tom.Apodaca@ncleg.net, Phil.Berger@ncleg.net, Stan.Bingham@ncleg.net, Harris.Blake@ncleg.net, Andrew.Brock@ncleg.net, Harry.Brown@ncleg.net, Peter.Brunstetter@ncleg.net, Chris.Carney@ncleg.net, Warren.Daniel@ncleg.net, Jim.Davis@ncleg.net, Don.East@ncleg.net, Thom.Goolsby@ncleg.net, Rick.Gunn@ncleg.net, Kathy.Harrington@ncleg.net, Fletcher.Hartsell@ncleg.net, Ralph.Hise@ncleg.net, Neal.Hunt@ncleg.net, Brent.Jackson@ncleg.net, Wesley.Meredith@ncleg.net, Buck.Newton@ncleg.net, Louis.Pate@ncleg.net, Jean.Preston@ncleg.net, Bill.Rabon@ncleg.net, David.Rouzer@ncleg.net, Bob.Rucho@ncleg.net, Dan.Soucek@ncleg.net, Richard.Stevens@ncleg.net, Jerry.Tillman@ncleg.net, Tommy.Tucker@ncleg.net, Wes.Westmoreland@ncleg.net

DELIVER THIS MESSAGE

Suggested Subject: “More restaurant robberies: Will it take another death for Republicans to act?”

Dear Senate Republican:

Each passing day brings us news of yet another robbery or vicious killing in one or more of North Carolina’s restaurants. While law-abiding, responsible gun owners are severely handicapped by state law in terms of protecting themselves, criminals continue to victimize patrons and employees of restaurants around the state at will.

You have promised me that you would support reasonable and common sense legislation that is designed to enhance my safety, and that of my family. HB 111 would do just that. Yet, you have chosen to delay the bill intentionally by sending it to the Senate Finance Committee where there is a good chance that it will die.

I urge you to reconsider this tactic and take HB 111 out of the Finance Committee and bring it to an immediate full vote on the Senate floor so it can then be moved closer to passage. Doing so will greatly enhance my ability to protect the lives of my family as well as my own.

I will be closely following your actions concerning HB 111 through the efforts of Grass Roots North Carolina, as well as keeping notes for the upcoming elections in November.

Sincerely,

UPDATE: The Winston-Salem Journal is reporting that two men robbed a Sonic drive-in yesterday evening in Winston-Salem. The time to pass HB 111 is now.

UPDATE II: The State Senate Finance Committee is meeting today. The agenda lists a number of bills for consideration. However, HB 111 is not one of them.

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Down The Shore

June 16, 2012 by 2 Comments

As my friends in New Jersey and the Philly area might say, we are going down the shore. Or as we in the Carolinas might say, we’re goin’ to Myrtle as in Myrtle Beach, SC. Actually, we are going just south of there to Surfside Beach.

It is a family vacation and we’ll have a house full of people. I think my count for tonight is around 16 with a high of around 20 sometime during the week. It will be organized chaos but a whole hell of a lot of fun.

As you might expect, the blogging this coming week will be hit and miss. I am bringing a handful of DVDs that I need to review including “Make Ready with Michael Bane – Concealed Carry” which arrived in the mail yesterday. You can expect a full review on that when I get back.

I think I have everything packed and ready to go. I have the rum (dark and light) for Tiki drinks, I have the good bourbon for toasting anniversaries, a few Aloha shirts, and my bathing suit. Sounds about right!

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Those Damned Insurrectionists

June 15, 2012 by 4 Comments

Historian Walter Borneman has an article in today’s Wall Street Journal on the War of 1812. Borneman is the author of “1812: The War That Forged a Nation”. He is also the author of “The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King” which I am in the process of reading.

Borneman’s article discusses Congress’ declaration of war on Great Britain and the political fallout from it. Generally, it split along party lines with the Federalists being opposed to war and the Jeffersonian Republicans in favor of it.

While the war issue in 1812 was not rigidly defined along party lines, Federalists generally opposed the war while Jeffersonian Republicans (forerunners of Andrew Jackson’s Democrats) favored it. Two years later, the most antiwar of the Federalists went so far as to convene at Hartford, Conn., and debate constitutional amendments designed to weaken the central government. Some insist that they debated outright secession.

What amuses me about this is that Ladd Everitt of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic) considers himself one of the world’s leading experts on James Madison and his political writings and thoughts. He is also of the firm belief that the Federalists never meant for the Second Amendment to protect an individual right to bear arms.

I wonder what Ladd would have to say about his collective right Federalists being, in his words, “insurrectionists”. That, by the way, is the epithet that he and his boss Josh Horwitz throw at those of us who hold that the Second Amendment is both an individual right to keep and bear arms as well as a bulwark against a tyrannical government.

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Mike Hits Another Homerun

June 15, 2012 by 1 Comment

Mike Vanderboegh of SipseyStreetIrregulars must be on the mend from his recent surgery and attendent health problems. He’s just hit another homerun in the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious. He’s found definitive links between a murdered ICE agent and Operation Fast and Furious

Slain ICE Special Agent Jaime Zapata who was killed in an ambush in Mexico in 2011 was the investigating officer into a seized shipment of firearms headed to Mexico. What makes this significant is that 50 out of the 80 guns seized were guns that walked due to Operation Fast and Furious. The Department of Homeland Security has long denied that Zapata had any connection to Operation Fast and Furious.

Congressional investigators permitted to view Department of Homeland Security documents related to the Fast and Furious operation have located and seen an Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) Report of Investigation (ROI) from August 2010 describing 80 weapons seized in an arms smuggling interdiction between Phoenix, Arizona and San Antonio, Texas. Of these weapons, the majority (approximately 50) were noted to have come from Operation Fast & Furious in Arizona, purchased by Uriel Patino and Jacob Chambers. The ROI was written and signed by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Jaime Zapata, who was shot dead in an ambush at a fake roadblock in San Luis Potosí, Mexico on 15 February 2011. At the time of the report, Agent Zapata was assigned to the Laredo office.

Two of the weapons found at the murder scene were later traced back to Texas — One was purchased in August 2010 near Houston on behalf of accused drug dealer Manuel Gomez Barba, and the other in October 2010 by a Dallas trafficking ring that included Otilio Osorio and his brother Ranferi. Much like Fast and Furious, both groups had been under ATF surveillance for many months, although ATF officials in Texas later denied that any gunwalking happened in their state. United State Senator John Cornyn has pressed Eric Holder and DOJ for details on any gunwalking in Texas. So far, he has been met with denials or silence.

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE and the Department of Justice have long denied that the case of Jaime Zapata had anything to do with Fast and Furious. The discovery of this ROI by Zapata, “puts the lie to that (expletives deleted) by Napolitano and Holder,” according on source who spoke with this reporter on conditions of absolute anonymity.

Multiple sources including current and former employees of the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security have confirmed this explosive new revelation in the Fast & Furious investigation. Said one source, “I think (DHS) is covering up something big.” He added, “I feel betrayed.”

I wonder what Ms. Napolitano has to say about this. I’ve long considered her to be vying with Eric Holder for the bottom of the barrel in Obama’s cabinet.

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Great Ad From The American Future Fund

June 15, 2012 by

I’ll be honest. I’ve never heard of the American Future Fund nor of any of its board members. That said, they just put out a great ad taking the Obama Administration to task over Operation Fast and Furious.

It is a shame that this ad is only an on-line advertisement. The Powerline Blog says it should be playing TV in all the swing states and I heartily agree. They also said this about it.

With calls for Eric Holder’s resignation growing–John Cornyn’s is the most recent–the time is right. The beauty of pounding away on Fast and Furious is that the administration can’t respond. Until now, Barack Obama and Eric Holder have simply counted on the liberal media to help them cover up the scandal. Holder refuses to answer such an elementary question as who authorized the program, and he feels free to lie in a blatant and arrogant manner. If Fast and Furious is suddenly all over television, what is Obama going to do? Start giving speeches about it?

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“Shadow War On The Second Amendment” – David Keene

June 15, 2012 by 1 Comment

David Keene, the President of the NRA, is also the former President of the American Conservative Union. Thus, it is only natural that he should be at the ACU’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Chicago recently. He moderated a couple of panel discussion which Sebastian discusses here.

He was interviewed for NRA News by Cameron Gray. Among the things Keene discussed were what he termed as the shadow war on the Second Amendment. This war includes the use of regulatory restrictions at the state and local level, the fight over concealed carry permits in may-issue states, the role of certain sheriffs in denying permits, etc. While the interview is wideranging, I found this particularly interesting.

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“There’s A Bus Waiting”

June 15, 2012 by

Given the history of Obama throwing subordinates and other supporters under the bus, I don’t think any of us really believe that he’ll go to the mattresses for Eric Holder. Chris Muir in tomorrow’s Day by Day cartoon captures this reality very well.

It is obvious that Muir keeps up with the gun blogs to know about Mike’s latest revelation regarding the new whistleblowers.

Courtesy of Chris Muir and Day by Day Cartoon.

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“Riled Up With National Pride”

June 14, 2012 by

Today is both Flag Day and the birthday of the US Army. Oral tradition also notes that on this day President Theodore Roosevelt got “riled up with national pride.”

1908, Theodore Roosevelt

Oral tradition passed on through multiple generations holds that on June 14, Theodore Roosevelt was dining outside Philadelphia, when he noticed a man wiping his nose with what he thought was the American Flag. In outrage, Roosevelt picked up a small wooden rod and began to whip the man for “defacing the symbol of America.” After about five or six strong whacks, he noticed that the man was not wiping his nose with a flag, but with a blue handkerchief with white stars. Upon realization of this, he apologized to the man, but hit him once more for making him “riled up with national pride.”

Thanks to Julie Golob for the pointer to this interesting (and probably apocryphal) bit of historical trivia.