Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault-Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’

Good background information on what we currently know about the players in the Fast and Furious scandal:

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-contributor-who-helped-enact-assault-we...

Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama’s transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.

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No, It's Not a Tax - from the Dissent

The following is taken from the dissent from the majority ruling in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act cases.

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/304323

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The mandate survived. Will the market?

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/06/the-mandate-survived-will-the-market/

The penalty—now a tax—for failing to purchase insurance in 2014 is $95–for the entire year. That is far less than the monthly insurance premium even young healthy people would pay. It rises to $695 in 2016, or 2.5 percent of income, and increases with inflation thereafter. For a young person trying to afford rent and pay a student loan, the decision is clear. Delaying an insurance purchase is money in the bank, and the tax is too small to matter.

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Looking for a Silver-Lining: A Victory For Limited Government (maybe)

ObamaCare is constitutional because it's really a tax! The Supreme Court doesn't care what Obama said at the time or what the solicitor general said during oral arguments, they just read the text of the law (unlike most of the congressmen who voted for it) and decided they'd better find a way to let it stand.

So Chief Justice Roberts is like the basketball ref who doesn't want to call a potentially game-changing foul late in the fourth quarter. "Let 'em play!" Well, I don't like the decision, but in the long run, it's better to settle this politically rather than in the courts.

Rand Simberg writes:

http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=43179

> The bill was allowed to stand only because Justice Roberts declared that it passed constitutional muster under the Congress’s ability to tax (presumably under Article I, Section 8), and that while it had been fraudulently passed (that’s why the president had to lie about it being a tax — he knew that if he admitted it, he would not only lose whatever “moderate” support he had for it, but that he would be going back on his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class), that didn’t make it unconstitutional. Here is a key phrase from his opinion: “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”

> The nation made a terrible political choice in 2008. It started to fix it in 2010, largely driven by this monstrosity. We have another chance in November to fix it once and for all, with a new president and Senate, and I suspect that’s going to happen. But going forward, future courts will recognize that the Commerce Clause is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for any tyrannical thing that the federal government chooses to do. If we want to continue to rein it in, an amendment of the taxing clause might be useful going forward.

> People have been asking in comments which house this bill originated in. I thought that it was the House, but apparently the original House bill isn’t the one that finally passed — the one that the court just ruled on originated in the Senate. This opens up an entirely new line of legal attack, because any revenue bill must originate in the House. No one had bothered to make this argument in the past, because no one had considered the mandate a tax. But now that the court has declared it to be so, it could be struck down as unconstitutional because of the process.

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Andrew McCarthy: Fast and Furious and OCDETF

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/303808/fast-and-furious-and-ocdetf-and...

Why is President Obama denying Congress and the public access to critical information about his administration’s part in a shockingly ill-conceived investigation that resulted in the murder of Brian Terry, a heroic federal Border Patrol agent and veteran U.S. Marine. And when I say “his administration’s part,” that, too, is intentional.

When the president intervened with an eleventh-hour privilege assertion as the House committee verged on citing his obstructive attorney general for contempt, the Obamedia storyline, naturally, was that Obama was protecting Holder. But if we know anything after a half-decade of closely watching Barack Obama, it is this: The One is in it for The One. The president invoked executive privilege because he is protecting himself.

There is little doubt that the wiretap applications would show that senior DOJ officials were aware of the gunwalking tactic long before Agent Terry was gunned down on December 14, 2010. But that’s not the half of it. Bet your bottom dollar that gunwalking was discussed in the consideration of whether to make Fast and Furious an OCDETF case in the first place. OCDETF investigations, moreover, are carefully monitored by the Justice Department throughout, to ensure that the extraordinary flow of funding continues to be worthwhile. I’m wagering that senior DOJ officials — which is to say, Obama-administration political appointees — knew about the gunwalking for close to a year before Agent Terry’s death.

Read the whole thing.

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Obama’s Claim of Executive Privilege: It’s Frivolous

Power Line:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/06/obamas-claim-of-executive-privi...

Today Deputy Attorney General James Cole advised Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, that the Department of Justice will not respond to the committee’s subpoena of certain documents relating to the Fast and Furious scandal. Instead, the Obama administration is asserting a claim of executive privilege for the reasons laid out in Eric Holder’s letter to President Obama dated June 19.

Holder’s letter is a remarkable document. Viewed from a strictly technical standpoint, it is a terrible piece of legal work.

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Obama Invokes Executive Privilege

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/303402/obama-invokes-executive-privilege...

What’s next? A House Government Reform Committee vote, followed by a full House vote, then a referral to the U.S. attorney, who will decline to prosecute contempt because of the privilege invocation (or the House may simply bypass that step, given its frivolousness). Failing a criminal prosecution for contempt, if Issa and company remain resolute, a House civil suit to enforce the subpoena will follow, as happened in the Rove/Miers contempt situation.

On the political side, one thing now is clear. Fast and Furious is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the president. No longer is this a merely DOJ problem. The president’s invocation of his privilege makes the problem his own.

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SWAT-ting bloggers

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/302174/who-will-protect-freedom-blog-m...

Chambliss and Marchant called specific attention to one terrifying tactic against these bloggers: SWAT-ting. These hoaxes occur “when a perpetrator contacts local police to report a violent incident at a target’s home.” Callers disguise their true identities and locations in order to provoke SWAT and police forces into descending on targets’ homes in a high-firepower response that is potentially deadly.

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John Yoo: Obama, Drones and Thomas Aquinas

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303665904577452271794312802.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

The administration has made little secret of its near-total reliance on drone operations to fight the war on terror. The ironies abound. Candidate Obama campaigned on narrowing presidential wartime power, closing Guantanamo Bay, trying terrorists in civilian courts, ending enhanced interrogation, and moving away from a wartime approach to terrorism toward a criminal-justice approach. Mr. Obama has avoided these vexing detention issues simply by depriving terrorists of all of their rights—by killing them.

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Bill Clinton and Barack Obama

Great picture on Jonah Goldberg’s article about Bill Clinton…

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/302122/searching-surrogate-jonah-goldberg

The funny thing about Clinton is that he just pretends everything is hunky-dory, like the guy who tries to suppress a grin as he watches you drink the laxative-spiked punch, or Vizzini in The Princess Bride when he thinks the Dread Pirate Roberts is the one about to die from iocane-powder poisoning. Bill does what Bill does. Just ask Hillary.

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Cherokees to Elizabeth Warren: 'We don't claim you!'

The Cherokees are on the Warren path...

http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/30/cherokees-to-elizabeth-warren-we-dont-claim-you/

More than 150 Cherokee Indians have joined a group online demanding more information from Massachusetts senate candidate Elizabeth Warren about her claims of Native American heritage.

“You claim to be Cherokee. …We don’t claim you!” the group “Cherokees Demand Truth from Elizabeth Warren” declares on its website.

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Ready, Fire, Aim - Team Obama’s Reputation Is Vastly Overrated

http://freebeacon.com/ready-fire-aim/

Democrats may be able to forget Obama’s campaign finance hypocrisy. They may laugh off the Rosen and Biden gaffes. But Cory Booker’s remarks will haunt them, because in just a few sentences, the mayor exposed a growing rift in the Democratic Party.

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The Church Goes To Court

http://www.nysun.com/editorials/the-church-goes-to-court/87830/

Congratulations are in order for the Catholic Church, whose archdioceses in America went to federal court today to challenge the Obama administration on the contraception mandates. Something like a dozen federal lawsuits were filed against the administration by something on the order of 43 plaintiffs, including the Archdiocese of New York, among others, and the crown jewel in Catholic education in America, Notre Dame.

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Ratcheting Up The Crisis In Europe | Via Meadia

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/05/19/ratcheting-up-the-crisis-in-europe/

The success of this little merry-go-round is why Europe calmed down last December. The ECB in effect prints money which it gives to busted banks. The busted banks lend the money to insolvent governments at artificially low rates (but at rates that still allow the banks to make a profit). It was a neat little trick that kept the crisis quiet without forcing the Germans to admit openly that the ECB was in effect using German resources to bail out the rest of the zone.

Bank runs, even virtual bank runs, would blow this fragile arrangements to bits. As the prospect of Greece leaving the euro becomes more likely, savers in Portugal, Spain and Italy have to start wondering if their countries, too, will have to jump ship. Sophisticated investors have been moving their money out of those countries for some time; things may soon reach a pass in which ordinary, unsophisticated investors start to do the same thing. 

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Ken Burns Presents: Elizabeth Warren's Campaign Trail of Tears

mkhammer perfectly captures the historic tone of this campaign:

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NC Non-Citizens Voting, Dead Offered Ballots, UNC Officials Embrace Voter Fraud

Project Veritas undercover work:

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Narcissism update: Obama now inserts himself into online bios of past presidents

Instapundit has links to the story plus commentary on Rutherford B. Hayes:

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/143212/

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The Death of the Hockey Stick?

http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-death-of-the-hockey-stick/?singlepage=true

But at a minimum it should be the final blow to the hockey stick, and perhaps to the very notion that bristlecone pines and larches are accurate thermometers. It should also be a final blow to the credibility of many of the leading lights of climate “science,” but based on history, it probably won’t be, at least among the political class.

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Al-Qaeda Infiltrator was Working for Brits not CIA, Cover Blown for Election Year Politics

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/05/14/bombshell-al-qaeda-infiltrator-was-working-for-brits-not-cia-cover-blown-for-election-year-politics/

The double-agent hadn’t been recruited and placed by the CIA, but by British intelligence, who also managed the operation. In fact, the Americans had only recently been made aware of the joint British-Saudi effort.

The leaks about the operation from the American side have infuriated British intelligence officials, who had hoped to continue the operation. The leaks not only scuttled the mission but put the life of the asset in jeopardy. Even CIA officials, joining their MI5 and MI6 counterparts, were describing the leaks as “despicable,” attributing them to the Obama administration.

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NC Democratic Party chairman resigns, then unresigns

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/12/2060883/democratic-party-chair-resigns...

David Parker, the besieged state Democratic Party chairman, said Saturday that he would remain in his post after the party’s ruling committee voted not to accept his resignation.

In doing so, Parker defied pressure from party leaders from Washington to Raleigh to step aside because of the concern that his handling of sexual harassment accusations by a staffer would damage the party’s efforts in the fall.

The move came despite an effort by party leaders including Gov. Bev Perdue, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Walter Dalton, key state elected leaders, the national party, and the White House to ease Parker out.

The pressure came as Republicans have repeatedly hammered the Democrats on the scandal, and national political stories cite it as a reason why it will be difficult for President Barack Obama to carry North Carolina again in November.

At issue was Parker’s handling of a sexual harassment accusation brought by a staffer against Jay Parmley, the party’s executive director. There were criticisms of the confidential settlement in the matter, whether Parker should have taken it to the Executive Committee, and Parker’s off-key news conference last month.

For a little background on Jay Parmley, see this article:

http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/23/leading-nc-democrat-already-accused-of-sexu...

Rebecca Burgin, a long-time former girlfriend of former North Carolina Democratic Party executive director Jay Parmley, told The Daily Caller that she believes Parmley infected her with HIV.

Parmley resigned on April 15 amid sexual harassment allegations from a former young male staffer.

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