Freedom Line Blog

Former U.S. Rep. Artur Davis has done a smart, well-reasoned analysis of the underlying meaning(s) of Barack Obama’s week of scandals. He rightly notes that “Obama’s administration struggles mightily with the threshold concept of accountability.”

And:

The emerging argument, which seems to be that the Obama White House was detached enough to rely on the expertise of its department heads to resolve the dilemmas around each event in the current spotlight, would sound strained even if it came during a presidency that was famously disengaged….

More fundamentally, the “we left it to our division heads defense” would not excuse any executive leadership in the public or private sector from the imperative of setting values and standards of conduct for decisions made inside the organization’s own walls, and policing the extent to which those standards survive.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that at a minimum, if you credit its defense, that this government seems more rudderless than could have been imagined eleven days ago.

Also of great note, Davis rightly focuses on a supremely important facet of the Benghazi scandal that the establishment media seems to have willfully ignored, even though it is one of the most despicable aspects of the administration’s longer-term response to the attack:

Even if one buys the rationalization that Benghazi was only so much internecine backbiting between two old rivals, the State Department and CIA, that rationalization entirely omits the evidence that a career diplomat was punished for raising internal questions about security in advance of the Libyan attack, as well as about the unofficial chronicle, or “talking points”, regarding what led to the assault. What kind of leadership is oblivious to the immediate fortunes of a reasonably high ranking whistleblower?

Of course, this is hardly the first time that this administration has tried to bully whistleblowers. They did it to Justice Department whistleblowers J. Christian Adams and Christopher Coates; they did it to five (!) different Inspectors General; and they at the very least undermined a whistleblower in the St. Paul, Minnesota case that has so badly (and rightly) harmed the confirmation prospects for Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez.

Anyway, Davis has a lot of other insights well worth reading in his post.

(Note: This is the first of either three or four blog posts coming today, on different subjects. LOTS going on. Please keep coming back to this site today and tomorrow….)

Okay, first, there are several important developments regarding Tom Perez, whose nomination for Labor Secretary is slated, after several delays, for a committee vote this week.

First, Republican opposition to Perez seems to be stiffening, with several senators coming out definitively, or in some cases more strongly than they already have, against his nomination. Most significant was the stout statement last week by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.:

“He is a committed ideologue who appears willing, quite frankly, to say or do anything to achieve his ideological ends.

“His willingness, time and again, to bend or ignore the law and to misstate the facts in order to advance his far-left ideology lead me and others to conclude that he’d continue to do so if he were confirmed to another, and much more consequential, position of public trust……

“Mr. Perez, however, does not merely push the envelope; all too often, he circumvents or ignores a law with which he disagrees.

“A few examples:

“As a member of the Montgomery County Council, Mr. Perez pushed through a county policy that encouraged the circumvention of federal immigration law. Later, as head of the federal government’s top voting-rights watchdog, he refused to protect the right to vote for Americans of all races, in violation of the very law he was charged to enforce. In the same post at the Department of Justice, Mr. Perez directed the federal government to sue against the advice of career attorneys at his own office. In another case involving a Florida woman who was lawfully exercising her First Amendment right to protest an abortion clinic, the federal judge who threw out Mr. Perez’s lawsuit said he was ‘at a loss as to why the government chose to prosecute this particular case’ in the first place.

“This is what pushing the envelope means in the case of Mr. Perez: a flippant and dismissive attitude about the boundaries that everybody else has to follow for the sake of the liberal causes he believes in.

“In short, it means a lack of respect for the rule of law – and a lack of respect for the need of those in positions of power to follow it…..

“[He is] a crusading ideologue whose conviction about his own rightness on the issues leads him to believe the law does not apply to him. Unbound by the rules that apply to everyone else, Mr. Perez seems to view himself as free to employ whatever means at his disposal, legal or otherwise, to achieve his ideological goals.

“To say this is problematic would be an understatement.

McConnell is hardly the only Republican senator to speak out. The list now includes Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, and Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, along with previously announced opposition by Louisiana’s David Vitter.

NOW, PLEASE NOTE THIS: The single biggest issue in the short term should be Perez’ refusal to honor valid congressional subpoenas, about actions of his that certainly appear to be flagrantly illegal. And even Democrat Elijah Cummings agrees that Perez’s refusal should not stand:

Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, top Democrat on the committee that held the hearing, yesterday joined Representative Darrell Issa of California, the committee chairman, in sending letter to Perez requesting that he provide all personal e-mails used to conduct official business that were subpoenaed by the panel last month, and respond by the end of this week.

It is illegal for bureaucrats to use private email for government business. It is illegal for bureaucrats to ignore a congressional subpoena (except in certain, severely limited circumstances when officially claiming executive privilege, which cannot be the case here). It boggles the mind that somebody could still even have a chance of confirmation who has done both (and continues to do the latter). And it is astonishing, or should be astonishing, that the establishment media hasn’t heavily criticized Perez for these violations.

Also, former whistleblower Christian Adams is out with one more good argument about the the thuggishness of Mr. Perez, who abuses his authority at every turn:

When local sheriffs made the mistake of asking for guidance from Perez about how to implement the Alabama immigration law, Perez threatened them in a meeting. Memo to state and local officials everywhere: don’t ask for guidance from the DOJ Civil Rights Division. The radicals running the place will take advantage of your good faith and make demands of you that the law does not support.

Perez has also threatened election officials in Alabama, threatening to “bury” the state ”with paper” if Alabama did not give in. This is typical of the would-be Labor secretary. Under oath before Congress, he is all smiles, sunshine, and bluebirds; behind closed doors he is a thuggish progressive bureaucrat comfortable wielding power despite what the law says.

Adams will be speaking down here in Mobile next week to the local chapter of the Federalist Society. He promises to have much more to say about Perez during his remarks.

It is also worth reviewing a statement on the nomination by Judicial Watch, whose work has done so much to uncover the various examples of Perez’ perfidy.

Also, Hans von Spakovsky eviscerates Perez’ excuse for using his private emails, here.

Finally, even a youth organization is coming out against Perez, on pure policy grounds. See the statement of Generation Opportunity, here.

Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez, about whom I have written here several times, has his nomination hearing in Senate committee tomorrow. The opponents are getting geared up, with a new video out, with a damaging, related hearing Tuesday in the House, and with lots of other activity. At that House hearing, former DoJ whistleblower J. Christian Adams had lots of interesting things to say, including this:

Unfortunately, over the last few years, the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department has seen instances of embezzlement, employee abuse, harassment, theft, and perjury. Little to nothing has been done by Division management in response. In some cases, Division management has defended, promoted or given awards to the wrongdoers. The Division has implemented hiring practices which, according to the Justice Department Inspector General, have created the perception of an ideologically lopsided workforce. Division management has rejected the recommendations of the Inspector General and resisted making changes to ensure non-ideological hiring at the Division.

And, specifically about Perez, he noted this:

Mr. Perez has repeatedly provided false or inaccurate testimony under oath on two important matters: First, which Justice Department officials were involved in the decision to dismiss the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party; and, second, whether or not he knew that a corrosive and abusive atmosphere existed inside his Division toward employees willing to enforce voting laws without regard to the race of the victims. On both counts, Mr. Perez provided wholly inaccurate testimony under oath.

And:

The Inspector General omitted entirely from the IG Report a second and far more serious instance of Mr. Perez’s inaccurate testimony – namely his false testimony under oath about an open and pervasive hostility toward race neutral enforcement of the law throughout the Civil Rights Division.

This hostility toward race neutral enforcement of civil rights laws – namely that the race of the victim and defendant should have no relevance in enforcement decisions – went far beyond mere policy decisions. The pervasive hostility festered into abuse, name calling, harassment, and racial attacks on DOJ employees – both black and white – who were willing to enforce the law in a race neutral fashion.

The Inspector General omitted entirely from the IG Report a second and far more serious instance of Mr. Perez’s inaccurate testimony – namely his false testimony under oath about an open and pervasive hostility toward race neutral enforcement of the law throughout the Civil Rights Division.

This hostility toward race neutral enforcement of civil rights laws – namely that the race of the victim and defendant should have no relevance in enforcement decisions – went far beyond mere policy decisions. The pervasive hostility festered into abuse, name calling, harassment, and racial attacks on DOJ employees – both black and white – who were willing to enforce the law in a race neutral fashion.

I should have more on this soon.

Below is a section of the IG report on the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, amply confirming longstanding allegations by Christian Adams, Chris Coates, Hans von Spakovsky, and others that the division is full of people who are openly hostile to the very notion that civil rights laws merit race-neutral enforcement. The section is chilling.

B. Treatment of Members of the Noxubee Case Team (2006-07)

As discussed in detail in Chapter Three, in 2006 the Voting Section filed

a complaint under Sections 2 and 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act against the

Noxubee County (Mississippi) Democratic Election Committee and its

chairman, Ike Brown. The Noxubee case was developed and litigated by thenSpecial Litigation Counsel Christopher Coates along with two trial attorneys

and an intern. This was the Department’s first lawsuit under Section 2 of the

VRA against Black defendants alleging denial or abridgment of the rights of

White voters on account of race. Numerous witnesses told us that there was

widespread opposition to the Noxubee case among the Voting Section career

staff because it was being brought against Black defendants on behalf of White

voters. We found that as a result of their hostility to the Noxubee case, some

career staff harassed a Black Voting Section intern who volunteered to travel to

Mississippi to assist the trial team, and mocked Coates for his work on the

case.

The intern told the OIG that two career Voting Section employees made

disparaging comments directly to him about his involvement in the trial. In

particular, the intern recalled being questioned directly and indirectly about

why he participated in this trial and told the OIG that Voting Section personnel

made comments like: “You know why they asked you to go down there,” “They

used you as a token,” and “People are saying, ‘Why did you go down there?’”

According to a memorandum drafted by Section management summarizing the

incidents, the intern told a Section manager that the Voting Section employees

informed him that someone who was attending the trial was reporting his

activities and, therefore, the employees knew exactly where he was sitting in

the courtroom and what he did at the trial.

Section Chief Tanner subsequently announced that files on one of the drives would be locked

to prevent employees from accessing such documents without permission. It appears that the

decision to lock the computer files most likely resulted from the discovery of what the team

member had done. However, we were unable to question Tanner regarding this matter because

he refused to be interviewed by the OIG.

121

B. Treatment of Members of the Noxubee Case Team (2006-07)

As discussed in detail in Chapter Three, in 2006 the Voting Section filed a complaint under Sections 2 and 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act against the Noxubee County (Mississippi) Democratic Election Committee and its chairman, Ike Brown. The Noxubee case was developed and litigated by thenSpecial Litigation Counsel Christopher Coates along with two trial attorneys and an intern. This was the Department’s first lawsuit under Section 2 of the VRA against Black defendants alleging denial or abridgment of the rights of White voters on account of race. Numerous witnesses told us that there was widespread opposition to the Noxubee case among the Voting Section career staff because it was being brought against Black defendants on behalf of White voters. We found that as a result of their hostility to the Noxubee case, some career staff harassed a Black Voting Section intern who volunteered to travel to Mississippi to assist the trial team, and mocked Coates for his work on the case.

The intern told the OIG that two career Voting Section employees made disparaging comments directly to him about his involvement in the trial. In particular, the intern Read more…

I think I understand correctly that this link, right here, will not suffice for readers to watch this 48-minute documentary called “The Machine,” unless you subscribe to The Blaze TV. BUT… BUT… There IS a free two-week trial, so that helps. Anyway, what this is is a 48-minute -long indictment of the Obama/Holder Justice Department and a warning against vote fraud. It is superbly produced. It is marred only by my presence in it throughout as one of the interviewees.

In addition to interviewing me at some length, the documentarians interviewed DoJ whistleblowers J. Christian Adams and Christopher Coates (who are the heroes of the piece), columnists John Fund and Thomas Sowell, and the Rev. C.L. Bryant, among others. The documentary chronicles the corrupt and racialist (not racist, but racialist) agenda of Eric Holder and his Justice Department minions — and it is rather explosive, I do believe.

Again, it’s 48 minutes long, but you might find it well worth watching.

A bit late, I post this tremendous account by Christian Adams of the almost criminally incompetent (and ideologically nuts) Justice Department behavior in a key trial over Texas’ voter-ID law. Amazing stuff.

One tiny excerpt:

But the testimony got even more ridiculous.  San Antonio teenager Victoria Rodriguez travelled the whole way to Washington, D.C., for the clown show.  She testified that she did not have photo ID, even though she had the birth certificate to get a free one.  Her excuse?  She couldn’t find the time. Neither could her parents be bothered to drive her to get the ID.  One wonders if Victoria Rodriguez ever leaves the house, or when she does, if she has other priorities besides voting.  I’d suspect so.

One also wonders why DOJ lawyers decided to put her on the stand.

This travesty, this abomination, is typical of the Obama-Holder (in)Justice Department. For shame.

On a subject near and dear to my heart, protecting the country from massive vote fraud of the sort actively encouraged by the Obamites in and out of government, columnist Thomas Sowell lays it on the line:

When a white man with no identification can go to a voting site, impersonate a black man who lives in that district, and get his ballot offered to him, then it is far too easy to commit voter fraud.

Does not Attorney General Eric Holder understand that? Of course he understands it! The man is not stupid, despite his other failings.

Holder’s pooh-poohing of voter fraud dangers, and hyping the “threat” of denying minorities “access” to the voting booth, are completely consistent with his drive to (1) maximize the number of votes by black Democrats and (2) spread as much fear as possible among minorities that they are under siege, and that the Democrats are their only protection and salvation.

It is a political protection racket, with payoffs in votes.

Sowell also promotes the single most important book released in the past year:

The book is titled “Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department.” It names names, dates and places around the country where the Department of Justice stopped its own attorneys from pursuing cases of voter fraud and intimidation, when it was blacks who were accused of these crimes.

If Mr. Adams is lying, he has taken a huge risk in citing individuals by name and quoting them directly. Yet, despite the fact that most of those he accuses are lawyers, apparently no one has sued him. Moreover, Adams has also testified under oath before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, on the racial double standard at the Department of Justice, when it comes to voting rights.

Not a single word of Adams’ book has come close to having been refuted. Everybody should read it. It will make you fear for our republic — unless we stop the deliberate lawlessness of Eric Holder’s [In]Justice Department.

Today at The American Spectator I blogged at length about how Eric Holder’s Justice Department uses flagrant racial double-standards in enforcing the law.

The same habit infects the news media, and apparently some police departments as well: If the perpetrators are black, it is A) not news, and B) sometimes not investigated, much less prosecuted. J. Christian Adams has a new example here. In this case, a motorist was targeted by a black biker gang. Result: Nada. Adams writes:

Boyd tells me he contacted the crime beat reporter at the Birmingham News and told her about his story. “Not newsworthy,” was her response. Boyd also tells me that law enforcement officials told Boyd they “don’t mess with the Outcasts of Alabama.”  Comforting.

Had the attackers been the Confederate Hammerskins, and the victim been different, we all know (at a minimum) the Birmingham News would have covered the story. DOJ lawyers would be checking on the contract air carrier from Washington to Birmingham. I’ll wager even Soledad O’Brien would have spent at least one show on the attack.

It is precarious when the law, and attention from the media, are so out of balance. When state law enforcement officials flinch from prosecutions of the black Outcasts of Alabama, and national media organizations ignore some violence while elevating other incidents to month-long stories, the rule of law suffers.

Shame on the Birmingham News. Shame on any police who don’t follow up on such cases. Shame on all of us for letting race affect how we deal with important issues and events, in any direction.

The irreplaceable J. Christian Adams has the latest on the growing chances for massive vote fraud in the fall elections, on behalf of Barack Obama, aided and abetted by Eric Holder’s Justice Department.

The Pew Center on the States estimates nearly 2,000,000 dead voters are on the rolls, and 2,800,000 people are registered in more than one state. This is precisely the mess that the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) was designed to prevent….

The Justice Department refuses to enforce Section 8 of the NVRA [which requires that states eliminate the names of dead voters and other ineligibles from the voter rolls]  because, as political appointee Julie Fernandes revealed in a Voting Section meeting in 2009 that I attended, removing dead people from the rolls “doesn’t increase turnout. It stops people from voting.” Seriously….

[D]eliberate decisions have been made to ignore Section 8 of NVRA. Not a single case has been brought to clean up voter rolls during the Obama administration. Ironically, Holder, in his confirmation hearings, criticized the Bush Justice Department for “cherry picking” which voting laws they want to enforce and which they didn’t. Like so much from Eric Holder’s mouth, the statement has been shown to be a devious misdirection. Holder blames his political opponents for conduct in which he engages.

This is serious stuff. These people are ruthless, and amoral. They will do anything they can get away with, in order to seize ever more power. They are a menace to the republic.

J. Christian Adams has an eloquent commentary today on the import of the Obama Administration’s latest effort in its war against traditional Christianity, and on the resistance to it from well-motivated people of all faiths.

One key passage is here:

The real reason the White House was steamrolled is that the Left doesn’t understand what it is up against.  Rachel Maddow, for example, thinks people of faith oppose the Obama mandate because it provides “a convenient partisan cudgel to use against Democrats.”  To Maddow, profound religious conviction couldn’t explain the backlash.  Instead, “partisan cudgels” provide an explanation more familiar to her.

Consider further the always caustic and usually wrong Eric Boehlert of the Soros-funded Media Matters.  Boehlert says the fight with the churches “feels like 1962, we’re arguing over ‘birth control’ in 2012.”  Boehlert doesn’t understand this fight isn’t about birth control, but religious freedom.

Boehlert doesn’t understand that the usual Leftist tactic of mockery and ridicule won’t work on these opponents.  Name calling is nothing compared to what faith communities are willing to endure.

As many others have noted, the president’s “compromise” announced Friday is no compromise at all. It’s still an authoritarian violation of religious freedom. And it still is part of a larger war by the administration, one which, fortunately, it has been losing, as in the 9-0 shellacking the Supreme Court gave to Obama in the Hosanna-Tabor case.

This president has no regard for freedom, and none for traditional Christian or Jewish faith. He is dangerous. It’s a good thing, as Adams points out, that faith and freedom are not so easily cowed.

Our DoJ whistleblowing friend J. Christian Adams speaks at Tulane University tonight, about a fight between Louisiana and the Obama InJustice Department. Note, please, the amazing percentages of people registered to vote in LA, but the Obamites don’t care. (Hint: It is literally impossible for more than 100% of residents to be registered to vote!) The otherwise rotten Sen. David Vitter, to his credit, has weighed in on this issue as well, and he is on target. Outside of Louisiana, meanwhile, just about every week brings more examples of how voter fraud is a real problem, even though the left claims otherwise.

Arnold Trebach spent four years working for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights back when that body was at the vanguard of securing rights for American blacks. Like Ted Kennedy awardee Bartle Bull before him, Trebach is now on the record, at Pajamas Media, saying that the Obama/Holder Justice Department has thoroughly corrupted the law by jettisoning race-neutral enforcement in favor of a racial spoils system — and worse. Indeed, he calls the gang at Holder’s Civil Rights Division “racial racketeers.” This isn’t just a matter of turning the law on its head, although that is bad enough. It also has real-world consequences:

Like many other officials, I confronted white racists who were terrorizing innocent black citizens. We have not yet succeeded in completely halting such awful practices, but the election of an African American to the White House by a majority white electorate, including me, is proof of just how far we have come in the proper direction.

What outrages me is that despite our country’s wonderful successes, too many seek to gain and hold power by cynically perpetuating and exploiting racial grievances. These racial racketeers seek to convince minority members that nothing will help them improve their lives unless they buy into the myth of racial helplessness and continuing victimhood.

As I noted here yesterday, whistleblower J. Christian Adams is out with an extremely powerful new book detailing all of the Obama/Holder abuses. Adams will be the guest on my weekly radio show, “Hillyer Time,” on Thursday night from 8-9 Central time, with strong radio signal on 106.5 FM from Gulfport to Pensacola along the Gulf Coast, and also a terrific online signal at the station’s web site. Do listen in. And do read Adams’ book. It will make you seethe with righteous anger against the lawless goons running our Justice Department.