Freedom Line Blog

Last night, I had the pleasure of introducing former Justice Department whistleblower J. Christian Adams at his speech to the Mobile chapter of the Federalist Society. Ace reporter Brendan Kirby of the Mobile Press-Register wrote about the event here.

Adams was superb. It is well worth reading his book, Injustice, about the corruption at the Obama/Holder Justice Department.

In my introduction, by the way, I told the story about the first time I tried to talk to Adams, while he was still at DoJ:

You should know, though, that the first time I ever spoke to Christian, he said he couldn’t talk to me and sent me to a Justice Department press flack named Schmaler, who proceeded to yell and curse at me like a Greek fury before I ever had two very polite sentences out of my mouth.

Tracy Schmaler would later go on to be identified in numerous news accounts as almost habitually yelling at other reporters as well. And now, as of a couple of days ago, she is in the news again:

In addition to Burke’s involvement in leaking the document, emails the IG uncovered show senior officials at the Department of Justice discussed smearing Dodson.

One of those was Tracy Schmaler, the Director of the Department’s Office of Public Affairs, who resigned her position at the DOJ after emails uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that she worked with leftwing advocacy group Media Matters for America to smear whistleblowers and members of Congress and the media who sought to investigate DOJ scandals under Attorney General Eric Holder.

To complete the circle, this is not the first time Schmaler — who now works for Obama hardball political maestro David Axelrod — has been shown to have been part of a smear campaign. She earlier had been found, via e-mails, to have smeared Justice Department attorneys while they still worked for the department. One of those attorneys: J. Christian Adams.

This has some really important stuff in it. Please read.

A new report is hot off the presses. Virginia’s veteran U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, whose admirable pressure was largely responsible in the first place for the DoJ Inspector General to open an investigation into the department’s Civil Rights Division, just put out a release describing it:

FOLLOWING REPORT, WOLF CALLS ON ATTORNEY GENERAL

TO CONDUCT REVIEW OF CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION

Long-Awaited Report Details Dysfunction Within Human Rights Division

Washington, D.C. (March 12, 2013) – Following the long-awaited release of a report by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General on abuses within the Civil Rights Division of DOJ, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) today called on the Attorney General to appoint an outside panel to conduct a review of all officials and correct the systemic dysfunction that exists within the division.

Today’s report validates the concerns Wolf raised in 2009 and 2010 about the politicization and inappropriate activities within the Civil Rights Division, including the dismissal of the New Black Panthers Philadelphia voting intimidation case and the subsequent investigation of this matter by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 2010.

On Thursday, March 14, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who released today’s report, will testify before Wolf’s Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) Appropriations subcommittee at 10 a.m. in H-309 in the Capitol.

Wolf’s full statement is below.

“I was deeply troubled, but hardly surprised, to learn from today’s report on the Justice Department’s Inspector General that very serious abuses and politicization are prevalent in the department’s Civil Rights Division.  The report makes clear that the division has become a rat’s nest of unacceptable and unprofessional actions, and even outright threats against career attorneys and systemic mismanagement.

“Above all, I believe that Attorney General Holder has failed in his leadership of this Justice Department.  As the head of the department, he alone bears ultimate responsibility for the serious abuses that occurred on his watch over the last four years.  Notably, the report also confirms that the attorney general was made aware of efforts to dismiss the voting rights case against the New Black Panther Party in 2009, which was apparently dismissed with his blessing.  Holder has failed the American people, and he must be held responsible for the prevailing dysfunction that has occurred under his leadership.

“Today, I am calling on Holder to immediately appoint an outside, independent panel, led by someone of integrity and experience like former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, to conduct a 60-day in-depth review of all officials, attorneys and policies within the division and make recommendations to the department and to the Congress on how to address the systematic dysfunction that has taken root within the division.

“Additionally, all of the individuals cited for improper conduct should be immediately removed and appropriate action should be taken.

“I take these issues very seriously, both because of my responsibilities as chairman of the House CJS Appropriations subcommittee, which funds the Justice Department, but also because I have been a stalwart supporter of voting rights enforcement.

“I was the only member of the Virginia congressional delegation – Republican or Democrat – to vote for the Voting Rights Act in 1982.  I was heavily criticized by state newspapers, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch, for my vote. I was criticized again by editorials in my district when I supported the Voting Rights Act extension in 2006, but I stuck by my vote because I strongly believe that voting is a sacrosanct and inalienable right of any democracy.

“I first contacted former Inspector General Glenn Fine in July 2009 to request this report.  Nearly four years after my request – and two inspectors general later – this report has finally been released.  Although I was disappointed the IG’s office was initially slow in its review of this case, the pace noticeably accelerated under the leadership of the current IG Michael Horowitz, who assumed this position last spring.  I appreciate Mr. Horowitz’s leadership and believe he has produced a good report.

“I was particularly disheartened by the dismissal of the New Black Panthers case by the Obama Justice Department.  The dismissal was wholeheartedly opposed by the four career attorneys managing the case, as well as the Division’s own appellate office, which is also staffed by career DOJ attorneys.  In a 2009 memo penned by career Appellate Chief Diana K. Flynn, she wrote that DOJ could make a ‘reasonable argument in favor of default relief against all defendants, and probably should.’  She further noted that the complaint’s purpose was ‘to prevent the paramilitary-style intimidation of voters, while leaving open ample opportunity for political expression.’

“Today’s IG report makes clear the degree to which politicization and mismanagement influenced the inexplicable dismissal of this case.  The Civil Rights Division should be beyond reproach, and in my capacity as CJS chairman I will continue to work to finally achieve an ethical, functioning Justice Department that Americans are once again proud of.”

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.

When I wrote my column on Eric Holder this week, I meant to make reference to Ashton’s column and subsequent blog post on the same subject, but went off on a tangent and never did. But I agree entirely with his points, and with those of Troy, who it seems was reacting to Eric Holder playing the race card at almost exactly the same time, and in much the same way, as I was. I particularly appreciate Troy reminding us (I forgot to include it) of the time Holder referred to “my people” (meaning, of course, only black people) when responding to criticism of his handling of the Black Panther case — yet another example of hideously race-centric thinking.

The good news on this front is that the count of congressmen expressing “no confidence” in Holder — in effect, although not explicitly, a demand for his resignation or ouster — is now 91. This is getting close to reaching semi-critical mass.

The question is, where the bleep are the other 15 or so GOP House members? Where are all the GOP senators? For that matter, how about any self-respecting, country-first, moderate or even liberal Democrats who care more about doing the right thing than for playing politics? Where is the courage? When will they get a clue? The lawlessness and incompetence at Justice — especially, but certainly not anywhere entirely, evident in the Fast and Furious scandal — is an utter travesty, and justice and propriety compel Holder’s dismissal and a thorough cleaning of his Augean Stables. This is a subject the public will understand, and one on which they are sure to side against the Holderite contingent of racialist bumblers. Then again, waiting for many GOP senators to get a clue is probably more pointless even than waiting for Godot.

I am so glad Ashton posted this latest outrage from the flagrantly corrupt, thuggish, Obama/Holder (In)Justice Department. If a Republican administration had done this, every editorial page in the United States — EVERY ONE — would have been yelling bloody murder about the trampling of the public’s right to know, etc.  Every major newscast would be lead with this story. Cue the dramatic music about the cover-up indicating that a crime MUST have been committed, and cue the race for someone to append the most clever “-Gate” ending as a name for the scandal.  But if Obama does it…. yawn.

This is serious. It appears criminal. And it must not stand. Go back and read Ashton’s post and the backup documentation. It’s an outrage.

I loved Tim’s column the other day on rising support for the individual right to bear arms.

It just so happened that right before I read it, as my computer was stuck in an “update,” I was reading Richard Brookhiser’s new biography of James Madison while I waited for my ‘puter. Within a page of where I began that hour’s reading, I came across this from Brookhiser: “In Federalist # 46, [Madison] had even warned that Americans could resist an oppressive government thanks to ‘the advantage of being armed, which [they] possess over the people of almost every other nation’.”

Yes, being armed is an individual right, and yes it is both for personal protection AND for the radical eventuality, which we hope never to need, of resisting an oppressive government.

And if anybody at the Obama Department of Justice wants to Shanghai me for exercising my First Amendment rights about the meaning of the Second Amendment, and to accuse me (falsely) of inciting insurrection… well, bring it on, baby, bring it on. For the record, I am inciting nothing, but merely explaining that the Second Amendment’s origins did indeed include the notion of protection against government. It’s a purely objective analysis. And it’s a lot safer to write about guns this way than it is to deliberately seed the realm of drug lords with firearms, which is what Eric Holder’s minions appear to have done. My freedom of speech is far saner and safer than their idiocy of action.

I join Ashton in saying that Eric Holder must go. I just think that he needs to take the whole Obama team down with him, for massive corruption. Holder and his ilk are race hustlers.  They violate the law with impunity, on more fronts than one might have possibly imagined.

The GOP presidential candidate who first makes an effective issue of all this will gain some real momentum in the race.  The rotten underbelly of the Obama/Holder Justice Department is just now being uncovered. There is a lot more rot still to come to light.

No, not Joe McCarthy. Andrew McCarthy. In an absolute tour de force at the New Criterion magazine, McCarthy — the prosecutor who put the parking lot bombers of the World Trade Center (1993) in jail — outlines the manifold abuses of law of Barack Obama and his Justice Department consiglieres, especially Attorney General Eric Holder. In doing so, he broadens and deepens and updates a piece I did last fall for The American Spectator — but with an extra dose of authoritativeness I could not match.

Writes McCarthy:

In flagrant violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, the Department of Justice now practices racial discrimination in enforcing, and in choosing not to enforce, the federal civil rights statutes. These laws, enacted to safeguard our basic liberties, are not invoked when the victims are white and the lawbreakers are black. The most brazen example of this noxious policy—but far from the only one—is the Department of Justice’s astounding decision to drop a voter intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party even though Justice had already won the case.

As McCarthy explains, for Obama and his Alinskyite allies,

Lawfulness and lawlessness, thuggishness and regular politics—we’re not to divine any moral or ethical differences. They are just different “approaches” to empowerment. They only “seem” to be “divergent.” It may be important to maintain the veneer of respect for legal processes, but it is just as legitimate to stretch or break the rules whenever necessary to achieve the desired outcome—social justice being a higher form of legitimacy than society’s rule of law. Separatism, menacing, and civil disobedience: none of these is beyond the pale; they are simply choices on the hard power menu Obama “bridges” with soft power (i.e., the system’s mundane legal and political processes).

Again, read the whole thing.  Great stuff. Scary, but oh-so-important for us to understand what we’re facing in the Oval Office.

A man shot a grizzly bear in self-defense. A real grizzly, not Mama Grizzly Sarah Palin. If it had been the latter, I have no doubt Eric Holder wouldn’t be too concerned. As it is, though, the Justice Department is prosecuting the man to the full extent of the law (or, one could argue, far beyond what the law can reasonably be interpreted to mean).  This is, in a word, sick. Demented. Twisted beyond all recognition. The DoJ’s Wendy Olson should be the one on trial for prosecutorial abuse, not the one putting the Idaho rancher on trial for protecting his own children. She also should be permanently ostracized from polite society. Sneered at, scorned, ignored, isolated, publicly disdained. And, when she no longer has Holder and President Obama around to give her a job, she should be professionally scorned as well. Maybe even asked to go live with the grizzlies — as long as she might last.

The great Michael Barone has (as usual) a wonderful column out about the latest outrage from what probably should be renamed the Obama/Holder “Department of (in)Justice, Political Hit Jobs and Racialist Authoritarianism” (DoIPHRA). It appears that DoIPHRA isn’t merely content with covering up for New Black Panthers, telling black voters they are too stupid to know their own interests, forcing seniors to accept Medicare coverage they don’t even want, putting up roadblocks against expanded military voting opportunities, and making a fetish of fighting anti-gay “bullying” without real authority to do so. Nor is it satisfied with screwing up the matter of detention of enemy combatants or refusing to defend the law of the land (DOMA), nor, in a burgeoning scandal, of providing guns to Mexican drug runners which were used to kill an American official.

Now, as Barone reports, the Obamites have given a tacit push to the terrorizing speech czars on college campuses to outlaw flirting, sexual double-entendres, and other highly typical behaviors of collegians:

What the seemingly misnamed Office of Civil Rights is doing here is demanding the setting up of kangaroo courts and the dispensing of what I would call Marsupial Justice against students who are disfavored by campus denizens because of their gender or race or political attitude. “Alice in Wonderland’s” Red Queen would approve….

Again, do read the entirety of Barone’s column. It’s one more example of how these radicals with frightening powers are trying to cram their agendas down our throats.

Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CST to 6:00 p.m. CST (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her show “Your Turn.”  Today’s star guest lineup includes:

4:00 p.m. CST/5:00 p.m. EST:    Bruce Herschensohn, Foreign Policy Expert  –  North Korea

4:30 p.m. CST/5:30 p.m. EST:    Pete Sepp, National Taxpayers’ Union (NTU)  –  Bush Tax Cuts, Obama’s Federal Salary Freeze

5:00 p.m. CST/6:00 p.m. EST:    Ashton Ellis, CFIF  –  Wikileaks, Janet Naplitano/Eric Holder/Charles Schumer

5:30 p.m. CST/6:30 p.m. EST:    Steve Milloy, Junkscience.com  –  U.N. Global Warming Conference

Please share your comments, thoughts and questions at (850) 623-1330, or listen via the Internet by clicking here.  You won’t want to miss it today!