Have any of these bastards condemned the Left-Wing nuts that have attacked conservatives?
MILWAUKEE/MOSINEE, Wis. (Reuters) – The undercurrent of rage that has been driving U.S. politics for the past few years surfaced on Wednesday in a series of suspected bombs sent to prominent U.S. Democrats and the news outlet CNN less than two weeks before congressional elections.
None of the devices went off and no injuries were reported, but a number of top Democrats were quick to label the threats a symptom of a coarsening brand of political rhetoric promoted by President Donald Trump, who also condemned the acts.
Police intercepted six suspected bombs sent to targets including Trump’s 2016 presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama and prominent political donor George Soros. Law enforcement agencies were investigating.
During his presidential campaign, Trump regularly urged his supporters to chant “Lock her up,” a threat to jail Clinton, and supported conspiracy theories that Soros plays an underhanded role in influencing U.S. politics. Trump has also disparaged the mainstream media and criticized CNN as “fake news.”
At a political rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday night, Trump sought to project a message of unity, pledging to find those responsible for the suspected bombs and calling on Americans to come together.
“You see how nice I’m behaving tonight? Have you ever seen this?” he asked the crowd in Mosinee, Wisconsin. “We’re all behaving very well and hopefully we can keep it that way.”
Democrats were having none of it, saying the Republican president had little credibility to act as a unifying figure.
“President Trump’s words ring hollow until he reverses his statements that condone acts of violence,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement earlier in the day.
“For years now, Donald Trump has been calling for the jailing of his critics and has lauded violence against journalists,” said U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat. “The danger of right-wing extremism cannot be ignored and more attention must be paid to it before even worse violence occurs.”
Politicians from both major parties have made condemning the harsh tone of politics part of their everyday stump speeches.
Republicans have criticized Democrats and liberal activists as a “mob,” decrying protesters crowding the U.S. Capitol to oppose Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and confronting and chastising Republican lawmakers in restaurants and other settings. Scenes of small-scale violence also marked Trump’s 2017 inauguration.
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found rising anger would be a factor driving voters on the Nov. 6 elections when Democrats are seeking to regain control of at least one of the two chambers of Congress.
HEATED TONE
Trump sometimes invokes images of violence in remarks to his supporters. Last week, he reiterated his support for a Montana congressman who body-slammed a reporter in 2017. In August, Trump warned that if Democrats gained control of Congress, they would “quickly and violently” overturn his agenda.
Last year, he said there were bad people on both sides of a clash in Charlottesville, Virginia, between white supremacist groups and counter-protesters.
Some of the people who received suspicious packages, including Obama, Clinton and former Attorney General Eric Holder, have been targeted by online groups such as QAnon that push vast conspiracy theories saying Democrats are behind international crime rings.
Posts on online message boards dismissed the cluster of suspected bombs as a “false flag,” an allegation that a widely covered news event was a politically motivated hoax.
Paul Achter, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Richmond, said Trump’s frequently violent tone increased the likelihood of violent actions.
“Verbal abuse has consequences,” Achter said. “Just because Trump did not send a bomb or beat up a reporter or shoot up a newsroom doesn’t excuse this kind of speech.”
But Republican U.S. Representative Steve Scalise, who was wounded last year by a gunman who opened fire on Republican lawmakers during a baseball practice, said it was a mistake for Democrats to criticize Trump for the suspected bombs.
Two more suspicious packages found – FBI
“I think it was important that the President did come out with a statement the way he did – strongly,” Scalise said in a statement. “I heard silence a lot of times, when Republicans were under attack, from Democrat leaders. We all should be calling this out, whether a Republican or Democrat is under attack.”
Lock all 3 of these POS’s up. Hell yes they are hypocrites.
The Justice Department’s inspector general said the department suffered from “systemic” problems regarding sexual harassment complaints over the last five years, according to a Washington Post report that peculiarly failed to mention former President Barack Obama or Attorney Generals Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.
The DOJ requires “high level action” to solve the issue, which includes mishandling or ignoring complaints of sexual misconduct, according to the IG’s report. Over the last five years, the number of sexual misconduct allegations has increased and includes “senior Justice Department officials across the country,” according to WaPo.
Despite the issue increasing in severity during Obama’s second term, Washington Post reporter Sari Horwitz declined to mention senior administration officials, even though the “most troubling allegations” according to the IG, happened under their watch.
One woman, who was allegedly the victim of repeated groping and “sexually charged comments” became so distressed by her harasser that she “was terrified I was going to get in the elevator and he would be in there.”
On top of complete negligence in the handling of the complaint, the DOJ allowed “potential criminal assault violations,” according to the IG report. Despite these serious allegations, the IG’s office “found no evidence in the case file that a referral was made to the [Inspector General] or any other law enforcement entity.”
Theodore Atkinson, who worked in the DOJ as an attorney in the Office of Immigration Litigation under Holder according to his LinkedIn, admitted to stalking a female coworker, hacking into her personal email account and constructing a “fictitious online profile to entice her,” the IG wrote. For his behavior, Atkinson simply received a “written reprimand and reduction in title,” with no suspension or pay cut.
Atkinson was, however, recently given a “Special Commendation Award from the Civil Division.”
The WaPo investigation describes a number of other incidents that were reported but ultimately ended with no serious reprimands, including one sexual harassment case brought against a female top prosecutor in Oregon.
“Sexual harassment and misconduct is one of the very important areas we have to focus on and take seriously because of all the reasons the public is seeing now,” the IG said. “People’s attitudes have to change. Our interest is shining light on this kind of activity.”
Superficially, Lynch appeared to make gender and sexual harassment issues a top priority. In 2015, Lynch announced $2.7 million in grants to “strengthen the Justice System’s Response to Sexual Assault,” a DOJ press release stated at the time.
“The Department of Justice is committed to doing everything it can to help prevent, investigate and prosecute these horrendous crimes – including working to ensure that our greatest partners in this effort, the state and local law enforcement officers on whom we all rely, have the tools, training and resources they need to fairly and effectively address allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence,” Lynch said.
That same year, Lynch’s department issued new guidelines “to help law enforcement agencies prevent gender bias in their response to sexual assault and domestic violence, highlighting the need for clear policies, robust training and responsive accountability systems,” a press release reads.
Attorney General Eric Holder vigorously denied a “cover-up” by the Justice Department over “Operation Fast and Furious,” telling a House panel investigating the botched gun-running program that he has nothing to hide and suggesting the probe is a “political” effort to embarrass the administration.
“There’s no attempt at any kind of cover-up,” Holder told lawmakers well into a hearing about whether he had been forthright in responding to requests of the House Oversight and Government Relations Committee led by Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
Issa threatens contempt proceeding against Holder if Justice fails to comply with Fast and Furious subpoenas Family of murdered Border Patrol agent files $25M claim against ATF GOP report: Justice officials were on top of Fast and Furious
“We’re not going to be hiding behind any kind of privileges or anything,” he said.
The hearing came after Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, his Senate partner in the probe, asserted that top Justice officials are covering up events surrounding the flawed gun-smuggling probe.
Issa made the accusation in a letter threatening to seek a contempt of Congress ruling against Holder for failing to turn over congressionally subpoenaed documents that were created after problems with Fast and Furious came to light.
Republicans also released a report in the hours ahead of the hearing claiming that Justice Department officials “had much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it has previously acknowledged.”
Asked whether his assistants, Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler or Assistant Attorney Lanny Breuer, head of the department’s Criminal Division, ever authorized gunwalking or the tactics employed in Fast and Furious, Holder responded not to his knowledge.
“Not only did I not authorize those tactics, when I found out about them I told the field and everybody in the United States Department of Justice that those tactics had to stop. That they were not acceptable and that gunwalking was to stop. That was what my reaction [was] to my finding out about the use of that technique,” he added.
He added that he doesn’t think that the situation warranted the kind of response Republicans were giving after his department provided thousands of documents, and planned to deliver more.
Holder also rejected arguments that his handling of the case had lost him any support for the effort he was putting forth as attorney general.
“I don’t think the American people have lost trust in me. … This has become political, I get that,” he said.
But Holder also said no one has been punished “yet” in the case, despite the fact that lost guns from the operation ended up at the crime scene where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010.
Terry’s family has informed the U.S. government that it has six months to respond to its inquiry into Terry’s death or face a $25 million lawsuit.
In the botched operation, more than 1,400 weapons sold to low-level straw purchasers believed to be supplying Mexican drug gangs and other criminals were lost during tracking by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents. Another 700 firearms connected to suspects in the investigation have been recovered, some from crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S., including in Nogales, Ariz., where Terry was killed.
Holder said he didn’t learn about Terry’s murder until 24 hours after his death, and at the time did not hear that weapons tied to Fast and Furious were at the scene.
“I didn’t know about Operation Fast and Furious until the beginning parts of 2011 after I received that letter from Senator Grassley, I guess at the end of January and then that was about Operation Gun Runner. I actually learned about the Fast and Furious operation in February of that year.”
Holder told the committee, “I’m not sure exactly how I found out about the term, ‘Fast and Furious.'” He testified repeatedly that he never authorized the controversial tactics employed in the operation.
“There is no attempt at any kind of cover-up,” Holder said. “We have shared huge amounts of information” and will continue to do so, he said.
But Holder said under questioning that he has not disciplined anyone for his role in the controversial operation.
“No I have not as yet — as yet,” Holder said when questioned by Issa on the matter. “There have been personnel changes made at ATF. We obviously have a new U.S. attorney in Arizona. We have made personnel switches at ATF. People have been moved out of positions.”
Holder’s statements on the Justice Department’s role in the operation did not sit well with Republican lawmakers on the committee, who accused the attorney general of intentionally withholding key documents in the case.
“The conclusion that I come to is there are some things in there that’s being hidden that you don’t want us to see,” said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. “We have every right under the Constitution to check on what you’re doing… So for you to deny this committee anything like that is just dead wrong and I don’t think you’re going to find any way that you can do it.”
Burton went on to say that 93,000 documents related to the operation are being withheld by the Justice Department even though they’ve been turned over internally to the department’s inspector general, a political appointee, Burton said.
“And you’re saying, well, the separation of powers prohibits you from (delivering them to Congress). That’s baloney. That is just baloney,” Burton said.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, also questioned Holder’s having not discussed the case with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
“When people know that I’m going to be the subject of these kinds of hearings, you know six times and all that, nobody necessarily wants to get involved in these kinds of things or get dragged into it,” Holder responded.
Issa told Holder the committee will do what is necessary to obtain the information, “If you do not find a legitimate basis to deny us the material we’ve asked for.”
Holder said earlier during testimony that he would release additional materials “to the extent that I can.”
In Holder’s defense, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., claimed the committee has “not obtained one shred of evidence that would contradict your testimony.”
“Not one witness, not one document, not one e-mail, and still some continue to suggest that you did personally authorize gunwalking and the tactics in Operation Fast and Furious.”
(CNSNews.com) – “All eligible citizens can and should be automatically registered to vote,” and it’s the government’s “responsibility” to see that it happens, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday.
In a call to modernize voter registration, Holder noted that many elections officials still are manually processing new applications, many of them handwritten — a situation that produces errors and confusion at the polls, he said.
“Fortunately, modern technology provides a straightforward fix for these problems,” Holder continued. “It should be the government’s responsibility to automatically register citizens to vote, by compiling — from databases that already exist — a list of all eligible residents in each jurisdiction.”
The lists would be used “solely to administer elections” and “would protect essential privacy rights,” Holder told a gathering at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library inAustin,Texas.
Holder also called for “permanent, portable” voter registration that would follow voters to a new polling place when they move. “Until that happens, we should implement fail-safe procedures to correct voter-roll errors and omissions, by allowing every voter to cast a regular, non-provisional ballot on Election Day,” Holder said.
Holder insisted that making voter registration easier is “not likely, by itself, to make our elections more susceptible to fraud.” Voter fraud will not be tolerated by the Justice Department, he said, adding that “in-person voting fraud is uncommon.”
Holder urged his audience to “speak out,” “raise awareness about what’s at stake,” and “urge policymakers at every level to reevaluate our election systems – and to reform them in ways that encourage, not limit, participation.”
Much of Holder’s speech focused on his department’s efforts to safeguard the right to vote.
As the 2012 presidential election draws closer — and with Holder’s boss scrambling for a second term as president — Democrats are once again accusing Republicans of trying to limit the right to vote.
On Dec. 1, Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) announced a “new comprehensive effort” to educate voters about their voting rights. That effort includes a Web site that “details what Republicans are doing in regard to voter suppression.”
For example, Wasserman Schultz and other Democrats strenuously oppose laws adopted in more than 30 states requiring voters to present a photo ID at the polling place. Republican supporters of photo ID laws say it prevents voter fraud.
On Tuesday, Holder said his Justice Department is now reviewing photo ID laws passed inTexasandSouth Carolinato see if they meet the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. The Justice Department also is reviewing early voting procedures inFlorida, among other voting changes in that state.
“The reality is that – in jurisdictions across the country – both overt and subtle forms of discrimination remain all too common,” Holder said.
It was all a lie. The angry denials, the high dudgeon, the how-dare-you accuse-us bleating emanating from Eric Holder’s Justice Department these last nine months.
Operation Fast and Furious — the “botched” gun-tracking program run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — did, in fact, deliberately allow some 2,000 high-powered weapons to be sold to Mexican drug cartel agents and then waltzed across the border and into the Mexican drug wars — just as Sen. Chuck Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa, who are leading the congressional investigations, have charged all along.
His stonewall crumbles: Eric Holder’s explanations of the Fast & Furious operation are sounding more hollow as new documents emerge.
That’s the conclusion we can draw from Friday night’s nearly 1,400-page document dump, which gives us a glimpse into the inner workings of the Justice Department as it struggled earlier this year to come up with an explanation for the deadly mess — and “misled” Congress.
Now the man who supervised it, Attorney General Holder, will appears before Congress again Thursday to testify in the exploding fiasco. But there’s really only one question he needs to answer: Why?
Why did Justice, the ATF and an alphabet soup of federal agencies facilitate the transfer of guns across the border — without the knowledge of Mexican authorities — when they knew they couldn’t trace them properly?
The scandal erupted late last year, after at least two F&F weapons were found at the southernArizonascene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder. Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked Justice for an explanation.
The response was a Feb. 4 letter from assistant AG Ron Weich, who insisted, “The allegation . . . that ATF ‘sanctioned’ or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons . . . is false.” The ATF, Weich went on, “makes every effort to interdict weapons that have been purchased illegally and prevent their transportation toMexico.”
That letter has now been formally withdrawn. “Facts have come to light during the course of this investigation that indicate the Feb. 4 letter contains inaccuracies,” wrote deputy attorney general James Cole on Friday.
Nice to finally see the government admitting what we’ve known all along — that according to ATF whistleblowers, Fast and Furious was an ill-advised, poorly supervised mess that was doomed from the start.
Fox News recently unearthed a Feb. 3 memo in which ATF agent Gary Styers recounted to his superiors his conversations with Grassley’s investigators: “It is unheard of to have an active wiretap investigation without full-time, dedicated surveillance units on the ground,” he wrote, adding that objections by agents were “widely disregarded.”
Again — why? Perhaps the point was to put the onus for the Mexican drug violence on the American “gun lobby.” The newly released e-mails show Dennis Burke, the since-firedUSattorney inArizonawho supervised the operation, furiously pushing back against Grassley and his staff, calling them “willing stooges for the Gun Lobby.”
Holder has insisted he knew nothing about F&F, but the documents show his underlings’ fingerprints. Weich’s original “misleading letter, for example, was edited by Jason Weinstein, a deputy to Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who forwarded various drafts to his boss.
But Breuer (who reports to Holder) has denied that he had anything to do with drafting or editing Weich’s letter and doesn’t even remember reviewing it before it went to Congress.
So who’s telling the truth?
Meanwhile, Holder spins that F&F was merely a continuation of the Bush-era Operation Wide Receiver, which also lost a few weapons. The difference is that Wide Receiver’s mistakes were inadvertent: That gun-tracking program was under tight surveillance and — unlike F&F — was a joint venture between theUS and Mexican authorities.
It’s time for the months of lies to end — but don’t hold your breath. The administration recently sealed the court records relating to agent Terry’s murder and — a year later — the one man arrested hasn’t been tried.
So far, three presidential candidates, a couple of senators and more than 50 congressmen have called for Holder to resign. If he can’t answer the one question that matters — why — that number ought to include his boss.
