Updated: NBC News: Holder Personally Approved Fox Reporter Warrant
Posted by on 5.24.13 @ 3:45PM
UPDATE: The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza reports that the Obama DoJ wanted to be able to spy on Fox News reporter James Rosen for an essentially unlimited period of time and not disclose their activities to him. After two judges rejected Holder’s claims, he finally got a judge to go along with him. Judge Royce Lamberth owes Rosen a major apology.
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So Holder wants to tell us that he recused himself from the AP phone records scandal, but now we learn (from NBC News of all places) that he personally went on the attack against Fox News Reporter James Rosen.
Story here.
Felonious Attorney General?
Posted by on 5.24.13 @ 3:21PM
Things just went from bad to worse for Attorney General Eric Holder.
Last week, we noted that Holder was setting Deputy Attorney General James Cole up as the fall guy for the AP scandal. Obama said he had “complete confidence” in Holder and it looked like, once again, the attorney general would survive the storm.
Last night, NBC reported that Holder signed off on the search warrant for James Rosen’s e-mails:
Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.
It gets even worse. As Hot Air noted, Holder may have perjured himself. In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee last week, he said:
In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. This is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy.
As Hot Air pointed out, this could get really bad:
There is no other way to view this except as a lie. Even if Holder wasn’t under oath, that would constitute a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. It certainly should produce at least a resignation, and almost assuredly would require the appointment of a special prosecutor, especially since the next person down in the organization, James Cole, is suspected of doing the same thing with reporters.
It turns out that Holder was under oath, and this wasn’t even the first time he’s potentially perjured himself. Holder was accused of perjury during the Fast and Furious investigation when it was reported that he had been briefed on the matter in 2010, but told Congress he had heard about it in 2011.
Not surprisingly, Republicans like Sarah Palin and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus have called for Holder’s resignation.
But the left has joined in, too. When people on the right are calling for the resignation of a member of Obama’s cabinet, it’s just another day in Washington. When Salon is publishing an article titled Eric Holder versus journalism and The Huffington Post uses its home page to demand his resignation, it’s gotten pretty bad.
This may be the first time that Sarah Palin and The Huffington Post have agreed on something. Is a resignation coming? The Obama administration has been known to do Friday evening bad-news dumps. There’s still time…
Did the Boy Scouts Cave to Pressure?
Posted by on 5.24.13 @ 3:14PM
The Boy Scouts of America voted to lift the ban on openly gay Scouts on Thursday afternoon. Their rule forbidding gay scoutmasters and adult leaders is still in place.
The decision is not at all surprising. The Scouts faced extreme pressure from groups like GLAAD and Scouts for Equality to lift the ban.
Scouts for Equality proved a formidable fighting force in the battle against the ban. The group, founded by 21-year-old Zach Wahls, the son of two lesbian mothers, has 15,000 members, including 20 full-time employees dedicated to the cause. Scouts for Equality zeroed in on 200 councils and even hired Global Strategy Group, a communications firm, to drill in its message.
GLAAD aided Scouts for Equality in its cause by helping to gather thousands of signatures via Change.com. It also focused on churches and faith communities, which represent the largest group of donors to the BSA, some of whom the organization risks losing.
In addition, cases like that of Ryan Andresen helped to publicize the cause. Andresen, an openly gay teen from Moraga, Calif., applied to become an Eagle Scout but was rejected solely because of his sexual orientation. Andresen’s case became national news and he even appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show.
The Family Research Council (FRC) led the defense of the ban. Senior Vice President Rob Schwarzwalder headed the Boy Scout task force dedicated to upholding the policy.
“People who join Scouts know what the rules are. They also know there are many alternative organizations for their boys in which prohibitions against homosexuality do not exist,” Schwarzwalder said in a statement on the Family Research Council website. “Just don’t ask the 2.7 million boys in the BSA… to compromise their moral convictions and permanently alter the very nature of Scouting.”
In retrospect, it seemed fairly inevitable that the BSA would vote to end the ban. The dedication of gay activists to the cause was enormous. With statements like “they might as well take America out of their name,” by GLAAD spokesman Rich Ferraro, it was easy to see how so many people were won over to the cause.
It’s a shame to think that this decision by the BSA might be due to the immense pressure that mounted before the vote. I hope that the 61 percent of the 1,400 members of the BSA that voted honestly believed they were doing what was best for the organization and the boys, and didn’t merely feel that they had to cave to gay rights activists.
Either way, this is far from over. With the ban on gay Scouts gone, expect gay Scoutmasters to be next on the agenda for LGBT activists.
BBC World Survey Ranks Israel Near Bottom in Global Popularity
Posted by on 5.24.13 @ 12:36PM
According to the BBC’s Annual Country Ratings World Survey, Israel is the fourth least popular country in the world. It ranks ahead of only Iran, North Korea and Pakistan.
Germany ranks as the world’s most popular country with Canada in second.
Upon closer scrutiny, many of the countries surveyed are in the Muslim world: Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia. Only 1% of Egyptians have a positive view of Israel.
Other countries surveyed outside the Muslim world have had a long history of anti-Semitism: Russia, Germany, Poland, France and the United Kingdom. Indeed, 72% of UK respondents have a negative view of Israel which is the highest total in Europe.
Sadly, Canada and Australia did not fare much better with mostly positive responses of 25% and 16%, respectively.
Many countries with little contact with Israel viewed the Jewish State in negative terms. Only 3% of Japanese surveyed indicated they had a positive view of Israel.
The United States was the only country where more than 50% of those surveyed had a positive view of Israel. Several sub-Saharan African countries had generally positive views of Israel - Ghana (44%), Kenya (42%) and Nigeria (35%). Perhaps Israel’s airlift of Ethiopian Jews during the famine in the mid-1980s could be responsible for this enduring goodwill or possibly its good relations with the newly independent Southern Sudan. Unfortunately, these countries are the exception to the rule.
Sadly, the world’s oldest hatred endures with no signs of dying.
Obamacare is a Big and Growing Problem for Democrats
Posted by on 5.24.13 @ 11:03AM
Even before the IRS scandal reminded Americans of the unenjoyable prospect of that agency becoming involved in American’s health care decisions, Obamacare was becoming an increasing political problem for the president and for Democrats.
An Economist/YouGov poll released this week suggests just how big a problem it could be.
Some selected results:
- 50% of respondents said that they expect to pay more for their health insurance because of Obamcare, with only 7 percent expecting to pay less.
- 35% say they expect Obamacare to make their medical care worse, versus 13 percent who expect better.
- 34% strongly disapprove of how Obama is handling health care versus 16% who strongly approve.
In the latest case of buyers remorse, the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers has called for the repeal of Obamacare, citing risks not only to their members’ health plans but to their members’ ability to find work.
Don’t be surprised if you didn’t hear the story; the media doesn’t like reporting anything which might tend to hurt Obamacare. In fact the Sacramento Bee newspaper took down the roofers’ union statement from their web page. It used to be here. A Google search of one of the first sentences in the roofers’ announcement doesn’t turn up a single “mainstream” media story on the first three pages of results. (I stopped there.)
A couple of foreign policy questions may have interesting political implications, especially for the 2016 presidential race:
- 45% believe the administration misled the American people about what happened in Benghazi versus 38 percent who say they “shared facts as they became available.”
- 43% disapprove of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of Benghazi versus 32 percent who approve.
Muslim, Er, Youth Riots in Sweden
Posted by on 5.24.13 @ 12:41AM
As London reels from the beheading of a British soldier, 1,200 miles away in Stockholm, Muslims, er, youths have been rioting in the streets of Stockholm and elsewhere in Sweden for the past four nights.
News outlets such as Reuters are focusing on the economic policies of Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt who leads the Moderate Party which is the country’s main conservative party. Reinfeldt’s administration which came to power in 2006 has cut taxes and reduced state benefits. While Sweden’s economic growth is amongst the best in Europe, it “has the fastest growing inequality of any OECD nation.”
But are these “youths” Keynesians in the rough?
This chain of events began ostensibly with the police shooting of a 69-year old man wielding a machete. But as Michael Graham notes:
Maybe if we knew the name of this “69-year old wielding a machete”, maybe that would help? But I searched 10 news stories and never found his name. But I did find a lot of coverage of some other fellas in Europe recently wielding a machete. They cut the head off of a British soldier in the streets of London yesterday.
Hmmm….something there?
Sweden’s Muslim population nearly doubled between 1998 and 2011 (3.2% to 6.1%). The time has probably come from Sweden to limit Muslim immigration and deport those (without Swedish citizenship) who were involved in these riots. Otherwise, the situation will devolve to what is occurring in Britain where you have the spectre native born Britons coming under the influence of radical Islam and attacking their own country as we saw with the London Underground Bombings in 2005 and with the murder of Lee Rigby in broad daylight on Wednesday.
Good Luck Quin
Posted by on 5.24.13 @ 12:13AM
So Quin Hillyer is throwing his hat into the ring and is running for Congress.
I have enjoyed Quin’s contributions to The American Spectator whether the subject be politics or sport. Quin and I have had a couple of spirited disagreements, but we have also enjoyed some pleasant exchanges as well.
Win or lose, Quin will pursue elected office with the same passion which he has pursued his writing.
All the best you, Quin. I can only hope that The American Spectator’s loss will be Congress’ gain.
One of The London Soldier Beheading Suspects British Born
Posted by on 5.23.13 @ 6:42PM
In my initial reaction to the terrorist attack yesterday in London was not to be surprised if the perpetrators were British born. One of the two men responsible for murdering British soldier Lee Rigby yesterday has been identified as Michael Abdebolajo. Of Nigerian descent, he was born and raised in Britain and is a convert to Islam.
Abdebolajo has been on MI-5’s radar for years. In 2006, he was arrested along with three others outside the Old Bailey. A man was being tried for calling on Muslims to kill British soldiers. Abdebolajo said at the time that it was his right to urge people to “behead those who insult Islam.”
Well, yesterday he took it upon himself to carry out that edict. Or fatwa, if you will.
Ross Kaminsky recommended that Britain start deporting Muslims. Even if Britain began deporting foreign born clerics who would spread jihad, it might be too late. The problem goes much deeper when the perpetrators are British born and raised,
Lois Lerner Now on Administrative Leave
Posted by on 5.23.13 @ 6:13PM
Lois Lerner, the official at the center of the IRS scandal, has been put on administrative leave.
The Washington Post is reporting:
Lois Lerner, the director of the tax-exempt organizations division at the Internal Revenue Service, has been placed on administrative leave, sources in Congress and the administration confirm.
Federal workers are given pay and benefits when put on administrative leave.
Acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel has selected Ken Corbin as the acting director, of the exempt organizations division. Corbin is currently the deputy director of the submission processing, wage and investment division.
Administrative leave is not anywhere near the same as firing. Then again since Lerner is a career employee, it’s practically impossible to fire her. Either way, I don’t think this will deter Darrell Issa from dragging her back to another hearing.
Crisis Looms, and Kevin Williamson Can Hardly Wait
Posted by on 5.23.13 @ 5:48PM
That was the takeaway from a discussion of his new book The End Is Near, and It’s Going to Be Awesome. In it, the National Review ace noted at Thursday’s event hosted by the Cato Institute that fiscal crisis is inevitable as a matter of simple arithmetic. He pegs the “national aggregate fiscal overhang,” including state and local debts and unfunded liabilities, around $140 trillion, and fast approaching the combined value of every asset on earth.
But Williamson insists there is a silver lining. “I think this is a good opportunity for us. I hate to take the approach of Rahm Emanuel, ‘Never let a crisis go to waste,’ but if you have one coming, you should take advantage of it.”
Present fiscal projections generally assume the interest rate, and with it Uncle Sam’s cost of borrowing, will remain close to zero. I would note that the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented expansion of the monetary base in response to the Great Recession makes that virtually impossible. Williamson says that once the crisis hits, which will be soon, political leaders will have to start making tough choices about what to fund—and treasury bond holders will win out over social security claimants. “They [politicians] will do the right thing once they’ve exhausted every other option, and the good news is they are running out of options, and we should offer them alternatives.”
To wit, he proposes voluntary arrangements in the mold of personal insurance and mutual aid societies, like the fraternal lodges of early 20th-century America. This is where preparation can meet opportunity. Invoking Friedrich Hayek, the namesake of the auditorium housing the event, and Ludwig von Mises, both Austrian economists, Williamson said incentives and property rights are not enough to encapsulate capitalism, or present it in a compelling manner that will win over skeptics and open minds unfamiliar with the philosophy of liberty.
He called for a new vision of markets, one that reflects their true nature as a community built on rich, personal relationships, and their potential to solve pressing social problems: “I think we should be talking about a positive obligation to do things for people who are not able to do things for themselves.” Three major sectors of the economy are dominated by government—education, health care, and pensions—and markets can offer solutions, if they are tried.
In the end, Williamson’s message was one of optimism, confidence, and even humor. “American voters are stupid,” he remarked, “but compared to everyone everywhere else, you’re actually very smart people.”
Dismantling Networks, Preventing Footholds
Posted by on 5.23.13 @ 5:30PM
Let’s see if you have the same reaction as I did to this section of President Obama’s speech on drones today:
We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. What we can do – what we must do – is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend.
My reaction: Seems to me that the main network he wants to dismantle is Fox News, and the main groups he wants to prevent from gaining a foothold are Tea Party groups. As for whose heart holds these particular evils, what exactly what “ideals” they aim to defend, well I’ll leave that to you to determine.
Rumsfeld’s Rules
Posted by on 5.23.13 @ 4:18PM
“I was right and he was wrong.”
In many ways, that was the lesson of Donald Rumsfeld’s event at The Heritage Foundation called Rumsfeld’s Rules: Leadership Lessons in Business, Politics, War and Life, based on his new book of the same name.
Rumsfeld has collected these “rules,” which are mostly thoughts or ideas, since he was young. He kept them in a shoebox until then-President Gerald Ford asked to see them. So he had them typed up and gave copies to Ford and senior staff.
Many of the “rules” come from other people, including Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill.
Although Rumsfeld has faced a lot of criticism even from the right over his actions after 9/11 and leading up to the war in Iraq, he remains a traditional conservative.
Rumsfeld offered advice on everything from how to put together a board of directors to why the Law of the Sea Treaty is a bad idea (see: capitalism).
Some of his best insight was on the intersection of businessmen and the president’s cabinet. While the proportion of people in the cabinet who had private-sector experience was 70 to 80 percent under Ronald Reagan, it is only 22 percent under the current administration.
Part of that, he explains, is due to the difficulty of getting good people into office. Many of the presidential-appointed positions were vacant for much of his six years as secretary of defense due to the number of clearances the appointees required.
He acknowledged the frustration of a permanent bureacracy and referred to a Hyman Rickover quote: “If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won’t.”
Many of Rumsfeld’s arguments follow tried-and-true conservative logic, but that makes them no less relevant. “The advantage of the private sector is you do other things and you go out of business,” he said. “In government, it just goes on and on and on. It’s other people’s money and it can’t fail.”
Bill Would Ban All Abortions After 20 Weeks
Posted by on 5.23.13 @ 4:15PM
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on H.R. 1797, the “District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” which aims to ban abortions after 20 weeks – the accepted time when pain is felt by the baby.
The bill, which was sponsored and introduced by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), was originally to affect only the District of Columbia. But on May 17, Franks announced that he plans to amend the bill to apply nationwide, citing the effects of the Gosnell case. From his press release:
The case of Kermit Gosnell shocked the sensibilities of millions of Americans. However, the crushing fact is that abortions on babies just like the ones killed by Kermit Gosnell have been happening hundreds of times per day, every single day, for the past 40 years. Indeed, let us not forget that, had Kermit Gosnell dismembered these babies before they had traveled down the birth canal only moments earlier, he would have, in many places nationwide, been performing an entirely legal procedure. If America truly understands that horrifying reality, hearts and laws will change.
So far, the very existence of the bill, which is miles away from having a serious chance, has ruffled feathers on the pro-abortion side. The Huffington Post, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and Salon have already complained about the horrors of protecting unborn babies from painful deaths.
The pro-abortion side also brings up the fact that the mother’s life might be endangered. Fair enough, but as Dr. Anthony Levatino, a witness at the hearing who specializes in obstetrics and gynecology, pointed out, abortion is rarely if ever necessary to save the woman’s life. Using the example of a woman whose pregnancy was literally going to kill her and her baby, he said he performed a Cesarean section, saving both lives.
Levantino also notes that an abortion during the mid-second trimester takes around 36 hours, and dilation and extraction (also known as a partial-birth) abortions take three days to complete – which “would entail undue and dangerous delay in providing appropriate, truly life-saving care,” since during cases when a mother’s life is threatened, “a doctor more often than not doesn’t have 36 hours, much less 72 hours, to resolve the problem.”
Dr. Maureen L. Condic, another witness at the hearing, focused on the heart of the issue – that pain is indeed felt by babies by 20 weeks of pregnancy. In fact, she says that “the neural structures necessary to detect noxious stimuli are in place by 8-10 weeks of human development.” With that in mind, the fact that there is a chance the babies can feel pain is enough for her to support the bill. From her statement:
Imposing pain on any pain-capable living creature is cruelty. And ignoring the pain experienced by another human individual for any reason is barbaric. We don’t need to know if a human fetus is self-reflective or even self-aware to afford it the same consideration we currently afford other pain-capable species. We simply have to decide whether we will choose to ignore the pain of the fetus or not.
What a sick world this is that we have to even debate a bill that is asking to ban abortions if the baby feels pain. Besides, one of the most widely touted “facts” is the alleged low number of late-term abortions (remember there is no law requiring abortions to be registered). If that number is true, then this would only affect that small 1.5 percent. That still gives the pro-abortion side legal access to 98.5 percent of abortions.
But because of how the Gosnell case endangers abortion, this bill, and the very fact that it could be considered, is enough to terrify the pro-abortion side. It questions the unquestionable: Roe v. Wade, which declared abortion legal until the baby is “viable.” This bill goes beyond viability.
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