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The firestorm of controversy over the January 20th HHS mandate requiring Catholic and other religious organizations to pay for contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs for their employees shows no sign of abating. This is notwithstanding the Obama administration's "accommodation," announced last Friday, that will permit insurance companies to pass the cost of contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs along to Catholic and other religious employers - as long as they do so surreptitiously, of course. Catholics bishops and countless others have characterized this regulation as direct government interference with the free exercise of religion and thus unconstitutional. In this, they are...

When U.S. special agent Jaime Zapata was shot dead one year ago on a notorious stretch of highway in central Mexico, he was driving a $160,000 armored Chevy Suburban, built to exacting government standards, designed to defeat high-velocity gunfire, fragmentation grenades and land mines. But the vehicle had a basic, fatal flaw. Forced off the road in a well-coordinated ambush, surrounded by drug cartel gunmen brandishing AK-47s, Zapata and his partner, Victor Avila, rolled to a stop. Zapata put the vehicle in park. The door locks popped up. That terrifying sound — a quiet click — set into motion events...

On February 7th, Coach is Right posted a story reporting John Boehner was involved in an under-the-table negotiation with Attorney General Eric Holder to arrange a “mutually acceptable conclusion” to the Congressional investigation of Operation Fast and Furious. (1) Originally broken by Mike Vanderboegh on his Sipsey Street Irregulars website, it was reported that the Department of Justice would provide Boehner and Republicans the heads of DOJ higher-ups Lanny Breuer and Jason Weinstein along with assorted minor players and in return, the GOP would drop House and Senate committee investigations, giving Eric Holder and Barack Obama a pass on their...

Last week, Michel Marizco, writing for Fronteras, revealed what those of us who demand that the government be held accountable for its crimes have been saying all along. Operation Fast and Furious was not, contrary to what the administration and its apologists would like us to believe, a "rogue operation," conducted by an out-of-control Phoenix Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) field office, along with the U.S. Attorneys Office in Phoenix, without knowledge of those higher in the Department of Justice. It was instead a large, multi-agency operation--and indeed involved multiple cabinet-level departments. From the article: Newly released...

Go to the source for the speech.

On Tuesday Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House committee on Oversight and Government Reform, took a major step toward holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for his failure to provide subpoenaed documents and other information about Operation Fast and Furious.

Scandal: A drug enforcement agent says other agencies knew in 2009 about the Justice Department's gunrunning operation and even tried to interdict the weapons flow. And, yes, it was a gun-control plot. The notion that Fast and Furious was a localized operation run out of the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives of which few, particularly the arguably clueless Attorney General Eric Holder, were aware continues to be exposed as the lie it is. "In 2009, I became aware that ATF was walking guns," Tony Coulson, who was in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency-Tucson...

I think late January and February have been the busiest time for Operation Fast & Furious. The media still doesn’t give it proper coverage, especially this news: On February 4th, Mexico arrests a key figure in Fast & Furious. Not only is he a key person in Fast & Furious, but he was also a top lieutenant to El Chapo. I first found out about it on Borderland Beat, a great website keeping us up to date about the drug war in Mexico. The Los Angeles Times reported it on February 7th and my colleague AWR Hawkins published commenrary on...

Examiner.com article character limits preclude adding more updates to the initial and subsequently-posted Journalist's Guides to Project Gunwalker. This is a continuation of updates from this column and Sipsey Street Irregulars beginning January 27, 2012. It also includes contributions from regional Gun Rights Examiners. Click here for the Part One chronology from Dec. 28, 2010 through March 8, 2011. Click here for Part Two, beginning on March 9, 2011 and ending on April 15, 2011. Click here for Part Three, beginning on April 17, 2011 and ending on June 19, 2011. Click here for Part Four, beginning on June 20,...

“The gunwalking story has never been mentioned on either NBC Nightly News or the Today show,” Geoffrey Dickens reports in a Feb. 8 Media Research Center “Reality Check” piece. Perhaps that’s not quite fair. After all, MSNBC’s “Politics Nation” with Al Sharpton gave Rep. Elijah Cummings unchallenged time to make his case that the congressional Fast and Furious investigation is an “election-year witch hunt” against Eric Holder by Republicans, gunwalking was George Bush’s fault, and the real problem is we need more gun control. So leave it to “Today” to send “national investigative correspondent” Jeff Rossen to Phoenix of all...

What do you have to do to get the FBI to open a file on you?Patt Morrison February 10, 2012 **SNIP** Since the days of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI has been compiling information on people deemed to be worthy of watching. But what do you have to do to attract their attention? Would buying a copy of "The Anarchist Cookbook," checking out a Noam Chomsky book at your local library, or attending an Occupy protest be enough to get your own FBI file? How do you find out whether or not you’ve got a file with the FBI, and...

Just when we thought the US could not sink any further in its usurpation of civil rights, here comes the FBI to advise all those who tend to think that the broken economic model of the past century is the cause for the global insolvency, that wanton fiat diluation and reckless debt issuance does not 'fix' the problem of uber-leverage, and that the gold standard is the proper way to return to monetary stability, will henceforth be considered extremists. From Reuters: "Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United...

This is a larger scandal than anything like Watergate, Nobody died there. People lied and there was a cover-up. Here, there’s lies and cover-ups and we still don’t have the answers, but people have been killed. Fourteen hundred of these guns are still outstanding; other people will die from actions of Eric Holder and the Department of Justice.”

For nearly a year now, House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R=CA) and Attorney General Eric Holder have locked horns over Operation Fast and Furious. Throughout this time we have seen heated exchanges between the two during Congressional hearings, watched the DOJ’s narrative change more than once, and wondered why Holder has thus far been allowed to dictate the speed at which the committee can investigate him. As of late, when Holder dug in and simply refused to the turn over the documents the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed, the contest between he and Issa turned into nothing less than a...

The debate over U.S. gun laws and Mexican drug violence brings to mind Mark Twain’s famous quip about lies, damned lies, and statistics. In a recent editorial, the Washington Post blamed American policies for exacerbating the bloodshed, pointing out that “70 to 80 percent of the traceable guns seized in Mexico can be tracked to the United States.� The key word there is “traceable.� While it’s true that most of the traceable guns originated north of the border, those weapons represent a very small portion of total Mexican gun seizures.According to a Government Accountability Office study based on data...

While criticism surrounding Operation Fast and Furious has so far focused on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, three other federal agencies knew about the operation and some of their agents tried to stop it, according to the former chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Tucson. Tony Coulson, the DEA’s agent in charge of Southern Arizona during Fast and Furious, says many federal field agents knew the ATF was walking guns to Mexico, but supervisors told them to back off when they objected. “Clearly, we went too far,” Coulson said. “The question we had among rank and...

Washington -- A key congressional Republican who had threatened to bring a contempt citation against Attorney General Eric Holder if he did not comply with a demand for "Operation Fast and Furious" documents by 5 p.m. Thursday, has backed off his stated deadline. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-California, who has the backing of the committee's Republican majority, has granted a Justice Department request for an extension. No new deadline was set. The Justice Department did not dispute the committee statement.

Following the pattern of other provocative statements about potential domestic terrorist threats from the Obama Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a statement exposing the threat of “hundreds of thousands” of “sovereign citizens” who can turn violent “at the drop of a hat” during encounters with the police. Citing three specific cases in three years and a trend of an increase in arrests of believers in individual sovereignty from 10 to 18 cases per year, mostly for non-violent crimes, the FBI declared law enforcement to be “inundated” with threats. This may be the most exaggerated and offensive...

FBI Terrorist Alert: Beware of Those Who 'Reference the Constitution or Bible' By Mark Alexander · Thursday, February 9, 2012

FBI Terrorist Alert: Beware of Those Who 'Reference the Constitution or Bible' By Mark Alexander · Thursday, February 9, 2012

FAIRFAX, Va. --(Ammoland.com)- Last Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to answer questions about his role in the deadly “Fast and Furious”gun-running scandal. However, instead of answers, Congress got more defiance, more arrogance, and more wasted time with an attorney general who clearly feels no sense of obligation to the American people or our rule of law. But for all the stonewalling, there was at least one telling moment at this hearing, and it should concern law-abiding gun owners and all Americans who expect accountability from our government. In a rash...

Last Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to answer questions about his role in the deadly “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal. However, instead of answers, Congress got more defiance, more arrogance, and more wasted time with an attorney general who clearly feels no sense of obligation to the American people or our rule of law. But for all the stonewalling, there was at least one telling moment at this hearing, and it should concern law-abiding gun owners and all Americans who expect accountability from our government. In a rash attempt to...

Attorney General Eric Holder “called to confirm a permanent ATF Director,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney* asserted during her recognized time in the February 2 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Fast and Furious hearing. Dismissing the proceedings as “a politically-motivated fishing trip,” Maloney used the brunt of her time to demand more “gun control,” and to conflate Fast and Furious with previous investigations. She even referenced a video where American Al Qaeda Adam Gadahn told followers to buy “a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check” at gun shows. That this is untrue and demonstrates profound ignorance of existing...

When Reuters reported the FBI’s warning about “anti-government extremists” and cited two cases where alleged “sovereign citizens” shot police, I figured it was just standard anti-gun media. But the emerging use of “anti-rights” instead of “anti-gun” is far more accurate. The FBI has been publishing bulletins about the “sovereign citizen movement.” One indicator that you might be a “sovereign citizen” is: “References to the Bible, The Constitution of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court decisions, or treaties with foreign governments.” Thus, referring to the Bill of Rights, DC v. Heller, McDonald v. Chicago, or the pending U.N. arms trade treaty...

Despite overwhelming evidence that memos and letters were sent to Eric Holder regarding Fast and Furious as early as July of 2010, he still used ignorance as his defense in the most recent Congressional hearing. As frustration was apparent on the faces of Republican Committee members, there was a certain smugness on the faces of Holder and his assistants, who were seated behind him.

Executive Director of the Gun Owners of America, Larry Pratt has been following the Fast and Furious scandal, practically from the time it broke early last year. One of his concerns is that without the support of...

Mexico arrests figure in Fast and Furious gun-smuggling scandal REPORTING FROM MEXICO CITY -- Mexican authorities have arrested a reputed enforcer for the country's most powerful drug cartel -- a man also alleged to have amassed weapons from the U.S. government's failed Fast and Furious gun-smuggling operation (link, in Spanish, includes video). Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, 33, is also wanted by U.S. officials on drug-trafficking charges in El Paso. Mexican and U.S. authorities say he served as a top lieutenant to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and the Sinaloa Cartel and was in charge of operations in the border state of...

White House risks charges in probes of Fast and Furious, SolyndraThe clock is ticking for the Justice Department. As officials continue to withhold documents relevant to the administration’s fatally flawed gunrunning scheme, House lawmakers grow more anxious to get to the bottom of what happened. Unless the material is produced before the deadline, Republicans shouldn’t waver in issuing contempt-of-Congress citations. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee members investigating Fast and Furious have given Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. until Thursday to turn over subpoenaed material and avoid an unpleasant battle between the executive and legislative branches. During his sixth...

Some developing news in the case of Juan Jose Rojas Cardona, who is a fugitive on drug and fraud charges. In 2009 it was discovered that he was involved in a plot to assassinate a rival and bribe Mexican officials.

By Coach Collins, on February 7th, 2012 by Doug Book, staff writer Yesterday, Coach is Right published facts concerning an avenue which honest and courageous congressional Republicans might follow in their efforts to bring to justice those responsible for the criminal misadventure of Operation Fast and Furious and its subsequent cover-up. The following represents current news of a vastly different approach. Congressman John Boehner, the House Speaker better known for displays of weeping than of courage, is reportedly cutting a deal with Eric Holder which would provide a “mutually satisfactory” outcome in Barack Obama’s criminal, gun running endeavor Operation Fast...

Congressman John Boehner, the House Speaker better known for displays of weeping than of courage, is reportedly cutting a deal with Eric Holder which would provide a “mutually satisfactory” outcome in Barack Obama’s criminal, gun running endeavor Operation Fast and Furious. Months ago, Boehner prevented Darrell Issa filing a charge of perjury against Holder even after documents proved the Attorney General’s May 4th House testimony concerning the date of his first “acquaintance” with Fast and Furious to be an outright lie. And now the weepy Speaker will OFFICIALLY let the most corrupt Department of Justice head in the nation’s history...

Some developing news in the case of Juan Jose Rojas Cardona, who is a fugitive on drug and fraud charges. In 2009 it was discovered that he was involved in a plot to assassinate a rival and bribe Mexican officials. This has gone public, as has his $200,000 in fundraising done for Barack Obama. Obama has now returned the money, but the scrutiny on Cardona continues. It now appears that Cardona's links to the organized crime world also ties him to the DEA, which ran Operation Fast and Furious. Cardona was allegedly involved with a top drug cartel across the...

Whether Operation Fast and Furious was a legitimate law enforcement operation, as the Department of Justice claims, or was part of a plot to impose gun control, it was radically different from all other border gun operations in one crucial way. Operation Fast and Furious was the only border gun operation that was undertaken with the full intention of the straw-purchased guns leaving the control of law enforcement officers and reaching the armories of drug cartel murderers. That fact alone should lead to the impeachment or administrative removal of everyone, from field agents to political appointees and elected officials that...

LONDON – Trading jokes and swapping leads, investigators from the FBI and Scotland Yard spent the conference call strategizing about how to bring down the hacking collective known as Anonymous, responsible for a string of embarrassing attacks across the Internet. Unfortunately for the cyber sleuths, the hackers were in on the call, too – and now so is the rest of the world.

As a result of his refusal to honor House committee subpoenas demanding the release of some 70 thousand Fast and Furious-related documents currently withheld by the Department of Justice, Eric Holder faces the very real possibility of arrest and imprisonment by the House of Representatives. “Your actions lead us to conclude that the [Justice] Department is actively engaged in a cover-up,” wrote House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa to Attorney General Holder just two days before his February 2nd testimony before the Committee. (1) Stating what interested Americans have known for a year or more, Issa speaks of the...

During his testimony about Operation Fast and Furious before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week, Attorney General Eric Holder said that he still hasn’t discussed the deadly scandal with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano or President Barack Obama. Holder’s admission that he hasn’t taken the initiative to discuss how the government should handle this scandal came during an exchange he had with Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz. “I had an opportunity in the Judiciary Committee to ask you questions on Dec. 8, 2011,” Chaffetz said when questioning Holder on Thursday. “I...

Deception (military or political) includes manipulating, distorting, withholding, or falsifying evidence available to an opponent. History has shown that it is far easier to deceive by reinforcing an opponent’s existing preconceptions than it is to persuade him to change his mind. PSYOP personnel should encourage the opponent that the most likely way of achieving the objective will in fact be adopted (thereby diverting his attention from an alternative plan). Given two options, one of which reinforces our existing point of view, people are more likely to believe what they already suspect. Psychologically, they are gratified by evidence that confirms their...

Thanks to Sipsey Street, and then the Daily Caller, evidence is mounting that John Boehner may be surreptitiously putting the Kibosh on Darrell Issa's Fast and Furious investigation. The vast majority of today's show - available for MP3 download or stream - dealt with this subject. http://www.benbarrack.com/show_archives.asp

DO AMERICA’S failed gun policies contribute to the terrible violence in Mexico? Alejandro A. Poire Romero makes a compelling case that the answer is yes. Law enforcement officials in both countries acknowledge that 70 to 80 percent of the traceable guns seized in Mexico can be tracked to the United States. Mr. Poire Romero, a top Mexican national security and criminal justice official, offers additional evidence that the United States has been an enabler of the violence. In 2005 roughly one-third of the seized guns were assault weapons. Today, according to Mr. Poire Romero, assault weapons represent 60 to 65...

As I readied myself for what promised to be a bombshell of a hearing on February 2nd, I thought Attorney General Eric Holder would have his toughest test yet. He would now be in front of the committee that Darrell Issa chairs - the House Oversight Committee. In every Fast and Furious hearing Issa had been involved in, he stood out as the top bulldog, the fieriest and most knowledgable about the case. On February 2nd, he had the gavel and much more evidence with which to go directly at Holder. As I watched the hearing, I was struck by...

Gowdy repeats call for Holder to resign ‘the easy way,’ or be impeached ‘the hard way’ Published: 12:01 AM 02/03/2012 | Updated: 5:05 PM 02/03/2012 Tweet inShare6 Email This Article Print This Article By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller Bio | Archive | Email Matthew Boyle Follow Matthew Boyle Get Matthew Boyle Feed South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy reaffirmed his call for Attorney General Eric Holder’s resignation “the easy way,” or impeachment “the hard way,” during an interview with The Daily Caller after Thursday’s House oversight committee hearing during which Holder testified about Operation Fast and Furious. While...

Yesterday was the devil's own day in the Gunwalker scandal investigation and the search for the truth suffered as a result. Several sources tell Sipsey Street that the committee's work has been slowed by the intervention of Speaker of the House John Boehner, with some saying plainly that "the fix is in."

A Massachusetts woman says the FBI used a chain saw blade to cut through her door and held her at gunpoint for at least 30 minutes before agents realized they were conducting a raid at the wrong home. Judy Sanchez, of Fitchburg, says she awoke to heavy footsteps in the stairwell on Jan. 26 and walked into her kitchen in time to see a blade chop through her door. "I took two steps, face the second door, and I heard the click of a gun, and saying, ‘FBI, get down,’ so I laid down on my living room floor,” Sanchez...

The face of the Gunwalker Cover-up. No, not the one on the left, the one on the right with the big mallet. The night of the first day at Shiloh, when the battle had gone so very wrong for the Union, William Tecumseh Sherman encountered his commander Ulysses S. Grant under a tree, sheltering himself from the pouring rain. He was smoking a cigar while considering his losses and planning what had to be done for the following day. Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a...

<p>ASHINGTON - In secretly recorded conversations between two individuals deeply entwined in the ATF's controversial "Fast and Furious" operation, the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is described as "collateral damage."</p> <p>The recordings were obtained exclusively by CBS News. The man who made them - Arizona gun dealer Andre Howard - ran the Lone Wolf Trading Company and was speaking with Hope MacAllister, the ATF operation's case agent.</p>

"I'm shocked! Shocked! To find gunwalking going on here!" Email correspondence and handwritten notes obtained today by David Codrea of the National Gun Rights Examiner and this correspondent provide details on information and strategy being shared between top level officials of the Department of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, including between Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and then-ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson. These documents, in the possession of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, provide a much clearer picture than that given by Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in his statement of yesterday of what...

Mike Vanderboegh is drinking Diet Mountain Dew in the cafeteria of the Rayburn building on Capitol Hill, and he is pissed. Not because his flight from Alabama was almost “as bumpy as [his] first marriage,” nor because he almost got into a physical altercation with an “idiot street urban adventurer” outside the National Archives who said Vanderboegh looked like Newt Gingrich. The former militia man turned gun rights blogger is angry because he thinks the Republican “sons-a-bitches” on the House Oversight Committee put on the “ultimate display of public limp dickery” during a Thursday hearing in which Attorney General Eric...

Attorney General Eric Holder squared off Thursday with Republicans on a House committee who are demanding that the Justice Department turn over documents about its handling of congressional inquiries into a flawed gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious. At the start of a hearing, chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will do what is necessary to force the Justice Department to produce the information. The attorney general said he will consider Issa's demand. But he said, with one exception, the department was inclined to follow longstanding tradition of withholding internal documents about...

The mother of murdered Border Patrol agent Brian Terry had harsh words for Attorney General Eric Holder after Thursday’s House oversight committee hearing on Operation Fast and Furious. “THIS IS FOR YOU SON,” Mrs. Terry posted on Facebook at about 3:30 p.m. “Mr. Holder. How come you can never say my sons name. You never have. All i ever hear you say is ‘i didnt find out or I cant say’ Im actually tired of hearing your double talk in answering questions. What a joke you are. You know my son was a real AMERICAN, a WARRIOR, and a HERO,...

Turn it on.....

Attorney General Eric Holder’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee today was, in the main, a re-run of past appearances before Congress. He kept the stone wall firm and tight, while angrily denying he was running a cover-up, and accusing investigators of running “political gotcha games.” Here’s Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY) cutting to the chase, and asking Holder how many more U.S. Border Patrol agents would have had to die as part of Operation Fast and Furious before the Attorney General would finally take responsibility: Holder continued his “incompetence defense” of insisting that he really doesn’t know anything that...