‘Stop This’: Eric Holder Scolds Reporter for Asking About Calls for His Resignation

Attorney General Eric Holder lashed out at a reporter Tuesday for asking about growing calls for his resignation for his connection to the botched Operation Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal, telling him to stop “this.”

Holder, who admitted during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month that the operation was “flawed,” accused the Daily Caller reporter of being “behind” calls for him to step down.

“You guys need to — you guys need to stop this. There‘s not an organic thing that’s just happening. You guys are behind it,” Holder said.

According to the Daily Caller, a reporter with the online news organization had approached the attorney general after a speech to ask about “the growing chorus of federal legislators demanding his resignation.“ Holder spoke ”sternly” to the reporter, then walked away without answering the question.

But the left-leaning organization Media Matters defended Holder’s exchange with the Daily Caller, saying he was right in asserting that it’s the news organization calling for his resignation:

“Holder is right: This isn’t a grassroots movement of conservatives calling for Holder to step down, it’s a concerted effort by a supposed media organization to push him out.

The Daily Caller has extensively covered the fall out from Operation Fast and Furious, including those who say Holder should resign. A search of the organization’s site with the words “Eric Holder” and “resign” returns 89 articles from the past month alone.

By the Daily Caller’s count, one senator, 52 congressmen, three presidential candidates and two sitting governors have said the attorney general needs to leave office.

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Obama Admin Seals Records of Murdered Border Patrol Agent Implicated in Fast and Furious

Published on The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com)

Mark Hemingway

November 30, 2011 11:45 AM

And to think that Attorney General Eric Holder is getting testy about congressional calls for his resignation. After all, the Justice Department has nothing to hide, right?:

The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.

This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used to kill the federal agent (Brian Terry) last December in Arizona’s Peck Canyon was part of the now infamous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the disastrous scheme allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.

Link via Judicial Watch. The murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent is related to the Justice Department willingly turning over thousands of guns to Mexican criminal gangs, and Obama administration is hiding information about his death from the public. Amazing.

Leading senators: Kagan may have to recuse herself from health case

Top Republican senators said late Friday the Justice Department has been stonewalling their request for more information on Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, and said her previous work as solicitor general "may satisfy both requirements for recusal" from the upcoming health-care case.

The senators, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, are demanding Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. comply with requests for more documents about Justice Kagan's role in planning the administration's defense, and said unless he provides the information it could undermine confidence in the court's eventual ruling on the case.

"President Obama chose to nominate a member of his administration to the Supreme Court knowing it was likely that, if confirmed, she would be in a position to rule on his signature domestic policy achievement," said the four senators, who also included Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona; Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee; and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.

The Supreme Court announced early this week that it would hear a challenge to the health-care law, which Mr. Obama signed last year. Questions have floated for months over whether Justice Kagan could rule impartially in the case. She was solicitor general at the time the law passed, and acknowledged during her confirmation hearing that she attended at least one meeting where litigation was discussed.

Justice Kagan said at the time her role was not "substantial," but the senators said that's irrelevant to the law. They said the law requires recusal if a government official participated in any matter that is the subject of litigation.

The senators also pointed to emails that suggest Justice Kagan was kept in the loop on discussions over how to defend the law. The letter was released to the press late Friday evening. A message left seeking comment from the Justice Department wasn't immediately returned.

During her confirmation hearing Justice Kagan told senators while she attended a meeting, she had no role in crafting a response to the lawsuits. She declined to commit at the time to recusing herself.
> In addition to Justice Kagan, Justice Clarence Thomas ha come under fire from liberal groups who say he should recuse himself from the case because of his wife's financial ties to groups that oppose the health care law.

"Given these facts, there is a strong conflict between the Thomas household's financial gain through your spouse's activities and your role as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court," dozens of Democrats said in a letter to Justice Thomas earlier this year. "We urge you to recuse yourself from this case.

If the U.S. Supreme Court's decision is to be viewed as legitimate by the American people, this is the only correct path."

Each justice participated in the court's decision Monday to hear the health care case, though that doesn't rule out a future recusal.

Still, law experts said they doubted either would withdraw from the case, and said from the evidence so far, there is no reason why either should.

© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission

Solyndra: Energy Dept. pushed firm to keep layoffs quiet until after midterms

 By Carol D. Leonnig and Joe Stephens, Tuesday, November 15, 10:46 AM

The Obama administration urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections, newly released e-mails show.

Solyndra, the now-shuttered California company, had been a poster child of President Obama’s initiative to invest in clean energies and received the administration’s first energy loan of $535 million. But a year ago, in October 2010, the solar panel manufacturer was quickly running out of money and had warned the Energy

Department it would need emergency cash to avoid having to shut down.
The new e-mails about the layoff announcement were released Tuesday morning as part of a House Energy and Commerce committee memo, provided in advance of Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s scheduled testimony before the investigative committee Thursday.

Solyndra’s chief executive warned the Energy Department on Oct. 25, 2010, that he intended to announce worker layoffs Oct. 28. He said he was spurred by numerous calls from reporters and potential investors about rumors the firm was in financial trouble and was planning to lay off workers and close one of its two plants.

But in an Oct. 30, 2010, e-mail, advisers to Solyndra’s primary investor, Argonaut Equity, explain that the Energy Department had strongly urged the company to put off the layoff announcement until Nov. 3. The midterm elections were held Nov. 2, and led to Republicans taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“DOE continues to be cooperative and have indicated that they will fund the November draw on our loan (app. $40 million) but have not committed to December yet,” a Solyndra investor adviser wrote Oct. 30. “They did push very hard for us to hold our announcement of the consolidation to employees and vendors to Nov. 3rd – oddly they didn’t give a reason for that date.”

Solyndra has become a rallying cry for Republicans who argue Obama used his clean energy initiative to steer valuable loans to benefit his friends and donors. Argonaut is a private equity firm of George Kaiser, who advised his investor deputies on how to approach the White House to help Solyndra with its financial problems.

Earlier in October, Solyndra executives and its investors had warned the agency that they needed emergency financing to keep the company operating after December, and were working with the agency to restructure and ease the terms of its half-billion-dollar federal loan.

On Oct. 25, 2010, Solyndra chief executive Brian Harrison e-mailed the energy department’s loan staff to explain that Solyndra “has received some press inquiries about rumors of problems (one of them with quite accurate information) and we have received in bound calls from potential investors. Both of these data points indicate the story is starting to leak outside Solyndra.”

Harrison went on to state that he would “like to go forward with the internal communication [to employees regarding layoffs] on Thursday, October 28.”

Harrison’s e-mail was forwarded to program director, Jonathan Silver, who then alerted White House climate change czar Carol Browner and Vice President Biden’s point person on stimulus, Ron Klain. Browner asked for more information about the announcement, and Chu’s chief of staff explained he had left a voicemail message on her cellphone.

On Nov. 3, 2010, Solyndra announced it would lay off 40 workers and 150 contractors and shut down its Fab 1 factory. The department agreed to continue giving Solyndra installments of its federal loan despite the company’s failure to meet key terms of the loan, and in February restructured its loan to give investors a chance to recover $75 million in new money they put into the company before taxpayers would be repaid.

Silver resigned from the agency last month.

Click here for original article Washington Post

Obamacare Update, Millions LOSE Coverage

Since Obamacare’s Passage, MillionsHave Lost Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance

Jeffrey H. Anderson

November 11, 2011 4:42 PM

 

Throughout the Obamacare debate, President Obama repeatedly promised, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” Now, Gallup reports that from the first quarter of 2010 (when Obama signed Obamacare into law) to the third quarter of this year, 2 percent of American adults lost their employer sponsored health insurance. In other words, about 4.5 million Americans lost their employer-sponsored insurance over a span of just 18 months. 

This is not what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had predicted would happen. Rather, the CBO had predicted that Obamacare would increase the number of people with employer-sponsored insurance by now. It had predicted that, under Obamacare, 6 million more Americans would have employer-sponsored insurance in 2011 than in 2010 (see table 4, which shows the CBO’s projected increase of 3 million under (pre-Obamacare) current law and an additional 3 million under Obamacare). So the CBO’s rosy projections for Obamacare (and even these paint a frightening picture) are already proving false. 

Whether the decline in employer-sponsored insurance over the past 18 months is a product of Obamacare or of the Obama economy — and whether Obamacare is the principal cause of the anemic performance of the Obama economy — can be debated. But what’s clear is that, more than 25 months before Obamacare would really go into effect — if it’s not repealed first — employers are already dropping employees from their insurance rolls.

Take Walmart, for example — a prominent Obamacare supporter. Gallup writes,

“The nation's largest private employer, Wal-Mart, announced in October that new part-time employees who work less than an average of 24 hours a week would no longer be able to get their health insurance from the company. Wal-Mart laid out several other cuts to its health insurance offerings, including some workers’ ability get coverage for their spouses. Other companies have already made and will likely continue to make similar changes to their health insurance benefits….

“If Wal-Mart's decision is a precursor of how employers intend to manage their healthcare costs, the downward trend in employer-based healthcare will likely continue.”

So in addition to costing about $2.5 trillion over its real first decade (2014 to 2023), looting nearly $1 trillion from Medicare over that time (according to the CBO), forcing Americans to buy government-approved health insurance under penalty of law, and amassing unprecedented power and money in Washington at the expense of Americans’ liberty — if Obamacare stays on the books, you may like your health care plan, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can keep your health care plan.

It’s time to repeal Obamacare

 CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Boys and their Toys

The price of our hobbies

I know you get complaints from your significant other regarding the expense of your hobbies (I do).

My Hobbies-- AFTER the cost of entry, there are always ongoing expenses:

      ·         Boating: Taxes, License, Storage, Maintenance, Gas, Oil, Batteries, etc.
      ·         Fishing: Rods, Reels, Line, Lures, Bait, License, etc.
      ·         Shooting Sports: Club Fees, Range Fees, Ammunition, Cleaning Supplies, etc.
      ·         Photography: Lenses, Memory Cards, Batteries, Photo Development, Framing, Software, etc.
      ·         Computers: Backup drives, Software, Memory upgrades,  Larger monitors, routers, etc.
      ·         Oh, and you NEVER hear the end of it, if you want to expand any of your collection

Guys, next time you hear similar complaints about the expense of your hobbies tell her about this:

I saw this car parked at Velox Motorworks in Brownsburg the other day.

This is a Saleen S7 2 seat twin turbo supercar ( I am unsure of the year )

Initial purchase price approximately $675,000 it is a one owner car.
Body is comprised of exotic materials-- carbon fiber, & aluminum
Engine 7.0 liter V-8 Twin Turbo 750 hp at time of purchase

Miles driven to date: Approximately 3500

Licensed in Colorado, driven in Calgary Alberta, Canada
Raced all over the world including New Zealand
Used in road racing and setting land speed records for vehicles of this class.
The owner blew an engine attempting a land speed record at a Calgary air force base @ 240+ mph
The owner had the car shipped from Calgary to Brownsburg for repairs.
The car is "road ready" after 8 months in Velox Motorwork's shop.

This is the sixth engine which has been placed in this car.

This engine is a custom twin turbo aluminum block with cast iron sleeves, and as it sits creates 1000+ reliable HP.  Velox also upgraded the wiring, engine computer, engine software, among other things.

The engineer I spoke to said it would produce more for "short bursts".

Velox is aware the owner has invested approximately $300,000 of additional hardware / repairs since the car was purchased.

Those costs do NOT include "routine & ongoing expenses" global shipping, transportation costs, entry fees, "scheduled maintenance" of oil, filters, suspension components, clutch, brakes, tires (tires alone hover around $550 a piece).

You do the math.  WHATEVER you're into costs the equivalent of lunch at White Castles by comparison.  Tell her things could be worse, and you'd like a little more understanding.

Additional Pictures Follow: