As expected, Congress has done something right for a change, at least initiated it so that next week, the rat in AG’s clothing can be made to face the music for his failure to comply with the law.

A House panel voted Wednesday to place Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for his failure to comply with a subpoena, defying an assertion of executive privilege from President Obama.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Republican Chairman Darrell Issa (Calif.), approved a resolution along party lines to place Holder in contempt after battling him for months over access to internal agency documents about the gun-tracking operation known as “Fast and Furious.”

Of course, leave it to the Felon-In-Charge to attempt to use “executive privilege”, a phenomenon to which Mr. O now subscribes in order to obstruct justice.

The vote came after Obama escalated the conflict by sending a letter to the committee claiming executive privilege over the documents the panel had sought.

And, of course, the rest of what has sadly, since selling out to the far left, become the Party of Criminals, also contributed to the endeavor to obstruct justice.

All 23 Republicans on the committee voted for the contempt resolution, while all 17 Democrats voted against it. Every member of the panel was present for the vote.

All that and executive privilege, gee whiz!

Barack Obfuscationama’s not, we sincerely hope, going to succeed in running interference on the details of Fast & Furious coming to light.

****************UPDATE*****************

It seems that Obama made a lot of pledges back in the day. Too bad this one, like the rest, and more-or-less directly related to the issue described in this post, has never seen the light of day.

Every president wishes to leave a legacy. If nothing else, Obama will one day be said to have left a Legacy of Lies.

From One News Now:

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization is halting contributions to Planned Parenthood affiliates.

The nation’s leading breast-cancer charity made the announcement Tuesday afternoon. Planned Parenthood officials say Komen is bowing to pressure from pro-life organizations. “…[T]his kind of bullying [is] really hurtful,” said the group’s president, Cecile Richards, in an interview with The Associated Press.

But Komen says the move is because the abortion-provider is under the threat of a congressional investigation — a probe that was launched by Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-Florida) at the urging of pro-life groups. Under a newly adopted policy, the charity bars grants to organizations that are under investigation by local, state, or federal authorities.

And well these infanticide specialists should be under investigation.

I say this not so much because I am a Catholic as because over the last few years so much has come out about Planned Parenthood, such as their targeting of minority neighborhoods for clinics where they practically market their abortions to pregnant girls, and something Seth and Wolf once talked about, how the founder of this abortion specialist was outspoken about her agreement with Hitler’s “final solution” for Jews, Gypsies and those unfortunate enough to have been born physically or mentally impaired.

Planned Parenthood are kind of like Kevorkians for the unborn. Creepy!

“It is fantastic news,” says Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics. “You know, we’ve been putting pressure on Komen for years over this issue because there’s a lot of good people who have supported this organization in the past who had no idea that they gave money to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest profiteer on abortion.”

Crutcher believes other Komen donors did take notice of the donations to Planned Parenthood.

“Absolutely — [and] the federal government ought to take notice of it,” he adds. “Planned Parenthood … is a corrupt organization. Not just corrupt morally, but legally corrupt organization. Why should they be getting over a million dollars a day in taxpayer money?”

over a million dollars a day in taxpayer money!!!!

Read the entire article.

UPDATE 4 January****

Can you believe this!?

Who did what to whom to bring about THAT flip-flop, I wonder?

That’s what our illustrious POTUS has urged the terrorist supporters aboard the MV Rachel Corrie (too bad the Israelis don’t have seagoing bulldozers) as she steamed onward toward the Gaza blockade.

The Obama administration on Friday urged pro-Palestinian activists attempting to break an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip to avoid another confrontation in the region, but those on board the Irish ship said they had no intention of abandoning their plans.

Of course they have no intention of abandoning their plans: The “humanitarian” supplies in her cargo holds are merely a prop to provide an excuse for running the blockade. These are the kind of pseudo-humanitarians whose motivations are malevolent — they are acting only to abet continued terrorism by Hamas, who terrorize and oppress their own people in the Gaza Strip in addition to committing monstrosities against innocent Israelis.

The MV Rachel Corrie, laden with purported humanitarian supplies, is set to arrive off the coast of Gaza on Saturday morning, setting up another showdown with Israel, which has warned the activists against trying to break its blockade of the territory.

It’s a good thing for them that I’m not in command of the Israeli forces.

My warning would be: To hell with grappling around on your weather decks, you try to penetrate the blockade, we’ll sink you. No negotiations, no debate, no matter what the “international community” has to say about it. They know why you’re coming, so let them stop you.

Israel has warned the activists that it will stop the Rachel Corrie if it tries to break the blockade and has asked the activists to unload their shipment in the Israeli port city of Ashdod, promising to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza over land.

Unloading at Ashdod wouldn’t accomplish their mission of disruption. In fact:

Ms. Berlin said the Rachel Corrie had no intention of giving in to Israeli demands that it dock at Ashdod.

Greta Berlin link added by blog author.

In her photo, note the “We are all Palestinians” sweat shirt. Between that and her appearance, looking at her is akin to looking at a billboard that says Wingnut.

It’s all here.

…,this one purportedly by a Law student, that sounds like a GREAT idea to me!

DIVORCE AGREEMENT

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950’s, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce.

I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let’s just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model 20 separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don’t like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.

You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.

Since you hate guns and war, we’ll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.

You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O’Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a
bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).

We’ll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.

You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens.

We’ll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO’s and rednecks. We’ll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood.

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we’ll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.

You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we’ll help provide them security.

We’ll keep our Judeo-Christian values…You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain.

You can also have the U.N…but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We’ll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We’ll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.

We’ll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I’m sure you’ll be happy to substitute Imagine, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.

We’ll practice trickledown economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot.

Since it often so offends you, we’ll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Sincerely,

John J. Wall
Law Student and an American

P.S. Also, please take Barbara Streisand & Jane Fonda with you.

P.P.S. I would like to include the following addendum:

Again, in the spirit of this Divorce Agreement, we will also keep the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States of America since the current administration, from President through all those listed above have ceased to use or abide by it. You can keep the writings of every anti-American you choose to follow.

Works for me!

Hat Tip to the illustrious B.J.S.

…Pelosi and Company, the Democrats who are presently in control of Congress, have chosen to leave the American people in the lurch by heading off on vacation without first taking the time to try and solve the current fuel kerfuffle (despite the frustrated objections of a whole passle of their Republican colleagues). Oh, yeah, they have dropped a few half derriered ideas along the lines of depleting the strategic oil reserve for a few seconds’ dubious relief, exhorting the oil companies to drill empty or nearly empty oil leases, and extracting more money from the coffers of the oil companies, completely ignoring the concept of said concerns passing these additional costs on to the consumer, thereby nullifying the added expense to themselves, but hey – who ever said today’s Democrat politicians believe they’re paid to think things through?

I’m reminded of the budget debacle during Bubba’s first term in the White House, when that President repeatedly vetoed the then Republican controlled Congress’ efforts to put forward their budget, and the Democrats all going home on Christmas vacation while the Republicans remained in Washington attempting to hammer out a budget that would meet with Clinton’s approval – kinda’ showed us which party is more dedicated to We, the People, didn’t it? The only thing that saved the day back then was Alan Greenspan’s threat to raise interest rates during an election year if he didn’t have a budget on his desk post-haste – on that note, Clinton, both abruptly and conveniently, misplaced his veto pen and the next budget went through.

So now they’ve demonstrated in no uncertain terms that, whether they hold the minority or the majority in Congress, they will walk out on us without so much as a how-do-you-do because their vacations are more important to them than the work for which we pay them (you know, the “work” for which they periodically vote themselves pay increases whether their performance warrants such raises or not).

We can hardly expect the leftpard to change its spots at this stage of the game, so…

What I find most irksome about this entire thing is that, despite the majority of even their own constituency demanding that we consider drilling our own oil in order to relieve the shortage that is generating the higher gas prices, Pelosi and her House retinue have refused to even debate the subject with the more sensible representatives on the right side of the aisle, let alone among themselves. It seems that the enviro-extremists have infinitely more say among the Democrats than the constituency at whose pleasure these critters serve. For the Democrats in Congress, politics trumps both the will and the well-being of the American people.

Of course, while preventing the oil companies from drilling where there is plenty of black gold, Alaska tea, they blame these same companies for high prices, completely ignoring the facts:

We live in a market based, supply and demand economy. When a commodity is in short supply, in oil’s case this being when the countries we buy from limit recovery quantities and our own domestic drilling is not what it could be (by government mandate, not by private sector choice – Hmmm, where is the Constitution in all this?), prices go up. This has nothing to do with the President, whom the Democrats naturally blame, him being Bush and all, and little to do with our own oil companies, whose prices adjust to the cost of a barrel of oil. If you’re running a candy store and the wholesale cost of a Nestle’s Crunch goes up .25, you’re going to raise your own price a quarter a bar, right?

Speaking of Nancy Pelosi and drilling, I would be amiss without linking to a great post on the subject over at Mike’s America.

Having said my piece on this as relates to today’s irresponsible, purely politically motivated Democrat majority in Congress, let’s go back several days to a Walter E. Williams (yep, the guy who’s become one of my favorite all time columnists over the last few months) column about the environmentalist moonbats’ influence on government that is totally on point and highly relevant to the topic at hand.

Let’s face it. The average individual American has little or no clout with Congress and can be safely ignored. But it’s a different story with groups such as Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy. When they speak, Congress listens. Unlike the average American, they are well organized, loaded with cash and well positioned to be a disobedient congressman’s worse nightmare. Their political and economic success has been a near disaster for our nation.

For several decades, environmentalists have managed to get Congress to keep most of our oil resources off-limits to exploration and drilling. They’ve managed to have the Congress enact onerous regulations that have made refinery construction impossible. Similarly, they’ve used the courts and Congress to completely stymie the construction of nuclear power plants. As a result, energy prices are at historical highs and threaten our economy and national security.

Read the entire column here.

The Cap & Trade bit’s a little scary, wouldn’t you say?

Liberals are leftists — that is to say, they are enemies of the capitalist system that has made America great and continues to sustain our free and prosperous society.

They attack the system every chance they get, from pushing for regulation of private industry to trying to enact legislation that will tax business mercilessly to levelling fraudulent and overstated lawsuits against successful business concerns.

Former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards made himself rich sueing hospitals for things that weren’t their fault, such as hereditary birth defects and impairments suffered by children delivered on their premises.

These greedy, sleazy liberal trial lawyers are everywhere, and there’s little if anything we can do about it, since significantly large elements of the litigious society the left has created are forever on the lookout for opportunities to benefit from largesse they themselves didn’t earn.

New products, including medical breakthroughs that might benefit millions of people, are curtailed because the potential producers of these would-be products are afraid they might be sued for any real or fabricated negative side effects, no matter how minor, of these new discoveries by people who, thanks to hungry liberal sleazeball toilet-cake piece of shit trial lawyers, are forever on the lookout for any chance to screw any business they can out of any free lucre they can get.

Some goods and services many Americans might enjoy or otherwise benefit from, including life-saving, misery relieving or actually curative drugs never see the light of day for the same reason — those who might introduce them are simply too wary of doing so because of the self-same fear that some tiny percentage of those availing themselves of said products might well sue the profits, to say nothing of the capital invested, out from under them.

John Stossel’s latest OpEd details this phenomenon with examples aplenty.

Imagine if an evil business routinely deprived us of products that would help us live longer with less pain and more comfort. We’d be outraged, and lawyers would line up to sue. Yet something similar happens today, thanks to lawsuit abuse. Makers of all kinds of products are afraid to sell them to us because one lawsuit could ruin them.

Personal-injury lawyers claim they make America safer, but that’s a myth. It’s easy to see who benefits from those big damage awards we read about. Less obvious — but just as real — are the things we’d all like to have but never will get because of this climate of fear. Here are a few examples.

Read on….

The featured Op Ed in Thursday’s Review & Outlook in WSJ’s Opinion Journal proves a telling summary of the way global business and politics are prioritized by countries that criticize America’s ultimately benevolent international actions above and beyond any consideration of humanity.

They criticize us for liberating the Iraqis and sticking around afterwards to help them develop a democratic government. They ignore the fact that we have opened schools and hospitals, upgraded local infrastructure, helped stimulate the Iraqi economy and that our troops interact positively with Iraqi citizens.

At the same time, these same countries block any outside interference in the ongoing genocidal events in Dharfur and have been doing so for some time, purely in the name of financial interests.

At places like Davos and Harvard, the world’s sages rarely stop fretting about the dangers of a too powerful America. Well, if you want to know what the world looks like without U.S. leadership, Exhibit A is Darfur in Sudan.

Today’s leading authority on Darfur is the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who prophesied a world “nasty, brutish and short.” At least 200,000 civilians have been killed in the past three years and two million more have become refugees. The source of the problem is the Arab rulers in Khartoum, who have pursued an ethnic cleansing campaign against black Muslims in western Sudan. They’ve equipped the Janjaweed Arab tribesmen to do the dirty work, and that militia is now attacking civilians across the border in Chad, creating 20,000 more refugees.

To his credit, Kofi Annan started shouting about the problem two years ago, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell labeled it “genocide” not long after that. The U.N.’s mighty peace-making machinery then started to roll and . . . nothing. The Chinese (who have close commercial ties to Khartoum) and Russians have blocked any serious intervention. Arab members of the Security Council have also opposed any attempt to single out Khartoum.

And they say we’re not the “good guys”? No, we’re the evil, imperialist, colonialist, “anything for the oil” bully of the world.

Meanwhile, there is Dharfur, where Muslims oversee the butchery of thousands of fellow Muslims.

The Arab League–so quick to denounce Danish cartoons–has also stymied any global intervention to stop the murder of their fellow Muslims. Here’s League Secretary General Amr Musa earlier this month: “In Sudan, there is a problem related to Darfur. We will listen to the Sudanese state minister to explain to us the developments in the issue of Darfur . . .” The League plans to hold its meeting next week–in Khartoum.
The African Union has at least sent 7,000 troops to the region, but they are under-funded and under-equipped to enforce a truce that Sudan blatantly flouts. But the African failure is also political. In January the Union held its own summit in Khartoum, and next year it plans to award Sudan its presidency. The rule seems to be never to say a discouraging word about other African leaders, no matter how murderous.

This is nothing new, look at the way the rest of Africa’s leaders turn a blind eye to the activities of colleagues like Robert Mugabe.

Africa still has a long way to go before it will be able to consider itself an even mostly civilized continent. Too many peoples over there refuse to emerge from a mindset time warp, choosing instead to remain under the control of despotic regimes. Perhaps that isn’t quite fair — most of the people in these hell holes live squalidly in-country or in slums in the cities and struggle to survive — those whom the world hears from and those who run infrastructure live in major cities and enjoy most of the conveniences we do in the west. Many of those people are businessmen who engage in trade with their counterparts in other countries all over the world — few of them could care less about the impoverished, for poverty and disease are as commonplace over there as Internet spam is over here. Most of the middle class figure there’s nothing they can do about it anyway, and they harden their hearts. The upper class is so far isolated from the harsh realities of commonality that they don’t think about it at all.

The political leadership could care less, their only concerns are money and power, the luxuries they provide and the security measures they must take to ensure that nobody takes it all away from them via a coup d’etat(ugh, French — spit!–). So they take all rights away from those in circumstances prone to disaffection and use army troops as civil police. They embrace torture(not some brainless, maladjusted girl leading a naked man around on a leash, but the kind of brutal stuff that does permanent physical damage like the burning of flesh, electrocution or slow dismemberment), making entire families disappear and slaughtering entire villages as punishment for the imagined infractions of a very few. Corruption is “accepted” at every level of government. The poor majorities are forever crushed, hopeless generations that reproduce only to create future hopelessness.

This concept will be completely alien to most Americans, because the reality is not present anyplace in this country, despite the calculated, conscienceless exaggerations of the political left.

I saw this kind of civil subjugation and poverty in Central America back in the early 1970s, and it’s not easily forgotten. Small children with enormous eyes, playing happily in open sewers, dripping sores all over their arms and legs. Soldiers in berets patrolling the streets armed with submachineguns, passersby averting their eyes so as not to attract their interest.

Leaders of countries who practice like regimes are not about to attack other leaders of the same pedigree.

It is in the nature of the United States to want to help other countries and their people when the need is there, and we have done so in volumes that dwarf all other nations’ efforts to date, yet we’re always told we’re not giving enough or doing enough when we are going with the program financing or otherwise enforcing a U.N. agenda. On the other hand, we are harshly criticized by the same folks when we take care of or otherwise support programs that might interfere with their national business agendas.

Dharfur presents a fine example of the latter situation.

Fine, it’s diplomatically PC to express outrage at the genocide perpetrated by the powers-that-be in Khartoum, but it’s another matter entirely to leave them alone in the interests of commerce.

As it now stands, if the U.S. wants anything done about Dharfur, we’ll have to address it ourselves.

It’s been speculated that we haven’t got the military manpower to spare for the kind of campaign that would entail, we are already spearheading the Global War On Terror and maintaining necessary large troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are scores of other nations that can deal with Dharfur, if, that is, the countries like Russia and the PRC who are making money off the present status quo are overruled.

Of course, as in all issues where strong and possibly long term military involvement is required, the U.N. and the weasel countries that seem to form its nucleus will, if intervention is decided upon, insist that the U.S. function as the prime mover, committing the most troops and the most money by far, and will then stand safely on the sidelines with many fewer troops of their own in harm’s way and criticize our every move.

Read the entire Op Ed here.

It’s good to learn that Ford hasn’t any intention of selling a quality auto manufacturer like Jaguar to one of America’s enemies-by-proxy!