Expose Obama » Justice Department

Obama Makes “Environmental Justice” a Defense and Homeland Security Issue

Ben — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:39:43 +0000

Judicial Watch

Van Jones is gone, but Obama is still carrying out his agenda

Though it is unrelated to their mission, the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Housing are among the federal agencies that will focus on helping minorities get green under an Obama administration plan that aims to bring “environmental justice” to poor and underserved communities nationwide.

The effort was launched by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last fall and the agency has doled out millions of dollars in “environmental justice grants” to dozens of left-wing groups, including some dedicated to helping illegal immigrants. Earlier this year the administration dedicated an additional $7 million to study how pollution, stress and social factors affect “poor and underserved communities”…

As if it weren’t bad enough that millions of dollars have already gone to this initiative, the president is further wasting valuable taxpayer resources by forcing other federal agencies, most with unrelated duties, to participate. Besides the previously mentioned, the Department of Education, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Transportation, Justice, Health and Labor have all been forced to develop “environmental justice strategies to protect the health of people living in communities overburdened by population.”

This week the agencies signed an official Memorandum of Understanding on Environmental Justice outlining some of their new duties. Under the agreement the agencies will make environmental justice part of their mission and they will provide the public with annual progress reports on their efforts. In a written statement, the Obama Administration proclaims that it’s the latest effort to address the inequities that may be present in some communities.

Obama’s EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, has promised to bring minorities environmental justice since getting appointed, saying that all too often they live in the shadows of our society’s worst pollution and, as a result, face disproportionate health impacts and greater obstacles to economic growth.

Why Did Obama Free a Black Liberation Army Member?

Ben — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 22:53:12 +0000

J. Christian Adams, BigGovernment.com

Marilyn Buck was a Marxist terrorist who participated in conspiracies that led to the deaths of multiple police officers. Buck helped the Black Liberation Army, a violent Marxist offshoot of the black panthers, acquire weapons and ammunition. She participated in the robbery of an armored car where a guard was murdered. If that wasn’t enough, Buck was also charged with the bombing of the U.S. Senate, Ft. McNair, the Washington Navy Yard Officer’s Club and a New York City federal building. In many states, Buck’s behavior might have led to a midnight reservation in the electric chair.

Yet Holder’s DOJ unlocked Buck’s jail cell and set her free last summer. Justice concluded that Buck “expressed a dramatic change from her previous political philosophy.” Releasing Buck reflects an alien attitude that has caused the Obama years to be characterized by an ideological disconnect with most Americans.

The letters which persuaded the Justice Department were stuffed with crackpot arguments and have yet to be reported over the last year. They are full of lawlessness and arguments from extreme fringes of political thought. What’s worse, the letters are on the letterhead of government and private institutions, institutions most Americans incorrectly think are worthy of respect.

Consider Jill Elijah. She writes on behalf of Buck’s release that “a warm nurturing living arrangement is available to Ms. Buck in my home located in Brooklyn. . . . I and my family look forward to her joining our home.” The letterhead? Harvard Law School, where Elijah runs the criminal justice institute.

Also on the letterhead in the Elijah letter to the Justice Department is Charles Ogletree, President Obama’s dear friend and mentor. Having Ogletree’s name associated with such a request was like mailing Buck the keys to her jail cell. Ogletree’s daughter Rashida was recently hired into Holder’s Justice Department as a lawyer.

Note the efforts of James Kyung-Jin Lee. He seeks Buck’s release hoping she can visit Southern California: Buck “would benefit from the refreshing environment and welcoming community, she would also, I believe, enhance the community through her example and fortitude in prison.” The letterhead on Lee’s lunacy? University of California at Santa Barbara, Department of Asian Studies. How reassuring that professors at California’s state university admit they would welcome a Marxist terrorist and feel sufficient sympathy on campus to use school letterhead.

Joseph Velasco, a self described “teacher, storyteller and artist” sent a letter to DOJ arguing for Buck’s release saying: “someone like Marilyn is a role model . . . . I welcome the creativity and intellect that she will bring to our community. . . . Marilyn will find a welcoming home here.” The letterhead on Velasco’s letter to DOJ? The official stationary of the Santa Barbara School District, Santa Barbara High School.

A letter from Das Williams states Buck “participated in many educational and cultural activities. . . . Having her serve any more time is pointless and will accomplish nothing more than wasting of government funds.” Williams sends this letter on the letterhead of the City Council of Santa Barbara, where Das served on city council. Williams now serves in California’s State Assembly.

There are many more….

Eric Holder’s New Witch Hunt

Ben — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 22:00:44 +0000

Bob Beauprez, Townhall.com

The Department of Justice is executing a “Witch Hunt” against banks. Through the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Attorney General Eric Holder is forcing banks to “relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination,” according to a published report by Investor’s Business Daily after reviewing court documents.

The DOJ has already extorted $20 million for weak and poor credit loans from banks that “settled out of court rather than battle the federal government and risk being branded racist.” The DOJ admits another 60 banks are already under “investigation.” Holder’s demanding the banks sign “non-disclosure” settlement agreements barring them from talking while allowing the DOJ to operate behind a curtain of secrecy.

The settlements already extracted from banks force them to make “prime-rate mortgages to low income blacks and Hispanics” with credit problems, even if they are living on welfare. According to IBD, the DOJ has ordered banks to advertise that minorities cannot be turned down for a loan “because they receive public aid, such as unemployment benefits, welfare payments or food stamps.” No job; no problem!

In other words, the DOJ is forcing banks to make loans to people that they know don’t qualify for them and likely won’t be able to afford to repay them, which is precisely the kind of failed public policy that precipitated the financial collapse and recession in 2008.

The DOJ ordered Midwest BankCentre to provide “special financing” in the predominantly black areas of St. Louis for fixed prime rate conventional home loan financing for borrowers “who would ordinarily not qualify for such rates for reasons including the lack of required credit quality, income or down payment.”

Eric Holder and the head of his Civil Rights Division, Tom Perez were both protégés of Janet Reno who launched a similar attack on banks in the early years of the Clinton Administration. That led to an expansion of the Community Reinvestment Act, CRA, and an explosion of forced lending to low-income, poor credit risk borrowers and the sub-prime mortgage industry that collapsed in 2008. Under the weight of massive guarantees of poor quality and defaulted mortgages, the federal government was forced to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. To date about $150 billion has been required to bailout the two agencies to keep them solvent.

Obama/Holder Could Face Felony Charges for Fast and Furious

Ben — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:12:53 +0000

Doug Book, FloydReports.com

Why waste time asking “What did you know and when did you know it?” when the Obama Regime might already face felony charges?

That’s the question Attorney David Hardy and others are asking those investigating the role of Regime members in the deadly gun walking fiasco, Fast and Furious.

Since whistleblowers brought this scheme to the attention of Congress early this year, Senator Charles Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa have been frustrated by Department of Justice stonewalling, subterfuge, and misrepresentation.

As Grassley wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder in a July 18th correspondence, “If the attorneys working on the [Justice] Department’s response to the Committee spent less time redacting documents and more time producing them, we would be much closer to understanding the failures in leadership surrounding Operation Fast and Furious.”

But it is Hardy’s contention that….

Senator: Obama’s “Criminality…Quite Obvious” in Fast and Furious

Ben — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 09:49:09 +0000

Fred Lucas, CNSNews.com

A senior Senate Republican has accused the Justice Department of a “cover-up” by limiting information to Congress about a botched gun running program along the southwest border.

“I think they’re trying to cover up now by not giving us all the information that we want,” Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com.

“In regard to criminality, this is quite obvious there is criminal activity when our own government suggests our own laws ought to be broken,” he said. “Isn’t it just as criminal if we do that, as [it would be] if Chuck Grassley did it as a private citizen?”

Grassley is investigating a gun running operation led by the Phoenix division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and also involving the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI.

“Operation Fast and Furious,” saw federal law enforcement officials knowingly allow guns to be sold to straw purchasers for the purpose of tracing the firearms, which included AK 47s assault rifles, to Mexican drug trafficking gangs.

The initiative began in September 2009, but was halted after two of the weapons were found at the scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder in December 2010. Although Operation Fast and Furious ended with the indictment of 20 straw purchasers, no-one from the drug cartels – the primary target of the program – was brought to justice.

The Justice Department assigned the Office of Inspector General to conduct an internal investigation into the affair.

Obama DOJ Sues “Vocal and Aggressive” Pro-Lifer, Not the Black Panthers

Ben — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 21:12:28 +0000

Judicial Watch

While Obama’s Justice Department dismissed a critical voter intimidation case against a radical black revolutionary group, it’s going after a pro life advocate the agency calls one of “the most vocal and aggressive anti-abortion protestors.”

Ironically, the administration claims that the pro life advocate, a Maryland man named Richard Retta, intimidated and interfered with women seeking abortions in Washington D.C.-area clinics much like members of the New Black Panther Party did to white voters during the 2008 presidential election. The difference is that the Black Panthers, clad in military attire, used weapons, racial insults and profanity to deter voters…

JW’s investigation also revealed that the official Obama appointed to head the DOJ’s civil rights division, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, lied under oath to cover up the Black Panther voter intimidation scandal.

Now Perez is pursuing a pro lifer for violating a Clinton-era law (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act) that prohibits any sort of interference with a woman seeking an abortion. Retta physically obstructed a patient and volunteer escorts attempting to enter the Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, according to a DOJ complaint filed a few days ago. He also “frequently walks very closely beside patients as they walk to the clinic” and he follows them into the street and oncoming traffic. Sometimes he yells at them, the feds claim.

In announcing the lawsuit, Perez vowed to pursue similar cases….

RNC Head Demands Holder Investigate Obama’s “Apparent Crime”

Ben — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:43:36 +0000

Ben Johnson, The White House Watch

Although the Republican Party is often too complicit or cowardly to hold President Obama accountable for his actions, it is finally showing some tenacity in investigating Obama’s “apparent crime” of partisan fundraising inside the White House. On Monday, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder “to request a Department of Justice investigation into an apparent crime committed by President Barack Obama.” In late June, Obama recorded the “Dinner with Barack and Joe” video, asking Democratic donors to enter a raffle to win dinner with the president and vice president, in the White House Map Room.

The Hatch Act makes it illegal to “solicit…a donation of money or other thing of value in connection with a Federal, State, or local election, while in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties.”

Priebus wrote, “The Map Room has been used for a myriad of official duties, including the administration of the oath of office to President Obama by Chief Justice Roberts and the launch of ‘The Campaign to Cut Waste.’”

“If President Obama recorded the video in the Map Room, then it appears he has committed a crime under federal law.”

Priebus noted in the letter he could have called for the appointment of a special prosecutor….

Melson’s Testimony Proves Fast and Furious was an Obama Plot

Ben — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 22:18:52 +0000

Doug Book, FloydReports.com

On July 4th, Acting ATF Director Ken Melson testified for hours before representatives of the Grassley/Issa congressional committees. Personal counsel in tow, Melson made a number of allegations concerning the Department of Justice and two agencies under DOJ control—the FBI and the DEA.

According to his testimony, not only did the DOJ refuse his repeated requests that the ATF be permitted to provide information demanded by the congressional committees, the Department also arranged for tax dollars from the FBI and DEA to help finance Fast and Furious straw buyers.

And as Fast and Furious supplied weapons were found at the murder scenes of both ICE agent Jaime Zapata and Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, it means that both killings were financed by American taxpayers.

Equally disturbing to Sen. Chuck Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa is the fact that the Justice Department tried to “conceal from Congress the possible involvement of other agencies in identifying and maybe even working with the same criminals that Operation Fast and Furious was trying to identify.”

That is, the FBI and DEA were working with the same drug dealing, gun trafficking higher ups the ATF was ostensibly targeting and hoping to unmask with Fast and Furious.

One such individual, deported years earlier by the DEA, is now working as a “counter terror informant,” tasked with reporting to the FBI the possible presence of dirty bombs and al-Qaeda members crossing the Mexican border into the U.S. Yet neither agency shared this information with the ATF. And, of course, neither did Eric Holder’s Department of Justice.

Two days after Melson’s testimony, the story broke of guns being walked out of the ATF office in Tampa, Florida. Their destination, Honduras, has become a major gateway for Colombian drugs entering Mexico and the United States. The weapons presumably went to Honduran M-13 and M-18 gangs, which have taken over the drug trade in the nation, making deals with Mexican and Colombian cartels.

So, these are the facts….

From Gunrunner to Gun-Grabber

Ben — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:21:22 +0000

Doug Book, FloydReports.com

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-MD, wants to grab your guns.

On June 30th, Maryland Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings assembled gun confiscation advocates and Second Amendment foes from across the nation to approach the Project Gunrunner/Fast and Furious debacle by doing what the Left does best: changing the subject.

As it is not in the nature of liberals to allow truth to interfere with their agenda, the Congressman decided to ignore the fact that members of the Obama regime’s ATF had directed the sale of thousands of weapons to drug cartel straw buyers and assisted in trafficking those guns across the Mexican border.

Instead, Cummings claimed that“no legitimate examination of [drug cartel violence and illegal firearms trafficking] will be complete without analyzing our nation’s gun laws, which allow tens of thousands of assault weapons to flood into Mexico from the United States each year.”

It apparently escaped the Congressman’s notice that it was President Obama’s ATF and DOJ that fractured those gun laws and caused a flood of weapons across the border in the first place.

So, with the embarrassing facts of Project Gunrunner properly shoved under the table, the Cummings Forum offered the following recommendations to halt the flow of arms across the border….

Video: Allen West to Obama, Fire Holder or You’re Complicit!

Ben — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:00:33 +0000

As always, Allen West is the man.