And it can't come soon enough!

Iranian general: Our finger on war trigger

Enemies 'are all within range of the resistance fire'

By Reza Kahlili / WND


With Western pressure growing on Bashar Assad over the latest massacres of defenseless women and children in Syria, Iranian officials again are warning the world against any action against the Middle East dictator.

The pro-Assad “resistance” has its finger on the trigger and the aggressors will not survive the conflict, a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazaeri, told Mashregh, a media outlet run by the Guards. Iranian officials often refer to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as the resistance front.

Mashregh reported in March that Iran’s armed forces had formed a joint war room that included officers from Syria, Iran and Hezbollah for a coordinated military response to an attack on Syria.

“A conflict in Syria will engulf the region and its main victims will be the people of Syria themselves,” Jazaeri warned the protesters. “The Zionist regime and the interests of the enemies of Syria are all within range of the resistance fire.”

Citing a conspiracy to weaken the resistance front and that foreign hands were involved in the events in Syria, Jazaeri said, “At the right time, people of the region will retaliate against these actions. The defeat of the enemy at this stage will be a big event and, God willing, we will witness that.”

There have been several reports alluding to the Revolutionary Guards’ involvement in the Syrian suppression. Recently the deputy commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Cmdr. Esmail Ghani, said his forces have been playing a “physical and nonphysical” role in Syria.

The Guards last year called Syrian protesters “rabble-rousers” who are “puppets of Zionists and the United States” and that their chanting slogans against Iran and Hezbollah “will be their last stand.”

On Thursday, U.N. observers were fired upon as they tried to reach the site of the latest massacre of civilians, many of them women and children, who were shot or stabbed, the fourth such massacre in two weeks. More than 10,000 civilians have so far lost their lives in the brutal suppression ordered by Assad and abetted by Iran and Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the head of Iran’s Basij militia made clear that Iran will not tolerate the fall of Assad.

Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for human rights abuses in Iran, told Lebanese TV Al Manar, “After the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and the disruption to their defensive posture in protecting the Zionist regime, America in order to defend the regime of the occupier of the Quds (Jerusalem) is after a new scenario in Syria. … But they will be defeated.”

The Basij commander warned Israel against any attack on Iran or Syria, stating, “Today all the people of the region are ready for wiping out this cancerous tumor, and reaction to any aggression will be the freedom of Quds.”

Naghdi also said the West was wrong in believing that international sanctions against Iran will force the Islamic republic to accept demands that it yield on its clandestine nuclear program.

“Sanctions have had a lot of effect on Iran, but one positive one is the growth of science and internal production. … If the American president did not have his hands in the blood of nations of the world, specifically Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine, and had not embraced torture, we would have given him a national medal for his service to the Iranian nation for imposing sanctions.”

Naghdi predicted that America will be forced to pack up and leave the region, taking with it all of its forces.

The mullahs ruling Iran, based on centuries-old hadiths, believe that an attack on Syria and Iran and an ensuing counterattack on Israel will trigger the coming of “Mahdi,” the Shiites’ 12th imam and the last Islamic messiah. Both those events are looking increasingly likely as Assad continues to murder his own people and Iran continues its quest for nuclear weapons.

See a video on the situation:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/iranian-general-our-finger-on-war-trigger/

Holder’s Lies Exposed By DOJ Document Leak

By Doug Book / The Western Center for Journalism

inShare4

Wiretap applications obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform prove Attorney General Eric Holder and Assistant AG Lanny Breuer lied to Committee members when they claimed DOJ personnel knew nothing of the tactics used by the ATF during Operation Fast And Furious.

 

Wiretap applications are forms that must be filled out and submitted to a judge, asking permission to perform a wiretap. As these requests may only be made if all other information-gathering techniques have been tried and found wanting, the applications are completed in extraordinary detail, listing all prior methods employed by law enforcement to gather existing evidence. In short, the entire history of the efforts put forth by law enforcement during a particular case or investigation are presented in writing to the court.

According to Committee chair Darrell Issa, six wiretap applications are now in Committee possession, all presented to the court between March and June of 2010 and all having been approved by Department of Justice officials. In fact, “each application included a memorandum from Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer to Paul M. O’Brien, Office of Enforcement Operations, authorizing the wiretap applications on behalf of the Attorney General.” “The memoranda from Breuer are marked specifically for the attention of Emory Hurley, the lead prosecutor for Operation Fast and Furious.”

Why is this so significant? As Congressman Issa wrote to Eric Holder on June 5^th, “Throughout the course of the congressional investigation … the Department (DOJ) has consistently denied that any senior officials were provided information about the tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious. The wiretap applications obtained by the Committee show such statements made by senior Department officials regarding the wiretaps to be false and misleading.”

That is, DOJ higher-ups including Lanny Breuer obviously had to know of the tactics employed by the ATF during the Operation as they were clearly spelled out in the applications the DOJ-specifically Lanny Breuer-signed off on!

On September 7^th, 2011, Holder stated before Issa’s Committee, “The notion that …this thing (Fast and Furious) reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that…I don’t think is supported by the facts.”  One month later, in a letter to the Committees investigating the Operation, Holder wrote, “I now understand some senior officials within the Department were aware at the time that there was an operation called Fast and Furious although they were not advised of the unacceptable operational tactics being used in it.” 

Issa continues the assault on Holder with the Attorney General’s testimony of September 8^th. Holder said:

I don’t think the wiretap applications—I’ve not seen—I’ve not seen them. But I don’t know—I don’t have any information that indicates that those wiretap applications had anything in them that talked about the tactics that have made this such a bone of contention…I’d be surprised if the tactics themselves about gun walking were actually contained in those—in those applications. I have not seen them, but I would be surprised [if] that were the case.

Then on February 2^nd of this year, Holder claimed:

I think, first off, there is no indication that Mr. Breuer or my former deputy were aware of the tactics that were employed in this matter until everybody I think became aware of them, which is like January, February of last year. The information—I’m not at this point aware that any of those tactics were contained in any of the wiretap applications.

Obviously, the DOJ had no intention of providing Congress with any of these applications or the information they contained. In fact, the applications had been sealed by the Department for some time. It is likely the Committee was leaked the applications by the same source who has provided the House with other withheld, DOJ documents.

But, however he obtained them, Issa has devastating evidence proving outright perjury on the parts of Lanny Breuer and Eric Holder. The question is, as it has been for months, whether the Republican leadership has the courage to use it.

Where is the contempt citation Mr. Boehner?

Photo Credit: The Aspen Institute (Creative Commons)

Op-ed:

‘Fast and Furious’...an Obama ploy for gun control

By: Diane Sori

Dust off the boxing gloves folks, because to call it a face-off is putting it mildly...looks like it could come to actual knock-out physical blows as Rep. Darrell Issa , the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, basically accuses Attorney General Eric Holder of deliberately withholding crucial information and documents that would lead all the way up to the White House. 

‘Fast and Furious’ just became ‘Down and Out for the count’!

‘Fast and Furious,’ the controversial gun-running operation where agents from the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) in direct violation of federal law, sold firearms to known and suspected ‘straw purchasers’ (usually a kid 18-25, who needed a fast couple of bucks), with claims that the Obama administration knowingly allowed Mexican drug gang operatives to buy said guns in Arizona and then 'walk’ them across the border untracked, is once again in the news as the Congressional hearings continue. 

Just a month ago, Rep. Issa put together a rough draft of a resolution that would charge Holder with contempt of Congress for not turning over those asked for documents.  Issa subpoenaed those documents late last year, but finally just this week, almost 6 months after the order for them was issued, the House Oversight committee got some of the documents it subpoenaed.  

By the way, if you or I, or any American for that matter, did not immediately hand over documents when subpoenaed, it would be off to jail for us with NO ‘get out of jail free card’ given.

Now it seems the House Oversight committee has a ‘mole’ in the DOJ, for ‘suddenly’ in the documents were a set of wiretap applications proving that high ranking officials in Holder’s department knew of the ‘gun walking’ tactics, yet Holder has always claimed that knowledge of these tactics did not reach the upper ranks of his department. 

Liar, liar pants on fire...

Rep. Issa strongly suspects that these documents will prove that Holder, and maybe even Obama himself, signed off on the plan that allowed thousands of illegally purchased and untracked guns to enter the U.S. and Mexico, guns which are now on the streets, one of which led to the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.  Issa stands by his assertion that Holder knew this much earlier than his previously testimony before Congress indicated. 

So the actual battle, in simple term boils down to this...Rep. Darrel Issa claims that high-ranking DOJ officials and/or Obama or Holder himself approved the ‘gun-walking’ tactics used, and that someone must be held responsible for Agent Terry’s death vs. Attorney General Eric Holder, who says he had no evidence whatsoever indicating that any senior agency officials, or Obama, knew about or approved the ‘gun-walking’ tactics used in Fast and Furious.

Stalemate...I don’t think so.

Holder has admitted on the stand that ‘Fast and Furious’ was flawed in concept and execution but could NOT answer simple questions about what the White House and the DOJ knew or didn’t know. Nor would Holder admit what Issa and others suspect...that this entire operation was a front to ban gun sales in this country.

After all, Obama has said many times, “I don’t believe people should be able to own guns.”

‘Fast and Furious’ could very well have been nothing but a cleverly crafted plan to say the hell with the Second Amendment, and to lay the foundation for Barack Hussein Obama to initiate strict gun control laws, something he so desperately wanted in place BEFORE the November elections.

So with Issa expecting to know by July 4 whether the House will move forward on a motion to hold Holder in contempt of Congress, the game is now in the Republicans court.  Let’s see if they have the guts and courage to get to the truth and then to prosecute the guilty...Attorney General Eric Holder and soon to be ex-president Barack Hussein Obama.

‘We the People’ can only hope they do.

Who Will Protect the Freedom to Blog  

By: Michelle Malkin /TownHall Daily

Free speech is under fire. Online thugs are targeting bloggers (mostly conservative, but not all) who have dared to expose a convicted bomber and perjuring vexatious litigant who is now enjoying a comfy life as a liberally subsidized social justice operative. Where do your elected representatives stand on this threat to our founding principles?

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-GA, bravely stepped forward to press this vital issue. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Chambliss decried the "harassing and frightening actions" of Internet menaces who recently have gone after several conservative new media citizen journalists and activists.

GOP Rep. Kenny Marchant of Texas added his voice, telling Holder in a statement that he is "very afraid of the potential chilling effects that these reported actions may have in silencing individuals who would otherwise be inclined to exercise their Constitutional right to free speech." And the American Center for Law and Justice, a leading conservative free speech public interest law firm, announced it was providing legal representation to the National Bloggers Club -- a new media association that has provided support and raised funds for targets of this coordinated harassment. (Full disclosure: I volunteer on the National Bloggers Club board of directors.)

The ACLJ described the importance of the case very simply: "Free speech is under attack."

Chambliss and Marchant called specific attention to one terrifying tactic against these bloggers: SWAT-ting. These hoaxes occur "when a perpetrator contacts local police to report a violent incident at a target's home."

Callers disguise their true identities and locations in order to provoke a potentially deadly SWAT/police response descending upon the targets' homes.

As online conservatives -- and now ABC News -- have reported, recent SWAT-ting victims include New Jersey-based Mike Stack, a blogger and Twitter user targeted last summer after helping to expose disgraced former N.Y. Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner's shady social media activities; California blogger Patrick Frey, a deputy district attorney at Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office who recently posted a bone-chilling account and audio of his summer 2011 SWAT-ting on his blog, Patterico.com; and CNN contributor and RedState.com managing editor Erick Erickson, whose Georgia home was targeted by a faker claiming an "accidental shooting" there late last month.

A common thread among these and other online targets: They all have published web links, commentary or investigative pieces related to Brett Kimberlin, the infamous "Speedway Bomber."

In 1978, Kimberlin was sentenced to more than 50 years in federal prison for drug dealing, impersonating a federal officer and a weeklong bombing spree in Speedway, Ind. The violent crimes left one victim so severely injured that he committed suicide. A civil court awarded the widow of the victim, Carl DeLong, $1.6 million. Kimberlin was released from jail in 2001, but has yet to pay up.

Investigative journalist/researcher Mandy Nagy, who blogs for the late Andrew Breitbart's Internet media powerhouse, Breitbart.com, dared to chronicle Kimberlin's lucrative business and political ventures over the past two years. Kimberlin has a large hand in two well-funded outfits, Velvet Revolution and the Justice Through Music Project, that have received funding from the likes of George Soros' Tides Foundation and left-wing activist and singer Barbra Streisand. The charitable groups have viciously attacked prominent conservative individuals and groups, including Breitbart, investigative journalist James O'Keefe and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Nagy has been hounded relentlessly online and falsely accused of wild criminal conspiracies by Kimberlin associates for blowing the whistle on his shady online network.

After providing brief pro bono legal services to a liberal blogger who refused to whitewash Kimberlin's past, conservative blogger and lawyer Aaron Walker lost his job. His employer was terrified by the thought of Kimberlin bombing his office and also fired Walker's wife, who had worked for the same firm.

Walker is embroiled in Kafkaesque, free speech-squelching litigation with serial lawsuit-filer Kimberlin in Maryland. Last week, an inept judge who admitted abject ignorance about the Internet -- and appalling apathy toward key free-speech Supreme Court cases -- essentially gagged Walker from exercising his First Amendment rights and blogging about Kimberlin. Kimberlin pulled off a snow job in court, bizarrely claiming that an independent online effort to support Walker and expose Kimberlin's past amounted to a criminal terror campaign against him. Renowned constitutional law professor Eugene Volokh of UCLA is providing pro bono help to appeal the order against Walker.

National Bloggers Club President Ali Akbar was targeted for spearheading charity efforts for Kimberlin targets; stalkers publicized his mother's home, and Texas authorities are now investigating. Another conservative blogger who had the audacity to report on Walker's plight, Robert Stacy McCain, was forced to move out of his home last month after Kimberlin phoned his wife's employer and intimidated his family.

Never in the eight years that I have worked as an independent blogger have I seen such a concerted threat to the fundamental right of citizen journalists to speak their minds freely and without fear of bodily harm. As former Justice Department official J. Christian Adams points out, it is a federal violation of Title 18 U.S.C. Section 241 to conspire to deprive someone of his "free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States."

Members of Congress swore an oath to uphold the Constitution -- all of it. Who means it?

Wisconsin Vote Stuns The Left

 by Chip Wood / Personal Liberty Digest

UPI

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker defeated Democrat Tom Barrett 53 percent to 46 percent.

It’s been amusing to hear all the liberal talking heads on TV trying to claim that Tuesday’s vote in Wisconsin was no big deal. My friends, it was a very big deal indeed. In fact, it just may mark the beginning of the end of union power in this country.

Let’s be very clear about what was at stake in this election. It wasn’t just about ending collective bargaining for government employees. It wasn’t even about how much of their pay union members should contribute for their pensions or their healthcare. While these issues are important, they pale in comparison to what really mattered.

The paramount issue was whether the government could force someone to belong to a union in order to hold a job and deduct union dues from his pay without giving him any say in the matter.

Governor Scott Walker and a Republican majority in the Wisconsin Legislature ended that sweetheart deal for public-sector unions in the State. The results have been catastrophic for the bully boys (and girls) of collective bargaining.

Once the law went into effect, no State employee could be forced to join a union in order to hold a job. Dues would no longer be deducted automatically; employees had to specifically request the deduction of union dues from their paychecks.

Given a choice, guess what happened? Tens of thousands of former union members said “no thanks.” As a result, union membership and dues fell like a safe being dropped out of a window.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is the second-largest public-sector union in Wisconsin. The largest is the National Education Association.

Prior to the passage of the Walker reforms, AFSCME had 62,818 members in Wisconsin. Six months after the new law took effect, the number had declined to just 28,745 dues-paying members. In other words, once they weren’t forced to be union members, more than 50 percent headed for the doors.

Bryan Kennedy, the president of the American Federation of Teachers in Wisconsin, said that failure to recall Walker “spells doom” for his union. Let’s hope he’s right.

None of this should come as a surprise. Time after time and in State after State, whenever right-to-work laws have replaced compulsory union membership, the results have been the same: More and more workers refuse to support unions. As President Barack Obama’s team will tell you, it takes a heck of a lot of “community organizing” to make up the difference.

Fifty years ago, more than half of the blue-collar workers in America were members of a union. Today, only 7 percent of private-sector employees are union members. That is what happens when people are given a choice. A huge percentage of them will choose to keep the money they earn, rather than let some ham-fisted organization spend it — allegedly on their behalf.

Get government involved and the results are dramatically different. The percentage of government employees who belong to a union is about 37 percent. The total number of union members has skyrocketed, thanks to the explosive growth of government at Federal, State and local levels.

Walker won the Governorship in 2010 by promising to bring some fiscal sanity to Wisconsin, which was facing a $3 billion deficit. To do that, he said that union members would have to start contributing “their fair share.” (Sound familiar?)

His “5 and 12” plan called for government employees to pay more for their lavish pensions and their generous healthcare plans. Under the Walker proposal, contributions to the pension plans would climb to 5.8 percent of their pay. This was still a sweetheart deal compared to what private-sector workers get. Most of the latter have no pension whatsoever; those who do contribute, on average, a lot more than 5.8 percent of their pay toward their retirement.

Healthcare is even more expensive. The average private-sector worker pays 21 percent of the premiums for his or her coverage; government employees in Wisconsin paid just 6 percent of the costs of their health insurance, or less than one-third as much. The Walker plan would double that figure to 12.6 percent — still a bargain by almost any measure.

Union members in Wisconsin went absolutely ballistic at the thought of having to dig into their own pockets so much. Tens of thousands of them marched on the State Capitol in Madison, in a sort of local “Occupy” movement. When that wasn’t enough to intimidate the Legislature, 14 Democratic Senators fled the State.

Yep, they high-tailed it to Illinois, so there wouldn’t be enough voters left in Madison to form a quorum.

That standoff lasted for a while. When a vote was finally taken, the Walker proposals passed handily. Union officials and their Democratic allies immediately launched a highly publicized petition movement to demand a recall of Walker, his Lieutenant Governor and four Republican State Senators. Thousands of union volunteers poured into the State. They ended up collecting more than 900,000 signatures for the petition — way more than the 400,000 needed to force a special election.

On Tuesday, the unions and their Democratic allies got what they said they wanted: a chance for the public to vote “aye” or “nay” on the Walker reforms. After one of the most costly and divisive campaigns in State history, a record number of voters showed up at the polls.

Bless their hearts! They gave Walker an even bigger victory than they did in 2010, when he defeated Tom Barrett (yes, the same guy) by 5.5 percent of the votes cast. This time his victory was even bigger; he carried the State by 53 percent to 46 percent.

Let’s not forget that other Governors, including Mitch Daniels in Indiana and Chris Christie in New Jersey, have seen their popularity soar the more they have challenged teachers and other union members.

By the way, I suspect Obama’s pollsters had a much better idea of what was going to happen in Wisconsin than the number crunchers at CNN. How else can you explain Obama’s invisibility in what was clearly going to be one of the most important pre-November elections this year?

Oh, sure, Obama issued a lukewarm endorsement of Barrett from the safe confines of the White House. But when it came time to press the flesh and energize the crowds in Wisconsin, the President was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Vice President Joe Biden.

Remember, Obama and Biden carried the State handily in 2008. Afterwards, the Veep told an enthusiastic crowd of union loyalists, “We owe you!” Sure thing, buddy. But not enough to risk getting some egg on their faces this time around.

Does Walker’s stunning victory mean that Wisconsin is “in play” for Romney this fall? Time will tell. But in the meantime, is that a groundswell I hear saying “Walker for VP?”

Until next time, keep some powder dry.

Misleading Wisconsin Poll Has Obama Ahead
By DICK MORRIS Published on DickMorris.com


Democratic spin doctors were loudly trumpeting that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's 7 point victory in the recall election was not necessarily an indication that Romney could carry the Badger state.  After all, they were quick to point out, exit polls taken among voters leaving the booths showed Obama beating Romney -- also by 7 points -- 51-44.

But now it appears that this may not be the final word since the exit polls did not tally the preferences of absentee voters who, NBC estimates, cast 15 percent of the vote in the recall election.  While some exit polls add a telephone sample of early or absentee voters to supplement their actual interviews at the polling place, the Wisconsin exit surveys did not.  And the absentee voters backed Walker heavily, leading to the likely inference that they also would have told pollsters, had they asked, that they were for Romney as well.

Indeed, the exit polls were so skewed toward Democrats that they initially predicted a 50-50 race in the recall election.  But when the absentee votes were also counted, Walker had a 7 point victory.  If the absentees moved the needle in the recall election by 7 points, is it not also logical that they would have had the same effect on the presidential polling had they been counted in that contest as well?   In light of that data, what would have happened to Obama's 7 point lead over Romney in the exit polls?  Likely that lead would have been erased as well.

The fact is that the Walker victory is a solid indication that Romney has an excellent chance of carrying Wisconsin.  Undoubtedly, he was under 50% of the Wisconsin vote among all recall election voters -- absentees included.  Possibly, he might have been tied with Romney.  Most likely the result would have been within the margin of error.

But the Democratic spin did its election night work and it is now conventional wisdom that Obama maintains a healthy lead in Wisconsin despite the Walker victory.  Conventional wisdom and dead wrong.