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The House of Representatives is expected to vote today on whether to hold Lois G. Lerner, former director of the Internal Revenue Service Exempt Organizations Division, in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Lerner pleaded the Fifth at committee hearings in 2013 and earlier this year. You can read a copy of H. Res. 568 here. Today's contempt of Congress resolution is not without precedent. In 2012, the House voted to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for failing to turn over documents relating to the failed...

The disappearing act known as the congressional Fast and Furious investigation made a brief return to the stage recently when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder became unhinged during questioning by Representative Louis Gohmert (R). The trigger for his defiance was the mention by Rep. Gohmert of possible contempt charges over the Fast and Furious scandal. The AG’s admonition of “Don’t go there buddy,” started discussion as to why Holder reacted in such a strong manner. Sure, he’s hiding something, or someone, but are the White House, ATF, and the AG the only players? -SNIP- And my personal favorite: …a 22-year-old...

The disappearing act known as the congressional Fast and Furious investigation made a brief return to the stage recently when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder became unhinged during questioning by Representative Louis Gohmert (R). The trigger for his defiance was the mention by Rep. Gohmert of possible contempt charges over the Fast and Furious scandal. The AG’s admonition of “Don’t go there buddy,” started discussion as to why Holder reacted in such a strong manner. Sure, he’s hiding something, or someone, but are the White House, ATF, and the AG the only players? In June 2011, Rep. Darrell Issa’s initial...

A blockbuster news event happened earlier this week. One that ought to have caused outrage in all political quarters. One that ought to have made us question not only the Obama administration’s competence, but also their motives. How else should we explain $500 million in arms that the United States facilitated to al-Qaeda linked groups in Libya? How else to explain the sudden shift in a decade and a half-long War on Terror from waging merciless war against the terrorist group that felled the Twin Towers and killed 3,000 Americans to becoming their sugar daddy on the shores of Tripoli?...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The California State Senate held an "ethics refresher course" for its members after federal indictments were issued against two senators and a third was convicted. Senate leaders are hoping to regain the public's trust. The purpose of the course is to teach members and their staffs to avoid potentially compromising situations. It's the latest in a series of moves by senate leaders aimed at putting political distance between them and their colleagues facing criminal charges. The leader of California's state senate stopped all regular business on Wednesday so everyone could go "back to school" in a...

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That adage has more application than usual in California, where Democrats hold all of the statewide offices and supermajorities in the legislature. They can enact any policies they want, with only the judicial branch offering belated checks on their power. And when I say belated, that’s literally the case with state Senator Rod Wright, whom a jury found guilty in January of committing eight felonies regarding his residency and eligibility for the office he held.Normally, politicians who get that kind of a verdict have the decency to resign. If not, the body in...

Beginning in early 2011, state Sen. Leland Yee repeatedly solicited bribes to fund his San Francisco mayor and California secretary of state campaigns, according to the FBI agents who brought him down last month. But he appears to have devoted more time and energy to a far more lucrative pursuit: crafting or carrying legislation benefiting special interests who supply campaign contributions. It's a practice that's all too common in Sacramento, but Yee was a master. :snip: Yee introduced 20 bills from 2011 to 2014 that advanced a special interest over the public interest, according to this newspaper's review of his...

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A story that sounds like a movie script is slowly grinding its way to trial. All of the 29 defendants in the massive corruption case involving suspended State Senator Leland Yee and reputed gangster Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow appeared in federal court Thursday. With so many defendants, lawyers, and documents, the judge is trying to set up a system to manage what could be an unwieldy trial. What makes it even harder is that not everyone's on the same page. The frustration is beginning to show. There are 29 defendants, even more lawyers, a 137 page...

Eric Holder should be impeached from the office of Attorney General, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) declared http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Cruz-Holder-Lerner-IRS/2014/04/11/id/565100/?ns_mail_uid=55029093&ns_mail_job=1564099_04112014&promo_code=yvrdjwg6#textSize on Thursday. If Holder fails to seek indictments of IRS manager Lois Lerner and others responsible for targeting groups and individuals for their political views, Cruz says Congress should impeach Holder. However, Cruz does not go far enough. Federal law requires the U.S. Attorney General to now prosecute himself for criminal contempt. Eric Holder was held in criminal contempt of Congress by the US House of Representatives on June 28, 2012, for refusing to provide documents concerning the “Fast and Furious” gun-running...

The shooting in the Kansas City area on Sunday at Jewish facilities that killed three was a horrifying reminder of the dangers some hate groups pose. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder on Monday morning issued a statement on the matter. “I was horrified to learn of this weekend’s tragic shootings outside Kansas City. These senseless acts of violence are all the more heartbreaking as they were perpetrated on the eve of the solemn occasion of Passover. “Justice Department prosecutors will work with their state and local counterparts to provide all available support and to determine whether the federal hate crimes statute...

One month ago. long-time investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson left CBS amid rumors that she had grown frustrated with the network stifling her investigations. Thursday night on Bill O' Reilly's Fox News program she confirmed those rumors. "There is unprecedented, I believe, influence on the media, not just the news, but the images you see everywhere. By well-orchestrated and financed campaign of special interests, political interests and corporations. I think all of that comes into play." After introducing his guest, O'Reilly asked Attkisson about her investigation into the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal. The former CBS reporter asserted that she began...

Attorneys for the Reese family filed a petition for rehearing en banc Tuesday in the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver. This latest move by the defense challenges a March 19 decision by a three judge panel overturning a District Court decision that the family of former gun dealers merited a new trial based on the prosecution withholding evidence that a witness had been the subject of a criminal investigation. The panel’s ruling last month was another in a series of setbacks for a family that has endured an ordeal approaching three years. Arrested in...

Video at link.

Attorney General Eric Holder admitted Tuesday that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was in the process of looking at the use of domestic drones. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, questioned Holder during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, asking the Attorney General if he believed if the Federal Aviation Administration or Congress should regulate of drone use. “Would you think that it would be better that Congress intervene and employ legislation safeguarding the Fourth Amendment, right of privacy basically on citizens or do you suggest as Attorney General that the FAA still control who gets a drone or not?”...

Two federal judges on the U.S. Sentencing Commission said Thursday that Attorney General Eric Holder stepped “outside the legal system” and exceeded the authority of the executive branch by sending “improper instruction” to federal prosecutors to reduce drug sentences before they were officially approved by either the commission or Congress. “I have been surprised at the attorney general’s steps taken to proceed with this reduction outside of the legal system set up and established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984,” Judge Ricardo Hinojosa, the commission’s vice chair, said during a public hearing in the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building...

"I have been proud to stand along side of you in supporting efforts to advance the cause of justice that has always been at the center of this , this administrations work I am pleased to note that the last five years have been defined by significant strides and lasting reforms, even in the face, even in the face, of unprecedented, unwarranted ugly adversity. And if you don't believe that, you look at the way ...forget about me... forget about me , you look at the way the Attorney General of the Untied States was treated yesterday by a House...

Eric Holder ventured off script in a speech Wednesday to the National Action Network, the organization led by MSNBC host and recently-exposed FBI informant Al Sharpton. “I’m pleased to note that the last five years have been defined by significant strides and by lasting reforms,” said Holder at the conference of black activists, before improvising “even in the face, even in the face, of unprecedented, unwarranted, ugly, and divisive adversity.” “If you don’t believe that, if you look at the way, forget about me, forget about me, if you look at the way the attorney general of the United States...

Corruption: A House panel votes this week to formally ask the DOJ to pursue criminal charges against former IRS employee Lois Lerner. It is time someone in this administration were held accountable for something. A staff report by House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa reveals testimony by IRS agents that the IRS has not deliberately targeted progressive groups. Now comes word that the House Ways and Means Committee is sending a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder accusing former IRS director of tax-exempt organizations Lois Lerner of committing at least three crimes in the IRS's targeting tea party and other...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Suspended state Sen. Leland Yee pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to bribery and gun charges two weeks after he was arrested as part of an FBI sting targeting political corruption and an alleged organized crime syndicate based in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Yee entered his pleas in federal court to one count of conspiracy to traffic in firearms without a license and illegally import firearms; one count of conspiring to defraud citizens of honest services; and six counts of engaging in a scheme to defraud citizens of honest services. The San Francisco Democrat is accused of conspiring...

The federal corruption and bribery charges leveled against state Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco mark the third embarrassing scandal this year for Senate Democrats and their party, which control both houses of the state Legislature and every statewide office in California.Coming on the heels of recent tangled legal troubles of two other high-profile Los Angeles County Democratic state senators - Ron Calderon of Montebello and Rod Wright of Baldwin Hills - Yee's arrest may now hand the beleaguered state Republican Party an opening in a midterm election year, political observers say.