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Corrupt to the core, Obama's hatchet-man is on the move

Look out Hillary Clinton. The former secretary of state and twice-failed presidential candidate proclaimed herself part of the #Resistance, but its a rabid left-wing movement that probably doesnt even want her.

Now Eric Holder wants to be the leader of the #Resistance. He is even pondering a 2020 presidential run. This might seem implausible , but the prospect of a Democratic nominee with massive baggage, in this case someone held in contempt of Congress in a bipartisan vote, should bring joy to the Republican Party.

It wont matter to the far-left hate-Trump voters, to whom the former attorney general has emerged as a hero and a leader. Never mind that Holder epitomizes the D.C.-Wall Street revolving door about as well as anyone. He has allied himself with California lawmakers who would rather not follow the law as long as Trump is presidenta bunch of modern-day John C. Calhouns.

Holder believes he has attributes more important than merely leading rebellious Californians.

I have a certain status as the former attorney general. A certain familiarity as the first African-American attorney general, Holder told Yahoo News, which first broke the news he was considering a run. Theres a justified perception that Im close to President Obama. So, I want to use whatever skills I have, whatever notoriety I have, to be effective in opposing things that are, at the end of the day, just bad for the country.

His actual presidency would involve heavy lifting on issues, likely pushing a constitutional amendment to ditch the Electoral College.

Its difficult to imagine Holder as a presidential candidate, or really a candidate for any elected office. Maybe hes close to Barack Obama, but he doesnt have Obamas stage presence. Controversy doesnt equal charisma. Holder almost makes Hillary seem energetic.

On the other hand, perhaps Trumps historic victory teaches us not to be dismissive of any candidate.

What can be said of Holder is that he probably has fewer skeletons than Hillary in his closet. But theres still fertile ground for Trump to campaign against Crooked Holder in 2020.

In June 2012, when 17 House Democrats joined Republicans in voting to hold the attorney general in contempt, it was about Americas top cop in the self-proclaimed most transparent administration in history refusing to provide the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee with thousands of pages of documents.

This was a horrible mark on his record, essentially a censure, but Holder knew it amounted to very little functionally. He continued serving at the Department of Justice well into Obamas second term.

Congress was investigating Operation Fast and Furious, the botched sting in which the U.S. allowed 2,000 guns to flow to Mexican drug trafficking organizations. The DoJ lost track of the guns, and halted the operation only after one of the guns was found at the murder scene of a border patrol agent .

Before the Fast and the Furious scandal, Holder stopped the prosecution of the New Black Panther Party members. There was near overwhelming evidence against Minister King Samir Shabazz, Malik Zulu Shabazz, and Jerry Jackson of misbehavior at a Philadelphia polling place in 2008. They were even caught on video intimidating voters.

Should anyone think Trump is hostile to the media or anti-First Amendment, well, Holder would be absolutely ghastly. As attorney general, he regularly used the Espionage Act to silence leakers and even target journalists. He hunted James Risen of the New York Times and James Rosen of Fox News. He issued a subpoena to Risen to force him to testify against a whistleblower. He also made Rosen an unindicted co-conspirator in other cases.

His scandals really began in the Bill Clinton administration, where he was the deputy attorney general in Janet Renos ethically-challenged Justice Department.

In August 1999, he advised President Clinton to give clemency to members of the terrorist group, the Armed Forces of National Liberation, or FALN. The FALN terrorists bombed a tavern in New York that killed four people and claimed responsibility for 100 bombings. Holder violated internal protocols by bypassingthe DoJs pardon attorneys and the U.S. attorney to push the clemency.

Holders most notorious act during his Clinton years was his role in securing the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Rich managed to be a big financial booster of the Clinton presidential library fund before Clinton left office. Holder provided the legal cover for an obviously political pardon that Bill Clinton issued with hours left in office.

Between his dubious service in the Clinton and Obama administrations, Holder worked for the corporate law firm of Covington & Burling. Representing business giants such as UBS, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, CitiGroup, and Chaquita you might think would irk the left. But the firm also represented a few terrorists along the way, so the sin of defending capitalists can probably be forgiven by the far left. Still, after stepping aside as Obamas AG, he went back to the firm, prompting leftist journalist Matt Taibbi to say, I think this is probably the single biggest example of the revolving door that weve ever had.

For all his progressive weaponizing of the DoJ, such as suing states that want to clean their voter rolls of dead people and launching investigations of Americas police departments, Holder consistently disappointed the left for not prosecuting the big corporations.

That might be related to his private practice and could present a challenge when it comes to picking up the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democrats that Hillary couldnt connect with. But, hell probably be okay. While progressive politicians goal is to effectuate the maximum amount of control over the most people possible, low-information progressive voters typically are governed by emotion. Even without charisma, Holder might be able to deliver on emotion, given the issues he likes to tout. He can ingratiate himself with the left because hes no fan of America. He called the U.S. a nation of cowards.

Also, based on what he told Yahoo, hes ready to capitalize on race. Theres nothing the left loves more than identity politics. As attorney general, Holder compared voter ID laws to Jim Crow-era poll taxeswhich either demonstrates a profound racial demagoguery interested only in political red meat or someone completely ignorant of the history of the wretched Jim Crow era in the South. Its most likely the former, since for all his flaws, Holder is a smart guy.

Could he be nominated? Possibly.

Sanders, a senator from Vermont, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren would seem to be in the top tier of Democrats who have indicated they might run in 2020. Holders name recognition would easily put him in that top tier. At 70 in 2020, hell be the youngest of the group, compared to the 71-year-old Warren, the 78-year-old Biden and the 79-year-old Sanders. To be fair, theyll all be vying to challenge a 74-year-old Republican president. It could be the most Jurassic presidential race in history, with a need to pick a 69-year-old vice presidential nominee to add youth and vigor to the ticket.

Sanders and Warren could split the socialist vote. Biden, likely wont run, but if he did, his tendency to unleash legendary gaffes would probably be the end of him. So Holder could walk right through the middle and win the nomination, having never held elected office. To low-information voters, he could even claim his not a politician.

Could he be elected?

Even if by 2020 the Russia-Trump theory has been cast into the territory of Roswell aliens and 9/11 Truthers, its possible the special counsel investigation could begin digging into something totally unrelated by that time. So, maybe there could be suspicion to go around. Whatever comes out on Trump, it will likely be difficult to top Holders past.

Bombthrowers is a blog about politics and the war for the hearts and minds of Americans from a conservative viewpoint.

In line with our name, we do not hold back. We have a take-no-prisoners attitude when it comes to fighting for conservative principles. The Left doesnt play nice, and thats why theyve been winning. Its time for conservatives to rise up and turn the tide.

Were not afraid to take on anyone, especially the Washington EstablishmentRepublican or Democrat.

Bombthrowers is a project supported by the Capital Research Center. Its editor-in-chief is Matthew Vadum.

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Read more from the original source:
Is Eric Holder Trump-haters' best hope for 2020? - Canada Free Press

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Democrats are in a tizzy about their latest and brightest prospect for the 2020 White House Kamala Harris, the senator from California who made a name for herself bullying Jeff Sessions during his attorney general confirmation hearings.

Make way for the next social justice warrior beating a drum for the White House. Harris, a la Eric Holder, a la Barack Obama, is a far leftist with a vision of America as an inherently racist, unjust, unfair, misogynist nation. And by gosh, shes just the candidate to fix it.

Democrats and their penchant for the Anti. They never can get the hang of running for something of standing for and in favor of something. They always have to stand opposed.

First off, the question of her run.

Shes running for president, one fundraiser at a Hamptons event said, The Hill reported. Take it to the bank.

Another: Shes absolutely going to run.

So if she does and no matter what fundraisers say, its still an if this is what the country will have to look forward to: a former prosecutor with an aggressive contempt for all things conservative.

We have to keep showing up to fight the GOPs radical agenda on health care, on taxes, and many more important issues, she tweeted, just a few hours ago.

Another, with a link to a story, Why Trumps travel ban hits women the hardest, from the Guardian: Make no mistake: this ban disproportionately affects women and children.

Thats a claim the left has been constant on making that the majority of refugees are poor mothers and their even poorer children. So why all the photographs of young and single men, filing across borders by the droves?

Moving on. More anti-Republican activism.

Because of your phone calls, tweets, and emails, the Senate GOPs repeal plan is defeated (for now). But we must keep up the fight, Harris tweeted.

And then this take, on the war on drugs that its not so much a criminal matter, or a personal failure. Rather this: Whole populations of people have been incarcerated for what is essentially a public health issue.

Does that mean a President Harris would release all the nations incarcerated dopers and pushers and use tax dollars to send them instead to therapy and rehab? Another of her tweets gives clue.

Its clear, she wrote, we must rethink criminal justice policy in terms of prevention first.

Well thank you, Capt. Obvious. Stopping crime before it starts does seem a novel idea. The problem, however, is that the real root of crime is the condition of the human heart and soul the failure of fathers to stay in homes and raise their children properly, the failure of mothers to provide adequate care for their babies, the failure of government to support traditional family structure and instead adopt an anything-goes mentality that flies in the face of what God intended.

But thats not how the left sees it.

The left sees crime and punishment as matters of haves and have-nots and far too often, whites are the haves, minorities the have-nots, so their solution lies with wealth redistribution.

The answer to fixing the criminal justice system is not to build more prisons or privatize those prisons, Harris tweeted. Weve been offered a false choice about the criminal justice system. We are either tough on crime or soft on crime I say be smart on crime.

OK. But what does that mean, exactly? To a far leftist, smart on crime means soft on reality. It means looking at crime statistics, for instance, and seeing a disproportionate number of blacks behind bars and concluding a fault with the system inherent racism rather than a fault with the individual, or community.

This is an Eric Holder style of thinking. This is a Barack Obama way of seeing the world.

Harris for president? Shell be Holder in a skirt; Obama, with longer hair.

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Kamala Harris: 'She's running for president. Take it to the bank ... - Washington Times

Eric Holder, who led the Justice Department under President Obama, criticized his successor Attorney General Jeff Sessions Monday for announcing a new policy to make it easier to seize the cash and property of suspected drug traffickers.

In a tweet, Holder wrote that Sessions' policy was "another extremist action."

"This is a reform that was supported by conservatives and progressives, Republicans and Democrats," Holder said.

Holder is referring to a Justice Department memo he issued in 2015 that limited a type of practice that allowed local police to share the proceeds of seized cash and property with the federal government.

The act of civil asset forfeiture has been criticized by Democrats and Republicans because in many instances, neither a criminal conviction or a charge is necessary for police to seize cash and property.

Sessions was a leading supporter of asset forfeiture when he served in the Senate.

"With care and professionalism, we plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures," Sessions said Monday during a speech to the National District Attorney's Association in Minneapolis. "No criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime."

In addition to the planned asset forfeiture policy change, Sessions has also reversed another major Holder initiative. Holder had issued memos directing prosecutors to not seek mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug offenses.

In May, Sessions directed federal prosecutors to "charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense" in drug cases, including mandatory minimums.

Visit link:
Eric Holder accuses Jeff Sessions of 'another extremist action' on asset forfeiture - Washington Examiner

Photo: Mason Trinca, Special To The Chronicle

In SF, ex-attorney general Holder tells left to keep fighting

Former Attorney General Eric Holder doesnt see a lot of political sunshine on the horizon for anyone who feels aghast at efforts by national Republican power-holders to roll back much of what he and his erstwhile White House boss did before President Trumps inauguration. But he does have some basic advice.

You cant just curl up in a fetal position, he said Wednesday night at a gathering of about 800 decidedly liberal lawyers at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.

Yes, he said in response to on-stage questions from Stanford law Professor Pamela Karlan, he hears disturbing echoes of Watergate in current White House affairs. And yes, he told Karlan, he worries that the arc of the moral universe that Martin Luther King Jr. said always bends toward justice may bend away.

But that doesnt mean you give up, said Holder, who as U.S. attorney general under President Barack Obama was the first African American to hold the post.

Its the responsibility of all of us to keep our hands on that arc, he said. There is fighting to be done, there are lawsuits to be brought you can never underestimate the power of the American people.

Holder was speaking at the annual fundraiser for Legal Aid At Work, a nonprofit that represents low-income workers statewide just the kind of audience ripe for a renowned Democrat whose mission is cast as that of a man fighting against powerful forces hammering down on the little guy.

To accent the point of his visit, Holder handed out an award from the nonprofit to retiring U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, who in 1962 was the first African American lawyer in the federal Justice Departments civil rights division. Legal Aid at Work Executive Director Joan Graff said Holder was booked for the gig because, with Trump and his Attorney General Jeff Sessions in power, we have grave concerns with respect to the law, and theres no one better than Eric Holder to speak to that.

That aspect had particular local weight considering Holder and the law firm where he is a partner, Covington & Burling, were hired in January to advise the state Assembly and Senate in their fight against Trumps policies. The Assembly allowed the contract to expire in June, but the Senate retained the service.

Holder told the crowd Wednesday night that he found it disturbingly curious that the 1960s paradigm of states rights versus federal power has been reversed so much so that hirings like his own seem necessary to combat attempts to roll back his or Obamas achievements on a wide range of issues from LGBT and immigrant rights to health care and environmental protections.

Back during the civil rights movement, the worst words that could ever come off somebodys lips were states rights, he said, because they were the rallying call of racists like Alabama Gov. George Wallace for efforts to oppress people. Now, the oppression is reversed, he said.

What were talking about now in California ... is an effort not to go back.

The ex-attorney general said after his talk that his main advice to California is to be unafraid and determined, because the state is in for a stiff battle.

Theres a lot of creative negativity going on in Washington, and were going to have to stay busy, he said.

As Holder left the stage, he cocked his ear and smiled. The song pumping from the speakers was Revolution, by the Beatles.

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com

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In SF, ex-attorney general Holder tells left to keep fighting - SFGate - SFGate

MEDIA CONTACTS: Malik Russell/410-580-5761/mrussell@naacpnet.org Ronald E. Childs/312-361-4796/rchilds@burrell.com

BALTIMORE (July 13, 2017) Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, a leading progressive voice who has spent decades of a remarkable career at the forefront of the nations most critical issues, will keynote the Clarence Mitchell Jr., Memorial Luncheon to be held on Monday, July 24th at the NAACP 108th National Convention, at the Baltimore Convention Center, One W. Pratt St.

Holder will look to address the growing issue of how voting districts are drawn with partisan intentions to dilute actual voting power. This issue is of particular importance to communities of color due to the rise of newer strategies for voter suppression, spurred on by the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act.

An analysis from the Associated Press, found four times as many states with Republican-skewed state House or Assembly districts than Democratic ones. Among the two dozen most populated states that determine the vast majority of Congress, there were nearly three times as many with Republican-tilted U.S. House districts. See http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/partisan-gerrymandering-has-benefited-gop-analysis-shows-n776436

The annual luncheon honors the life and legacy of a stalwart of equal justice, Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr., a Baltimore native and former chief Washington lobbyist for the NAACP for nearly three decades. Mitchell, nicknamed the 101st U.S. Senator, played a key role in winning passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Clarence Mitchell, Jr., went on to lobby successfully for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as the extensions of the act in 1970 and 1975.

Embracing the theme, Steadfast and Immovable, the NAACP will convene at its headquarter city to set policies, programs and plans of action for the coming year, while also moving to address todays challenges collectivelynotably the current climate of economic uncertainty and political unrest. The organizations national convention each year attracts some 8,000 members, supporters, branch delegates and staff, local youth activists and organizers, legislators, business leaders and celebrities all coming together to engage, network, share strategies, successes and key learnings with the purpose of driving the NAACPs agenda forward.

A native of Queens, New York, Holder attended Columbia University where he earned a B.A. in American History in 1973, and received a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1976. Mr. Holder began his career at the U.S. Justice Department immediately after graduating law school. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan appointed him to serve as a judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. In 1993, President Clinton appointed Holder to serve as Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno, a position he held until 2001. Holder was in private practice from 2001 until 2007.

President Barack Obama nominated Holder to be the 82nd United States Attorney General in January 2009. And, following Senate confirmation, Holder was sworn in on February 3, 2009. During his tenure with the U.S. Department of Justice, Holder advanced civil rights initiatives to protect the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and promoted criminal justice reform with the Smart on Crime Program, which impacts sentencing.

As the third longest serving Attorney General in U.S. history, and the first African- American to hold that office, Mr. Holder is an internationally recognized leader across a broad range of regulatory enforcement, criminal justice and national security issues. In 2014, TIME magazine named Mr. Holder to its list of 100 Most Influential People, noting that he had worked tirelessly to ensure equal justice. Mr. Holder retired from the Justice Department in 2015, and is a partner with Covington & Burling, LLP.

Media Credentials

Members of the press who would like to attend and cover the 108th Annual NAACP National Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, are asked to complete this form, and a representative will contact you promptly with the appropriate credentialing information.

More about the NAACPs 108th Annual Convention

Other highlights will includetheNAACP ACT-SO (Academic, Cultural, Technical and Scientific Olympics) final competition and awards,thehighly anticipated Freedom Fund Banquet,plus a health pavilion, retail expo,veteransluncheonand a diversity career fair. The full schedule (which will continue to be updated) can be found here.

ABOUT THE NAACP:

Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nations oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACPs work and our six Game Changer issue areas by visiting NAACP.org.

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Former US Attorney General Eric Holder to Address Growing role of Partisan Gerrymandering in Attempts to Remake ... - NAACP (press release)