Former Obama Secret Service Agent: Eric Holder and DOJ, Are an ‘Actual Travesty, It’s Political Malpractice at Its Worst’

[H/T The Daily Caller]: Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, author of the newly-released book “Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All,” left his post after a 12-year run to run for Congress as a Republican, turning his back on President Barack Obama and the “fog of scandals” he believes have enveloped the Obama administration.

Bongino sat down with The Daily Caller and dished on the politicized state of the Department of Justice, the reforms he believes will stifle corruption in the burgeoning federal bureaucracies and the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance sweeps.

What’s your opinion of the Obama administration’s Department of Justice and Eric Holder’s tenure, and the difference between finding actual criminal cases and cases that are just neatly packaged?

Bongino: “It’s a travesty, what’s happened to the Department of Justice. It’s an actual travesty. It’s political malpractice at its worst. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Lady Justice has got a blindfold on. That has not been the case for this administration. Think about the things they’ve wasted their time on. Political statements about the voter intimidation, Fast and Furious, hiding documents from Congress — the most recent scandal, and I think the most egregious, is going after Louisiana for the school voucher program. … This Department of Justice is a Department of Injustice. It’s just sad what has happened — I’m stunned that more people have not come forward. Because I get, phone calls, emails, texts from people all the time, who — I cannot express to you the level of frustration amongst federal agents and administrative employees. People are really fed up with this administration and the way they politicize things. I think the DOJ is just the tip of the spear.”

Do you have a remedy for this besides bringing in a new DOJ, reforms that could be put in place to prevent this sort of politicization?

Bongino: “From a larger, umbrella view, the reason we have this is the walling off and these individual silos amongst this multitude of alphabet soup of federal agencies out there. What it does is give the Department of Justice unusual power. If we were to reform the system, put everyone under a blanket law enforcement umbrella, and then a blanket intelligence umbrella, and then had independent — completely independent, there’s no cross-pollination, there’s no transfer of personnel — and independent, third wing, so law enforcement intel, and then an inspector general that was completely separate and distinct from everyone else. They would actually be able to oversee elements like the DOJ and law enforcement and government by discretion. The way it’s set up now, structurally, it’s impossible. The attorney general is an appointee of the president and his loyalties are to the president first, which I think Holder’s are, and not to the people. And I think you’re going to have a very serious problem. And there is no way to prevent it if the media just goes along.”

So you have tens of thousands of federal agents investigating small crimes and ignoring larger ones like the Boston bombing. Does this puts us at risk for not only corruption in departments, but actual attacks?

Bongino: “Absolutely. This is a national security issue. I mean, think about it — we’re raiding Les Paul guitar centers for importing wood that violates a restriction that nobody even knows or cares about, while a known terrorist, a Tsarnaev brother, is in our terrorist information database, goes back and forth [to Russia], and nobody even notices? If this was a private company, there would be a mass firing. They would be selling off of branches, consolidation — none of this happens. And this is the sad part: We have just so accepted as the American citizenry government ineptitude. It’s ineptitude that — it doesn’t surprise anyone. There’s no cattle prod. … It’s like that shirt I see all the time: ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves.’ That’s really what we’ve got to, a point where — you accept such levels of ineptitude these umbrella questions get lost, because it’s just assumed that that’s the way it is. And the umbrella questions of ‘Why do we have all of these agencies?’ Has anybody even thought of that?”

“This is bureaucratic investigative laziness at its worst. I’ve actually investigated these cases, so I’m speaking from first-hand experience. This whole position of lawmakers, bureaucrats, and some in the spy agency — not all — is that since we can’t reform government, we’re going to defualt to a collection mechanism on every American, because we can’t do anything to make things better at the margin. So we’re just with one big stroke of the pen collect [data] on every single American. How any good conservative can defend this program is beyond me. If you give the government — I promise you, having been there as long as I have, I promise you it will be abused. Don’t think for a second that it won’t. It’s just a matter of when. The ‘if’ question is done, finished. It will be abused, I promise. The incentives are all wrong.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

White House Blocks Access to More Obama Events, More Fascism Morsels Leading Us Back to the Totalitarian-in-Chief

[H/T McClatchy DC]: WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest news organizations lodged a complaint Thursday against the White House for imposing unprecedented limitations on photojournalists covering President Barack Obama, which they say have harmed the public’s ability to monitor its own government.

The organizations accuse the White House of banning photojournalists from covering Obama at some events, and then later releasing its own photos and videos of the same events.

“Journalists are routinely being denied the right to photograph or videotape the president while he is performing his official duties,” according to a letter the organizations sent to the White House. “As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist’s camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the executive branch of government.”

Presidents often look for ways to get their own messages out. But media experts say Obama’s administration has developed an aggressive strategy to use social media, including government-sponsored websites and blogs, as well as Twitter, Instagram and Flickr accounts, to circumvent the media’s constitutional duty more than its predecessors have.

“You are only seeing what they want you to see,” said Lucy Dalglish, the dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest defended the release of photos and videos, saying the practice helps Obama live up to his pledge of transparency by allowing the public to have greater access to the inner workings of the administration when it’s not feasible for news media to be in the room.

“What we’ve done is we’ve taken advantage of new technology to give the American public even greater access to behind-the-scenes footage or photographs of the president doing his job,” Earnest said. “To the American public, that’s a clear win.”

He said the news organizations’ protests were just part of the natural tension between journalists and those they covered.

“The fact that there is a little bit of a disagreement between the press corps and the White House press office about how much access the press corps should have to the president is built into the system,” he said at the daily White House news briefing. “If that tension didn’t exist, then either you or we aren’t doing our jobs.”

Relations between Obama officials and journalists have further deteriorated this year.

News reports last spring indicated that the Justice Department had secretly seized the telephone records of reporters at the Associated Press and investigated a Fox News reporter as a potential criminal for doing his job.

In the most recent situation, the news organizations stressed that they’re referring only to presidential activities of a “fundamentally public nature,” not private or restricted events, including ones that may affect national security. But the White House often says the closed events are private, even though it releases its own photographs of the events.

Examples cited in the letter are Obama’s meetings with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on July 10, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on July 29 and Pakistani human rights activist Malala Yousafzai on Oct. 11.

In each case, journalists weren’t allowed – and sometimes were unaware – of the event. The White House later released written summaries of the events, along with photos taken by a government photographer.

On Thursday, the presidents of the American Society of News Editors and the Associated Press Media Editors sent a letter to their members urging them to stop using handout photos and video from the White House.

“We must accept that we, the press, have been enablers,” the letter says. “We urge those of you in news organizations to immediately refrain from publishing any of the photographs or videos released by the White House, just as you would refuse to run verbatim a press release from them.”

It’s unclear how many news organizations use handout photographs from the White House. McClatchy-Tribune Information Services generally doesn’t do so unless they were shot in areas that the media don’t expect to have access to, such as the Situation Room or the private residence areas of the White House.

Harry Walker, the director of the McClatchy-Tribune Photo Service, said opening access to events was “the foundation for journalism, not just photojournalism.”

The letter was signed by 38 news organizations, including all the major broadcast and cable networks, wire services, online services and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and the McClatchy Co., which owns 30 daily newspapers across the nation.

The White House Correspondents’ Association and White House News Photographers Association also signed the letter. McClatchy’s government and politics editor, Steven Thomma, is the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

The letter, which was addressed to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, a former reporter for Time magazine, requested a meeting to discuss the issue.

Ann Barnhardt: The Economy is Going to Implode, Parts 1 through 8

Ann Barnhardt is edgy, not doubt about it.  But she’s also smart as a whip.  My goal with posting this 8-part video series, is to hopefully allow you to glean important information from somebody that is both knowledgeable and in-the-know.  You owe it to you and your family to know what’s coming down the pike.

Ann is a true patriot and has done other outstanding, ‘eye-opening’ work such as Islamic Sexuality Perversion: Every American MUST Know This About Islam, Part 1.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

Part 7:

Part 8:

Chilling Photo: A 9-Year Old Boy That Died in Plaza Elementary Tornado is Seen Nearly 2 Months Later in a July 4th Celebration Photograph

[H/T The Blaze]: A curious photograph has given comfort to a grieving father who lost his son in a deadly tornado last May, though the seemingly supernatural reason the bereaved father has been put at ease might seem unbelievable.

Scott McCabe wholeheartedly believes that his 9-year-old son, Nicolas, who died inside Plaza Towers Elementary School during the disastrous tornado that struck Moore, Okla., has made himself visible from beyond the grave.

The picture in question shows Madison, Nicolas’ cousin, playing with a lighted sparkler on July 4 — nearly two months after the boy’s death. Upon closer examination, it looks as though a second child is standing behind her.

The problem? Madison was the only person in front of camera when the cell phone picture was snapped. Now, McCabe is convinced that Nicolas appeared behind her.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he told KWTV-TV. ”Nicolas loved the Fourth of July and he loved firecrackers.”

McCabe said that the apparition has been a major source of comfort.

“I was in awe. It touched my heart. It’s obviously not Madison,” the father said. “It’s obvious there are two people there or one person there and one spirit there.”

McCabe said his brother was also amazed after seeing the picture.

While some might dismiss the phenomenon as a camera glitch that resulted from Madison’s movements, McCabe told KWTV it’s clear to him that the two faces have different features and skin tones.

And that’s not all — the father said there was one more gripping detail. Nicolas was buried in his red Plaza Towers Elementary T-Shirt — and McCabe said he can make out a red shirt on the figure seemingly standing behind Madison.

McCabe knows many people will be skeptical of the image, but he’s not concerned with naysayers.

“They can say what they want. I believe,” he told KWTV. “I believe he’s watching over us.”

WATCH NOW: JFK Assassination: CBS News Coverage From 1963 As It Happened

http://www.cbsnews.com/common/video/cbsnews_player.swf

Watch CBS News coverage of the JFK assassination.

When President John F. Kennedy was shot in 1963, CBS News went on the air – and stayed there for four days. Watch the original reporting here, as it happened.

Video: The Strange and Still Unsolved Deaths of Barack Hussein Obama’s Past

Thankfully, Barack Obama’s former acquaintances are coming forward and beginning to shed light on his past. Here Jeff Rense interviews Mia Marie Pope.

Watch Mia Pope’s interview with Dr. James Manning.

Welfare Recipient: ‘I Get to Sit Home… I Get to Go Visit My Friends All Day… I Even Get to Smoke Weed’

While millions of Americans spend half their lives or more toiling for a paycheck, millions more are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the government to issue them their next monthly distribution.

You’d think that emergency funds or government subsidization through programs like welfare would be used to help recipients purchase the things that they need to get by and help them get back on their feet so that they can find meaningful labor and contribute to society, but in a system without cross-checks and billions being dished out year-after-year, many have learned that they don’t need to work.

And why should they? You’re doing the work for them in the form of taxpayer subsidies that are deducted from your earnings on a weekly basis.

In America, those who work get punished. Those who don’t, get a free ride, courtesy of a nationwide policy of spreading the wealth around through confiscation and redistribution.

Case in point: A welfare recipient in Austin recently contacted a morning radio show and explained that she gets a lot of money from the program. What she does with it may (or may not) surprise you.

Here’s how your hard earned money is being used to help the less fortunate:

While workers out there are preaching morality at people like me living on welfare, can you really blame us?

I get to sit home… I get to go visit my friends all day… I even get to smoke weed…

Me and people that I know that are illegal immigrants that don’t contribute to society, we still gonna get paid.

Our check’s gonna come in the mail every month… and it’s gonna be on time… and we get subsidized housing… we even get presents delivered for our kids on Christmas… Why should I work?

Ya’ll get the benefit of saying “oh, look at me, I’m a better person,” but when ya’ll sit at home behind ya’lls I’m a better person… we the ones gettin’ paid!

So can you really blame us?

Radio Host: ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ Wouldn’t Strip ‘Under Allah’ from Gettysburg Address

[H/T Raw Story]: WMAL’s Chris Plante, a conservative radio host and frequent Fox News guest, speculated on Tuesday that President Barack Obama had purposefully taken “under God” out of the Gettysburg Address but would not have removed the phrase “under Allah.”

A number of conservative websites had expressed outrage on Tuesday after learning that the president read an original version of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which did not include the words “under God.”

The reading was a part of a 150th anniversary celebration website and filmmaker Ken Burns specifically asked the president to read the “Nicolay Version” that was written before the phrase “under God” was added.

“What? Barack Obama and his people have the Gettysburg Address in front of them and they’re sitting up in leather-winged chairs at the White House with a red pencil going through the speech and they scratch out ‘under God’ and then pass it to Barack Obama and he reads it that way?” WMAL’s Chris Plante opined on his Tuesday radio show. “I mean, how does something like this happen? How stupid are these people? How dishonest are – how fundamentally corrupt, morally and otherwise corrupt, are these people?”

“It is astonishing to me, and it just plays into the stereotype of these people being hostile. If it said ‘under Allah’ would he have still scratched it out?” he added.

Throughout the program Plante had repeatedly referred to the president as “Barack Hussein Obama.”

“Everybody says ‘under God’ when reading the Gettysburg Address. But this peculiar exception is Barack Hussein Obama’s and Barack Hussein Obama’s alone,” he quipped. “Now why would Barack Obama leave out the words ‘under God’ from the Gettysburg Address for a Ken Burns film?”

Listen to the audio below from WMAL, broadcast Nov. 19, 2013.

http://mediamatters.org/embed/static/clips/2013/11/20/32974/wmal-plante-20131119-allah