Patterico's Pontifications

6/20/2012

BREAKING: House Panel Approves Holder Contempt Resolution

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 1:34 pm



On Fox News now:

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has approved a resolution holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.

The measure now goes to the full House.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is invoking executive privilege — a first for the Administration — as a justification for withholding Fast and Furious documents.

193 Responses to “BREAKING: House Panel Approves Holder Contempt Resolution”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (906cfb)

  2. Somebody, put out a BOLO;

    Ed Henry ‏@edhenryTV
    Justice press release: “AG Holder will depart for Copenhagen TODAY, WED, JUNE 20, 2012, … return from Berlin on FRI, JUNE 22, 2012”

    narciso (8bfa44)

  3. The measure now goes to the full House.

    — Gee, I wonder if that vote will follow party lines . . .

    Icy (9f6107)

  4. Since executive privilege – to oversimplify – can only be raised for conversations actually directed to/from the White House, in essence the President is claiming that he was briefed in earlier than he’s admitted.

    Nah, I’m kidding. Its a frivolous claim.

    SPQR (3944f2)

  5. take that you lawless harlot

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  6. Good old Executive Privilege — privatizing the right to be wrong.

    Icy (9f6107)

  7. Clearly, they’re not just documents…

    A reminder from Ace that it’s all just racism:

    “I don’t want to start too much forest fire here but it is my instinct: is this ethnic?” [Chris] Matthews asked San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown last night. “It smells like it to me and I think there is a disdain on the part of some Republicans . . . that do talk down to the president and his friends,” Matthews added.

    Brown, earlier in the segment, had already accused Issa of “leading a lynch-like mob” against Holder.

    Holder made the same accusation in December. “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” Holder told the New York Times, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

    Dana (4eca6e)

  8. Comment by Space Cockroach — 6/20/2012 @ 1:18 pm

    I’m confused – is Eric Holder stonewalling in order to… protect the Bush admin?

    You got it. Yes.

    Not high level political appointees, though. But people who stayed on.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  9. it’s all too wacky
    teh Münchausen Candidate
    follow teh money

    Colonel Haiku (f193ee)

  10. Executive privilege would mean that Obama was directly involved with something he claimed he didn’t know about. Did they really want to go there?

    Amphipolis (d3e04f)

  11. I’m closing comments on this thread, so all comments will be in one place, on the new thread.

    Then you need this here:

    Links to two important relevant legal documents:

    http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RL30319.pdf

    Presidential Claims of Executive Privilege:
    History, Law, Practice and Recent Developments
    Updated August 21, 2008
    Morton Rosenberg
    Specialist in American Public Law
    American Law Division

    http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/6-13-11_Rosenberg_Testimony.pdf

    STATEMENT OF

    MORTON ROSENBERG
    CONSTITUTION PROJECT FELLOW

    BEFORE THE
    HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

    CONCERNING
    “OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE: DOES THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HAVE TO RESPOND TO LAWFULLY ISSUED AND VALID CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENAS?”

    PRESENTED ON
    JUNE 13, 2011

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  12. Executive privilege would mean that Obama was directly involved with something he claimed he didn’t know about. Did they really want to go there?

    It would appear they are willing to, which makes it all the more confusing.

    Dana (4eca6e)

  13. but…but…but 0bama sez he never saw any of these documents! And then he pulls the executive privilege card?

    You’re all racists for even thinking he’s a crook!

    Colonel Haiku (f193ee)

  14. I agree with Rep. Gowdy’s comments. I don’t give a single damn who was involved – I want ’em all held accountable. If this was traced back to Eisenhower or Lincoln I’d want to disinter the bodies and put them on trial.

    Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, et al …. I simply don’t care – get ’em all. Race, gender, creed, ideology, or political affiliation – none of it matters. Whoever was responsible, involved, or merely stood silent – I want them identified, villifed, prosecuted, and convicted. Then extradite them to Mexico for trial there.

    I am ashamed for this nation that it happened, humiliated that we have to jump through these hoops to find the facts, and disgusted that we are pummeled with accusations of ‘racism’ and ‘partisan politics’.

    (Deep breath – in – out – in – out)

    Old Bob (208284)

  15. the more Holder and Obama try to hide these documents the more curious I am to find out what’s in them, and I really didn’t care all that much about fast n furious before

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  16. What is wrong with this country when illegal alien drug smugglers can’t even ply their trade without the risk of getting killed by weapons supplied by our own racist Department of Justice? Why do they hate brown people?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  17. hf,

    Exactly.

    What would be worth protecting at all costs??? Whatever it is, Holder appears willing to take the hit…for the president.

    (added: Pelosi is in full meltdown over this, too. They’re coming out of the woodwork now).

    Dana (4eca6e)

  18. it’s very intriguing

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  19. Oh No! What is Brian Williams going to tell his audience now.

    Gazzer (de5d05)

  20. Republicans and guns in the same sentence can be dangerous.

    mg (44de53)

  21. #2 Holder on a plane? A crash would be so convenient. Shades of Ron Brown under Clinton. Remember Clinton at the funeral caught laughing? Re-elect obama; kiss 2nd Amendment goodbye.

    calypso louie farrakhan (eedf32)

  22. I’d say hang ‘im cept its gonna be hard after compaction, incineration and blending away with concrete.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  23. 10. Comment by Amphipolis — 6/20/2012 @ 1:53 pm

    Executive privilege would mean that Obama was directly involved with something he claimed he didn’t know about. Did they really want to go there?

    Obama is not claiming personal involvement.

    Executive privilege is not just presidential communications privilege but it is also the deliberative process privilege, which is actuallyu used far more often.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  24. The law is still very much on a case by case basis.

    Here is something:

    http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/background_on_executive_privilege/

    The “deliberative process privilege” is “distinct and … different” from the presidential communications privilege. It protects executive branch officials’ communications that are “predecisional” and a “direct part of the deliberative process.” A document is predecisional if IT was “generated before the adoption of an agency policy” and deliberative if it “reflects the give-and-take of the consultative process.” “The underlying rationale is that disclosure of deliberative communications will chill future communications, thus diminishing the effectiveness of executive decision-making and injuring the public interest.”

    This privilege has long been recognized by the Supreme Court, and is the subject of extensive discussion by the D.C. Circuit. President Bush’s first claim of executive privilege, entered on December 12, 2001 regarding Department of Justice prosecutorial records, cited the records’ deliberative character to justify the assertion that they were “presumptively privileged.”

    Properly invoked, the deliberative process privilege is narrower than the presidential communications privilege “primarily because the deliberative process privilege does not extend to purely factual material” unless “it is inextricably intertwined with policy-making processes.”

    It is a “common law privilege,” not a constitutional one; hence, it is more susceptible to “congressional or judicial negation” than the presidential communications privilege.

    Further, “the privilege disappears … when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred.” Hence it should not be surprising that, as a historical matter, “[c]orruption and mismanagement have repeatedly come to light over strenuous executive opposition only because of congressional investigation.” The history of successful congressional investigations confirms Congress’s need for an override of the privilege when violations of the law are at issue.

    This seems to be mostly from:

    In re Sealed Case (Mike Espy)

    121 F.3d 729, 326 U.S.App.D.C. 276
    Argued Feb. 20, 1997.
    Decided June 17, 1997.
    Ordered Published in Unredacted Form Aug. 29, 1997.

    http://www.slksf.com/pdfs/In_re_Sealed_Case.pdf

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  25. Bennie today downgrades GDP to plus 1.9-2.4% for 2012 and U3 not to drop below 8.2%.

    Cavalry are not on the way.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  26. 24. And:

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/20/Holder-will-lose-exec-priv-claim

    Eric is looking toasty, eventually.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  27. #19–maybe Andrea Mitchell can doctor a statement from a Bush official or someone in the Romney campaign to explain all of this in her perfectly unbiased way.

    rochf (f3fbb0)

  28. The facts of the Fast & Furious case, which include several linked deaths of law enforcement officers, and deaths in Mexico resulting from the administration’s actions are not going to support the frivolous privilege claims.

    SPQR (3944f2)

  29. On the plus side the whole F&F scheme will now have to go front page and the LSM will have to cover it. There will be a lot of surprised people out there in Network TV Land.
    Plus another nail in the old media coffin when folks begin to realize that this has been withheld from them for 18 months.

    Gazzer (de5d05)

  30. I predict that Obama will be the first president to be convicted and serve jail time.

    PCD (a251da)

  31. 30- Convicted of what exactly?

    tye (a149bb)

  32. 28-so are we really going to discuss deaths resulting from administrative action? Coughbushcough

    tye (a149bb)

  33. Being first armorer to the Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas;

    narciso (8bfa44)

  34. If you want to get deep into the weeds of executive privilege — including its legal and practical precedents — you might enjoy a very detailed and gracious blogospheric back-and-forth between me and law prof Marty Lederman. The context of our discussion was Dubya’s assertion of executive privilege regarding the fired U.S. Attorneys matter in 2007. The discussion started with this post by him at Balkinization, which prompted this limited critique by me, to which he graciously responded by email, and which in turn prompted this follow-up post by me. I thought it was a useful exchange in two respects: First, there was a surprising amount on which we agreed, despite our diametrically opposed starting points. Second, our disagreements were almost all tied to differing judgment calls; we often agreed on what factors were relevant, only to disagree on how much weight each factor was entitled to in that particular factual setting.

    Beldar (f9a493)

  35. what we’ve learned for sure is that food stamp indeed *can* not leak stuff when he really really wants to

    happyfeet (a55ba0)

  36. tye reminds us of Obama’s only campaign theme “Coughbushcough”.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  37. I wouldn’t even mind, SPQR, if they said that it was okay when GWB did it. Because if they hated it when GWB did it, they cannot think it is okay when BHO does it.

    Their real problem is dealing with the differences between what BHO said during the campaign, versus what he has done.

    Simon Jester (1f0c08)

  38. Except Wide Receiver, was a well though out, albeit
    improperly implemented operation, and the others were deliberately flawed.

    narciso (8bfa44)

  39. Comment by Gazzer — 6/20/2012 @ 3:35 pm

    On the plus side the whole F&F scheme will now have to go front page and the LSM will have to cover it. There will be a lot of surprised people out there in Network TV Land.

    It was the either the lead or the second story on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams tonight. (the other main story was Egypt)

    Third story was the hot weather.

    Plus another nail in the old media coffin when folks begin to realize that this has been withheld from them for 18 months.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  40. “Their real problem is dealing with the differences between what BHO said during the campaign, versus what he has done.”

    – Simon Jester

    That’s a problem that a lot of liberals I know struggle with. A lot of them deal with it by blaming Republican obstructionism. Hard for me to figure out how a Republican House forced Obama to renege on a promise to take public financing… but whatever.

    It’s a problem.

    Leviticus (102f62)

  41. 28-so are we really going to discuss deaths resulting from administrative action? Coughbushcough

    Sure, go right ahead. Got any specifics in mind?

    Milhouse (312124)

  42. Presidential Advisers testimony (via the links given by Beldar)

    http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL31351.pdf

    From JB

    Wednesday, March 21, 2007

    More on Executive Privilege– Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law

    But the more important point is that there are so few judicial decisions on executive privilege because Congress and the President usually work things out through negotiation. To use Mnookin’s and Kornhauser’s famous phrase, they always bargain in the shadow of the law– what they think the courts might do if they pressed the issue all way.

    And they don’t want to risk a decision.

    In this case they were negotiating for 8 months.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  43. Nail in the coffin wasn’t mine – it was a quote I didn’t remove.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  44. Weapons of mass destruction. Iraq. Now let’s discuss this in proper context.

    tye (a149bb)

  45. 36-it worked didn’t it?

    tye (a149bb)

  46. tye, more fabrications on your part. Amazing how Democrats think repeating the same big lie over and over again works. I recall who they learned that from, obviously you don’t.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  47. tye–after you’ve recovered from your annoying emphysema attack perhaps you will be able to better recall a significant difference between teh role congress played toward the nation’s participation in Iraq, versus the top secret, illegal fast and furious debacle cover up. If you remember it let us know.

    elissa (46be39)

  48. Weapons of mass destruction. Iraq.

    Keep going. I thought you were going to give an example of “deaths resulting from administrative action”.

    Milhouse (312124)

  49. tye – Operation Desert Fox ring any bells?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  50. The fun speculation is to try to figure out exactly what is it that Obama wants to hide, White House involvement relaying instructions to proceed with Fast & Furious to support a gun control initiative?

    SPQR (26be8b)

  51. hotair.com/archives/2012/06/20/brian-williams-if-youre-not-following-the-complexities-of-fast-furious-it-looks-like-just-more-of-our-broken-politics/

    narciso (8bfa44)

  52. Until today’s invoking of EP, the cover-up was nowhere near the level of criminality of the deeds.

    Now, the “just do what it takes to get through the week tools” in the West Wing foolishly just upped the ante. TOTUS is gonna get quite the workout.

    Ed from SFV (68921e)

  53. And the drama continues…

    Alissa Dirks (a95d6f)

  54. Jennifer Rubin quotes John Yoo on executive privilege:

    On the law Yoo commented, “Legally, he has given the Obama White House bad advice on the scope of executive privilege, which the Supreme Court in Nixon made clear is centered on the president’s right to discuss the most sensitive national security, military and diplomatic matters with his aides. Either the White House is admitting that President Obama was involved in the ‘Fast and Furious’ controversy (which seems hard to believe), or they are seeking to claim executive privilege to mere discussion of low-level staff with the Attorney General, which the Constitution does not recognize.”

    Maybe this claim of privilege is an attempt to shield the Administration from having to show the world how stupid it is. I’m certainly open to that claim since I think they are incredibly inept and will do anything to protect themselves.

    But I’m also open to Yoo’s first speculation — the one he discounts — that Obama was involved in Fast & Furious. F&F satisfied too many Administration goals to ignore. What if F&F was designed in part to impact Mexican-American relations and elections, to influence Mexican politicians, and/or to destabilize the Mexican military?

    If so, the good news for the Administration is that this might be privileged because it relates to “the most sensitive national security, military and diplomatic matters.” The bad news is that it proves Obama and his minions have terrible judgment.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  55. there needs to be a privilege where you have a right not to have your pathetic government sprinkle guns into the hands of mexican criminal elements what kill you

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  56. The Speaker says he’ll bring the contempt issue to the House floor sometime next week. That gives the White House a little time to put their fall-back plan to protect Barack Obama’s reelection chances in motion.

    They’ll have Eric Holder step-down and Obama will appoint a new Attorney General who will have to be vetted and then be up for Senate confirmation which will allow Harry Reid to drag his feet till after the November election.

    That’s what would happen if there was a leader in the White House capable of rational thought, but since we have an exceptionally arrogant would-be potentate he may well try to bully the Congress into submission.

    We’ll see what happens when the White House staff wants Holder’s head on a pike, and Obama’s inner circle wants to find a way to keep one of their own in the AG’s office.

    ropelight (14ec8b)

  57. R.I.P. LeRoy Neiman

    Icy (9f6107)

  58. .

    Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is invoking executive privilege — a first for
    the Administration — as a justification for withholding Fast and Furious documents.

    This just in:

    .

    ====================================
    THE MOST OPEN & TRANSPARENT
    GOVERNMENT IN US HISTORY!!!

    ====================================

    .
    {/sarcasm OFF}

    Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master and CRIS Diagnostic Expert (8e2a3d)

  59. I wonder how this is getting reported in Mexico

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  60. I suspect somewhere there is an election-costing document which is being kept from the light of day. Holder is going to take a bullet for the President on this one, thinking if he can stall the Congress until August, once the election season gets under way no one will have time to see this through.

    If Obama wins again, Holder will be safe, and can probably resign and return to private practice.

    shipwreckedcrew (58dde3)

  61. National Soros Radio is locked and loaded

    House Panel’s Contempt Vote Against Holder Part Of Political Firefight

    The No. 1 concern of voters is clear: In survey after survey, the economy comes out on top.

    So, um, then this is a *good thing* for president food stamp, no?

    I’m confuzzled.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  62. Good old Executive Privilege — privatizing the right to be wrong.

    Not at all…

    Nationalizing the Right To Be Crooked.

    Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master and CRIS Diagnostic Expert (8e2a3d)

  63. If Obama wins again, Holder will be safe, and can probably resign and return to private practice.

    Comment by shipwreckedcrew

    I don’t see that. How? Honestly, even a pardon would be highly suspect now, wouldn’t it?

    Dianna (f12db5)

  64. Maybe some Gov.t officials pocketed the Drug Cartel cash from the gun sales …

    Rodney King's Spirit (aeda60)

  65. It was interesting to see how frantic the pelosi became today. She’s a lot desperate to emphatically signal to the dirty socialist rank and file in the media and congress that dissent will not be tolerated and that everyone’s expected to toe the fast and furious line.

    She knows food stamp doesn’t command loyalty, so they’ll just have to use intimidation. But I think she’s a lot overestimating how intimidating food stamp is anymore.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  66. ____________________________________________

    Holder admits blaming Bush was a lie.

    I originally fell for Holder’s BS too, and assumed the subterfuge of sending weapons to Mexico was somehow tied into the previous administration’s (ie, George Bush’s peoples’) interest in tracing whether narco gangs had carved out legal (or superficially legal) channels in the US. But if the initiative, in fact, was dreamed up mainly by leftists (ie, the Obama team), then the cynical claim that Fast & Furious was just as much (or solely) a device to trigger anti-gun sentiment throughout the US isn’t necessarily too much of a stretch. Even more so if the current White House, and Holder in particular, feel the need to pull out all stops in order to keep the details of F&F away from the grasp of the Congress.

    Something stinks in Denmark, and it appears the source leads to Obama.

    Mark (03a3fc)

  67. There’s another aspect, mexico is currently a center right regime under Calderon, the turmoil of
    the Sinaloa cartel, has effectively weakened his successor, Gomez Mota, and promoted the left alternatives in Pena Nieto and Lopex Obregon,
    sort of a mirror of what Nixon and Reagan did to
    Chile and Nicaragua.

    narciso (8bfa44)

  68. “Maybe this claim of privilege is an attempt to shield the Administration from having to show the world how stupid it is. I’m certainly open to that claim since I think they are incredibly inept and will do anything to protect themselves.”

    DRJ – I think you are on to something. The whole stonewalling and avoidance of document production reeks of amateur hour. Consider the February 4, 2011 letter which insisted the DOJ did not knowingly allow guns to walk across the border. That bubble was burst by whistleblowers within months, but it took the DOJ until last December for some reason to retract the letter.

    An honest Attorney General who had nothing to hide would normally try to defend the integrity of his department and produce as many documents as possible to show how they arrived at the conclusion that the letter of 2/04/11 was no longer valid. Holder instead embarked on a campaign of obfuscation, delay, witness intimidation, and disclosure minimization, culminating in the contempt vote.

    The DOJ lied to Congress, people died, and the DOJ does not want to explain what happened, but for some reason morons on the left and the liberal media (BIRM) want to want to call it a racially motivated partisan witch hunt.

    That is par for the course for President Divider.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  69. ____________________________________________

    a center right regime under Calderon

    Who just barely squeaked in during the previous presidential election in Mexico — reminiscent of Bush and Gore in 2000 — even though the left had split its vote between two candidates in a three-way competition. That is one reason why I smirk when anyone believes that Mexicans in the US are somehow more leftwing, or more sympathetic to the Democrat Party, due to the controversy of illegal immigration.

    Mark (03a3fc)

  70. Alright Honduras then, the first ‘mouse that roared’
    against the Obama Administration,

    narciso (8bfa44)

  71. that was shameful, what food stamp did on honduras

    not in my name, food stamp

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  72. “that was shameful, what food stamp did on honduras”

    Mr. Feets – Mr. Food Stamp gotta keep those drugs flowing through that country for his friend Mr. Chavez and the rebels in Colombia. That’s a pipeline he approved.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  73. food stamp doesn’t have our best interests at heart is what I often suspect Mr. daley

    it’s very discouraging

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  74. Mr. Pablo linked this I hadn’t seen it before

    Napolitano and Holder and food stamp all of them worked together and what happened? People got killed just for so they could propagate some stupid Brady Campaign wet dream.

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  75. No, I haven’t read all of this. I’ll just say that in the end it largely comes down to the willingness and ability of people to take a stand and do the right thing, “profiles in courage” as it were.

    MD in Philly (f0e1bd)

  76. So, um, then this is a *good thing* for president food stamp, no?

    No, HF, it’s one more action item against our poor benighted Peasident ..urm… “President”.

    Can’t ya pity the poor guy — all he wants is To Do The Right Thing and bring down Amerikkka!!

    He’s trying to make Michelle proud of Amerikkkkkkkka!!

    Give the man a break… dance.

    Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master and CRIS Diagnostic Expert (8e2a3d)

  77. The DOJ lied to Congress, people died, and the DOJ does not want to explain what happened, but for some reason morons on the left and the liberal media (BIRM) want to want to call it a racially motivated partisan witch hunt.

    Hey! Hey! HEY!!!

    What are you, some racially motivated partisan?!?!?

    I mean, who ELSE would challenge the minions of The Great And Powerful Ob?

    Racist!

    Partisan!

    Hater of all things American!

    Evil Capitalist Tool!

    (did I leave any epithets out? Consider them tossed anyway!)

    Smock Puppet, 10th Dan Snark Master and CRIS Diagnostic Expert (8e2a3d)

  78. 31, manslaughter of Mr. Terry., theft, which would be also his family applying the 5 finger discount to items on their “vacations”., …

    PCD (a251da)

  79. Theft? You’re hilarious. Manslaughter? Get real.

    tye (466ed9)

  80. Meanwhile, on the economic front…they did it again:

    The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits fell slightly last week, though the overall level continues to indicate a weakened labor market. Initial jobless claims fell by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 387,000 in the week ended June 16, the Labor Department said Thursday. The prior week’s figure was revised higher from a previous estimate. … Initial jobless claims–a measure of the pace of employer layoffs–have fallen for two of the past three weeks.

    (From WSJ article this morning)

    Does anyone else see the discrepancy between the before and after ellipses sentences? EVERY damn week, prior figure revises ‘up’ just enough that new figure is “slight decrease”, then revised up again.

    I really wish someone with good graphics skills would generate an animated chart video that shows a plot point for a given week, then next week’s plot point and ‘revision’ point magically showing a slight downtrend…then accelerates and plots out the whole curve and zooms out. Then superpose the moving average on the ‘adjusted’ (not prelim) figures…and superpose the total workforce participation percentage.

    Seriously, combine this with the Fed’s comments, and the job market prediction (open reqs) tightening, and it’s bad out there. While I want to see Holder go down for this crap (his smarmy facial body language makes me think “instantly untrustworthy” even faster than the Holy-O does these days) I do worry that all this is a slightly vinegar-laced honeypot. Not quite a shiny thing they’d prefer to dangle in front of us to take our eye off the real issues, more like a sacrificial feint.

    rtrski (c69273)

  81. There’s a blogger that Ace has linked, that shows the trend line, re the stimulus promise.

    narciso (8bfa44)

  82. “Manslaughter? Get real.”

    tye – Google the “Principals Theory” you ignorant git.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  83. You just defended the position that Obama is going to prison for manslaughter while calling me ignorant? You’re beautiful. Do you realize that this essentially puts you in the same camp as the Dick Cheney war criminal people?

    Let’s bet on whether Obama serves jail time… $1000 bucks do ya?

    tye (528f8c)

  84. What was supposed to be an operation messed up by lower level folk without the knowledge of the AG has become something worthy of executive privilege which means direct involvment of the president on sensitive policy matters??

    Is that what this means?

    Where is Archibald Cox, or the reporters covering the story of Archibald Cox?

    MD in Philly (f0e1bd)

  85. http://www.therightscoop.com/bombshell-proof-obama-and-holder-knew-about-gun-walking-in-2009/

    Check out the clip at The Right Scoop if you haven’t seen it already.

    It’s a Press Conference from the White House on March 24, 2009. Under President Obama’s direction Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announces a program to fortify Project Gunrunner involving Secretary Janet Napolitano, Deputy AG David Ogden, and Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinburg.

    It puts the lie to the claims of Holder, Napolitano, and Obama they weren’t aware of Gunrunner, they were and it’s on tape. Officials at the highest levels of the White House, from the President himself, to Janet Napolitano at DHS, and a Deputy AG, and a Deputy Sec. State not only knew about it, they describe its funding, staffing, and in operational terms.

    ropelight (ac9d29)

  86. 84. I’d rather take $5 he’ll be running a worm farm in a year’s time, location unknown.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  87. tye,

    while I doubt anyone serves a prison sentence for orchestrating handing guns to violent criminals with no mechanism to track or recover them, it is foreseeable that doing this wholesale would kill hundreds of people. They were reckless at best.

    But some people are above the law in America.

    Dustin (330eed)

  88. “You just defended the position that Obama is going to prison for manslaughter while calling me ignorant?”

    tye – Show me where I did that, cretin.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  89. Daleyrocks-In your comment #83 you quoted me as I was responding to PCD claiming that Obama will go to jail.

    Dustin- that is a reasonable position.

    tye (8e7991)

  90. “Daleyrocks-In your comment #83 you quoted me as I was responding to PCD claiming that Obama will go to jail.”

    tye – You mean something you have to actually go back four comments to #30 to find the original reference. Complete BS.

    Did you google the “Principals Theory” and see that members of the government could be found guilty of manslaughter, idiot?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  91. 91 you inserted yourself into the correspondence; you should have familiarized yourself with it sweetie.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  92. tye, do you ever grow up?

    SPQR (32a911)

  93. Oops. You meant to ask daleyrocks that question spqr. Well daley, we are waiting… do you?

    tye (8fb7ce)

  94. SPQR – Stupid is still stuck on stupid. Shocka!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  95. tye – Get more lotion.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  96. Spqr-he answered your question with a masturbation joke. There’s your answer.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  97. Did trollboy ever come clean on all the names it has used?

    JD (33493e)

  98. My name is tyler biff

    tye (8fb7ce)

  99. Did you ever admit how many standard deviations below 100 your iq is?

    tye (8fb7ce)

  100. Non-responsive

    JD (33493e)

  101. You tested in the non-responsive range? Ouch.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  102. 86. Comment by ropelight — 6/21/2012 @ 9:54 am

    Or was it this maybe that attracted the attention of Brett Kimberlin?

    http://www.therightscoop.com/bombshell-proof-obama-and-holder-knew-about-gun-walking-in-2009/

    Check out the clip at The Right Scoop if you haven’t seen it already.

    It’s a Press Conference from the White House on March 24, 2009. Under President Obama’s direction Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announces a program to fortify Project Gunrunner involving Secretary Janet Napolitano, Deputy AG David Ogden, and Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinburg.

    It puts the lie to the claims of Holder, Napolitano, and Obama they weren’t aware of Gunrunner, they were and it’s on tape. Officials at the highest levels of the White House, from the President himself, to Janet Napolitano at DHS, and a Deputy AG, and a Deputy Sec. State not only knew about it, they describe its funding, staffing, and in operational terms.

    But Gunrunner was no secret. It started under the Bush Administration. It got stimulus funds.

    What happened under gunrunner was a secret.

    What’s on that tape that’s significant??

    Sammy Finkelman (b25a8f)

  103. it’s teh damn tye stick
    that has him so confuzzled
    fever swamp mellow

    Colonel Haiku (8be704)

  104. Cute poem.
    sam-nothing on the tape is significant. Politically motivated witch hunt

    tye (8fb7ce)

  105. “tye” approves of illegally allowing weapons into Mexico, ultimately resulting in the murders of Terry, Zapata, and hundreds of Mexicans. That is how it rolls.

    JD (33493e)

  106. Oh I know this game. Let me play Biff. Jd thinks that fabricating a story about wmds and sending our most brave and loyal patriots to die over a lie is a good thing and that Cheney shouldn’t be tried for war crimes. Did I nail the crazy wingdinger camp the way jd did?

    tye (8fb7ce)

  107. You said nothing was significant, and this is just a political witch hunt, intentionally minimizing and marginalizing the deaths their intentional actions led to. Your BDS is not rekevant.

    JD (33493e)

  108. Criminals find ways to get weapons. If you don’t agree with that then you don’t agree with your party’s stance on gun control.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  109. The fact that this is a political witch hunt most certainly marginalizes the deaths. Shame on you and your kind.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  110. Are you 6?

    JD (33493e)

  111. tye, your comments are nonsensical. Again. It is not a “fact” that this is a political witch hunt. There are witches in the Administration. There is plenty of evidence already in the public domain that the Fast & Furious operation was illegitimate attempt to pump up stats to justify gun control initiatives. And that’s a legitimate thing for Congress to investigate.

    Gun stores were pressured by the ATF to sell guns to obvious straw purchasers for no legitimate law enforcement reason. The FBI corrupted the NCIS background check system to allow an ATF/FBI informant to pass background checks illegally – to no legitimate law enforcement purpose. The ATF bought guns themselves and gave them to gun runners, intentionally allowing them to cross the border, to no legitimate law enforcement purpose.

    All activities that should be subject to Congressional oversight but the Administration refuses to produce subpoenaed documents without any legitimate privilege claims.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  112. The gun control initiative conspiracy theory is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Even worse than “Bush planned 9-11”.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  113. Eric Holder cannot release the documents that is asked of him. For many of them, it is explicitly forbidden by law. Rethugs are using this as a political catch-22 stunt, which jd points out is disgusting.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  114. tye, it is ridiculous only because you’ve not followed the story. There is an email wherein ATF management celebrates the discovery of F&F guns at a crime scene in Mexico. The F&F op began after the administration tried to foist off some bogus statistics on how many American-sourced guns were found in Mexico.

    Its not a conspiracy theory, its a reasonable inference from facts.

    Meanwhile, tye, you got nothing.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  115. Comment by MD in Philly — 6/21/2012 @ 9:15 am

    What was supposed to be an operation messed up by lower level folk without the knowledge of the AG has become something worthy of executive privilege which means direct involvement of the president on sensitive policy matters??

    President Bush and Attorney general Ashcroft did the same thing: They invoked executive privilege to protect the FBI’s Boston’s office that had framed two people for murder and protected Whitey Bulger. But when Congress was getting ready to vote contempt, they caved in. Somebody (crooked?) had persuaded Ashcroft that this was an important principle, and he also gave faulty legal analysis.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege

    President George W. Bush first asserted executive privilege to deny disclosure of sought details regarding former Attorney General Janet Reno,[2] the scandal involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misuse of organized-crime informants James J. Bulger and Stephen Flemmi in Boston, and Justice Department deliberations about President Bill Clinton’s fundraising tactics, in December 2001.[8]

    Bush and Ashcroft also fought the release of information about communications concerning the pardons President Clinton issued just before he left office and it required a Supreme Court decision to settle the matter.

    Truth is stranger than fiction as they say.

    Sammy Finkelman (b25a8f)

  116. tye, it is not “forbidden by law” to release DOJ documents. Another fabrication. Don’t copy Jay Carney’s press releases, tye, he can’t get basic facts correct.

    But evidently, “forbidden by law” hasn’t stopped the administration from leaking actually military and intel covert ops that they think might benefit them.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  117. Eric Holder cannot release the documents that is asked of him. For many of them, it is explicitly forbidden by law.

    Absolute BS. Source that. In the law.

    JD (33493e)

  118. Comment by tye — 6/22/2012 @ 3:54 pm

    Eric Holder cannot release the documents that is asked of him. For many of them, it is explicitly forbidden by law.

    Absolutely untrue, although they’re letting some Democrats like Carolyn Maloney, talk that nonsense. Morton Rosenberg rebutted it quite well.

    Only thngs covered by rule 6(e) are proibited. I think that is actual grand jury testimony and there are ways to release even that.

    Holder is not resting his refusal on any such claim, but he relied on executive privilege.

    Sammy Finkelman (b25a8f)

  119. I didn’t realize that the Obama admin doubles as ATF management. Spqr.. you’ve got nothing.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  120. 119- Holder doesn’t want to circumvent laws to release grand jury testimony to bow to a political witch hunt and your panties are in a twist. It is called ethics Mr. F.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  121. Sammy — 6/22/2012 @ 1:40 pm, the names are confusing and used interchangeably to further confuse and conflate. If you’re distracted by the lights you’ll miss all the heavenly glory.

    So far we’ve been introduced to the Bush Administration program, Wide Receiver; and Obama’s enhanced version, Wide Receiver II which is the first one Obama financed with Stimulus money; then there’s Deliverance; Fast-n-Furious; and Gunrunner, plus duplicate programs in Texas, Arizona, and Florida perhaps with different names, and who knows how many others.

    Sammy, if you’re going to pretend there’s a significant distinction between Gunrunner and gunrunner, then I’m unable to answer your subsequent question. Have a look at the video and see if the significance doesn’t suggest itself. Watch it a few times and get back to me.

    ropelight (654673)

  122. Now tye thinks that ATF does not belong to the Obama administration. That’s the kind of briliant insight you have, tye?

    All you’ve done, tye, is illustrate that you are utterly ignorant of the topic. Like Jay Carney pretends to be, to titters in the press room.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  123. Belong to? No.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  124. What Grand Jury?

    JD (33493e)

  125. Yes and these were carryovers from the Bush administration. Bush used executive privilege six times. Obama once.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  126. Eric Holder cannot release the documents that is asked of him. For many of them, it is explicitly forbidden by law.

    Really? Which law?

    Milhouse (312124)

  127. There is plenty of evidence already in the public domain that the Fast & Furious operation was illegitimate attempt to pump up stats to justify gun control initiatives.

    Yes, the theory that David Frum outlandishly calls “outlandish”. Which just shows that he’s not paying attention.

    Milhouse (312124)

  128. What would be interesting, would the email traffic
    back to headquarters, from Newell, saying what a ‘horrible, really bad idea,’ this was.

    narciso (8bfa44)

  129. Belong to? No.

    Um, really? Then what is it?

    Milhouse (312124)

  130. Milhouse, obviously Bush still runs the ATF.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  131. Bush used executive privilege six times. Obama once.

    And?

    Yes and these were carryovers from the Bush administration

    If you and Rep Jackson Lee keep repeating this outright lie, do you think that will make it true?

    JD (33493e)

  132. and eric holder
    will get just what he deserves
    for holding docs back

    Colonel Haiku (bfc615)

  133. For those not following, during the Bush administration, there was an operation to investigate gunrunning over the border. It was coordinated with Mexican LEO, and the operation tried to trace the firearms through the smuggling and be recovered on the other side of the border. The tracing failed, and the operations were ended.

    The Obama administration did not coordinate with Mexican LEO, in fact, the ATF liaison in Mexico wasn’t informed himself. And there was no attempt to actually trace the firearms through the smuggling, just to see where they popped up later. Which resulted in absolutely zilch in terms of admissable evidence.

    tye keeps repeating lies from the Obama administration that have long ago been debunked by actual documentary facts. That’s because he is just cribbing from the incompetent straightman Jay Carney, whose incompetent lies just elicit laughter from the White House press corps.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  134. Not a lie jd. Look it up sweetie. I will help you. What year was operation wide reciever? Who was president at that time?

    B-b-b-but that was d-d-d-ifferent, right?

    tye (8fb7ce)

  135. 134- the “investigation” you’re referring to under Bush allowed guns to walk. Wake up wingdingers.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  136. I’ve said this before but I must need to repeat it: it is not a lie just because you don’t like it or it doesn’t fit your narrative.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  137. friday afternoon
    leftwing toddler’s sad tantrum
    stuttering idjit

    Colonel Haiku (bfc615)

  138. tye, amusingly, the Washington Post calls your claims lies when they are said by the administration. So I have no difficulty thinking that I’m being very reasonable calling your claims lies.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  139. Milhouse, obviously Bush still runs the ATF.

    To be fair, the word “administration” can be used in different ways. Properly it refers to the whole executive branch; that’s what the word “administration” means. But it’s also used as a synonym for “the White House”, meaning the President’s inner circle. It’s in that sense that Robert Novak said his source for the fact that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA was not a White House insider. Richard Armitage, as Colin Powell’s protege, was very much an outsider in the White House, but he was still a “senior administration official”.

    Milhouse (312124)

  140. 134- the “investigation” you’re referring to under Bush allowed guns to walk.

    No, it didn’t. It put them on a leash and followed them.

    Milhouse (312124)

  141. pelosi pauses
    for some dramatic effect
    comes off comical

    Colonel Haiku (bfc615)

  142. No they don’t spqr.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  143. lol

    Colonel Haiku (bfc615)

  144. tye , If it was all Bush’s fault the Obama campaign would be planting and seeding the F&F story everywhere– and the media would breathlessly be doing wall to wall coverage about it. But no. The story has been buried. Deep. Along with all those who were murdered. It is poison to the president and to the attorney general. They don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want anybody to talk about it. The dutiful media helpers have done everything possible to ignore it as the story developed, and to deflect the Issa inquiry as merely a routine partisan spat. But those days have come to an end. Get a clue.

    elissa (a6ef57)

  145. Right, the Defense Department under Rumsfeld, was more sympathetic to Bush administration goals, Foggy Bottom and the CIA almost uniformly opposed,
    with Joe Rodriguez one of the few exceptions.

    narciso (8bfa44)

  146. Sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming lalalalalalalalalalalalala is not a substitute for honest debate. You are objectively lying, “tye”.

    JD (33493e)

  147. After denying the facts for a year, in favor of the Great White Newscorp hunt, this is their designated
    look squirrel;

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/21/what-is-operation-fast-and-furious-11-questions-answers.html

    narciso (8bfa44)

  148. I just watched the Washington Post investigation of the story and it confirmed everything I’ve said here. Nice try though.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  149. 145- you are a victim of the biased media myth.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  150. tye-

    As they say in the South, “bless your heart”.

    elissa (a6ef57)

  151. 152- right back at ya! I’m sure all the hate speech on right wing radio tells you all that you need to know, huh?

    tye (8fb7ce)

  152. tye:

    I just watched the Washington Post investigation of the story and it confirmed everything I’ve said here.

    Maybe you should go to the source, Attorney General Eric Holder:

    SENATOR JOHN CORNYN:

    Do you know about the differences between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious?

    ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:

    You mean … do I … They’re different operations.

    CORNYN:

    Right. So you know the differences … the factual differences of Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious?

    HOLDER:

    Well, there are a number of differences both I think in scope and both in terms of time. The Bush administration was the one that started Wide Receiver; the Obama administration is when Fast and Furious began.

    CORNYN:

    Are you winging this or do you actually know?

    HOLDER:

    I know this.

    CORNYN:

    You know this? Do you know that Wide Receiver was done in conjunction with the government of Mexico and the intention of the plan was to follow the weapons and neither was there the intention to follow the weapons on Fast and Furious nor did Mexico know that the United States government was allowing guns to walk into the hands of the cartels? Did you know that?

    HOLDER:

    Senator, I have not tried to equate the two. I’ve not tried to equate Wide Receiver with Fast and Furious.

    CORNYN:

    I was just asking if you know the differences between the two.

    HOLDER:

    Sure, and as what I know about Wide Receiver what you have said is in fact correct. There are memos that talk about gun walking that are related to Wide Receiver. But again, I’m not trying to equate the two.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  153. By the way, Cornyn is a very good questioner. I especially liked the way he used “Are you winging this?” to goad Holder into saying he knew something. It was a deft trick that will keep Holder from claiming — again — that he misspoke, isn’t sure, or doesn’t recall.

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  154. I think we should look at Cornyn’s claim that a similar inquiry during the Bush administration was a “witch hunt”.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  155. You seem knowledgeable about such things so perhaps, tye, you can share when and where on the radio dial to find “right wing radio”. I’ve never tuned in, myself. What do you particularly like to listen to in order to monitor the “hate speech” which you often tut-tut about as being so influential?

    I should mention that we do occasionally watch MSNBC. That has always felt pretty hatey. Do you find MSNBC to be hatey, tye?

    elissa (a6ef57)

  156. Excellent questioning, DRJ. I agree that Cornyn did a great job. I wouldn’t have appreciated how good had you not pointed it out.

    And Cornyn gets right down to the exact aspects of Fast and Furious that caused the problems, too.

    Dustin (330eed)

  157. The sad part elissa is that you don’t recognize right wing radio… you just call it radio.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  158. ATF wanted to use Fast & Furious gun smuggling to argue for more gun control according to an article in the notorious right wing radio “faux” news … CBS News.

    On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF’s Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

    “Bill – can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks.”

    On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as “(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue.” And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: “Bill–well done yesterday… (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case.”

    How many multiple sales that the ATF themselves caused to happen … would then be the justification for more gun control regulations.

    An accusation that tye says is a right wing conspiracy theory.

    tye, you really are just full of horse manure.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  159. tye:

    Senator Cornyn isn’t a hypocrite. Despite the headline and introduction, even readers of the Huffington Post should be able to see that Cornyn objected to the DSCC raising money from the Bush-era investigation of AG Alberto Gonzalez, not the investigation itself:

    “The senator’s view of such conflicts was different when Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) headed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2007 and demanding answers from the Bush White House about conduct of then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. Cornyn argued then that Schumer’s involvement proved there was a political “witch hunt.”

    When the leader of the effort on the Judiciary Committee is the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Chuck Schumer, I think it undermines the apparent legitimacy of what is a legitimate inquiry,” Cornyn said in a taping of the ABC News program “This Week.”

    In the Gonzalez case, Democrats wanted to learn whether the firings of U.S. attorneys had been politically motivated. (An inspector general’s report later concluded the firings were political.)

    At the time, Cornyn pointed to one thing different between then and the current situation: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had embraced the debate and pushed the controversy.

    Sen. Schumer has a conflict of interest,” Cornyn said, repeating the charge of then-GOP Republican Sen. Arlen Specter. “They’re raising money on the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee website over this issue. I think that undermines the legitimacy of what I agree is a valid inquiry of the facts.”

    The National Republican Senatorial Committee has not embraced the campaign against Holder. However, its website does rerun Cornyn’s Twitter feed, which includes a number of tweets promoting his push against the attorney general.”

    DRJ (a83b8b)

  160. The sad part elissa is that you don’t recognize right wing radio

    No, Tye. The sad part is how you didn’t recognize that she asked you a straightfoward question and you replied with lame insults.

    Dustin (330eed)

  161. The tracing failed, and the operations were ended…
    Comment by SPQR — 6/22/2012 @ 4:54 pm

    My understanding, which could be wrong, was that it worked for a time and arrests were made (in Mexico?), but then the sting victims caught on and learned to disable the RFID chips used for tracking, and that was when the operation was stopped.

    It is people like Holder who give lawyers a bad name. He tries as hard as possible to give the impression that WR and F+F were equivalent without saying so, in order that when he is caught in it he can deny it.
    Actually, if this really is an example of his typical behavior, I’d say it’s people like him that give people a bad name.

    I do get pessimistic when simply wanting to get answers about Fast and Furious make some people scream it’s about supressing the vote and racism. I consider that there should be a peacible division of the nation. Let those who think this is just a political thing to hassle Holder get to pick first and two states even.

    MD in Philly (f0e1bd)

  162. MD in Philly, one of the infuriating things about Holder is that he really is as dishonest and as corrupt as the Democrats used to falsely claim GOP AG’s were.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  163. Yes, SPQR, the ol’ democrat projection thing.

    I almost think that there are/were mob bosses who would even disrespect Holder because of his dishonesty. sad to say, though I think I’ve said it before, Obama and Holder are in a heated competition as to who is the most contemptible.

    MD in Philly (f0e1bd)

  164. MD in Philly, well anyone who wonders if Holder is mobb’d up need only go back and review the Marc Rich pardon scandal.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  165. I had this link, from a Human events piece on the other thread;

    http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/features/224570

    narciso (8bfa44)

  166. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/06/22/504557/the-wild-conspiracy-theory-driving-the-fast-and-furious-investigation/?mobile=wp

    Two sides to every story. This article says that it was started by a right winger.

    tye (8fb7ce)

  167. This is the same person ranting about reich wing radio now linking to thinkregress?

    JD (33493e)

  168. tye, you don’t have any credible sources then? I thought not.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  169. And you notice that I quoted from the CBS piece where it quotes ATF management emails.

    tye just ignores that, and goes back to the twaddle about “right wingers”.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  170. We now know who briefed Carnie.

    JD (33493e)

  171. didn’t Eric Holder personally say “the Obama administration is when Fast and Furious began.”?

    But that doesn’t matter on comment sections on the internet. Sure, Tye is hilariously wrong, but he can just repeat the lie anyway, 100 times, and laugh it up.

    Dustin (330eed)

  172. We now know who briefed Carnie.

    Comment by JD

    Nice one.

    Dustin (330eed)

  173. Well it does beg the question, why engage in an operation, with fewer safeguards, than the one closed down two years earlier,

    narciso (8bfa44)

  174. Including not informing the Govts in question, namely President Calderon.

    narciso (8bfa44)

  175. narciso, its plainly obvious that the ATF was creating a stunt “investigation” to justify itself.

    That’s a long pattern at ATF, its how the disaster at Waco commenced, the ATF tried to create from nothing a big news splash case to polish its tainted image. But you can’t polish a turd.

    The questions that remain are how high up knowledge that this fiasco was planned went. And that’s what the Obama administration is trying to hide.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  176. why engage in an operation, with fewer safeguards, than the one closed down two years earlier,

    It doesn’t make a lot of sense. They knew how to track weapons. They knew how to inform Mexico. There is no apparent reason to skip those steps… which are indeed crucial. An arms tracking program with the tracking omitted, in a foreign country where that country’s law enforcement and government don’t know about it?

    It makes no sense. So I think there was probably some other goal in mind (and I mean a goal beyond creating gun control hysteria).

    Dustin (330eed)

  177. A notion not unlike that suggested by one of the characters in ‘Clear and Present Danger’ isfloated;

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/how-a-mexican-drug-cartel-makes-its-billions.html?pagewanted=all

    narciso (8bfa44)

  178. “tye” is just spitballin lies.

    JD (318f81)

  179. The hilarious part, JD, is that tye choses to argue about things he is utterly clueless about. He picks the ground for the battle, incompetently.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  180. You are a kind, generous, and open minded soul, SPQR, to allow the possibility that there might be a ground of battle that tye can argue competently. (But it’s just that he hasn’t chosen it, or found it yet.)

    elissa (a6ef57)

  181. elissa, no one has ever called me that. In fact, I read that line to my wife and she broke out laughing.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  182. I blame FDR. And highways.

    JD (318f81)

  183. But you can’t polish a turd.
    Comment by SPQR — 6/22/2012 @ 7:37 pm

    Actually, you can SPQR. Though you may be kind, generous, and open minded, you made at least one mistake.

    I saw an episode of MythBusters where they tried to see if it was true that one can’t tell sh*t from shinola. They actually polished dried samples of various animal excrement and tested them with some type of device which measures “shinability” or reflectivity, I guess. I believe it was lion dung/scat/poop/whatever that easily registered above the “shiny” cut-off level.

    But hey, I can relate on the wife thing, to. My wife says that I said something funny once, but she can’t remember what it was…
    Actually, I think I used this anecdote before (would not be a first) (and it was not, “Will you marry me?”)

    MD in Philly (f0e1bd)

  184. OK, Hyneman can polish a turd.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  185. Actually the ATF emails tend to disprove the idea that the purpose of F&F was to undermine the 2nd amendment. The authors of those emails seem not to know that these guns are being trafficked by the government. They think they’ve discovered a powerful propaganda tool, that they weren’t expecting to find, and are asking others to see whether it can be confirmed; if the whole thing was a setup to produce that evidence then they wouldn’t have to look for it. Of course the authors could be in on it, and are merely writing this to cover their bottoms, but more likely they weren’t in on it and thought they’d stumbled on something new. So what was the motive? Could it have been a deliberate attempt to undermine the Mexican and Honduran governments? Or was it even simpler than that; was the goal exactly what happened: to arm one cartel, in return for money?

    Milhouse (312124)

  186. Milhouse, there are better arguments that the Fast & Furious fiasco was intended to create arguments for gun control initiatives than the emails that CBS quotes – Sipsy Street Irregulars and War on Guns websites have covered those arguments in great depth.

    I was citing the article for the premise that the argument isnot a “right wing” one.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  187. Representative Darrell Issa was on Meet the Press yesterday (where he discussed a number of matters, not just the contempt citation) and on Fox News Sunday (where his appearance was shorter and more limited)

    On Meet the Press his Democratic counterpart was former Congressman and Chief deputy whip, U.N. Ambassador, Secretary of Energy, Governor of New Mexico, and Presidential candidate Bill Richardson. You may remmeber that it came out in 1998 that when Bill Richardson was Ambassador to the United Nations, that he agreed to help out President Clinton by offering Monica Lewinsky a job, when she, seeing she was not getting back into the White House, wanted to move to New York, but Bill Clinton wanted to keep her on the government payroll, so he would have a measure of control over her. (He also had wanted to keep Linda Tripp on the government payroll, but made the blunder of sending two different people, involved in two different scandals, who both had knowledge he wanted to keep secret, to the exact same office!)

    Bill Richardson claimed when this became public that the job offer to Monica Lewinsky, which she didn’t take, was entirely based on merit, and I think maybe even that he wasn’t involved. I don’t think there was anything illegal about this job offer, just patronage. So anyway, that’s the kind of person Bill Richardson is. He’s a very political person.

    On Fox News Sunday Issa’s Democratic counterpart was Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD) who is now the ranking Minority member of what is now called the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In both cases it was not somebody who was actually a part of the Administration or holding any official executive branch position now.

    I couldn’t get complete background from what Issa said, but I learned a few things and there are some things that became a bit clearer to me.

    First, I should mention that Issa said there were a number of previous operations involving gun walking. Wide Receiver, he said, was the one talked about the most. (but there was not just one. This is what I thought.)

    He also said (which I also knew) that they were both started and stopped in previous Administrations. This was started again by this Administration.

    What he didn’t say was that the argument for this operation and the plan of what was supposed to happen was even flimsier than before.

    What I couldn’t understand, because he didn’t fill in the background, was something about the U.S. Attorney (in Arizona?) said they couldn’t prosecute or something. I think he was talking about Wide Receiver.

    The Administration is trying to say: Oh, this is not about Fast and Furious itself. Rep. Issa said they need to know what happened post-February 4, 2011 so they can track things back to an earlier time. It is 18 months now since Brian Terry was killed, and he said something about 3 months, but it was only a little more than a month till Feb 4, when the letter was written (or an informal claim put into writing) that they never ever had used gun walking tactics.

    Rep. Darrell Issa wants to know why it took 10 months to correct the record. (They know for sure Holder knew it was wrong by April, 2011, but a correction was not sent until December.

    Of course the obvious explanation for why it took so long would be that it took till then to decide that that claim could not maintained.

    It takes a while to realize that a certain position cannot be maintainedd, and then longer to figure out what to say.

    Issa was asked on Fox News (and also on Meet the Press according to a conversation I heard on Face the Nation, but I missed that on Meet the Press) if he had any evidence (like Boehner had claimed) of White House involvement. He said no, and said he hoped it wouldn’t start now and that this was left in Justice. (Boehner was sayibg that the
    implication of the claim of Executive privilege was that the president was involved in the decisions as to how to respond to the committee, but this is not actually correct)

    Issa said in regards to the number of documents they had been supplied with (which was one tenth of what the Inspector General got) that they had gotten some documents they didn’t ask for, and some of the documents they got were redacted.

    They are asking now for specific documents. For instance, he said, one person in ATF (who now says he never informed his superiors about gun walking) had sent an e-mail to superiors. They want to see the text of that e-mail.

    Rep. Elijah Cummings said why don’t they hold public hearings. Rep. Issa said they had held closed door depositions where both Republicans and Democrats were present where questions were asked by the counsels, and they had been lied to at least five different times, and they wanted the docuemets so they could ask better questions. He said that when officials were questioned in the depositions. Administration lawyers were there, and they kept telling them “Don’t Answer” “Don’t Answer” “Don’t Answer”

    I assume this business of “Hey, they don’t want to go to public hearings” is an administration talking point. What, does Cummings want these officials to perjure themselves? Or be brought back for a second round of hearings?

    Issa wound up sayinbg Nixon did some good things, which I don’t know if he himself, actually agrees were actually good things.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  188. Comment by Milhouse — 6/24/2012 @ 11:31 am

    The authors of those emails seem not to know that these guns are being trafficked by the government. They think they’ve discovered a powerful propaganda tool, that they weren’t expecting to find, and are asking others to see whether it can be confirmed; if the whole thing was a setup to produce that evidence then they wouldn’t have to look for it.

    The argument probably came via Mexico. Is there a link to the memo you are talking about?

    Of course the authors could be in on it, and are merely writing this to cover their bottoms, but more likely they weren’t in on it and thought they’d stumbled on something new. So what was the motive? Could it have been a deliberate attempt to undermine the Mexican and Honduran governments? Or was it even simpler than that; was the goal exactly what happened: to arm one cartel, in return for money?

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  189. Comment by SPQR — 6/24/2012 @ 12:11 pm

    Sipsy Street Irregulars and War on Guns websites have covered those arguments in great depth.

    I was citing the article for the premise that the argument isnot a “right wing” one.

    I imagine that corrupt civil servants would like Republicans to believe that kind of thing.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  190. Comment by SPQR — 6/22/2012 @ 6:33 pm

    MD in Philly, well anyone who wonders if Holder is mobb’d up need only go back and review the Marc Rich pardon scandal.

    Can you give any links?

    Kimberlin was also probably mobbed up.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  191. HOLDER: Senator, I have not tried to equate the two. I’ve not tried to equate Wide Receiver with Fast and Furious.

    I think that could be proven false. Of course when his tetsimoney gets really specific, then the fact they are two different operations emerges.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)


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