Take this for what it's worth (because it's pure speculation as far as I know), but the scuttlebutt on the right has been that F&F was merely a ploy designed to promote a gun control agenda here domestically.
Since the beginning of the Fast and Furious scandal, some avid gun-rights supporters have been suggesting that the operation was designed to promote gun control: The Obama administration sent a bunch of guns south of the border hoping to make the Mexican drug wars more violent, so that it could use the violence and the presence of American guns as an excuse to implement stricter gun-control measures. I have been (and remain) highly skeptical of this explanation — I do not think the Obama administration is quite that evil, and even if it were, the risk of getting caught would be too great to make such a project worthwhile.
Nonetheless, CBS has a rather damning report. While there’s still no evidence that Fast and Furious was designed from the beginning to promote gun control, the ATF did consider using the anecdote of a Fast and Furious case as an argument for restrictions on the sale of multiple long guns at once:
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.”
On June 21 2012 00:15 xDaunt wrote: In other news, is anyone paying attention to the latest developments in this Fast & Furious mess? F&F was the Mexican gun running sting/tracking operation that went awry, resulting in thousands of assault weapons going missing and US agents and other civilians getting shot with those weapons. Anyway, Rep. Issa subpoenaed the Justice Department to produce documents related to the operation, and Holder has been resisting the subpoena for months. Issa is going to hold a contempt vote, and just last night, Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents.
Originally, the common view was that the cover up of F&F by the Justice Department (including obvious perjury) was worse than whatever the Justice Department actually did in managing and conceiving the operation. However, with the amount of resistance to producing the documents, it begs the question of whether there's more to F&F than meets the eye.
The interesting thing is, Obama is claiming executive privilege over documents that he claims he's never seen, read, nor have any connection with the whitehouse what-so-ever. That literally makes no sense. Though what it can do is delay the Republican investigation by creating yet another legal battle as Republicans would have to take the issue to Federal court.
IMO, there's something in those documents that proves Obama had knowledge of Fast and Furious many months sooner than he claims. It's the only thing that explains the actions. Otherwise, common sense says if you're Obama you simply force Holder to resign and the whole mess goes away. To drag it out this long, this publically, this close to an election; there's got to be something very politically problamatic in there. IMO the only thing that could be would be proof that Obama or Biden knew about F&F all along.
This makes perfect sense, as it would be politically short-sighted of the President to simply release a host of executive office memos without having the time to go through them. In other words, there is still relatively little reason to interpret this as more than an attempt at in-house consistency, although many will still try their best to make it look bad.
They are internal justice department documents, not internal administration memos. Holder's ongoing reasoning for not releasing the documents has been that they would damage an on-going justice department investigation--something that would certainly not be included under executive priviledge.
According to the current Supreme Court interpretation, executive priviledge really only covers internal communications between administration officials. But Obama has continued to claim that he's never seen nor read the documents in question and had no knowledge of Fast and Furious until the story broke publically. So there realistically is no legal merit to his claim of Executive Priviledge--by even the farthest stretches of the definition--if he's telling the truth about the documents.
On June 21 2012 00:15 xDaunt wrote: In other news, is anyone paying attention to the latest developments in this Fast & Furious mess? F&F was the Mexican gun running sting/tracking operation that went awry, resulting in thousands of assault weapons going missing and US agents and other civilians getting shot with those weapons. Anyway, Rep. Issa subpoenaed the Justice Department to produce documents related to the operation, and Holder has been resisting the subpoena for months. Issa is going to hold a contempt vote, and just last night, Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents.
Originally, the common view was that the cover up of F&F by the Justice Department (including obvious perjury) was worse than whatever the Justice Department actually did in managing and conceiving the operation. However, with the amount of resistance to producing the documents, it begs the question of whether there's more to F&F than meets the eye.
The interesting thing is, Obama is claiming executive privilege over documents that he claims he's never seen, read, nor have any connection with the whitehouse what-so-ever. That literally makes no sense. Though what it can do is delay the Republican investigation by creating yet another legal battle as Republicans would have to take the issue to Federal court.
IMO, there's something in those documents that proves Obama had knowledge of Fast and Furious many months sooner than he claims. It's the only thing that explains the actions. Otherwise, common sense says if you're Obama you simply force Holder to resign and the whole mess goes away. To drag it out this long, this publically, this close to an election; there's got to be something very politically problamatic in there. IMO the only thing that could be would be proof that Obama or Biden knew about F&F all along.
This makes perfect sense, as it would be politically short-sighted of the President to simply release a host of executive office memos without having the time to go through them. In other words, there is still relatively little reason to interpret this as more than an attempt at in-house consistency, although many will still try their best to make it look bad.
They are internal justice department documents, not internal administration memos. Holder's ongoing reasoning for not releasing the documents has been that they would damage an on-going justice department investigation--something that would certainly not be included under executive priviledge.
According to the current Supreme Court interpretation, executive priviledge really only covers internal communications between administration officials. But Obama has continued to claim that he's never seen nor read the documents in question and had no knowledge of Fast and Furious until the story broke publically. So there realistically is no legal merit to his claim of Executive Priviledge--by even the farthest stretches of the definition--if he's telling the truth about the documents.
Executive privilege is almost totally untested, so your assertion that it only covers internal administration communications has very little basis. I could link you to the host of situations in which the Bush administration invoked executive privilege, including when FBI documents regarding the pursuit of Whitey Bulger were quashed and when the Justice Department investigated Clinton's fundraising in 2001, but they are easy enough to find. The fact of the matter is that at this juncture, executive privilege can be applied to any executive piece of information, until the day comes in which the power comes before the Supreme Court and is substantially challenged. I expect Obama will release the F&F documents in question before that comes to pass.
On June 21 2012 00:15 xDaunt wrote: In other news, is anyone paying attention to the latest developments in this Fast & Furious mess? F&F was the Mexican gun running sting/tracking operation that went awry, resulting in thousands of assault weapons going missing and US agents and other civilians getting shot with those weapons. Anyway, Rep. Issa subpoenaed the Justice Department to produce documents related to the operation, and Holder has been resisting the subpoena for months. Issa is going to hold a contempt vote, and just last night, Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents.
Originally, the common view was that the cover up of F&F by the Justice Department (including obvious perjury) was worse than whatever the Justice Department actually did in managing and conceiving the operation. However, with the amount of resistance to producing the documents, it begs the question of whether there's more to F&F than meets the eye.
The interesting thing is, Obama is claiming executive privilege over documents that he claims he's never seen, read, nor have any connection with the whitehouse what-so-ever. That literally makes no sense. Though what it can do is delay the Republican investigation by creating yet another legal battle as Republicans would have to take the issue to Federal court.
IMO, there's something in those documents that proves Obama had knowledge of Fast and Furious many months sooner than he claims. It's the only thing that explains the actions. Otherwise, common sense says if you're Obama you simply force Holder to resign and the whole mess goes away. To drag it out this long, this publically, this close to an election; there's got to be something very politically problamatic in there. IMO the only thing that could be would be proof that Obama or Biden knew about F&F all along.
This makes perfect sense, as it would be politically short-sighted of the President to simply release a host of executive office memos without having the time to go through them. In other words, there is still relatively little reason to interpret this as more than an attempt at in-house consistency, although many will still try their best to make it look bad.
They are internal justice department documents, not internal administration memos. Holder's ongoing reasoning for not releasing the documents has been that they would damage an on-going justice department investigation--something that would certainly not be included under executive priviledge.
According to the current Supreme Court interpretation, executive priviledge really only covers internal communications between administration officials. But Obama has continued to claim that he's never seen nor read the documents in question and had no knowledge of Fast and Furious until the story broke publically. So there realistically is no legal merit to his claim of Executive Priviledge--by even the farthest stretches of the definition--if he's telling the truth about the documents.
Executive privilege is almost totally untested, so your assertion that it only covers internal administration communications has very little basis. I could link you to the host of situations in which the Bush administration invoked executive privilege, including when FBI documents regarding the pursuit of Whitey Bulger were quashed and when the Justice Department investigated Clinton's fundraising in 2001, but they are easy enough to find. The fact of the matter is that at this juncture, executive privilege can be applied to any executive piece of information, until the day comes in which the power comes before the Supreme Court and is substantially challenged. I expect Obama will release the F&F documents in question before that comes to pass.
Not true, Clinton invoked executive priviledge in 1998 saying that his staff could not be called to testify in the Lewinsky case; a federal court later overrulled him and stated that his staff in fact could be called to testify. Executive priviledge was also overturned in Nixon vs. The United States, the Supreme Court case which set the modern predicent. The Surpreme Court ruling, while overturning Nixon's claim on the grounds that Executive Privilidge did have limits, acknowleged a need for the protection and secrecy of communication between government officials.
However, I don't see how Obama could argue the need for protecting communications involving himself or his staff if he claims he nor his office was ever made aware of F&F. If he and Holder are telling the truth, those documents should have no ties to any member of the Obama administration and are therefore invalid for protection with executive priviledge.
If the administration is arguing that they're protection is a valid use of Executive priviledge, then that's making the assumption that Holder or Obama or some member of the President's staff is directly tied to them--in which case they must have known about the document ergo the statements about Holder or Obama having no knowlege of F&F would have to be a lie.
On June 21 2012 00:15 xDaunt wrote: In other news, is anyone paying attention to the latest developments in this Fast & Furious mess? F&F was the Mexican gun running sting/tracking operation that went awry, resulting in thousands of assault weapons going missing and US agents and other civilians getting shot with those weapons. Anyway, Rep. Issa subpoenaed the Justice Department to produce documents related to the operation, and Holder has been resisting the subpoena for months. Issa is going to hold a contempt vote, and just last night, Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents.
Originally, the common view was that the cover up of F&F by the Justice Department (including obvious perjury) was worse than whatever the Justice Department actually did in managing and conceiving the operation. However, with the amount of resistance to producing the documents, it begs the question of whether there's more to F&F than meets the eye.
The interesting thing is, Obama is claiming executive privilege over documents that he claims he's never seen, read, nor have any connection with the whitehouse what-so-ever. That literally makes no sense. Though what it can do is delay the Republican investigation by creating yet another legal battle as Republicans would have to take the issue to Federal court.
IMO, there's something in those documents that proves Obama had knowledge of Fast and Furious many months sooner than he claims. It's the only thing that explains the actions. Otherwise, common sense says if you're Obama you simply force Holder to resign and the whole mess goes away. To drag it out this long, this publically, this close to an election; there's got to be something very politically problamatic in there. IMO the only thing that could be would be proof that Obama or Biden knew about F&F all along.
This makes perfect sense, as it would be politically short-sighted of the President to simply release a host of executive office memos without having the time to go through them. In other words, there is still relatively little reason to interpret this as more than an attempt at in-house consistency, although many will still try their best to make it look bad.
They are internal justice department documents, not internal administration memos. Holder's ongoing reasoning for not releasing the documents has been that they would damage an on-going justice department investigation--something that would certainly not be included under executive priviledge.
According to the current Supreme Court interpretation, executive priviledge really only covers internal communications between administration officials. But Obama has continued to claim that he's never seen nor read the documents in question and had no knowledge of Fast and Furious until the story broke publically. So there realistically is no legal merit to his claim of Executive Priviledge--by even the farthest stretches of the definition--if he's telling the truth about the documents.
Executive privilege is almost totally untested, so your assertion that it only covers internal administration communications has very little basis. I could link you to the host of situations in which the Bush administration invoked executive privilege, including when FBI documents regarding the pursuit of Whitey Bulger were quashed and when the Justice Department investigated Clinton's fundraising in 2001, but they are easy enough to find. The fact of the matter is that at this juncture, executive privilege can be applied to any executive piece of information, until the day comes in which the power comes before the Supreme Court and is substantially challenged. I expect Obama will release the F&F documents in question before that comes to pass.
Not true, Clinton invoked executive priviledge in 1998 saying that his staff could not be called to testify in the Lewinsky case; a federal court later overrulled him and stated that his staff in fact could be called to testify. Executive priviledge was also overturned in Nixon vs. The United States, the Supreme Court case which set the modern predicent. The Surpreme Court ruling, while overturning Nixon's claim on the grounds that Executive Privilidge did have limits, acknowleged a need for the protection and secrecy of communication between government officials.
However, I don't see how Obama could argue the need for protecting communications involving himself or his staff if he claims he nor his office was ever made aware of F&F. If he and Holder are telling the truth, those documents should have no ties to any member of the Obama administration and are therefore invalid for protection with executive priviledge.
If the administration is arguing that they're protection is a valid use of Executive priviledge, then that's making the assumption that Holder or Obama or some member of the President's staff is directly tied to them--in which case they must have known about the document ergo the statements about Holder or Obama having no knowlege of F&F would have to be a lie.
Executive privilege has been invoked so many times since Nixon v. the US and in regards to so many different types of information I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. The precedent set by Nixon vs. the US is merely that executive privilege does EXIST, and in no way shapes the courts understanding of what the power applies to, other than as pertaining to the information interests of the executive. In fact, Nixon vs. the US sets forth the burden of removing executive privilege on the prosecutor interested in whatever case is at hand.
In summary, there have been many invocations of executive privilege that apply to executive offices outside the White House, and this case will likely end up being one of those situations.
From wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege "Historically, the uses of executive privilege underscore the untested nature of the doctrine, since Presidents have generally sidestepped open confrontations with the United States Congress and the courts over the issue by first asserting the privilege, then producing some of the documents requested on an assertedly voluntary basis."
On June 20 2012 17:01 tdhz77 wrote: The reasons why I'm going to vote for Obama in 2012 election.
1) Created more jobs in 4 years than G.W. Bush did in 8. 2) Inherited a recession from the Republicans. 3) Republican fillabuster is out of control. We are in a recession and they refuse to pass any legislation to get people working again. 4) The debt is due in large part to the Republicans. They led the country to two wars on our nations credit card. They also passed tax cuts on the top 10% of earners. Adding more debt. 5) Mitt Romney is a far right wing conservative during the primaries. The republicans are controlled by a very far right wing sector. EG) Indiana Senator was ousted by a Tea Party member. In the 80's this senator was considered to be the most conservative in the Senate. By today's standards of the republicans he is too moderate. 6) Obama has done a terrific job of getting things done. Healthcare (most legal scholars believe the SCOTUS will not vote it down. Saved American car companies and jobs. Unemployment is 8.1% it would have easily gone up if he hadn't taken the measures he did. 7) Lastly, Republicans want to double student loans in July. Like most people I can't afford college without loans. Most of my friends who have graduated from college are in substantial debt. Unlike, our parents who had government loans, which led to the largest middle class in human history.
Soaking up the bias media am i right? ^^
I would like to address a couple of things. 1. Obama has Tripled the national debt since he took office, instead of shrinking it. if it is not too much lets take a look back to when Ronald Reagan became president. He inherited a debt from JImmy Carter. lets see if you know your history. What did he accomplish after his first term? he lowered the debt. Created tax cuts for everyone, cut spending, etc.. paving the way for an economic boom. Well how did that happen from cutting taxes and spending? lets keep it easy(easy numbers) If i make 100 dollars from my small business and 20 of that is how much i am taxed. i have 80 to spend on everything i need. lets say i have 2 people working for me and i pay them each 5 dollars. i have to pay expenses and that is 10 dollars. so that means i have 60 dollars to spend on my family or anything else. Now someone else comes into office and cuts taxes to 10 dollars instead of 20. thats 10 extra dollars that i have to spend, this could speed up my plans of expanding my business, hiring more people for long term jobs. When the government creates jobs it is slightly different.(radically different) lets take a couple of examples, FDR "put america to work" he had projects for people to do such as building a library, or fixing roads. This project is at the taxpayers expense. we need to pay for the construction and labor of the library. FDR and Obama take the money we all pay most people dont pay alot. The top 5 percent of taxpayers account for over 50 percent of raised income tax. This means it is relocating money from the rich to the lower classes. This is not all, what happens when the library is complete or that part of the road is fixed? they lose their job. This is a temporary fix and a bad one at that. This whole idea of "wealth redistribution" when simplified is socialism.
Uh...no. Reagan didn't lower the national debt. Public debt nearly tripled under his administration.
The President can assert Presidential umbrella privilege as long as he is "minimally" aware of the operations and this privilege is rarely tested...
I remember doing a paper on signing statements and privilege and distinctly remember studying this order that seems fairly similar http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/ag071508.pdf
On June 21 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote: Take this for what it's worth (because it's pure speculation as far as I know), but the scuttlebutt on the right has been that F&F was merely a ploy designed to promote a gun control agenda here domestically.
I wouldn't call it speculation. Only about a week after the initial FF murder was found out it was either the White House or someone put it out to the public that guns should be regulated more (considering this was well over a year ago I didn't have the piece of mind to save the article thinking it would still matter in 2012). Now add on top of that the video of Holder back in the 90's saying children need to be brainwashed to think guns are bad.
The entire F&F scandel is about whether Holder should be tried as an accessory to murder. Selling weapons to someone you know will commit a crime with them makes you an accessory. Considering the justice department knew they were selling to mexican drug lords, and then let the weapons go to mexico (instead of arresting the buyer like they were supposed to), and then having the weapons used to kill a US border agent means anyone involved in the sale would be an accessory (though this only matters for Holder and Obama because only they could give the go ahead). Holder doesn't want this shit getting out, how would it look to Obama if his head of the Department of Justice is an accessory to murder? Or if Obama was an accessory to murder?
If anything it's kinda funny (not the murder of course). That Holder decided to fuck around with this shit for so long that it's now happening damn close to the general election. Worst case his ass goes to jail and the public forgets a year ago. Now criminality happening in the same party as 2006 Nancy "the most ethical congress evah" Pelosi it couldn't be happening at a worse time. Add in that NBC, ABC, MSNBC haven't even report about F&F this isn't going to look good.
On June 21 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote: Take this for what it's worth (because it's pure speculation as far as I know), but the scuttlebutt on the right has been that F&F was merely a ploy designed to promote a gun control agenda here domestically.
Since the beginning of the Fast and Furious scandal, some avid gun-rights supporters have been suggesting that the operation was designed to promote gun control: The Obama administration sent a bunch of guns south of the border hoping to make the Mexican drug wars more violent, so that it could use the violence and the presence of American guns as an excuse to implement stricter gun-control measures. I have been (and remain) highly skeptical of this explanation — I do not think the Obama administration is quite that evil, and even if it were, the risk of getting caught would be too great to make such a project worthwhile.
Nonetheless, CBS has a rather damning report. While there’s still no evidence that Fast and Furious was designed from the beginning to promote gun control, the ATF did consider using the anecdote of a Fast and Furious case as an argument for restrictions on the sale of multiple long guns at once:
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.”
Haven't been following this too closely, but I'm not sure I understand how CBS's report is damning. I thought the part of the purpose of the operation was to track the 'telemetry' of illegal gun trafficking.
Asking for statistics to support an argument about long gun multiple sales doesn't prove that the original intent of the operation was to promote control. It's sort of like a McDonalds executive asking for the numbers on fountain drink sales and saying that McDonald's entire purpose was conspiring to make people use self-serve pop dispensers.
I thought it was funny that the White House pointed out that Bush and Clinton have also used executive privilege. If I ran on "Change" I wouldn't be volunteering that I am doing the same that my predecessors did. I guess they are hoping nobody remembers him promising "Change."
On June 20 2012 17:01 tdhz77 wrote: The reasons why I'm going to vote for Obama in 2012 election.
1) Created more jobs in 4 years than G.W. Bush did in 8. 2) Inherited a recession from the Republicans. 3) Republican fillabuster is out of control. We are in a recession and they refuse to pass any legislation to get people working again. 4) The debt is due in large part to the Republicans. They led the country to two wars on our nations credit card. They also passed tax cuts on the top 10% of earners. Adding more debt. 5) Mitt Romney is a far right wing conservative during the primaries. The republicans are controlled by a very far right wing sector. EG) Indiana Senator was ousted by a Tea Party member. In the 80's this senator was considered to be the most conservative in the Senate. By today's standards of the republicans he is too moderate. 6) Obama has done a terrific job of getting things done. Healthcare (most legal scholars believe the SCOTUS will not vote it down. Saved American car companies and jobs. Unemployment is 8.1% it would have easily gone up if he hadn't taken the measures he did. 7) Lastly, Republicans want to double student loans in July. Like most people I can't afford college without loans. Most of my friends who have graduated from college are in substantial debt. Unlike, our parents who had government loans, which led to the largest middle class in human history.
Soaking up the bias media am i right? ^^
I would like to address a couple of things. 1. Obama has Tripled the national debt since he took office, instead of shrinking it. if it is not too much lets take a look back to when Ronald Reagan became president. He inherited a debt from JImmy Carter. lets see if you know your history. What did he accomplish after his first term? he lowered the debt. Created tax cuts for everyone, cut spending, etc.. paving the way for an economic boom. Well how did that happen from cutting taxes and spending? lets keep it easy(easy numbers) If i make 100 dollars from my small business and 20 of that is how much i am taxed. i have 80 to spend on everything i need. lets say i have 2 people working for me and i pay them each 5 dollars. i have to pay expenses and that is 10 dollars. so that means i have 60 dollars to spend on my family or anything else. Now someone else comes into office and cuts taxes to 10 dollars instead of 20. thats 10 extra dollars that i have to spend, this could speed up my plans of expanding my business, hiring more people for long term jobs. When the government creates jobs it is slightly different.(radically different) lets take a couple of examples, FDR "put america to work" he had projects for people to do such as building a library, or fixing roads. This project is at the taxpayers expense. we need to pay for the construction and labor of the library. FDR and Obama take the money we all pay most people dont pay alot. The top 5 percent of taxpayers account for over 50 percent of raised income tax. This means it is relocating money from the rich to the lower classes. This is not all, what happens when the library is complete or that part of the road is fixed? they lose their job. This is a temporary fix and a bad one at that. This whole idea of "wealth redistribution" when simplified is socialism.
Uh...no. Reagan didn't lower the national debt. Public debt nearly tripled under his administration.
On June 21 2012 01:54 BlackJack wrote: I thought it was funny that the White House pointed out that Bush and Clinton have also used executive privilege. If I ran on "Change" I wouldn't be volunteering that I am doing the same that my predecessors did. I guess they are hoping nobody remembers him promising "Change."
When a large number of people, including yourself, don't seem to understand how "precedent" works in terms of government powers, I guess it's easy to see how people could get so worked up over an indictment of a president's campaign slogan.
On June 21 2012 00:15 xDaunt wrote: In other news, is anyone paying attention to the latest developments in this Fast & Furious mess? F&F was the Mexican gun running sting/tracking operation that went awry, resulting in thousands of assault weapons going missing and US agents and other civilians getting shot with those weapons. Anyway, Rep. Issa subpoenaed the Justice Department to produce documents related to the operation, and Holder has been resisting the subpoena for months. Issa is going to hold a contempt vote, and just last night, Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents.
Originally, the common view was that the cover up of F&F by the Justice Department (including obvious perjury) was worse than whatever the Justice Department actually did in managing and conceiving the operation. However, with the amount of resistance to producing the documents, it begs the question of whether there's more to F&F than meets the eye.
The interesting thing is, Obama is claiming executive privilege over documents that he claims he's never seen, read, nor have any connection with the whitehouse what-so-ever. That literally makes no sense. Though what it can do is delay the Republican investigation by creating yet another legal battle as Republicans would have to take the issue to Federal court.
IMO, there's something in those documents that proves Obama had knowledge of Fast and Furious many months sooner than he claims. It's the only thing that explains the actions. Otherwise, common sense says if you're Obama you simply force Holder to resign and the whole mess goes away. To drag it out this long, this publically, this close to an election; there's got to be something very politically problamatic in there. IMO the only thing that could be would be proof that Obama or Biden knew about F&F all along.
This makes perfect sense, as it would be politically short-sighted of the President to simply release a host of executive office memos without having the time to go through them. In other words, there is still relatively little reason to interpret this as more than an attempt at in-house consistency, although many will still try their best to make it look bad.
They are internal justice department documents, not internal administration memos. Holder's ongoing reasoning for not releasing the documents has been that they would damage an on-going justice department investigation--something that would certainly not be included under executive priviledge.
According to the current Supreme Court interpretation, executive priviledge really only covers internal communications between administration officials. But Obama has continued to claim that he's never seen nor read the documents in question and had no knowledge of Fast and Furious until the story broke publically. So there realistically is no legal merit to his claim of Executive Priviledge--by even the farthest stretches of the definition--if he's telling the truth about the documents.
Executive privilege is almost totally untested, so your assertion that it only covers internal administration communications has very little basis. I could link you to the host of situations in which the Bush administration invoked executive privilege, including when FBI documents regarding the pursuit of Whitey Bulger were quashed and when the Justice Department investigated Clinton's fundraising in 2001, but they are easy enough to find. The fact of the matter is that at this juncture, executive privilege can be applied to any executive piece of information, until the day comes in which the power comes before the Supreme Court and is substantially challenged. I expect Obama will release the F&F documents in question before that comes to pass.
Not true, Clinton invoked executive priviledge in 1998 saying that his staff could not be called to testify in the Lewinsky case; a federal court later overrulled him and stated that his staff in fact could be called to testify. Executive priviledge was also overturned in Nixon vs. The United States, the Supreme Court case which set the modern predicent. The Surpreme Court ruling, while overturning Nixon's claim on the grounds that Executive Privilidge did have limits, acknowleged a need for the protection and secrecy of communication between government officials.
However, I don't see how Obama could argue the need for protecting communications involving himself or his staff if he claims he nor his office was ever made aware of F&F. If he and Holder are telling the truth, those documents should have no ties to any member of the Obama administration and are therefore invalid for protection with executive priviledge.
If the administration is arguing that they're protection is a valid use of Executive priviledge, then that's making the assumption that Holder or Obama or some member of the President's staff is directly tied to them--in which case they must have known about the document ergo the statements about Holder or Obama having no knowlege of F&F would have to be a lie.
Executive privilege has been invoked so many times since Nixon v. the US and in regards to so many different types of information I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. The precedent set by Nixon vs. the US is merely that executive privilege does EXIST, and in no way shapes the courts understanding of what the power applies to, other than as pertaining to the information interests of the executive. In fact, Nixon vs. the US sets forth the burden of removing executive privilege on the prosecutor interested in whatever case is at hand.
In summary, there have been many invocations of executive privilege that apply to executive offices outside the White House, and this case will likely end up being one of those situations.
Yes, but in every case the use of Executive Privilege has always been in association with something or someone linked to the presidential administration. Obama is using it to block the release of internal Justice department documents that he claims have no relation to either him or Holder. That's fundamentally different than every previous use, and I highly doubt it would stand in a Federal court. Something I suspect the Obama administration knows as well, so clearly this is just being used as a stall tactic.
On June 21 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote: Take this for what it's worth (because it's pure speculation as far as I know), but the scuttlebutt on the right has been that F&F was merely a ploy designed to promote a gun control agenda here domestically.
I wouldn't call it speculation. Only about a week after the initial FF murder was found out it was either the White House or someone put it out to the public that guns should be regulated more (considering this was well over a year ago I didn't have the piece of mind to save the article thinking it would still matter in 2012). Now add on top of that the video of Holder back in the 90's saying children need to be brainwashed to think guns are bad.
The entire F&F scandel is about whether Holder should be tried as an accessory to murder. Selling weapons to someone you know will commit a crime with them makes you an accessory. Considering the justice department knew they were selling to mexican drug lords, and then let the weapons go to mexico (instead of arresting the buyer like they were supposed to), and then having the weapons used to kill a US border agent means anyone involved in the sale would be an accessory (though this only matters for Holder and Obama because only they could give the go ahead). Holder doesn't want this shit getting out, how would it look to Obama if his head of the Department of Justice is an accessory to murder? Or if Obama was an accessory to murder?
I would definetly call it speculation, there's not one shred of evidence backing that theory. It's essentially just gossip at this point, and you'd think if it was true someone would have blabbed to the press at this point. If it was true, a lot of people in the Justice department would have to have known and I suspect it would've leaked by now.
What is clear is that there is something in those documents that the administration does not want to get out. I'm thinking if Obama was telling the truth and no member of his administration knew about the situation, common sense politics says you throw Holder under the bus months ago and let the whole thing blow over and hire a new AG. The fact that Holder is out there running intferrence over this tells me that there's something in these documents that ties Obama, Biden, or some top administration official to F&F. No other reason you'd be pulling these shenanigans this close to the election.
I don't think AG Holder is culpable as murder, that's a little rediculous. The original idea behind F&F as the Justice department is telling us is that the guns were supposed to be allowed into the hands of the drug gangs who could then be tracked by the Justice department. Obviously allowing drug gangs to get hold of thousands of automatic weapons was a terrible idea, and someone ought to be fired over such a complete and total lack of judgement.
On June 21 2012 00:15 xDaunt wrote: In other news, is anyone paying attention to the latest developments in this Fast & Furious mess? F&F was the Mexican gun running sting/tracking operation that went awry, resulting in thousands of assault weapons going missing and US agents and other civilians getting shot with those weapons. Anyway, Rep. Issa subpoenaed the Justice Department to produce documents related to the operation, and Holder has been resisting the subpoena for months. Issa is going to hold a contempt vote, and just last night, Obama asserted executive privilege over the documents.
Originally, the common view was that the cover up of F&F by the Justice Department (including obvious perjury) was worse than whatever the Justice Department actually did in managing and conceiving the operation. However, with the amount of resistance to producing the documents, it begs the question of whether there's more to F&F than meets the eye.
The interesting thing is, Obama is claiming executive privilege over documents that he claims he's never seen, read, nor have any connection with the whitehouse what-so-ever. That literally makes no sense. Though what it can do is delay the Republican investigation by creating yet another legal battle as Republicans would have to take the issue to Federal court.
IMO, there's something in those documents that proves Obama had knowledge of Fast and Furious many months sooner than he claims. It's the only thing that explains the actions. Otherwise, common sense says if you're Obama you simply force Holder to resign and the whole mess goes away. To drag it out this long, this publically, this close to an election; there's got to be something very politically problamatic in there. IMO the only thing that could be would be proof that Obama or Biden knew about F&F all along.
This makes perfect sense, as it would be politically short-sighted of the President to simply release a host of executive office memos without having the time to go through them. In other words, there is still relatively little reason to interpret this as more than an attempt at in-house consistency, although many will still try their best to make it look bad.
They are internal justice department documents, not internal administration memos. Holder's ongoing reasoning for not releasing the documents has been that they would damage an on-going justice department investigation--something that would certainly not be included under executive priviledge.
According to the current Supreme Court interpretation, executive priviledge really only covers internal communications between administration officials. But Obama has continued to claim that he's never seen nor read the documents in question and had no knowledge of Fast and Furious until the story broke publically. So there realistically is no legal merit to his claim of Executive Priviledge--by even the farthest stretches of the definition--if he's telling the truth about the documents.
Executive privilege is almost totally untested, so your assertion that it only covers internal administration communications has very little basis. I could link you to the host of situations in which the Bush administration invoked executive privilege, including when FBI documents regarding the pursuit of Whitey Bulger were quashed and when the Justice Department investigated Clinton's fundraising in 2001, but they are easy enough to find. The fact of the matter is that at this juncture, executive privilege can be applied to any executive piece of information, until the day comes in which the power comes before the Supreme Court and is substantially challenged. I expect Obama will release the F&F documents in question before that comes to pass.
Not true, Clinton invoked executive priviledge in 1998 saying that his staff could not be called to testify in the Lewinsky case; a federal court later overrulled him and stated that his staff in fact could be called to testify. Executive priviledge was also overturned in Nixon vs. The United States, the Supreme Court case which set the modern predicent. The Surpreme Court ruling, while overturning Nixon's claim on the grounds that Executive Privilidge did have limits, acknowleged a need for the protection and secrecy of communication between government officials.
However, I don't see how Obama could argue the need for protecting communications involving himself or his staff if he claims he nor his office was ever made aware of F&F. If he and Holder are telling the truth, those documents should have no ties to any member of the Obama administration and are therefore invalid for protection with executive priviledge.
If the administration is arguing that they're protection is a valid use of Executive priviledge, then that's making the assumption that Holder or Obama or some member of the President's staff is directly tied to them--in which case they must have known about the document ergo the statements about Holder or Obama having no knowlege of F&F would have to be a lie.
Executive privilege has been invoked so many times since Nixon v. the US and in regards to so many different types of information I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to say. The precedent set by Nixon vs. the US is merely that executive privilege does EXIST, and in no way shapes the courts understanding of what the power applies to, other than as pertaining to the information interests of the executive. In fact, Nixon vs. the US sets forth the burden of removing executive privilege on the prosecutor interested in whatever case is at hand.
In summary, there have been many invocations of executive privilege that apply to executive offices outside the White House, and this case will likely end up being one of those situations.
Yes, but in every case the use of Executive Privilege has always been in association with something or someone linked to the presidential administration. Obama is using it to block the release of internal Justice department documents that he claims have no relation to either him or Holder. That's fundamentally different than every previous use, and I highly doubt it would stand in a Federal court. Something I suspect the Obama administration knows as well, so clearly this is just being used as a stall tactic.
On June 21 2012 00:44 xDaunt wrote: Take this for what it's worth (because it's pure speculation as far as I know), but the scuttlebutt on the right has been that F&F was merely a ploy designed to promote a gun control agenda here domestically.
I wouldn't call it speculation. Only about a week after the initial FF murder was found out it was either the White House or someone put it out to the public that guns should be regulated more (considering this was well over a year ago I didn't have the piece of mind to save the article thinking it would still matter in 2012). Now add on top of that the video of Holder back in the 90's saying children need to be brainwashed to think guns are bad.
The entire F&F scandel is about whether Holder should be tried as an accessory to murder. Selling weapons to someone you know will commit a crime with them makes you an accessory. Considering the justice department knew they were selling to mexican drug lords, and then let the weapons go to mexico (instead of arresting the buyer like they were supposed to), and then having the weapons used to kill a US border agent means anyone involved in the sale would be an accessory (though this only matters for Holder and Obama because only they could give the go ahead). Holder doesn't want this shit getting out, how would it look to Obama if his head of the Department of Justice is an accessory to murder? Or if Obama was an accessory to murder?
I would definetly call it speculation, there's not one shred of evidence backing that theory. It's essentially just gossip at this point, and you'd think if it was true someone would have blabbed to the press at this point. If it was true, a lot of people in the Justice department would have to have known and I suspect it would've leaked by now.
What is clear is that there is something in those documents that the administration does not want to get out. I'm thinking if Obama was telling the truth and no member of his administration knew about the situation, common sense politics says you throw Holder under the bus months ago and let the whole thing blow over and hire a new AG. The fact that Holder is out there running intferrence over this tells me that there's something in these documents that ties Obama, Biden, or some top administration official to F&F. No other reason you'd be pulling these shenanigans this close to the election.
I don't think AG Holder is culpable as murder, that's a little rediculous. The original idea behind F&F as the Justice department is telling us is that the guns were supposed to be allowed into the hands of the drug gangs who could then be tracked by the Justice department. Obviously allowing drug gangs to get hold of thousands of automatic weapons was a terrible idea, and someone ought to be fired over such a complete and total lack of judgement.
http://www.thenation.com/article/executive-obstruction# Here is a nice little article detailing only one of many instances of executive privilege being invoked to protect information that is tacitly unrelated to the concurrent White House. Bush covered the asses of senior FBI officials who took part in the Whitey Bulger investigations, investigations that date back over 35 years. It might behoove the Republican agenda to insist that this is the first time a President has acted in this manner, but that doesn't make it any less of a lie.
Regardless of what F&F turns up, I think it's more than fair to say at this point that Obama has completely done a 180 on his promise to make his administration the most transparent administration ever. I can't think of anything that he has been open about when the question of impropriety has been raised (F&F, Solyndra, security leaks, etc).
On June 21 2012 02:38 RCMDVA wrote: 2007 Obama on Bush's executive priviledge / firing US Attorneys. (from drudge)
(video)
From wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege "On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove. The subpoena would have required the President's Senior Advisor to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a probe over fired federal prosecutors. In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, Fielding claimed that "Mr. Rove, as an immediate presidential advisor, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity...."[14]"
So, although you might like to attempt to extrapolate Obama's position on executive privilege from that video, such a jump would require total ignorance of the Bush administrations track record at that video's time in history.
On June 21 2012 02:30 xDaunt wrote: Regardless of what F&F turns up, I think it's more than fair to say at this point that Obama has completely done a 180 on his promise to make his administration the most transparent administration ever. I can't think of anything that he has been open about when the question of impropriety has been raised (F&F, Solyndra, security leaks, etc).
Yes, I think it was too easy to judge the Bush Adminstration from afar. I think Obama Administration is learning the hard way that there is such a thing a 'good' secrets, particularly those related to national security.
On June 21 2012 02:30 xDaunt wrote: Regardless of what F&F turns up, I think it's more than fair to say at this point that Obama has completely done a 180 on his promise to make his administration the most transparent administration ever. I can't think of anything that he has been open about when the question of impropriety has been raised (F&F, Solyndra, security leaks, etc).
Yes, I think it was too easy to judge the Bush Adminstration from afar. I think Obama Administration is learning the hard way that there is such a thing a 'good' secrets, particularly those related to national security.
While I agree that Obama's election-time rhetoric in terms of transparency was overbearing and a tad naive, I fail to see how the Bush administration's record has any bearing. To put things in perspective, this is the first time in Obama's presidency that he has invoked executive privilege. At one point, Bush invoked the power 4 times in as many weeks, totaling 6 by 2008, and Clinton used executive privilege a whopping 14 times during his two terms. In that sense, Obama has reeled back executive privilege and secrecy, at least so far.
On June 21 2012 02:38 RCMDVA wrote: 2007 Obama on Bush's executive priviledge / firing US Attorneys. (from drudge)
(video)
From wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege "On August 1, 2007, Bush invoked the privilege for the fourth time in little over a month, this time rejecting a subpoena for Karl Rove. The subpoena would have required the President's Senior Advisor to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a probe over fired federal prosecutors. In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, Fielding claimed that "Mr. Rove, as an immediate presidential advisor, is immune from compelled congressional testimony about matters that arose during his tenure and that relate to his official duties in that capacity...."[14]"
So, although you might like to attempt to extrapolate Obama's position on executive privilege from that video, such a jump would require total ignorance of the Bush administrations track record at that video's time in history.
So it's wrong to take Obama word-for-word in that video...
and then
Replace Rove with Holder Replace Leahy with Issa Replace US Attorneys with Guns
To me it's a simple & clear comparison.
So then... Bush = Executive priviledge bad? But now Obama = Executive priviledge good? And they pull this card right at the 11th hour just before the contempt hearing? If there was a real national security issue... they've had 18 months to say that.
EPT![[image loading]](http://theindependentview.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/us-national-debt-gdp1.gif)
