Fast and Frivolous

 Posted by at 11:39 am  Politics
Jun 212012
 

In order to put this article together, I had to do a couple extra hours research last night to bring me up to speed on the Fast and Furious controversy.  I was behind the curve on it, because I knew just enough to realize that it was not important enough to warrant my attention.  That was before Republicans determined to hold a House vote to declare Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, a political ploy without merit, inspired by an conspiracy theory coined by a thoroughly discredited extremist.  This is the newest Republican chapter of jobs, jobs, jobs.

21FandFThe House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted to find Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress for failing to provide subpoenaed documents in the flawed Fast and Furious gun-tracking case, just hours after President Obama asserted executive privilege and backed the attorney general’s refusal to release the material.

The vote for contempt and the White House insertion into the growing Southwest border “gun-walking” scandal set up a significant constitutional clash between the two branches of the federal government, one that ultimately may not be resolved until it reaches the courts.

The Republican-led committee, headed by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), voted strictly along party lines in finding Holder in contempt. It now sends the matter to the full House for a floor vote to ask the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., or a special prosecutor to force the Obama administration to provide the documents.

“The committee has uncovered serious wrongdoing by the Justice department,” Issa said of his investigation into Fast and Furious, in which several thousand illegally purchased firearms were circulated on both sides of the Southwest border and many wound up with Mexican drug cartels. “That wrongdoing has cost lives on both sides of the border.”

But Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the panel, said the Republicans caused the standoff by demanding the release of internal Department of Justice records. “The administration was forced into this position by the committee’s unreasonable insistence on pressing forward, “ he said.

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), put it on a more personal level and said she was “extremely disgusted” that her committee had come to this. “I am horrified you are going through with this contempt charge,” she said. “This shouldn’t be a witch hunt.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <LA Times>

Fast and Furious is an expansion of Operation Linebacker, a very similar program started under the Bush Regime.  The sting, a locally managed operation, went bad, and Holder shut it down when he learned of it.  That should be the end of it, and Congress would be better served to investigate Darrell Issa, for excellent reasons.

To give you more detail, here is Ed Schultz interviewing Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Jonathan Alter.

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Why were no Republicans interviewed to explain the transition between Operation Linebacker and Fast and Furious?  Committee Democrats requested this over and over again.  But Issa and the Republicans have no interest in learning the truth.

Now because I did not watch Faux Noise, the Republican Ministry of Propaganda, I did not know the rest of what Republicans are up to with this witch hunt. They are pushing an absurd Second Amendment Conspiracy Theory. Rachel Maddow covered that in two segments. In the first she provides background.

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In the second, she discusses this Teabuggery with Bob Herbert.

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Isn’t it amazing that this whole thing grew out of “Obama gonna take your guns away” Teabuggery championed by the same guy who intentionally instigated rock throwing violence at Democratic offices when Obamacare passed?

I think that Obama claimed executive privilege, because he saw where Issa and the Republicans were going with this, an attack on him and a stall to prevent any real work from being done.  In addition, many of the documents Issa demanded are documents that the executive branch cannot legally release, so Issa was setting up a refusal on which to base his bogus contempt charge.  However Obama mas mistaken to take this route to refuse, because it gives the appearance of a coverup.

Finally, during the 2008 campaign Obama said he had no intent to pursue Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales, etc., for the many actual crimes committed during the Bush Regime, because he wanted to move forward, instead of tying up Congress with the matter and getting nothing else done.  At that time, I said he was making a mistake, and I said that, as soon as Republicans had the opportunity to do so, they would tie up Congress and get nothing else done, pursuing trumped up crimes against his administration.  History has validated my hypothesis.

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  16 Responses to “Fast and Frivolous”

  1. Angelica says:
    June 21, 2012 at 12:22 pm

    Un freaking believable.   What – do the Koch brothers manufacture guns?  Or is working class homicide the dream the Koch's have for breaking (and therefore controlling) the middle and lower classes?

  2. SoINeedAName says:
    June 21, 2012 at 1:45 pm

    Well, there's a very simple reason this will be a "Tempest in a Teapot".  If the House votes for contempt charges, it will go the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, whose immediate supervisor just happens to be Eric Holder! And there it will languish – and I don't have one single, solitary problem with Democrats playing hardball politics with this trumped up NON-issue. The myth of the "liberal media" will pay attention to this story up to the day after the vote – and then it will look for its next "Bright, Shiny Object".

    (L)egislators are supposed to refer charges to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who happens to work for Holder. When Karl Rove faced a similar situation during the Bush Administration, the U.S. Attorney chose not to enforce the contempt sanctions.

    http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/06/house-wants-to-hold-eric-holder-in-contempt.html

    If the full House votes to find Holder in contempt, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — who is employed by the Justice Department — will have to decide whether to criminally prosecute him.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fast-and-furious-scandal-obama-exerts-executive-privilege-house-panel-moves-forward-with-contempt-vote/2012/06/20/gJQAGImIqV_story.html

  3. mamabear says:
    June 21, 2012 at 1:57 pm

    I watched this last night and just had time to post it around on care2 I wish Rachael Maddow could get gaint billboard and mic so the American people can realize how the GOP/Fox News and an unknown Blogger can twist things so bad. No wonder you have such a hard explaining it when there is nothing but a game they play to win back the White House.
    Kudo's to Rachael Maddow and you TomCat because the more you know will surely get Obama back in the White Houseg

  4. Phyllis says:
    June 21, 2012 at 5:11 pm

    I watch utterly amazed at the pile of Bull Poop  Issa and crew are piling up- there is no basis to these accusations except to make noise– empty cans make the most noise , I recall , and nothing sounds louder than all this bunch of loud mouthed  jerks– I heard Issa  described  as media savvy- if this is true one has to wonder  wtf he is up to .

  5. Lynn Squance says:
    June 22, 2012 at 1:06 am

    After listening to these videos which are very good, and doing some reading,  I just shake my head at the absurdity of it all.
     
    The first thing I did was look up some information about Issa.  Here is a short piece from Wikipedia:

    After becoming Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Issa has become a vocal advocate for investigations into the Obama administration, including TARP,  the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, corruption in Afghanistan, WikiLeaks, and the Food and Drug Administration, among other issues.  In 2010 he told the press that he wanted the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to hold investigative hearings "seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks".
     

    Between this and the Media Matters piece, it certainly looks like Issa is the Republican/Teabagger enforcer of their 'criminal' enterprise.  He has a questionable background; is pugnacious to the extent of being worse than a pitbull; and he doesn't give a rat's ass about justice.  Just look how he operated earlier this year by not allowing Sandra Fluke to testify.   This time around, he won't call in witnesses from the Bush administration who started this whole operation.  He cares nothing about justice!  He cares only how he and the Republican/Teabaggers can obstruct Mr Obama and make him a one term president.
     
    This is nothing more than political grandstanding.  If it is illegal to produce those documents, then it is illegal to provide them to the Committee.  What would Issa have done had Holder turned over the documents?  Charge him with breaking whatever law?  Holder would be damned if he did, and damned if he didn't, all because of a Republican/Teabagger witch hunt!
     
    Jonathan Alter — "… will the Republican House go too far and get on the wrong side of public opinion — the Republicans are already disliked by the American public …" — We can only hope that they shoot themselves in the foot!
     
    And this conservative blogger who incited others to violence — why hasn't anybody taken him to task for his actions?  Now there is a conspiracy theory out there that the Obama administration is out to curtail 2nd amendment rights.  And even legislators are parroting that rot!  I had to laugh at the Alaskans who were protesting — they didn't know what they were protesting about.  Can you say Faux Noise acolytes — very, very low-effort thinking people.  Gullible — somebody told them to go carry signs and shout about losing 2nd amendment rights, so they did.  LMAO! 
     
    This is a bloody six ringed circus and Issa is the barker.  The elephants are parading in their grandiosity, totally out of control!  May the horses (donkeys), elegant runners all and so much smarter, exit the big top before the tent falls in!

  6. Jimmy Zuma says:
    June 24, 2012 at 9:26 am

    Great job. Great minds think alike when it comes to writing headlines, it seems: http://technorati.com/politics/article/darrell-issas-fast-and-frivolous/

  7. TomCat says:
    June 25, 2012 at 9:16 am

    To the person who commented as Joseph

    We welcome different points of view here.  However I do checks on the email addresses of new comments, because once one comment from an individual is approved here, subsequent comments are approved automatically.

    Your email address has associations with pornographic SPAM.  That is why your comments were declined.

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