Emperor Barack the First

Postby drawscore » Wed Jun 20, 2012 12:15 pm

On the cusp of his Chicago buddy, Eric Holder, facing a contempt of congress vote, Emperor Barack I asserted "executive privilege" over documents sought by a house committee looking into the "Fast and Furious" scandal.

A strange move for an administration that promised "openness" and "transparency," and for a president, who, as a senator, decried his predecessor's use of "executive privilege." Obama could have asserted this privilege months ago without raising an eyebrow. Doing it now, gives the distinct impression that he and Holder have something to hide. There is also evidence that Holder called his buddy, the prez, and personally asked him to assert the privilege, simply to cover his own ass.

What is Holder's "Department of Injustice" hiding, and why is it going to such great lengths to cover up information about "Fast and Furious?" Could documentation held by the BATFE possibly implicate Holder, or maybe even Obama, himself?

The family of the murdered Border Patrol agent, and the American people, deserve answers. And the lapdogs in the media need to get up off their asses, and quit protecting an administration that makes the corruption of Nixon, Harding, and Grant (all Republicans, by the way), look amateurish by comparison.

Drawscore

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby Jack Roper » Wed Jun 20, 2012 1:09 pm

As usual, Drawscore can't wait to condemn President Obama over everything. It is truly amazing that Obama gets anything done at all with the hyper-partisan Republicans, like the corrupt Darrell Issa, nipping at his heels, unreasonably requesting deliberative documents, the kind that Dick Cheney refused to provide when he had all the oil companies to the White House crafting Bush, Jr.'s energy policy in 2001.

Here is an article from The Nation--quite reasonable-- giving a perspective that Drawscore will undoubtedly find infuriating--if he even bothers to read it. Of interest to anyone out there is also another lengthy profile of Issa in the New Yorker earlier this year entitled "Don't Look Back."

I wouldn't trust Issa to return a borrowed penny!

"Darrell Issa's Contemptible Disregard for the Constitution" from The Nation

John Nichols on June 20, 2012 - 3:38 PM ET


The system of checks and balances works best when the separate branches of government are inherently and proudly adversarial toward one another.
But that can't happen when partisanship defines when and how accountability moments play out.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa, the headline-hungry California Republican who has pressed ahead with efforts to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, forgot that essential rule.

And in so doing he had undermined not just his own credibility but regard for the Constitution.

Holder is a flawed player, and he has not managed his response to Issa's abuses well. And no one should be pleased to see a president invoking "executive privilege" in a fight with Congress, as Barack Obama has done to thwart Issa's demands.

But it is Issa whose actions have been contemptible. He is demanding deliberative documents that are ordinarily off-limits to Congress, a big ask, yet he has not built a credible coalition of supporters for the demand. And when the details of the documents and the issues involved are laid out -- along with the offers by Holder to brief the committee -- it quickly becomes evident that the committee chairman is so unwilling to compromise that he won't take yes for an answer.

Issa has failed to respect the House as an institution, or to make even the most basic moves to organize the chamber for a challenge to the executive branch. Instead, he's gone to hyper-partisan and divisive extreme, redesigning the Oversight Committee's website to look like a Fox News "alert" -- with dubious images of Holder and headlines reading "Contempt" splashed all over the page.

Indeed, says Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings the committee's ranking Democrat, Issa has pursued Holder throughout the wrangling over the bungled "Fast and Furious" program with his "mind made up" to provoke. Cummings has argued that the tensions between the committee and the Department of Justice -- which extend from Issa's demands for documents relating to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Arizona's approach to intercepting weapons believed to be illicitly purchased, as part of a scheme to track weapons to high-level arms traffickers -- could have been resolved easily. Instead, he says, Issa has evidenced "no intention" of cooperating with the Department of Justice and the Obama administration to achieve a resolution.

Instead, argues Cummings, Issa has resorted to "partisan and inflammatory personal attacks."

For the partisan punditocracy, Cummings' comments will be dismissed as tit-for-tat politics.

But that misses the point of Issa's responsibility as chairman of a key committee.

His first job was to get at least some Democrats to work with him, just as former House Judiciary Committee chairman Peter Rodino, D-New Jersey, organized Republican support for Democratic moves to hold President Nixon to account during the Watergate era, just as former House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, tried to get Democrats to back Republican attempts to challenge President Clinton in the 1990s.

Could Issa have built a bipartisan coalition in favor of transparency and accountability?

Absolutely.

The current Oversight and Government Reform Committee has many maverick Democrats, independent thinkers and straight shooters on its membership roll. Indeed, if ever there was a House Committee that was well-suited for a reasonable bipartisan push on behalf of White House accountability, this is it.

Several Democrats on the Committee have records of breaking with and criticizing the Obama administration when they disagree with the president and his appointees. Some, like Tennessee's Jim Cooper, have done so from the right. Others, like Vermont's Peter Welch, have done so from the left.

Then there is Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the most independent of House Democrats, a frequent critic of the current administration and a member with a long history of fighting for open government, transparency and checks on the executive branch. Kucinich, recently defeated for reelection in a Democratic primary but still highly engaged, was a natural ally for Issa, if the chairman's push was going to be a serious and legitimate challenge to executive overreach.

Kucinich has challenged Holder before, and he will do so again.

Yet, as tensions spiked Wednesday, Kucinich was not at Issa's side.

Instead, the Ohio Congressman was calling for postponement of any contempt vote.

"It would be a shame to produce a titanic contest between two branches of government," said Kucinich, who objected that there was no need for a contempt vote when it was so obvious that differences could be quickly and easily resolved.

The shame is on Issa. He knew full well that he was making a rare demand of an administration with which he has tangled before. He knows that to make such a demand, he needed to attract support from independent Democrats. He could have done so. But Issa chose instead to play purely partisan politics.

That's damaging to the committee's credibility.

That's damaging to the Congress.

That's damaging to the Constitution, which establishes a system of checks and balances that is essential to the right functioning of the republic. If Issa respected the Congress and the Constitution, he would have raised a credible challenge to the White House. Instead, he played politics. Badly.

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby drawscore » Wed Jun 20, 2012 3:04 pm

Why don't you cite something closer to the center, instead of a left wing fish wrap like "The Nation?"

"The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, it is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City." (From Wikipedia)

Drawscore

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby Jack Roper » Wed Jun 20, 2012 6:22 pm

Maybe because I don't care what the source is as long as they approach TRUTH, and not ideology, as you do. I don't see you refuting John Nichols' piece at all, just name-calling The Nation magazine.

In point of fact, I read the National Review, Modern Age, the Intercollegiate Review, The American Conservative--and frequently agree with what their authors have to say.

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby drawscore » Wed Jun 20, 2012 11:52 pm

And I suppose that a publication that calls itself "The flagship of the left" is not tainted by ideology.

Often, truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. And I see it this way: The Fast and Furious investigation by Issa's House Government Oversight Committee hes been going on for more than a year. The subpoenas for the documents were issued well before the 2012 political campaign season got underway. Holder has not produced them, and has stonewalled the committee, well into the 2012 political campaign, for the sole purpose of claiming "it's all politics," and "They're hassling me because I'm black."

Faced with a citation for contempt of congress, Holder prevailed on his boss, Emperor Barack, to help him cover his ass. Obama bailed his Chicago buddy out, by claiming the documents subpoenaed were covered by "executive privilege."

Here's a news flash: The Supreme Court didn't buy it when Nixon tried to cover up the Watergate scandal by claiming "executive privilege," and they won't buy it from Obama and Holder. But if they can keep the documentation bottled up until after the November election, they can avoid having to disclose information and documentation that could be politically damaging, and even disastrous, not only for them, but for all Democrats running for the House and Senate.

Drawscore

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby Chris12 » Thu Jun 21, 2012 10:53 am

If Obama is emperor the how do the Republicans stop him from getting anything done, like how they stopped a solution to stop the loss of you tripple A status. If Obama was emperor that would not have happened.

Also, You do know that Obama's power over the goverment is rather limited when compared to other leaders right? If Obama with limited power is emperor then what are those guys? Gods?

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby Jack Roper » Thu Jun 21, 2012 1:33 pm

Chris,
Drawscore uses hyperbole "liberally" and is prone to ideological exaggeration and bitter partisanship. So be it. President Obama is trying to run the country as best as he can while the Republicans in the House and Senate (and Supreme Court) seem bent on destroying his Presidency, indeed, that seems to have been there position ever since he was inaugurated. Here's a look at how many times each president since Ronald Reagan has asserted executive privilege:

—President Barack Obama: 1

—President George W. Bush: 6

—President Bill Clinton: 14

—President George H.W. Bush: 1

—President Ronald Reagan: 3

Even George Washington used it!

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby drawscore » Thu Jun 21, 2012 5:30 pm

Sorry, Jack, but Obama is trying to run the country into the ground. His environment has been consistently left wing, going back to Frank Marshall Davis in Hawaii. He has surrounded himself with thugs (Eric Holder and the SEIU); admitted communists (Van Jones), and black separatists (New Black Panther Party; Jeremiah Wright).

Our country was built on hard work, determination, and individual achievement. Obama wants to turn us into a third world shit hole, with dependency on government from the cradle to the grave. His defeat in November is essential to the well-being of the country.

Drawscore

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby Jack Roper » Thu Jun 21, 2012 6:46 pm

hahaha..."Rush" Drawscore has compiled another series of smears, typical of the right-winger he appears to be. If Obama is so "leftist" then why are so many leftists upset with him? There is even a group called

Leftists Against Obama

Here is their complaint: "Despite media depictions to the contrary, Barack Obama is and always has been a shrewd centrist who knows how to appeal to the masses. After enduring eight years of abuse at the hands of a Right Wing president, some Americans have become so desperate for change that they have wholeheartedly endorsed Barack Obama. This group is for all the Left Wingers out there who recognize Barack Obama for what he really is : a corporate sellout, a Wall Street appeaser, a war mongerer, the antithesis of Left Wing principles, and most importantly - someone who is bad for America."

Maybe you should join this group!

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby drawscore » Fri Jun 22, 2012 2:26 am

The stock answer, is that these turkeys are so far left, they make Obama look like Michael Savage. Think of the political spectrum as a linear clock face, with 12 as the center.

6 . . . 7 . . . 8 . . . 9 . . . 10 . . . 11 . . . 12 . . . 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . . 5 . . . 6

At either end (6) you have the anarchists. At 7:30, you have communism; at 4:30, Naziism. At 9:00, you get socialism; at 3:00, fascism. At 10:30, you get Obama. Most Americans are between 11:30 and 12:30. Romney is probably around 12:30, while Michelle Bachmann and Newt Gingrich would be closer to 1:30. Leftists against Obama would probably come in between 9:15 and 9:30, just an RCH to the right of the socialists.

Drawscore

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby Jack Roper » Fri Jun 22, 2012 12:52 pm

That means it is time to re-elect Obama!

Thanks!

Re: Emperor Barack the First

Postby drawscore » Fri Jun 22, 2012 4:21 pm

I am definitely in favor of two terms for Obama, as long as the second one is in Leavenworth.

Drawscore