Just like the cops. Support one of your own regardless of what they do. The CBC has not covered itself with glory on this one.

the rationale for the action has not been well articulated.

You’re far too kind; no such decision by Bush would have been given such a benefit of the doubt on FDL in 2006.

The White House is using race as a firewall protection against serious charges of corruption. Distraction. I think the CBC is doing this at the behest of the administration.

“The President put these documents, separate from the 7,600 DoJ documents already provided to the committee, under executive privilege, which deserves scrutiny because the rationale for the action has not been well articulated.”

The invocation of executive privilege implies White House involvement.

Emanuel Cleaver…

meh

It actually doesn’t, there are two types of executive privilege, and one involves deliberative communications in a federal agency. It does not imply WH involvement.

when all else fails say it racism. please what a joke

As a black man who is far left liberal, this sums up the problem with black misleadership:

The CBC believes that the contempt vote is a ploy to embarrass the President and his Administration. They are circulating a letter to get other Democrats to join them outside the chamber during the contempt vote.

They have done nothing to truly help the 99.999% of black folks in the various communitties throughout nation. They are more than capable however to protect their little cabal and image. They serve no interest other than this little inside the black beltway cabal. Pathetic!

Except that in this case it just might happen to be that. AG Holder should have his feet held to the fire on lots of things, but this issue is just a put-up matter of Congressional grandstanding on behalf of the NRA. And it’s appeal has to do more with avoiding Holder aggressively enforcing the Voting Rights Act than it does with the merits or demerits of Fast and Furious or executive privilege.

Likely the administration will just blow it off unless the GOP can find one of their judges to start legal contempt proceedings.

Ding. That’s right about the CBC response. Showboating.

A sorry-ass day for a CBC that should long since have called Obama on his b*llshsit. The guy is drone-bombing brown people in five countries and we’re going to stand up for him on these grounds? The truth is that the Black underclass and what’s left of the Black middle and upper classes are now two different groups of people. The latter pays little more than lip-service to the former. The sooner poor Black people wake up to that fact, the better.

Of course, that will be the day that poor people in general recognize their real interests and begin to press them politically, but hey. . .

Cue the Kabuki Show.

Second verse, same as the first.

Just a joke, every last one of these Congress critters no matter which “causus” or other that they pay lip service to.

CBC has done fuck all for the AA community, esp those in the under class. What a load.

Are they going to write sternly worded letters too.

I’m more interested in the 30 Vichycrats who are sucking at the NRA teat. That’s nothing but disgraceful.

NRA = white guys who think a gun makes up for a little dick

Absolutely what this stinks of, and really sad because it gives cultural conservatives some relevance when they sugges all accusations of racism by liberals and progressives are spurious. Deeply irresponsible, this behavior.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” — Martin Luther King

Is the Congressional Black Caucus judging Eric Holder by the color of his skin or the content of his character?

I agree holder could be held to the fire for many things but sorry FnF is an issue. Holder is hiding information, we have a dead border agent and multiple dead citizens, and he has not handed over documents that have been asked for and now O used executive priv.

this is not racism and even if you think going after H is not appropriate to make a leap and then say it is racist is quite huge

So you’re in favor of this instance of lack of transparency from the executive because maybe-and why you would think this you don’t explain-just maybe this is a case of a bunch of racists in congress just wanting to embarrass our black president and attorney general? Really?

Oh clearly you’re just a closet racist. /s

The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal

Amidst Holder Contempt Vote, New Investigation Undermines Key GOP Claims on “Fast and Furious”:

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/28/amidst_holder_contempt_vote_new_investigation

Fortune reporter was on democracynow this morning.

I hit submit before I wanted to.

Using this as political leverage to prevent proper enforcement of the Voting Rights law is racist because Republicans have passed laws in a variety of red states that intend to suppress the voting of African-Americans and Latinos.

This issue was ginned up by demanding documents that represent deliberations within a department. Those legally have been upheld as privileged and if Issa actually goes to court his case is likely to be thrown out. My suspicion is that he is just showboating in an election year.

If you want to push for transparency of even these documents, I’m with you. Citizens should know what their government is doing. But understand that the fewer places where compromise can be hidden, the more the process of government will grind to a halt and the more every single word and action become politicized. Unless the public starts treating these discussion like they would their own at work.

They are judging Darrell Issa by the content of his character.

Do that a lot myself.

On the substance, FnF sounds like a much too complicated scheme for an orphan agency with too few resources. Too much blowback possibility, which we now see.

That’s what executive brain function is supposed to be for: keeping you out of such stupid moves.

I joke with my contractor about making executive decisions on what to do, how to do, when to do, etc. But in making the decision (usually joint after some discussion), I focus mainly on downside of one or the opposite decision.

Just like I read mostly negative reviews of books on amazon. They don’t necessarily determine whether I read the book or not, but sometimes give more insight than the positive ones.

Thaaaat shouldn’t take long. *g*

A “strongly worded letter” would have sufficed.

While all of the comments before mine have stated accurate facts. I’m with holding judgment. Now, is the only time any pressure can be put on Obama to back Holder in regard to prosecutions that have been discussed here.

They can demand that Holder initiate certain investigations, or that Obama face an empty convention hall. Senator Claire McCaskil wont be there. From my point of view it seems that everyone is too quick to view things through old prisms. The Senator’s absence could be spun in many different directions. I believe her absence means what we want it to mean, and what the “Black Caucus” should want it to mean.

No one has been harmed more by O’s policies than lower middle class blacks, I believe the Black Caucus is aware of this. They have to do more than “grandstand”. Maybe this is a plan to stop the BS and free Holder to do other things. If the other Caucuses stand firmly with them, I would view that as a plan. This is one time I’m not going to make a judgment based on history.

It’s for sure Holder can’t do anything as long as the Republicans keep him stuck in quicksand.

You owe me a drink.

I’ll wait until the cocktail hour. :-)

The walkout is UNITED by all of the Democratic Caucuses, this is not grandstanding; they have a plan.

Thanks.

I am late to the FnF “party,” and I confess to still being somewhat in the dark about it, esp details.

However, my bullshit detector went off when I saw that Known-CROOK Daryll Issa was grandstanding about it and calling for Contempt charges against Holder & poss impeaching Obama. PUH-LEEZE! Anything that sleazy Daryll touches stinks to high heaven. He is a crook to the nth degree and has cost ME, personnally, a LOT of money. Bastard.

The more I read about FnF, the more it appears that the whole operation has been hamstrung by the NRA, amongst others. Yet, of course, Fake Noise is shrieking about Obama blah blah blah.

As many know, I loathe Obama & Holder, but srsly??? Daryll Issa is far far worse: a lying theiving sycophantic naricssitic sociopathic scumbag.

I’ll wait for more info, and I’m wrong: so be it.

But I said a couple of days ago here (when I knew even less about FnF) that Issa is big fat lying LIAR and that his allegations don’t hold water.

Maybe. I won’t hold my breath.

Yep, the NRA wanted to reignite the gun control issue for all the morons.

Using this as political leverage to prevent proper enforcement of the Voting Rights law is racist because Republicans have passed laws in a variety of red states that intend to suppress the voting of African-Americans and Latinos.

Yep that is what all this is about.

This issue was ginned up by demanding documents that represent deliberations within a department. Those legally have been upheld as privileged and if Issa actually goes to court his case is likely to be thrown out. My suspicion is that he is just showboating in an election year.

are you referring to what O passed. problem there as H said O did not know anything about FnF and so executive priv can not apply. If O does know then H lied and the question again is why and what are in those docs.

Executive privilege applies to intra-agency deliberations as well as deliberations between an agency and the White House. I didn’t see Holder’s assertion that executive privilege did not apply. I saw only his assertion that Obama was not involved in the decision.

Those documents are the back and forth between the various people involved in Fast and Furious and the folks involved in dealing with the crisis caused when it backfired and the folks who had to deal with the public relations aspects of the crisis. Probably less there there than Issa would like people to think.

The executive has responded to uphold the principle of executive privilege, which has been the case for virtually all US Presidents. They do not easily waive that privilege; they let the courts force them to deliver the documents.

wow you are using EP as law so that the corrupt POS H can hide behind it. I don’t care about other POTUS used it. This is not a law this is just another example of the powerful and rich using the law to protect them and screw us. we have no law in a banana republic

It is not law. It is a claim of privilege under the doctrine of separation of powers. A single branch of the government under this doctrine cannot bully its way into the legitimate operations of another. But the agreement of two branches can change this balance of power. And the second branch required in this case is the judiciary.

What exactly do you suspect Holder of hiding with this claim of executive privilege? My assertion was that there was little to hide but that Issa’s request constituted an encroachment on executive power such that the executive responded on principle. Now if you want to file a FOIA for the same materials, you would be in a different legal situation but would likely also be denied because of the documents being “internal deliberations”.

And you might not care about how other POTUS used it, but the courts do.

How exactly in this are “the powerful and rich using the law to protect them and screw us”? In what way did Fast n Furious screw us?

There are lots of similarities in a lot of areas to a banana republic; I don’t think this is one of them. My judgement is that allowing Darrell Issa unchecked power to harass the executive branch would move us closer to a banana republic than not.

I agree with tarheeldem. voter suppression is more dangerous than any gun. If you dont count the votes in FL in 2000 then you get a war in Iraq with millions dead. The Repubs plan hasnt changed.

This whole “gun walking thing” began under the Bush Administration. Why didn’t the Republicans find out about it then. This is typical Republican theater, and it’s preventing Eric Holder from investigating any of the things “we” have expressed concern about.

This is what Alice discovered after she went through the looking glass.

I just left the grocery store, and I noticed price creep. In order to deceive me, that had prices for a single banana, a single peach and a single lime as opposed to a pound. Looking at and pricing steaks, is equivalent to window shopping; all I can afford to do is look. If you can’t relate to that, consider yourself fortunate. It’s certainly something most Republicans can’t relate to.

What does this have to do with “fast and furious”? Absolutely nothing. What does “fast and furious” have to do with “unemployment”? What does “fast and furious” have to do with our standard of living? We have 5 months to live, 5 months till the election. in those 5 months we have to get something out of Eric Holder in regard to the “commodity market price manipulation” of food; that’s the stuff we all have to buy in order to stay alive. He certainly can’t investigate anything as long as they have him pinned down with “Who did what, and when they did it”; under the Bush Administration.

Fast and furious is just the type of thing that could be debated till hell freezes over, and that’s what the Republicans want to do. While we’re debating they are robbing us blind by manipulating the price of the commodities we have to buy in order to live.

We need Holder to investigate what’s important to the 99%, and we have a very limited amount of time for him to do it.

In the vote, all the Republicans and remaining Blue Dog Democrats voted Aye, 67 primarily DLC Democrats stayed and voted No, and 109 Democrats walked out and were considered “Not Voting”.

Motion passed the House. Republicans think they’re on the way to impeaching an Attorney General.