OOPS! Here it is,
you decide
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Republicans party has become the “Almond Joy Party”. Sometime they
act like a nut and sometime they don’t.
Ben Adler on March 21, 2012 - 11:25 AM
ET
Last
week the Department of Justice denied preclearance to Texas’s law
requiring voters to present photo identification under Section 5 of the Voting
Rights Act. Section 5 requires states and jurisdictions with a demonstrated
history of passing discriminatory election laws to get approval from the DOJ
for any change to laws governing the time, place or manner in which an election
is conducted.
Within
days Texas filed a challenge in federal court
arguing that Section 5 is unconstitutional. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
maintains that the federal government exceeded its authority and violated the
Tenth Amendment when it passed the measure.
Conservative
opponents of civil rights are eager to see that challenge succeed. Writing
in National Review—which opposed the civil rights movement—vice
chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights and conservative scholar Abigail
Thernstrom argues that Section 5 is outdated. National Review’s
evolution on the subject is the standard conservative slither on civil rights.
First you oppose it. Then, when society has evolved and you look like a bigot,
you accept it. Then, as soon as humanly possible, you argue it was necessary at
the time but no longer is.
“The
Voting Rights Act was absolutely essential in ending the brutal regime of
racial subjugation in the South, but it has become a period
piece—anti-discrimination legislation passed at a time when southern blacks
were kept from the polls by violence, intimidation, and fraudulent literacy
tests,” writes Thernstrom. “Those
disfranchising devices are as unlikely to return as segregated water
fountains.” Thernstrom focuses most of her argument on the question of
redistricting, and she argues that increasing residential integration and
ethnic and socioeconomic diversity within minority communities makes the
creation of majority-minority districts either unnecessary or impossible. “The
notion of a ‘black community’ as the foundation of a black legislative district
is also becoming an anachronism.”
There
are two separate arguments being advanced by civil rights opponents: that
Section 5 is unconstitutional because it falls outside the federal government’s
enumerated powers, and that it is bad policy. Both are bogus. Section 5 is
clearly constitutional, and we very much need it to protect the right to vote.
When
Texas votes for seats in the House and Senate or the presidency, the results
affect every American. Thus it is in the national interest to insure that
elections are conducted fairly. “Not having discrimination in the electoral
process is important to all of us,” says Hilary Shelton, director of the
NAACP’s Washington Bureau.
Congress
has the authority to regulate national elections, and it has the power under
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution to protect the
rights of African-Americans from state governments. “Congress has broad
authority to regulate procedures for federal elections under Article I, Section
IV of the Constitution,” notes Daniel Tokaji, an election law expert at Ohio
State University. “Because Texas ID requirement would apply to federal
elections, we don’t even need to get into the question of whether Section 5
falls within Congress’s Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment power.” While Tokaji
agrees that imposing federal power over redistricting may raise some
constitutional questions, the Texas complaint maintains that the federal
government has no business telling states not to disenfranchise their citizens.
Moreover,
contra Thernstrom, southern blacks are indeed being kept from the polls today.
Case in point: the Texas voter ID law itself. Blacks and Latinos in Texas are
disproportionately likely not to have driver’s licenses other forms of
state-issued photo identification, as are poor people and the disabled. As the
DOJ noted in making its decision, “According to [Texas’s] own data, a Hispanic
registered voter is at least 46.5 percent, and potentially 120.0 percent, more
likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack this identification.” Texas
did not collect data for African-Americans. But national studies have shown
they too are less likely than whites to have the requisite ID. The DOJ has also
recently denied preclearance to a similar law
in South Carolina for the same reason. (South Carolina is also suing the DOJ, but they are not
claiming that the law is unconstitutional, only that it is being incorrectly
applied.)
This
is not an isolated incident. Every time the VRA is renewed, Congress documents
that it is still needed by examining allegations of vote suppression. “[Section
5] has stopped laws from going into effect that would restrict minority
participation,” says Nancy Abudu, senior staff counsel at the American Civil
Liberties Union. The most recent renewal was in 2006, when Republicans
controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House, so it can hardly be
characterized as a Democratic power grab. “[In 2006] Congress did a very good
job of collecting the evidence of why Section 5 remains necessary,” says Abudu.
“The
only places covered by Section 5 have a history of discrimination,” explains
Shelton. “Every state under Section 5 was reviewed carefully for its record and
complaints. [Opponents] are right: it is an extraordinary measure to take that
is inconsistent with states’ rights. But these are states that have proven bad
behavior. The law is protecting the participation of all eligible Americans.”
Car Theft: 10 Cities Where Your
Car Is Most Likely To Be Stolen
The Huffington Post |
By Khadeeja Safdar Posted: 06/21/2012
9:27 am Updated: 06/21/2012 11:39 am
Car thieves are
slacking.
The
number of auto thefts in the U.S. fell for the eighth consecutive year last
year, according to a study recently released by the National
Insurance Crime Bureau, an Illinois-based organization that monitors
insurance-related crime.
A
spokesman for NICB told
Bloomberg that improved
car security features can take credit for the declining rate of auto thefts.
Laredo,
Texas, which used to be known as the car theft capital of the nation, went from having the
most vehicle thefts in 2009 to
ranking number 53 in 2011. An increase in the city's police force and the
installation of monitoring towers have helped drive down Laredo's car theft
rate, according to
Pro 8 News.
Other
places haven't had such luck. The four cities with the highest rates of auto
theft in 2010 maintained their ranks in 2011.
Here's
a list of the 10 cities where your car is most likely to be stolen, according
to the NICB study. Auto theft rates for each city were determined by measuring
the number of reported car thefts relative to population size.
CFPB Publishes 2,000 Comments
About Private Student Loan Industry
The Huffington
Post | By Alexander
Eichler Posted: 06/15/2012 4:37
pm Updated: 06/15/2012 4:56 pm
The
graduates have spoken. Student loan debt is weighing down a generation.
This
week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published almost 2,000
letters from people --
students, parents, school officials and more -- struggling with debt from
private student lenders. The comments were collected for a report that will be
presented to Congress next month.
Some
of these people are trying to feed
children. Others say they'll have to put off having
them. Nearly everyone describes the private student loan industry --
which often charges higher interest rates than the federal loan system and is
less forgiving when you're in financial distress -- as an opaque, maddening
machine, where it's hard to get the help you need.
The
complaints on the CFPB site may only represent a fraction of the misery that's
out there. Student loan debt recently surpassed $1
trillion in the U.S.,
and while less than 7
percent of that is
estimated to be held by private loan companies, it's still believed to be at
least $7 billion.
For
young graduates, this can be especially burdensome, since the job market for
the past few years has been such an unforgiving place. Half of all young
college grads are either jobless
or underemployed, and many young adults have had to accept jobs at lower salaries than they'd get in a stronger economy
-- a pay gap that is likely to linger for years among people unlucky enough to
graduate after the financial crisis.
Posted: 06/21/12 11:22 AM ET
Chili's Server Fired After
Facebook Tip Rant
FOLLOW:
Facebook, 4chan, Chili's, Chili's
Restaurant, Chili's Servers, Facebook Rant, Reddit, Photo allergies, Social Media
Mistakes, Money
News
We
like to think there is a lesson to be learned from every mistake. In the case
of a California Chili's waitress, who's just been fired for posting an angry
rant on her Facebook page, we're not even sure which lesson to start with, or
who should be learning it.
The
incident began when this young woman was stiffed on a tip. She took to Facebook
to let off some steam. "Next time you tip me $5 on a $138 bill, don't even
bother coming in cause I'll spit in your food and then in your fuckig [sic]
face you cheap bastards!!!!!!!!!"
Lesson
#1: don't stiff servers on tips. It's often their main source of income and
generally sends bad feelings into the universe. Lesson #2: you probably
shouldn't threaten to spit on someone on your Facebook page, especially if you
live in a state where that constitutes assault, like California. Also,
restaurants are generally not excited to hear their employees threaten to spit
in their customers' food.
How,
you might be asking, did her managers at Chili's find out about this? That is
where the story gets a little more complex. This Reddit thread exploded
with comments overnight, in response to the claim that a 4Chan
user, Dr. Jimmy Rustles, may have been the whistleblower on this young
waitress.
The Daily Dot seems to have
called this out as a fake, however, after doing some fact-checking
with the management team at Chili's, who claim that the young woman's
"social media guideline violations" were not brought to their
attention by this gleeful troublemaker. These kinds of screengrabs are
notoriously easy to fake, although they look pretty convincing to us.
The
Daily Dot also noted, "Most commenters on the thread -- which is in the
4Chan subreddit, known for a greater propensity for trolling and a lack of
sympathy compared to most of Reddit -- seem to find the whole thing hilarious.
A few, however, are squeamish that she lost her job over a Facebook post."
The server has deleted her Facebook account, in the midst of this complex
social media hurricane.
Lesson
#3: Keep your fingers crossed that 4Chan's rabble-rousers don't catch wind of
your misbehavior and want to mess with you, just in case this is actually how
things went down.
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Families Moved In Together To
Weather Recession: Report
Posted: 06/21/2012 11:23
am Updated: 06/21/2012 11:23 am
The
recession didn’t just hurt our wallets, it also changed the sleeping
arrangements. Between 2007 and 2010, the number of adult Americans living in a
household with family members or others jumped more
than 11 percent, according to Census Bureau data cited by the Washington
Post. Young adults accounted for more than half of the people who
moved in with family or friends; the number of adult children that moved back
home increased by more than 1 million between 2007 and 2010.
The
Census data confirms what many already knew: that the combination of mountains
of debt and a weak job market means many young adults have little choice but to
return to mom and dad. Only 54 percent of
adults aged 18 to 24 have
jobs, according to a report from the Pew Research Center released in February.
That’s the lowest share since Pew started keeping track in 1948.
The
weak economy has altogether helped pushed 30 percent of
adults between the
ages of 25 and 34 back home in recent years, according to a separate Pew report
released in March. They don’t seem to be too upset. Close to eighty percent of
those who moved back in with their parents said they are “satisfied with their
living arrangements,” the Pew study found.
The
stigmatized phenomenon has now become “really close to something of a majority
experience,” according to
Katherine Newman, author of “The Accordion Family: Boomerang Kids,
Anxious Parents and the Private Toll of Global Competition.”
With
more adult children moving back in with their parents, the dynamics of
homeownership may be dramatically altered for the near future. Moving home is
just one of the many ways that young people are
increasingly delaying buying a house, according to NPR.
Ron Paul Admits He's On Social
Security, Even Though He Believes It's Unconstitutional
The Huffington
Post | By Erin
Mershon Posted: 06/20/2012 11:26
am Updated: 06/20/2012 12:24 pm
Rep.
Ron Paul (R-Texas) may rail against Social Security insolvency in the public
eye, but that hasn't stopped him from accepting the government checks.
The
libertarian-leaning Republican and former presidential candidate admitted
Wednesday that he accepts Social Security checks just minutes after he called
for younger generations to wean themselves off the program, in an interview on
MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"I
want young people to opt out of Social Security, but my goal isn't to
cut," he said.
The
Huffington Post's Sam Stein then asked Paul, "A bit of a personal question
-- Are you on Social Security? Do you get social security checks?"
Paul
admitted he does, stating, "[It's] just as I use the post office, I use
government highways, I use the banks, I use the federal reserve system. But
that doesn't mean that you can't work to remove this in the same way on Social
Security."
Paul
also said he still pays more into Social Security than he gets in his checks. Paul
is outspoken about the need to end government
programs like the Federal Reserve and the departments of energy and education.
But he said he would not
eliminate programs
like Social Security and Medicare, despite his belief that the programs are unconstitutional.
He planned to allow citizens under the age of 25 to opt out of the system in
order to save their own money for retirement, if elected to the presidency.
Ronald Page Goes On Gambling Spree
After ATM Spits Out Unlimited Cash
Posted: 06/15/2012 10:22
am Updated: 06/15/2012 11:55 am
Jackpot!
For a couple of weeks back in 2009, Ronald Page was living the dream. Thanks to
a bank error, the retired General Motors worker was able to withdraw unlimited
amounts of cash from ATMs at casinos in the Detroit area.
Instead
of letting Bank of America know of their screw-up, Page decided to let it
ride--going on what must have been an epic gambling spree. With just a few
hundred dollars in his bank account, Page withdrew a total of $1.5 million
in cash from casino ATMs, according to a report by Detroit's Local
10.
Page
took out $312,000 at Greektown Casino, $103,000 at MGM Grand Casino and
$514,000 at Motor City Casino, according to Local 10. But Page's lucky
streak was short-lived. Fifteen days and many, many ATM withdrawals later, Page
had gambled away all the money. (Editor's note: if you suddenly find yourself
flush with cash, we recommend an index fund or more prudent investment.)
It
wasn't long before Bank of America froze his account and federal authorities
stepped in.
Page
was indicted on stealing bank funds in 2009,
according to the Flint Journal. He has since been
convicted and will be sentenced by a federal judge on June 27.
Prosecutors
are recommending a 15-month sentence because the bank
is partly to blame for the error, Local 10 reports.
What would you do if your bank account gave
you to access unlimited funds? Would you spend all the money or alert the bank
of the error? Let us know in the comments below.
Romney Campaign Asks Florida
Governor To Downplay Good Economic News
The Huffington
Post | By Sam
Stein Posted: 06/20/2012 11:43
pm Updated: 06/21/2012 9:21 am
NEW
YORK -- There has always been friction between Mitt Romney and certain
Republican governors over how best to frame the state of the economy. While the
presumptive GOP nominee has argued during his campaign that the recovery is far
too slow, the electoral implications for making that case in states that
include Virginia, Ohio and Michigan are much more complicated.
Republican
governors Bob McDonnell of Virginia, John Kasich of Ohio and Rick Snyder of
Michigan all must show that they are leading their states' economies in the
right direction. Occasionally, that means discussing the economy in rosy terms,
putting them at odds with the Romney campaign.
Bloomberg News dug a
bit deeper than usual On Wednesday night into how much friction this has
caused, reporting that the Romney campaign has asked Florida Gov. Rick Scott to
tone "down his statements heralding improvements in the state’s economy
because they clash with the presumptive Republican nominee’s message."
The
story is well reported, going so far as to quote a Republican operative as
saying that the ads being run by the Florida GOP seemed like they were crafted
at President Barack Obama's re-election campaign headquarters.
The
state Republican party ran a television ad in March crediting Scott, who is a
year and a half into a four-year term, for drops in the unemployment rate. 'Companies
are hiring, expanding, putting more Floridians to work,' the ad narrator said.
'Florida’s unemployment rate continues to get better.' Florida’s jobless rate
was 11.1 percent in December 2010 before Scott took office and 8.2 percent two
years earlier when Obama was sworn in.
'The
first time I saw that ad I initially thought it was an Obama ad,' said Brad
Coker, managing director of the Washington-based Mason-Dixon Polling &
Research. 'They’ll have to tamp it down.'
The
Romney campaign is quoted in the piece as arguing that the former governor
routinely praises Scott and others for overcoming " the job-stifling
policies of the Obama administration.” But, not surprisingly, the Obama
campaign wasn't willing to grant them a pass. Obama's campaign press secretary
Ben LaBolt emailed the following statement:
Whether
it's touting the auto recovery, the resurgence of manufacturing, or the growth
of our exports, Republican governors across the country have recognized what
Mitt Romney refuses to: that we've made progress since the economic crisis. Not
only does Mitt Romney deny that progress -- he rejects the policies that led to
it and would instead return to the policies that caused the crisis in the first
place.
It's
worth noting that among state economies, Florida's is doing relatively poorly.
It's also worth noting that this campaign theme was played out in the 2004
election as well, with John Kerry arguing that George W. Bush had not
shepherded a struggling economy in an overwhelming positive direction. The Bush
team responded by essentially accusing Kerry of being a sourpuss.
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Geraldo Rivera: I Was 'Manually
Raped' By TSA Agent
Posted: 05/11/2012 12:17 pm Updated:
05/11/2012 12:39 pm
Geraldo
Rivera raised some eyebrows on Friday when he said that a TSA agent
"manually raped" him at an airport.
Appearing
on "Fox and Friends," Rivera revealed that he had been on the
so-called "no fly list" for a long time, until "kicking and
screaming" had gotten him removed from the list. Then he segued rather
randomly to a story about the last time he traveled to Afghanistan.
"I
got manually raped by a guy," he said. "This guy, it seemed to me,
was getting off on it."
"Oh
my gosh!" co-host Gretchen Carlson interjected.
"And
the tighter I got and the angrier I got, he just wanted to be a little more
intimate, and go up here and go down there," Rivera said. "...My junk
was junked!"
"I
never thought we'd be going here with this today, Geraldo," Carlson said.
Cost Of Raising A Child Climbs To
$235,000 For Middle-Income Families
By SAM HANANEL 06/14/12 06:56
PM ET 
WASHINGTON
— For $235,000, you could indulge in a shiny new Ferrari – or raise a child for
17 years.
A
government report released Thursday found that a middle-income family with a
child born last year will spend about that much in child-related expenses from
birth through age 17. That's a 3.5 percent increase from 2010.
The
report from the Agriculture Department's Center for Nutrition Policy and
Promotion said housing is the single largest expense, averaging about $70,500,
or 30 percent of the total cost. Families living in the urban Northeast tend to
have the highest child-rearing expenses, followed by those in the urban West
and the urban Midwest. Those living in the urban South and rural areas face the
lowest costs.
The
estimate also includes the cost of transportation, child care, education, food,
clothing, health care and miscellaneous expenses. The USDA has issued the
report every year since 1960, when it estimated the cost of raising a child was
just over $25,000 for middle-income families. That would be $191,720 today when
adjusted for inflation.
Housing
was also the largest expense in raising a child back in 1960. But the cost of
child care for young children – negligible 50 years ago – is now the second
largest expense as more moms work outside the home. The report considers
middle-income parents to be those with an income between $59,400 and $102,870.
It says families that earn more can expect to spend more on their children.
The
cost per child decreases as a family has more children. The report found that
families with three or more children spend 22 percent less per child than those
with two children. The savings result from hand-me-down clothes and toys, shared
bedrooms and buying food in larger quantities.
___
The
full report is available at www.cnpp.usda.gov
Billing
Disputes Are Top Complaint On Credit Cards Cited By Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau
Posted: 06/20/2012 5:34
pm Updated: 06/20/2012 5:45 pm
Dory
Hayes' credit card complaint started with an honest mistake. And the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau agreed.
When
she bought a new couch at Jennifer Convertibles in April 2011, she financed it
by charging $500 on a GE Money Card, which had an annual percentage rate of 0
percent. Next, she set up automatic bill paying, in $50 installments, to take
place the second of each month -- her bill's due date -- and sat back to relax
on her new sofa.
"I
had signed up for paperless billing and just never logged in to check the
account," Hayes, 36, of Stamford, Conn., wrote in an email to The
Huffington Post.
Ten
months later, when the couch should have been paid off, she instead received an
email indicating the amount she owed exceeded $400. That's when she discovered
her costly mistake: Hayes' electronic payment needed 24 hours to clear, which
meant that she had been paying a day late for nearly a year, accruing a $25
late fees each time, plus interest. A representative from the card company told
her would waive two late fees, but only two.
"I
felt like it should not cost me so much for an honest mistake," Hayes
said.
In
May, Hayes took her complaint to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the
nation's biggest financial watchdog, and submitted her grievance by email. The
next day she received a call from GE Money Card. Two days later, the company
told her, her issue was resolved, and her $400-plus credit card bill, composed
only of fees, had been set to zero. Case closed.
Hayes
is not the only one who has been helped. The Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau has resolved 4 out of every 5 complaints it has received since opening its
doors nearly a year ago, according to the bureau.
On
Tuesday, the bureau gave the public access to its credit card complaint database,
which classifies consumer complaints by kind and the financial companies' type
of response; it also indicates which companies have been complained about.
The
bureau has announced that by the end of the year it will open to
the public other complaint databases, including those for student loans and
mortgages.
What's
the No. 1 complaint from consumers about credit cards? Billing disputes, such
the one Hayes wrote about, the public database revealed. "It speaks to
issue that consumers must read billing statements or you may be caught behind
the eight ball and there may be something that could go unchallenged,"
said Pamela Banks, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union. Cards issuers
vary in the their timing of payment processing, and that information tends to
be buried deep in the company's statement of the terms and conditions.
While
the new database only shows complaints from June 1, 2012 -- a total of 171 --
the majority of card companies represented are those granted by the biggest
card issuers, including Citibank, Capital One and JPMorgan Chase, as well as GE
Capital Retail, which offers the GE Money Card.
Since
July 21, 2011, when the bureau opened, it has received more than 45,000
complaints about all kinds of consumer financial services, including credit
cards, mortgages, student loans and auto loans. About 37,000 of those have been
routed to financial institutions for review, the bureau said, as The New York Times reported.
While
consumer groups have largely praised the new database, the banking
industry charged that some complaints do not accurately describe a situation and they unfairly smear the biggest
card issuers.
Richard
Hunt, the president of lobbying group Consumers Banking Association, has argued
that naming the credit card issuers before the complaints are fact checked can
hurt banks' reputations.
But
Hayes' complaint experience with the bureau, which she called
"great," signals a new era has begun for consumer rights. "I am
still so happy I had a place to go," she said.
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By PETE YOST
The Associated Press
Contempt? GOP lawmakers weigh citing AG Holder
WASHINGTON
— In a mounting confrontation with congressional Republicans, President Barack
Obama invoked executive privilege Wednesday to withhold documents a House
committee is seeking. The panel neared a vote on citing Attorney General Eric
Holder for contempt.
Rep.
Darrell Issa, R-Calif., speaks to reporters following his meeting with Attorney
General Eric Holder on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 19, 2012.
Holder wants a House panel to drop plans to try to hold him in contempt of
Congress, and the panel's chairman wants more Justice Department documents
regarding Operation Fast and Furious, a flawed gun-smuggling probe in Arizona.
Holder and Issa met in an effort to resolve their dispute over the
investigation of Fast and Furious by the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee that Issa chairs. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Attorney
General Eric holder speaks to reporters following his meeting on Capitol Hill
in Washington, Tuesday, June 19, 2012. Holder wants a House panel to drop plans
to try to hold him in contempt of Congress, and the panel's chairman wants more
Justice Department documents regarding Operation Fast and Furious, a flawed
gun-smuggling probe in Arizona. Holder and Rep. Darrell Issa, a California
Republican, met in an effort to resolve their dispute over the investigation of
Fast and Furious by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that
Issa chairs. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Attorney
General Eric holder speaks to reporters following his meeting on Capitol Hill
in Washington, Tuesday, June 19, 2012. Holder wants a House panel to drop plans
to try to hold him in contempt of Congress, and the panel's chairman wants more
Justice Department documents regarding Operation Fast and Furious, a flawed
gun-smuggling probe in Arizona. Holder and Rep. Darrell Issa, a California
Republican, met in an effort to resolve their dispute over the investigation of
Fast and Furious by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that
Issa chairs. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Rep.
Darrell Issa, R-Calif., speaks to reporters following his meeting with Attorney
General Eric Holder on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 19, 2012.
Holder wants a House panel to drop plans to try to hold him in contempt of
Congress, and the panel's chairman wants more Justice Department documents
regarding Operation Fast and Furious, a flawed gun-smuggling probe in Arizona.
Holder and Issa met in an effort to resolve their dispute over the
investigation of Fast and Furious by the House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee that Issa chairs. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Related
Comments
rapidly grew more heated. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner suggested
administration officials had lied earlier or were now "bending the
law," while Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings said the committee's GOP
chairman "had no interest" in resolving the issue and was trying to
pick a fight.
In
a letter to the committee chairman, Darrell Issa of California, a Justice
Department official said the executive privilege applies to documents that
explain how the department learned there were problems with an investigation in
Arizona of gun-running into Mexico, called Operation Fast and Furious.
At
the start of a hearing, Issa called the president's action
"an
untimely" assertion of privilege. The committee was later to vote on
whether to cite Holder for contempt of Congress for failing to turn over the
documents. If the panel approved that, the contempt citation would then go to
the full House. Technically, if the full House approved, there could be a
federal case against Holder, but history strongly suggests the matter won't get
that far.
"The
president has asserted executive privilege," Deputy Attorney General James
Cole said in the letter to Issa. "We regret that we have arrived at this
point, after the many steps we have taken to address the committee's concerns
and to accommodate the committee's legitimate oversight interests."
House
Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, raised another question after the president invoked
the privilege.
"Until
now, everyone believed that the decisions regarding 'Fast and Furious' were
confined to the Department of Justice. The White House decision to invoke
executive privilege implies that White House officials were either involved in
the 'Fast and Furious' operation or the cover-up that followed," said
Boehner's press secretary Brendan Buck. "The administration has always
insisted that wasn't the case. Were they lying, or are they now bending the law
to hide the truth?"
Rep.
Cummings of Maryland, the committee's ranking Democrat, had a different take.
He said Issa could have settled the matter with Holder reasonably but has
instead resorted to "partisan and inflammatory personal attacks."
The
likelihood of a contempt vote rose after Holder and Issa failed to reach
agreement Tuesday in a 20-minute meeting at the Capitol.
During
the committee's year-and-a-half-long investigation, the department has turned
over 7,600 documents about the conduct of the Fast and Furious operation.
However, because Justice initially told the committee falsely the operation did
not use a risky investigative technique known as gun-walking, the panel has
turned its attention from the details of the operation and is now seeking
documents that would show how the department headquarters responded to the
committee's investigation.
In
Fast and Furious, agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives in Arizona abandoned the agency's usual practice of intercepting all
weapons they believed to be illicitly purchased. Instead, the goal of
gun-walking was to track such weapons to high-level arms traffickers, who had
long eluded prosecution, and to dismantle their networks.
Gun-walking
has long been barred by Justice Department policy, but federal agents in
Arizona experimented with it in at least two investigations during the George
W. Bush administration before Fast and Furious. These experiments came as the
department was under widespread criticism that the old policy of arresting
every suspected low-level "straw purchaser" was still allowing tens
of thousands of guns to reach Mexico. A straw purchaser is an illicit buyer of
guns for others.
The
agents in Arizona lost track of many of the weapons in Operation Fast and
Furious. Two of the guns that "walked" in the operation were found at
the scene of the slaying of U.S. border agent Brian Terry.
Holder
and Issa met for 20 minutes Tuesday but failed to resolve the dispute.
Issa
wanted the documents immediately. Holder told reporters he would not turn over
documents on the gun-smuggling probe unless Issa agreed to another
congressional briefing on the Justice Department material. Holder wanted an
assurance from Issa that the transfer of the records would satisfy a subpoena
from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Issa heads.
"If
we receive no documents, we'll go forward" with a contempt vote, Issa told
reporters.
If
the committee votes to recommend that Holder be held in contempt of Congress,
its recommendation would go next to the full House for a vote although House
leaders are not required to call it up for a vote. They could instead use the
threat of that to press for renewed negotiations.
Historically,
at some point Congress and the president negotiate agreements to settle these
disputes, because both sides want to avoid a court battle that could narrow
either the reach of executive privilege or Congress' subpoena power.
Ordinarily,
deliberative documents like those Issa is seeking are off-limits to Congress.
In Operation Fast and Furious, the Justice Department's initial incorrect
denials are seen as providing justification for the additional demands.
Issa
and the House Republican leadership have asked whether the department's initial
denial in a Feb. 4, 2011, letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, was part of
a broader effort to obstruct a congressional investigation.
The
material "pretty clearly demonstrates that there was no intention to
mislead, to deceive," Holder told reporters.
After
executive privilege was asserted, the committee moved ahead with discussion of
the contempt citation.
Issa
said that "more than eight months after a subpoena and clearly after the
question of executive privilege could have and should have been asserted, this
untimely assertion ... falls short of any reason to delay today's
proceedings."
Rep.
Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said a vote should be postponed.
"The
administration has the constitutional right to claim executive privilege and
refuse to produce those documents," Kucinich said. "It would be a
shame to produce a titanic contest between two branches of government."
___
Online:
House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee: http://oversight.house.gov
___
June
20, 2012 12:36 PM EDT
Copyright
2012, The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Joe Williams at Politico: Suspended
for Being a Black Man
Joe Williams, a reporter for Politico.com,
has been suspended for making comments about presidential candidate Mitt Romney
that the company deems to be racially-offensive. During an appearance on the
show hosted by Martin Bashir, Williams said this:
It’s very interesting that he does so many
appearances on Fox & Friends. And it’s unscripted. It’s the only time they
let Mitt off the leash, so to speak. But it also points out a larger problem
he’s got to solve if he wants to be successful come this fall: Romney is very,
very comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him. That’s one of the
reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in some town hall settings, why he
can’t relate to people other than that. But when he comes on Fox & Friends,
they’re like him. They’re white folks who are very much relaxed in their own
company.
Do
you hear that? Those are the crickets chirping in the background as I sit and
wait for you to give me the punch line that led to Williams being suspended. I
can’t find a single offensive word in Williams’ remarks, and the comments are
every bit as professional as Williams himself. I’ve interacted with Joe during
numerous interviews, and on every single occasion, he was efficient, thorough
and thoughtful in his questioning. The idea that he has somehow been labeled to
be a rogue is beyond laughable.
But
you see, there’s a pattern and unfortunately Joe has been affected by it. For
the most part, being born a Black man who speaks conscientiously or accurately
about issues of race effectively defines you to be a rogue. There isn’t much of
a disconnect between the Black man who is stopped and frisked on the street,
and the Black male professor/journalist/doctor/lawyer who has his capabilities
questioned, even when he does nothing wrong.
Cornel
West was a rogue at Harvard for seeking to reengage the black community.
I was a trouble maker in elementary school when I answered questions
without raising my hand. Barack Obama was defined as a radical leftist by
the Republican Party for saying that the wealthy should pay slightly higher
taxes. It’s easy for black men to be marginalized very quickly in most
mainstream environments, primarily because people are waiting for you to say
something that they can define to be volatile or dangerous.
In
media, the pattern is quite the same: Just a couple of years ago, Marc Lamont
Hill was ambushed by the Right Wing and fired from Fox News for no good reason.
After that, Roland Martin was suspended from CNN for making remarks that I
personally didn’t agree with, but were acceptable to many millions of African
Americans. The consistent and unfortunate reality for many African Americans
who work with mainstream (read: White-owned) media organizations is that you
must either be a good little boy who goes along with the program or you have to
“take your black ass back to the ghetto.” Most of these organizations
have little interest in true and meaningful diversity of ideas, they only want
to have a black face or two at the table so they can pretend that they are making
racial progress.
Black
men on Fox News like Juan Williams are rewarded for speaking negatively about
African Americans, but when Juan tried to speak up in favor of the Black
community during the Republican primaries, he was slapped back into his seat and
booed down by the crowd. When it comes to liberal organizations, you are
allowed to become fired up and radical about the “standardized liberal
package,” including issues such as gay marriage, reproductive rights, and the
torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. But the minute you get “too Black” and
speak truth to power on matters that affect African Americans (i.e. racial
inequality or mass incarceration), they put you back in the mailroom where you
“belong.”
The
saddest thing about what happened to Joe Williams is that he is the consummate
professional (much more so than myself), dedicated to his job and darn good at
it. It’s even more unfortunate that he was hit with a massive penalty for
making remarks that were not only uneventful, but are also in alignment with
millions of other Americans. You want to know why I don’t work for networks
like Politico, CNN or MSNBC? It’s because Black men are never truly free if
their platforms are supported by the descendants of their historical
oppressors.
Independent,
Black-owned media should be defended and protected as a matter of intellectual,
social and cultural security. Strong journalists like Joe Williams, in such
environments, would be allowed to flourish without fear of intimidation for
exercising fair and free speech. We can never have true power if we are always
living under an umbrella that is owned by someone else. Malcolm X told us
this a long time ago.
Joe
Williams wasn’t suspended by Politico for being abusive, unprofessional, sloppy
or disrespectful. Instead, he was suspended for expressing opinions that come
from a point of view that his supervisors will likely never take the time to
appreciate. Joe Williams was punished for voicing a view that challenged many
Americans (including his bosses) to look at themselves in the mirror and see
America for what it really is.
Joe Williams was suspended for being a Black man.
Dr. Boyce
Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse
University and founder of the Your Black
World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your
email, please click here.
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