WashPost Loved Henry Waxman, But Bashes Darrell Issa ‘Feverishly Chasing’ After Obama
When ultraliberal Henry Waxman ran the House Government Reform Committee, The Washington Post didn't often suggest he was a fierce partisan or ideologue. Instead, former Washington Post managing editor Robert Kaiser praised him in a book review headlined "Moustache of Justice." (The Waxman lovers even have a mug.)
Kaiser cooed, “Henry Waxman is to Congress what Ted Williams was to baseball -- a natural....Waxman has been one of the most effective members of Congress for 35 years....This is the voice of David, whose career has featured the slaying of one Goliath after another.” This is not how the Post is treating Waxman’s "feverish" successor Darrell Issa.
Tech at Night: We need a pro-innovation FCC. We need fewer pro-regulation Republican Senators, too.
Sorry for missing Tech at Night on Friday. After that near-miss with a cold, I decided to start the weekend a little early that night. But we're back. So with five days of news to catch up on, let's see what we have here.
Here's a reminder of why Net Neutrality was a terrible idea. Making people pay for what they use creates opportunities for innovation. If ESPN wants to negotiate bulk rates for wireless data, let them!
And yet that John McCain would add more regulations. We need less micromanagement of cable, not more.
NBC’s Gregory Grills Rep. Issa for ‘Politically Overreaching’ on Benghazi Scandal
In an interview with House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa on Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory attempted to dismiss the growing Benghazi scandal for the Obama administration as a GOP political attack: "You've got Republicans talking about this being Watergate. One Republican raising the specter of impeachment. Conservative groups raising money off of the Benghazi story. Are you hurting your own credibility and your own find – fact-finding mission by politically overreaching?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Moments later, Gregory downplayed the Benghazi terrorist attack as just one incident among many that have "happened throughout our recent history....spanning Republican and Democratic administrations, including President Bush's administration." He then tried to pin the blame on Congress: "Why is there not more of an effort to beef up security after these attacks happen....And isn't this Congress's job to spend the money to beef up security?"
MSNBC’s Hayes Gloats Over Kidnapping and Murder Stories Preempting Benghazi Media Coverage
On Wednesday's All In show, MSNBC host Chris Hayes was gleeful over media coverage of the Benghazi hearings being preempted by both the story of three girls kidnapped and held prisioner for a decade in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as the verdict in the Jodi Arias murder trial. Hayes flippantly referred to the crime stories as "the next Lifetime original movie" as he teased the segment at the top of the show:
CBS Devotes Two Straight Days of Coverage to ‘Possible Cover-Up’ on Benghazi; ABC, NBC Out to Lunch
CBS used its Sunday evening and Monday morning newscasts to keep the spotlight on the question of a "possible cover-up" surrounding the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Jeff Glor led CBS Evening News with the scoop from earlier in the day on Face the Nation – that a "career U.S. diplomat is raising new questions" about the Obama administration's claim that the attack spontaneously erupted in response to an early protest in Egypt.
Monday's CBS This Morning also aired a report on this latest development on the September 11, 2012 attack. Meanwhile, ABC and NBC have yet to pick up on the veteran diplomat's allegations, despite the fact that he is set to testify publicly to Congress on the issue on Wednesday.
Sunday Morning Miracle: CBS’s Face the Nation Leads with Benghazi ‘Cover-Up’
Proof Sunday morning that Republicans can use their power to hold House hearings to force media coverage of topics journalists have shown little interest in probing. CBS's Face the Nation led with an “exclusive” which Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committe on Oversight and Government Reform, gave host Bob Schieffer about the upcoming testimony from Greg Hicks, the second in command in Libya at the time of the Benghazi attacks.
“Today,” Schieffer touted, “there is new information raising questions about whether there was a cover-up by the State Department to deflect criticism that it had ignored requests for more security for its people in Libya.”
Tech at Night: CISPA gets amended but not quite as I wanted. FISMA reform quietly passes.
So the House did not pass the amendment to CISPA that they probably should have passed, but the House did act to find a compromise that would ensure our needs are met, while addressing the privacy issues some have.
While the above-linked criticisms are legitimate, it is the case that not that all privacy criticisms of CISPA are legitimate. "Privacy" has become the vague catch-all for left-libertarian positions that "for the children" has become for progressives. All too often there's no actual meat to the criticisms. Heck, half the people complaining about privacy would tell you that CISPA is the new SOPA, when the two bills are entirely unrelated. It's baseless scaremongering designed to defeat Republican efforts and clear the field for Jay Rockefeller and Barack Obama to act.
I do plan to say more very soon on CISPA, explaining why we should pass the bill. Watch RedState.
Tech at Night: Bradley Manning confesses. Kim Dotcom whines like a stuck pig. Don’t let Pandora be a regulatory Solyndra.
Is it still a likely coincidence when all these stories at once come out pushing this topic of spending money to give schoolkids access to the dangerous, adult Internet? Or is somebody funding this drive?
Manning confessies to being a spy and a traitor. I wish we could just force choke him.
Bad news: New Zealand is arming manatees. Seriously though, if Kim Dotcom wants to fight his prosecution, he should turn himself in, instead of continuing his crimes in New Zealand.
Tech at Night: The pre-inauguration slump. The anti-SOPA coalition is feared.
Slow month so far. Last Tech at Night was quick, and so will this one be a short trip through my browser windows.
The anti-SOPA coalition could return, because it's the one weird time that the left wing also seems to have an anti-regulatory element to it. Legislators are right to fear it.
I like this: Darrell Issa investigating FTC and how its Google investigation leaked just so much to the public. Whose agenda was served there?
Tech at Night: Sales tax deal is dead. Silly video privacy law gone. Obama makes life harder.
Hey La-Mulanites! I'm Neil, and let's play Tech at Night.
Anyway. Yeah, I took a break, as you may have noticed. It turns out between Christmas, New Year's and the Fiscal Cliff, not much happened for me to cover, anyway! So let's get started.
Two legislative notes: the outmoded video privacy law passed, while the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act is dead in the water. I always said its best chance was President Romney and a Republican Senate, but now that's not happening. Poor Amazon, bargaining with states on the assumption this would happen.
And in case you forgot, a Cybersecurity executive order would be a bad thing, per Marsha Blackburn and Steve Scalise.
Tech at Night: Darrell Issa, the legislative machine vs Barack Obama’s cowardice on Internet liberty.
Who's anti-science? We set up a bill to bring in more foreign scientist and engineers through the STEM Act, then pass the bill with virtually no Democrat support, and then get called 'racist.' Apparently science degrees are racist now, according to (frankly delusional) Democrats.
And more by the ever-busy Darrell Issa: his Reddit outreach continues as he promotes his two-year legislative and regulatory moratorium in the IAMA act (even the name is a nod to that community). But, based on the linked article, they're looking for reasons to oppose. Left-'libertarians' are too much reflexive fanbois of unchecked state power, when Democrats get to have that power. But, we'll see.
Tech at Night: Google gets its way against Obama, to everyone’s surprise?
Apologies. I've had some technical issues tonight, and after twice nearly losing my list of links to work through... I'll do my best, but I'm not really feeling it at this point. So sorry if I'm subpar tonight.
Two Google wins going on. Larry Page talked with FTC on antitrust and now the left is shrieking that sanity may prevail on this. Google isn't a search monopoly. Amazon, eBay, IMDB, sites like these ensure it. Even if Bing and Duck Duck Go are having trouble breaking through, domain-specific search matters, a lot, and Google has to compete with that, or die.
That said, it's ridiculous that Google was allowed to hack people's browsers, store information surreptitiously, and instruct the browsers to send that information to their servers at later times. This directly against the expressed wishes and policies of the users involved. All they have to do is pay Obama his 20 pieces of silver, and they even get to keep the data.
Tech at Night: Copyright flares up. Spectrum still matters too, though.
So you may have heard that the Republican Study Committee pulled the copyright piece I spoke highly of over the weekend. I don't have anything to say about this just yet. I'm going to reexamine the piece, to see if it had issues I didn't notice in my quick read over the weekend. I'm also going to try to figure out just what's happened. Then I'll have more to say.
Copyright is ramping up, though. Darrell Issa is getting frisky against DMCA, and is going to push legislation. I don't know if I support such a bill. The DMCA has issues, but for the most part it was a solid compromise that has served us well. It must not be changed lightly.
Full Moon Already …? Thom Hartmann Suggests Benghazi Attack Part of Right-Wing Plot
Looks like we have a new leader on the left for proponent of this year's most delusional conspiracy theory.
Libtalker Thom Hartmann on his radio show Monday went somewhere you'd otherwise expect to find Occupy squatters reeling from bong hits and railing against the man. (h/t for audio, Brian Maloney at mrctv.org) --
‘Meet the Press’ Panel Gangs Up on Rep. Issa, Dismisses Holder Contempt Vote as ‘Distraction’
On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory led the show's panelists in dismissing the House Government Oversight Committee holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal as a mere political "distraction" created by Republicans. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
The committee's chairman, California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, was also on the panel and interrogated by Gregory: "If you got everything you wanted, what do you think it would prove?....What would you be able to prove? I mean what the White House is saying is this is a fishing expedition, it's to score political points, it's all theater. What can you prove if you get everything you want?"
Issa responded:
We got a lie, we got a cover-up. But more importantly, five different times, we had the – the key people involved in front of a deposition, private deposition with Republican and Democratic consuls, and the administration's handlers, lawyers, said, "Don't answer, don't answer, don't answer." We need answers. We can't have answers when people take the fifth. We can't have answers when the Justice Department instructs witnesses not to answer questions.
Former Democratic New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson chimed in and questioned Issa's motives: "But with all due respect to the Congressman, this strikes me as political....I think the Attorney General has done a very good job.... I think there's a little bit of political payback."
Gregory then teed up Politico's Jonathan Martin to remark on how the growing Obama administration scandal would actually be bad for the GOP: "Jonathan, there is tension here among Republicans....There's a lot of other Republicans who say, 'Hey, this is not the focus here we want in an election year.'"
Martin went along with the spin:
Right. If you give truth serum, I think, to the House GOP leadership, they would say they'd rather talk about jobs every single day from now until election day. But the fact is, in the House, there is a strong block of conservatives that have prompted Speaker Boehner to sort of bend here. And so he is having to pursue this issue.
Look, I don't think they want to do this. I don't think Governor Romney certainly wants to pursue this. They want to focus entirely on jobs and the economy, on President Obama, from now until election day. But it's a testament to the chairman and the conservative strength in the House GOP that this is happening.
Correspondent Andrea Mitchell rounded out the panel's downplaying of the contempt vote: "[Democrats] think that they can win because, as Governor Richardson said, they think the people care more about the economy. It is a distraction. It is politics writ large in Washington, according to most people."
Here is a transcript of the June 24 exchange:
10:58AM ET
(...)
DAVID GREGORY: But Congressman, you – the documents you're after are not about the program itself, they're about how the Justice Department responded to you, what they were saying about you and your committee and the Attorney General's testimony. If you got everything you wanted, what do you think it would prove?
DARRELL ISSA: You know, Brian Terry's mother wants the truth.
GREGORY: One of the agents killed.
ISSA: Both the ranking member, Mr. Cummings, and myself promised to get the truth. We got a lie, we got a cover-up. But more importantly, five different times, we had the – the key people involved in front of a deposition, private deposition with Republican and Democratic consuls, and the administration's handlers, lawyers, said, "Don't answer, don't answer, don't answer."
We need answers. We can't have answers when people take the fifth. We can't have answers when the Justice Department instructs witnesses not to answer questions. And more importantly, I think the American people understand if the administration lies, the people who tell untruths to the administration, and then cover it up for ten months, have to be held accountable. That's not executive privilege. You don't have the privilege to lie to the American people.
GREGORY: What would you be able to prove? I mean what the White House is saying is this is a fishing expedition, it's to score political points, it's all theater. What can you prove if you get everything you want?
ISSA: Well first of all, what we know is, on a couple of occasions, specific testimony about memos and e-mails that were sent, we're looking for those. Those are in our discovery. What we really want to know is why did it take ten months, and what were they covering up? Because from this ten months, we go backwards to find out the important thing. Who at Justice, up and down the chain, authorized this and allowed it to continue?
Remember, Brian Terry was killed 18 months ago. We're not just talking about February fourth, we're talking about the three months before – after he was killed, and the months leading up to it. The investigation has to, one, hold people responsible, two, make sure it doesn't happen again. And the second part is what we're all about.
GREGORY: Governor, do you think the White House ought to try to find some accommodation here?
BILL RICHARDSON: I think both sides need to find an accommodation. But with all due respect to the Congressman, this strikes me as political. The administration has provided 7,600 documents. There's been 11 Congressional hearings. People want the Congress to deal with jobs. They want them to deal with the one million construction jobs that are going to expire unless they act. They're going to need to deal with close to seven million student loans that are going to go up unless the Congress acts.
I think the Attorney General has done a very good job. I mean I commend him for what he's done on challenging the Arizona immigration law, on what he's done with a number of other inquiries, the voting rights suppression that is happening around the country. I think there's a little bit of political payback. I like the Congressman-
ISSA: But Bill, you know...
RICHARDSON: But--
ISSA: ...Nixon got us opened up China. He created the E.P.A. and O.S.H.A.. There were a lot of good things that happened. In this case, the Attorney General has given 80,000 documents to the inspector general. And of the 7,600 documents that we received, some of them we didn't ask for, they're not pertinent. And many of them are completely redacted, completely black pages.
GREGORY: Alright. But so a lot of it--
ISSA: So let's understand, we want answers to specific questions.
GREGORY: Alright, I want to get in here because I want to talk about the politics of this, as well. Jonathan, there is tension here among Republicans.
JONATHAN MARTIN [POLITICO]: Right.
GREGORY: The Chairman wants to move forward. There's a lot of other Republicans who say, "Hey, this is not the focus here we want in an election year."
MARTIN: Right. If you give truth serum, I think, to the House GOP leadership, they would say they'd rather talk about jobs every single day from now until election day. But the fact is, in the House, there is a strong block of conservatives that have prompted Speaker Boehner to sort of bend here. And so he is having to pursue this issue.
Look, I don't think they want to do this. I don't think Governor Romney certainly wants to pursue this. They want to focus entirely on jobs and the economy, on President Obama, from now until election day. But it's a testament to the chairman and the conservative strength in the House GOP that this is happening.
ISSA: But Jonathan, you know, the Tuesday – the Tuesday Group, the most moderate Republicans, have come up to me time and time again about this. And it's not a fight we want. It's not what we want to be on. Yes, we want to be jobs and the economy. The Data Act passed unanimously out of the House, and it's died in the Senate, that would bring greater transparency and accountability and save money. We have those issues we're working on.
But, you know, some fights you pick, this wasn't one. Some fights come to you, and you have to do what you have to do. In this case, you'll have all the Republicans, moderate and conservatives, saying, "We don't want to do this, but we will do it." And you'll have a lot of Democrats voting with us.
GREGORY: And Andrea Mitchell, where are we on this?
MITCHELL: Well, what you've heard from the Chairman here, from Chairman Issa, is that Nixon did some things that were good. I mean that is the analogy. And by invoking executive privilege, the White House has now brought into the sort of symbolic confrontation, this constitutional confrontation, that the White House did not initially want. But they think that they can win because, as Governor Richardson said, they think the people care more about the economy.
It is a distraction. It is politics writ large in Washington, according to most people. But I think that this thing is going to play out. You're going to have this vote on the House floor. And the irony is, of course, that it will be up to the Justice Department whether or not to prosecute. You're not going to – this is going to go to the courts. I think that Chairman Issa would agree with that. It's going to go to the courts, and you're not going to have a resolution before the election.
(...)
David Gregory: Is Paul Ryan ‘A Little Too Incendiary’ To Be Vice President?
Do you think trying to balance the federal budget is incendiary?
NBC's David Gregory apparently does, for on Sunday's Meet the Press, he asked Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) "whether a guy like Paul Ryan is a little too incendiary" to be vice president (video follows with transcript and commentary):
DAVID GREGORY, HOST: So I have a question about Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan's chairman of budget committee. You know, I mean like Marco Rubio, guys are the same age, 41 years old, and a big future ahead of him in the Republican Party. But the question, chairman, is whether a guy like Paul Ryan is a little too incendiary. Would the left be able to really go to work on him because of his views about Medicare, because of his budget? Do you think Romney looks at that and says, "Boy, he's attractive, he doubles down on my message, but he'd just be too much of a lightning rod?"
So exactly what about Ryan is incendiary? Is creating two consecutive federal budgets that passed in the House incendiary? Is trying to reduce our skyrocketing deficits and slow the growth in the federal debt incendiary?
And why didn't folks such as Gregory ask in 2008 if a junior senator with little legislative experience and ties to domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, the America-hating Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and convicted real estate mogul Tony Rezko was too incendiary to be president?
Fortunately, Issa didn't see it that way:
REP. DARRELL ISSA (R-CALIFORNIA): Well, I hope that Governor Romney looks at what Paul Ryan and others have said and not what the political left has said about them. That's part of the consideration.
GREGORY: Right. Well he has. He's embraced a lot of what he says.
ISSA: Right, exactly. If you look at Paul Ryan, he's the person that took on the president in that famous Republican gathering where the president said, "You guys have no ideas." And he said, "Well, wait a second. I gave you this. What about this?" And the president had to back down and say, "Well yes, those are some very good budget ideas."
This is a person of substance that I serve with in the House, I'm very proud to serve with, who has a lot of great ideas. If he's not the vice president, he still is one of the people on the short list for key cabinet positions.
Indeed.
Of course, there are two media realities here. First, Ryan is a rising conservative star in the Republican Party and therefore has to be trashed by folks such as Gregory.
But more importantly, any vice presidential candidate that isn't a RINO doesn't pass the press's litmus test.
Folks like Gregory are busily campaigning for Romney to pick a running mate as liberal as possible in order to increase President Obama's chances of victory.
As a Tea Party favorite, Ryan clearly doesn't fit that mold.
Wouldn't it be nice if they'd all just admit it rather than hiding behind this almost transparent veil of impartiality?
Or would that be too inconvenient a truth?
To receive my articles hot off the presses follow me on Twitter ow.ly/btalc and Facebook ow.ly/btald.
— Noel Sheppard (@NoelSheppard) June 9, 2012
Bill Maher: ‘Republicans Don’t Care About Dead Mexicans’
Bill Maher said Friday, "Republicans don't care about dead Mexicans."
This came moments after he admitted on HBO's Real Time he didn't know anything about the controversial White House mission known as Fast and Furious "until this week" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL MAHER: I mentioned the Fast and Furious in the monologue and I really didn't explain it to people who don't know. And by the way, I was one of those people until this week who didn't know.
Why doesn’t it surprise me a dunce like Bill Maher didn’t know what Fast and Furious was until this week?
And this guy is propped up by the liberal media as being a well-informed intellect people should listen to.
Makes you sick, doesn’t it? But I digress:
MAHER: I heard that term Fast and Furious. It's not the movie, by the way. It's the name of an operation that the feds were indulging in to try to trace guns. They were purposely selling them to Mexican drug dealers. By the way, Darrell Issa, who’s head of the committee that just held Holder in contempt, he was here about a year ago and he said to me back stage before the show, “Are you going to talk about Fast and Furious?” And I said, “I don't really like Vin Diesel.”
Amazing. Maher was actually flaunting his ignorance like a badge of honor, and his liberal audience including MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow were laughing.
I guess stupidity is something to be revered on the Left. That shouldn't be surprising since they do so much in this country to make sure the education system is sub-par.
As such, why shouldn’t they highly regard a television host admitting that until last week, he had no idea about a White House operation to give guns to Mexican drug dealers that cost at least two American lives?
But I once again digress:
MAHER: I didn’t know what he was talking about. This is the two worlds that we live in. I always say they live in a bubble.
“They” live in a bubble?
Maher just admitted he had no idea about this significant covert operation being run by the American government, and he had the nerve to accuse those investigating it as living “in a bubble”:
MAHER: Anyway, Darrell Issa says this is a giant scandal. I’ve heard on Fox News this week it's worse than Watergate because 200 Mexicans have died. First of all, let me just say Republicans don't care about dead Mexicans. “A,” and “B,” I think those 200 dead Mexicans would be dead even if we hadn't sold them guns. They would have gotten the guns somewhere else. So is it really a scandal?
Let's add up Maher's score.
First, he admitted not knowing anything about Fast and Furious until this week.
Then, he flaunted his ignorance on national television.
Next, he wore it like a badge of honor only to finally belittle Republicans for not only living in a bubble but also not caring about dead Mexicans despite it being conservatives that have been talking about and investigating this failed mission for over two years while being stonewalled by Democrats.
And this man has his own nationally televised show.
Makes you wonder what country you live in, doesn't it?
To receive my articles hot off the presses follow me on Twitter ow.ly/btalc and Facebook ow.ly/btald.
— Noel Sheppard (@NoelSheppard) June 9, 2012
Mark Levin: Executive Privilege and How the House Should Move Forward Legally
Conservative author and constitutional attorney Mark Levin, in response to President Obama's controversial decision to invoke executive privilege regarding Fast and Furious information being withheld from Congress by Attorney General Eric Holder, posted a legal opinion concerning this matter at his Facebook page Wednesday.
It follows in its entirety with the author's permission.
As the Supreme Court recognized in US v. Nixon, the Executive Branch has a legitimate interest in confidentiality of communications among high officials so that the President can have the benefit of candid advice. However, as President Washington himself recognized, that privilege does not protect the President or his underlings from embarrassment or public exposure for questionable actions.
As the Supreme Court has also recognized repeatedly, the Congress, in the exercise of its constitutional powers, has the essential power to investigate the actions of the Executive Branch.
In this case, the exercise of Executive Privilege seems, in its timing and over-inclusiveness, to be nothing less than a political delaying tactic to prevent exposure of wrongdoing and incompetence that resulted in the murder of a American law enforcement agent and injury and death of many others. Further, a wholesale claim of privilege is facially improper: the President should be held to the standard that anyone claiming privilege is held to: identify each document in a log so that privilege can be disputed. (U.S. v. Nixon, 1974)
Because among the categories of documents sought are all those relating to the recantation by Holder of testimony before Congress, the demand goes to the core of the Congressional power under Article I. In this respect, this is not a general or oversight inquiry but a determination of why the Attorney General of the United States testified falsely before Congress about his own knowledge of a federal program. Presumptively, none of this category of documents is protected by Executive Privilege for wrongdoing per se is not protected by the privilege.
The right way to proceed is to hold Holder in contempt by resolution of the House and seek authorization from the House for the Committee, by its Chairman, to proceed by civil action to compel production of the documents. (Holder will not enforce a holding of contempt against himself -- and by the way, he should have authorized, say, the assistant attorney general for legal counsel, to handle the contempt matter once the House voted as at that point he is representing his own interests and not those of the nation generally). Chairman Issa should file suit in federal court in DC and seek expedited action. There is no need for Senate action. The use of this procedure has been acknowledged by the Congressional Research Service in a 2007 study. Further, a privilege log should be sought by Issa and ordered produced immediately by the court, in camera inspection done promptly by the judge, and a final order entered compelling production of all documents for which no legitimate reason justifies Executive Privilege.
Yes, some documents may be covered by EP, but the blanket attachment of that label flouts the law and the Constitution, and harms the legitimate assertion of EP by Presidents of either party in the future. The Constitution is far too important to be subject to the caprice of this President and an AG who, on its face, wants to be free from scrutiny about why he testified falsely before a Committee of Congress.
Executive Privilege is a very important implied executive power, used in various forms since the presidency of George Washington. Therefore, it's misuse and abuse, to cover-up wrongdoing, conceal embarrassing information, or advance a political agenda, diminishes the ability of future presidents to assert it legitimately.
Rolling Stone Writer Claims Demand for Fast & Furious Documents Due to GOP ‘War’ on Eric Holder
Remember all the cries in the past for governmental transparency by the "progressive" media? Well, when it comes to the Department of Justice lack of transparency in refusing to turn over documents related to Operation Fast and Furious, Rolling Stone writer Jillian Rayfield excuses it away by claiming that the demand is really due to a GOP 'war' on Eric Holder:
A big part of the show is demonizing Holder himself. Several Republicans have recently called for Holder to step down, among them Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Jon Cornyn (R-TX), who did so to Holder's face in a Senate Judiciary hearing just last week. In one Republican primary debate, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum also both called for Holder's resignation. Romney, for his part, has steered clear of the issue so far, but he won't be able to for long if RNC Chair Reince Priebus gets his way. Priebus says that "Fast and Furious" will be a central 2012 campaign theme, so even if the contempt proceedings go away, it doesn't look like Holder will be off the hook anytime soon.
Rayfield also writes off any suggestion that the motivation for allowing guns to walk across the border was to enact harsher gun control laws:
There has also been the ludicrous suggestion, by the National Rifle Association and several House Republicans, that the Obama administration let the guns cross the border so it could eventually make a better case to enact harsher domestic gun laws. The documents would also purportedly provide information about the alleged mistreatment of whistleblowers who came forward about the operation.
Yes, how absolutely silly to think that DOJ officials would allow guns to cross the border for that ulterior purpose. ...Except that is exactly what officials in the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives were claiming as reported by Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News:
Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.
...ATF officials didn't intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called "Demand Letter 3". That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or "long guns." Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.
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."
And that was just one of several ATF emails expressing this sentiment. What other information is in the withheld Fast and Furious documents? Those who want to know are being written off by Jillian Rayfield as being part of the supposed GOP "war" on Eric Holder.