With the scoring threat of the National Rifle Association (NRA) hovering over yesterday's proceedings, it was no surprise that 17 Democrats voted with Republicans to uphold the sanction.
Presumably, had Democrats in swing districts voted against the contempt, they would be placing their own House tenure in jeopardy, as the NRA, with the long memory of elephants, would, during their reelection bid, remind their respective electorate--with one damaging ad after the other--of their unforgivable sin against gun ownership.
Supposedly a non-partisan organization, the group was anything but leading up to the House contempt vote, with the NRA leading the charge on the unsubstantiated claim that the Attorney General was involved in a cover up of misdeeds in the ATF Fast and Furious Operation, insisting that the Obama administration allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico, so that the ensuing violence would so disgust the American citizenry that they would call for a repeal of the Second Amendment.
An outlandish claim on the surface, but one that Republicans believed--once all the facts surfaced--would vindicate their actions and behavior, if only they could get their hands on the Attorney General's internal memos, e-mails and the like, that he refused to surrender to Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Congress holding Attorney General Holder in contempt has no precedence--and neither is there precedence for how this president has been attacked, and continues to be treated by those on the Right. The only explanation for it--according to many non-black pundits--is that the president is black, and the real reason that this kind of racist and racial treatment, far from being generally denounced, is quietly tolerated.
One of Fortune Magazine's reporters investigated the Fast and Furious conspiratorial claim, as well as other claims, revealing that Republican claims of a cover up, and a conspiracy to repeal the Second Amendment, was, itself, fraught with conspiratorial overtones:
Some call it the "parade of ants"; others the "river of iron." The Mexican government has estimated that 2,000 weapons are smuggled daily from the U.S. into Mexico. The ATF is hobbled in its effort to stop this flow. No federal statute outlaws firearms trafficking, so agents must build cases using a patchwork of often toothless laws. For six years, due to Beltway politics, the bureau has gone without permanent leadership, neutered in its fight for funding and authority. The National Rifle Association has so successfully opposed a comprehensive electronic database of gun sales that the ATF's congressional appropriation explicitly prohibits establishing one.
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The agents faced numerous obstacles in what they dubbed the Fast and Furious case. (They named it after the street-racing movie because the suspects drag raced cars together.) Their greatest difficulty by far, however, was convincing prosecutors that they had sufficient grounds to seize guns and arrest straw purchasers. By June 2010 the agents had sent the U.S. Attorney's office a list of 31 suspects they wanted to arrest, with 46 pages outlining their illegal acts. But for the next seven months prosecutors did not indict a single suspect.
On Dec. 14, 2010, a tragic event rewrote the narrative of the investigation. In a remote stretch of Peck Canyon, Ariz., Mexican bandits attacked an elite U.S. Border Patrol unit and killed an agent named Brian Terry. The attackers fled, leaving behind two semiautomatic rifles. A trace of the guns' serial numbers revealed that the weapons had been purchased 11 months earlier at a Phoenix-area gun store by a Fast and Furious suspect.
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Conservatives have pummeled the Obama administration, and especially Holder, for more than a year. "Who authorized this program that was so felony stupid that it got people killed?" Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, demanded to know in a hearing in June 2011. He has charged the Justice Department, which oversees the ATF, with having "blood on their hands." Issa and more than 100 other Republican members of Congress have demanded Holder's resignation.
The conflict has escalated dramatically in the past ten days. On June 20, in a day of political brinkmanship, Issa's committee voted along party lines, 23 to 17, to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for allegedly failing to turn over certain subpoenaed documents, which the Justice Department contended could not be released because they related to ongoing criminal investigations. The vote came hours after President Obama asserted executive privilege to block the release of the documents. Holder now faces a vote by the full House of Representatives this week on the contempt motion (though negotiations over the documents continue). Assuming a vote occurs, it will be the first against an attorney general in U.S. history.
As political pressure has mounted, ATF and Justice Department officials have reversed themselves. After initially supporting Group VII agents and denying the allegations, they have since agreed that the ATF purpose
Read the whole story here.
We know this: The NRA, as a chief exponent of gun ownership, makes wide-spread gun distribution possible, by resisting new gun-control laws, and regulations, while threatening reform-minded lawmakers--using a Grover Norquist-like zeal--indirectly (if not directly) supporting gun manufacturers (the volume of guns made), and gun sellers (the volume of guns sold), many of whom have no compunction as to the niceties of the law, nor care who will ultimately end up holding the stock of a rifle, or the grip of a revolver.
Almost from the moment President Obama took the oath of office, word went out that this new president was positioning himself to take away the people's guns and ammunition--and the very fact that he hadn't well into his first term was proof enough that he was lulling the America people to sleep on the issue, only to spring it upon them later during a second term, when he had nothing left to gain by remaining quiescent.
As nonsensical as this may sound, it did sell guns and ammo by the millions, and provided Republicans with a rallying issue on which to raise money and galvanize their base for the Fall elections--the real reason behind all this.
One thing Republicans knew, and could count on: Chief Justice Roberts was their man on the Supreme Court (their go-to guy). How could he turn on them by supporting this dreaded law (the Affordable Health Care Act), on which Republicans had placed their political fortunes?
It was their hope that the Supreme Court ruling would become President Obama's political Waterloo, dashing his bid for reelection.
However, Chief Justice Roberts had other plans. He seemed to know: The Constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Act could very well tarnish his Supreme Court legacy--if it was allowed to be decided as had some previous critical rulings, along partisan lines, a 5 - 4 split.
Democrats would be giddy with this Supreme Court opinion--as it seemingly marked a return to sanity and balance on the nation's highest court--were it not for the Court's decision on Citizen's United, and Citizen's United Redux, a Supreme Court decision that I hope to blog about soon.
5 comments:
Hi BD,
I've not been following the fast and furious case all that closely as I perceived it as yet another instance of "background noise". That's to say that I suspected it was much ado about nothing and from the details in your post here, that's been confirmed. Unfortunately, in the WWF match that passes for American political debate, there's a lot of stuff that receives significant press coverage when it's really about nothing and this would appear to be in that category. As you know, I have issues with both parties, however the republican party seems particularly concerned with burying itself in the trite and banal thereby ensuring that our political discourse remains highly emotional.
"I've not been following the fast and furious case all that closely as I perceived it as yet another instance of 'background noise'".
It's certainly "mood music" as well as "elevator" interludes.
What concerns me about all of this, are those who're listening--and it's not our occassional hunter (although he should leave nature's creatures unmolested)--but those who're stockpiling guns, and ammo, because they've been told that the black man in the White House wants to take away their guns and confiscate their ammo, repeal the Second Amendment, and place dissidents in concentration camps, and FEMA camps, if they resist.
Glenn Beck and other right-wing nutbars have been pushing this nonsense for months (on the radio, television, and on the Web) coming within inches of calling for an all-out--guns ablazing--revolt against the government.
We all know how all this will play out for blacks and possibly Latinos.
I've said it before: The population shift--from a white majority to a people-of-color majority--will create some interesting dynamics in the body politic, and social constructs.
>>>I've said it before: The population shift--from a white majority to a people-of-color majority--will create some interesting dynamics in the body politic, and social constructs.<<<<
To be sure, in America race is an issue, but I believe the issue is far beyond gratuitous "hating" on folks of color--although admittedly it's hard to get beyond that aspect if you happen to be the focus of the hate. I believe that those who really control things are ten steps ahead and they don't intend to lose power simply because there's a change in demographics. As a matter of fact, I believe that they'll use that change to hang onto and deepen their power.
It seems that fear and anger rule the political and social environment in America now and people are behaving out of those emotions rather than rationality. In no small measure, this is what's being promoted in the press and the question in my mind is why? I think he why question is particularly important given that those who are behind this aren't emotional actors. Quite to the contrary, they're rational actors (at least as far as their interests are concerned)who are shaping irrational behavior in others.
I think that chaos is sometimes created as a cover to create a new order. It's a necessary part of moving people to accept new things that they would not otherwise accept. I think emotions of fear and anger are very useful in moving people to accept whatever new things are being planned. At bottom, this new order basically involves a form of serfdom for everyone and much of what's being done is to shift the blame for this new decline in economic status. Racism and xenophobia are merely tools toward this end.
Most of the demographic change has come about from our quickly growing Hispanic population and it's that growth that's fueling the minority-majority demographic change and it's no surprise that there's a lot of controversy now around illegal immigration, yet the question is never raised as to who is responsible for creating the conditions for this. Who is it who has profited from their presence while shifting the cost of their presence to the public purse? I suspect that some of the same folks who've profited are also behind the shaping of the debate around the "free loading illegal" rather than those who've profited by effectively getting a subsidy from taxpayers. This is just one of many examples of how debate and focus is shifted by use of fear and anger. There are countless others with the bank bailout and the nation's fiscal situation being among the more prominent examples.
I just think that the narrative that's put before the public has been bought and paid for and the purpose to sew dissension and chaos while an unseen agenda is implemented. The media plays a huge role in this.
[One]
"To be sure, in America race is an issue."
The Right is whipping up a great deal of "hatred" for liberals, liberalism, socialism, communism--what have you--with race as one component, directing it toward a government run amuck, as they see it, changing the fundamental structure, and scope of government, and its ideals.
So much "hatred" needs an escape valve.
Were we privy to the machinations roiling below the surface, and fed by those on the Right, who are using this economy, the influx of "illegal aliens," and the specter of an erosion of white power, as evidenced by a black man in the White House, we would stop believing in country loyalty, national pride and patriotism, and the sort, and realize that at the very top money is the new patriotism and the new loyalty.
"I believe that those who really control things ... don't intend to lose power simply because there's a change in demographics. ... I believe that they'll use that change to hang onto and deepen their power."
I agree. They'll double down, using the real center of power in this country--the courts, especially the federal courts and the Supreme Court.
And they have a good chance of achieving that end--consolidating power, that is--if Willard wins in the Fall, and Republicans take over Congress, and more state houses across the length and breadth of this nation.
Further, we mustn't forget recent Supreme Court rulings, Citizen's United, for one, and how that ruling alone has shifted political power to the monied few, corporations, and the 1%, essentially concentrating power at all levels of government, creating almost impregnable bastions for oligarchs, plutocrats and kleptocrats.
"I think he why question is particularly important given that those who are behind this aren't emotional actors. Quite to the contrary, they're rational actors (at least as far as their interests are concerned)who are shaping irrational behavior in others."
Republicans are autocratic, and won't rest until they have a firm grip on this nation's power--and are dictating this nation's future.
Setting aside those who're in it primarily for the money, and those who're being lead around by the nose ring of their biases and bigotries, we're left with those who wish to wield the power, and set the nation's future course and agenda, who feel that, if socialism takes root, an attack on capitalism won't be far behind, and may suffer a mortal blow, as the Federal Government flex its muscle to rein in corporate excess, and protect the environment, and consumers from corporate rapaciousness--social interests that have always stood in the way of their greed.
Let's see: thousands of heat records set during the past several days, with more to come, substantiating the suspicions of every climate-change computer model, that we're in the throes of global warming.
We all know that, in time, the Keystone Pipeline, carrying oil sludge from Canada across the breadth of this nation, will be approved.
"At bottom, this new order basically involves a form of serfdom for everyone and much of what's being done is to shift the blame for this new decline in economic status. Racism and xenophobia are merely tools toward this end."
Without strong public and private unions--current targets of the Right--these new autocrats will be able to rule as ruthless as they choose, as they will have the money to influence policy, and the means to say who will be hired, how many, for how much, and when.
That's a lot of power coalescing in the hands of a few.
[Two]
"I]t's no surprise that there's a lot of controversy now around illegal immigration, yet the question is never raised as to who is responsible for creating the conditions for this. Who is it who has profited from their presence while shifting the cost of their presence to the public purse?"
This country has always thrived on cheap labor--slave labor, Chinese labor, and brown labor, the latter still thralled by this nation, as economic conditions in Mexico still lag behind this nation, even in these difficult economic times.
These workers historically have worked under near-slave conditions, in the hospitality industry, the landscaping industry, the construction industry, and the farm industry--which I have no need to remind you.
They are America's shame (in that they have been--and are--discardable), much like the discardable workers of China's Foxconn.
Funny thing about money: It's not only fungible, but it has this strange way of finding its way to the top 20% of the population, the percent that holds almost 90% of this nation's wealth.
"I just think that the narrative that's put before the public has been bought and paid for and the purpose to sew dissension and chaos while an unseen agenda is implemented."
The "agenda" is as old as time itself: Greed and Power.
With the billionaire Koch brothers, and other wealthy right-wing nutbars calling the shots, several of which have had prominent roles in the financing of Republicans who recently ran for president, they can now install their own pliable Manchurian in the White House, and use their proxy to run the country, and kill off those government agencies standing in the way of them amassing more billions.
I think that Chief Justice Roberts left the Republican reservation on several of the Supreme Court's most recent rulings/opinions.
With most of Arizona's "Papers Please Law" struck down, virtually eviscerating it, and Chief Justice Roberts committing the unpardonable sin of helping decide in favor of the Affordable Health Care Act (making it Constitutional), rather than giving Republicans the win that they hoped for (a clear partisan vote), which would have gone a long way towards defeating President Obama in the Fall, we have a strong indication that Roberts is taking back his judicial volition and prerogative, and has grown weary of being used by puppeteers on the Right who would like nothing better than to use the law to hold back the "brown peril" that's threatening to wrest power from whites with a zeal not matched since the days of the conquistadors.
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