So says the New York Times:
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will resign his post, the Justice Department said Thursday. Mr. Holder will remain in office until a successor is nominated and confirmed.
Mr. Holder, the 82nd attorney general and the first African-American to serve in that position, had previously said he planned to leave office by the end of this year.
Particularly in President Obama’s second term, Mr. Holder has been the most prominent liberal voice of the administration.
I’m damn sorry to see him go. Holder has been an excellent AG and will be difficult to replace. Also, he makes wingnut heads esplode, and I’ll miss that about his tenure, though no doubt his successor will immediately be identified as a fellow agent of Satan, even if it’s Pam Bondi.
Howard Beale IV
If you consider that Holder institutionalized Too Big To Jail, which as a result didn’t send one single banker to jail for causing the Great Recession and allowed banks to engage in money laundering, terrorist financing, and mortgage fraud, then yes, he was an excellent AG.
Belafon
Going OT: If you see the Newmax headline “Rush Limbaugh Exposes Blackmail Efforts”, Daily Kos has a diary about those efforts, which include:
The people who hate Rush are Democrats?! Who knew?
I’m pretty sure the software is called Twitter.
Betty Cracker
@Howard Beale IV: I’m not thrilled with that aspect of Holder’s tenure, of course, but that’s a knock on the entire administration — and 99% of our political class. Overall, and especially in comparison to his predecessors, Holder has been an excellent AG, IMO.
Botsplainer
@Howard Beale IV:
Except for those prosecutions that resulted in jury acquittals early on…
Just One More Canuck
@Howard Beale IV I agree that what the bankers did should have been illegal, and that a lot of their heads would look better on pikes than on their shoulders, but what would have been the legal basis for sending the bankers to jail? Especially since financial crimes are very difficult to prove.
Sloegin
I’ll cut Holder a break. He was a busy man you know, lots of whistle-blowers to prosecute.
Tommy Dee
Threatens to jail reporters, defends national security state excesses, shows only modest interest in prosecuting financial crimes and great enthusiasm for jailing leakers and hackers, aggressively pursues medical marijuana clinics.
I think we can do better than Holder.
Gin & Tonic
@Howard Beale IV: Raj Rajaratnam (currently residing at FMC Devens) and the dozens of others convicted or taking a plea in the fallout of the Galleon inquiry will differ with your characterization.
burnspbesq
@Botsplainer:
And except for the successful civil actions by DOJ and the SEC that resulted in the recovery of somewhere north of $50 billion.
Chyron HR
@Belafon:
I’m glad someone has finally exposed the conspiracy to send Twitter messages too frequently and without thought.
burnspbesq
@Tommy Dee:
Name some names.
burnspbesq
@Tommy Dee:
“Backs away from winnable cases against media actors who committed serious felonies” is what I think you meant to say.
Violet
That sucks. I think he’s done a good job. Sure he’s not perfect but in the real world no one is.
Chyron HR
I’m looking forward to seeing True Progressives denounce the next attorney general for being a “ni**er”, regardless of her race.
Because that totally didn’t have anything to do with Holder being black, right guys?
burnspbesq
@Howard Beale IV:
Another thing that Holder “institutionalized” is the requirement that deferred prosecution agreements include language requiring the defendant to not claim a tax deduction for the fines and penalties paid pursuant to the agreement.
DOJ’s work against Swiss banks on Holder’s watch has resulted in the recovery of tens of billions of dollars of previously unpaid Federal income tax, interest, and penalties by the IRS. Guess that doesn’t count for anything.
srv
@burnspbesq: You must not really keep up:
And that’s 2 years ago. Four or five more have been targetted or gave up after years of legal threats against the landlords.
I’m sure Obama can find an appropriate Republican for AG.
burnspbesq
@Chyron HR:
If it turns out to be who I suspect it might be, True Progressives will criticize her for being … lets see if I can phrase this correctly … “the poster child for the toxic revolving-door culture that sees the Federal government captured by moles bought and paid for by The 0.01 Percent.”
Oh, and she’s short, too.
Betty Cracker
@Chyron HR: Huh?
MattF
So, ya think Obummer will do what he’s been threatening all this time and nominate an actual socialist Agent of Satan? And why not, being a lame duck and all? I think we should get our super-covert-Alinsky personas out in the open and just do it.
Haydnseek
@Howard Beale IV: Absolutely this.
burnspbesq
@srv:
Were you asleep the day they talked about the Supremacy Clause in your high school civics class?
Or have you not noted the lack of action by the Feds in Colorado or Washington?
It’s not a matter of “not keeping up,” it’s a matter of perspective and understanding what’s actually important.
Michael G
Will the senate actually confirm *anyone* at this point?
srv
@MattF: You do know that Hillary’s thesis was on Alinsky?
Maybe Obama and Warren can work out a deal, AG and then SCOTUS.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker: He’s dropped this in a couple threads. A link has been requested but to my awareness none has been provided to show what the actual basis of this repeated claim is.
LAC
@burnspbesq: Not to the usual suspects here. Beat a dead horse, fuck that chicken, and flog that narrative. Just another day in the myopic world of fauxgressives. Not only is the glass half empty, its contents are lukewarm.
burnspbesq
@srv:
Just out of idle curiosity, how much actual prosecutorial experience does Sen. Warren have? And how much experience managing a multi-thousand-employee agency?
Corner Stone
@MattF:
There’s no way Chelsea Clinton would take that job.
Elizabelle
NYTimes headline:
Holder, a Top Liberal, to Quit as U.S. Attorney General
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Howard Beale IV: Hyperbole much?.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Savage Henry
This is a great way for Obama to troll the GOP Senate. They obstruct every appointment that he tries to make, but they passionately hate Holder and would love to credit themselves with his scalp. However, to get rid of Holder they need to confirm his replacement. Obama should nominate someone that the GOP would absolutely hate and make them debate whether they hate Holder or the new person more. Heads would literally explode
burnspbesq
@LAC:
The perfect beverage to serve with a sh*t sandwich.
Elizabelle
@Howard Beale IV:
I have always wondered if Obama and Holder passed on prosecuting the banksters because the fat cats can pursue a dubious claim all the way up to the Supreme Court, which is a shit parade.
Why have criminal behavior ensconced in law, which is what the Roberts Five might do.
How long is the statute of limitations for gross financial crimes? Maybe Obama and DOJ are waiting for one more sympathetic justice to be appointed.
Elizabelle
@Savage Henry:
I know, I love the “leave on confirmation of a successor” bit.
Gonna be fun.
burnspbesq
@Savage Henry:
Sri Srinivasan would serve well in the role you describe, but IMO he’s more valuable where he is (on the D.C. Circuit).
So would Preet Bharara, but there’s no precedent for promoting a sitting U.S. Attorney to AG.
My money is on Mary Jo White. She has an awesome track record as U.S. Attorney in the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, and she’s already been through one confirmation process (to become head of the SEC).
srv
@burnspbesq: We were talking about AG and a Saul Alinksy fan girl.
But you’re right, Warren is not qualified to be POTUS.
@burnspbesq: You’re furious back tracking is noted.
Kay
He was the best and most aggressive on voting rights in my adult life.
He gets it, completely. They fought suppression everywhere, and NOT just in areas where it could mean the winning margin for Democrats, because that shouldn’t matter.
Mike J
@burnspbesq: If Obummer doesn’t nominate the ghost of Eugene Debs it will demonstrate just how corrupt he is.
Josie
@Savage Henry: My thoughts exactly. Kind of an upraised middle finger to Senate Republicans.
Lurking Canadian
@Savage Henry: I missed that part. It changes this news from “mixed, but generally bad” to “kind of awesome”, in my view.
Corner Stone
@Gin & Tonic: I’m not sure how Raj Rajaratnam is an actual rebuttal to HoBe’s claim.
Raj went down for insider trading, not related to the financial collapse.
lol chikinburd
@Kay: Exactly. And notice how voting rights and civil rights escape the attention of his emo critics entirely.
Kay
@Savage Henry:
They do hate him, and he has contempt for them. It’s probably time for him to go, if only for his own mental health.
cwolf
Holder let the bankers get away with the crime of the millennium.
He belongs on the AG all-time list of shame along with Mitchell, Gonzales and Meese. If I’ve omitted any other scumbag AGs, feel free to update.
Corner Stone
@Sloegin:
He was also quite busy not prosecuting anyone at the CIA for killing prisoners during torture.
Kay
@lol chikinburd:
I’d get worried when they wouldn’t join or promote one of the voting rights issues in Ohio, because it’s hard. It’s difficult. It has a long arc. Advocates and lawyers make strategic mistakes without help. They push issues too soon and end up with lousy precedent, etc.
Kathleen
@lol chikinburd: Color me shocked. Well, Charlie Pierce will be happy, except he would have preferred that Holder be fired.
Oh, and also, too, didn’t he pursue reducing sentences of prisoners who were jailed for using (not dealing) marijuana?
Also, too, I noted that his term was regarded as “tumultuous” because he stated the truth about why some opposed PBO and himself. FSM forbid that anyone should speak frankly, unless you’re stating that PBO is an enemy of America. That is OK.
Corner Stone
Goodness. The cover on The Economist is just brutal.
japa21
@cwolf: Would you please list the specific bankers and the specific crimes they committed? I mean other than those already prosecuted.
catclub
Yep, really good on voting rights. Not so good on financial crimes and torture. Just keep on walking.
burnspbesq
@srv:
Your complete disconnect from reality is noted.
Corner Stone
IMO, Obama should nominate Kamala Harris. Mainly because I have a schoolboy crush on her, but I’m sure she’d also do a good job.
LAC
@Corner Stone: heavens to Betsy, so is the story in washington post. http://wapo.st/1vdqxsI
Clutch the pearls!
C.V. Danes
Really? I thought he was pretty feckless, especially where Wall Street was concerned, but maybe I’m just inhabiting a different universe.
@Howard Beale IV: Exactly.
@Belafon:
Apparently Rush-hatred has a liberal bias. Who knew!
@burnspbesq:
Pocket Change for these guys, paid for by the shareholders.
@Elizabelle:
That wouldn’t have stopped them from convening a modern day Pecora Commission. It was the public outrage from that that gave Roosevelt the cover to push through the changes that he did.
LAC
@catclub: I would say you are comparing apples and oranges, but I think that they are not in the same produce group. But thanks for playing.
Calouste
@cwolf:
I know the millennium is still young, but the Bush/Cheney cabal’s illegal war that resulted in the deaths of a million or so Iraqis is currently in the lead.
Kay
@Kathleen:
Yup. He was also good on juvenile justice and zero tolerance,/public schools division/school to prison pipeline.
susan
Time for Mr. Holder to make some money. He will be well rewarded by the Wall Street crooks he protected.
In time, so will his boss.
burnspbesq
@Corner Stone:
Anything that deflects Harris from eventually replacing Feinstein will draw howls of outrage from all right-thinking Californians. We are sick to death of having to vote for that old crone due to the lack of a better alternative.
Amir Khalid
@Corner Stone:
That’s nothing. The cover of the Asian edition features China’s Communist Party sec-gen Xi Jinping, and is captioned with a brutal Rumpole-based pun: “Xi who must be obeyed”.
Micheline
Is Holder’s resignation a sign that the Republicans will win the senate? I am asking because the timing seems to be suspect.
Kay
@Corner Stone:
I like her too.
He could nominate Cordray. He’s qualified and would be good (IMO) but then they’d have to get someone confirmed to replace him at the CFPB, so that might be a non-starter.
Betty Cracker
@Micheline: Maybe, but I believe he said he would retire this year long before there were any credible projections about the status of Senate control. I expect there will be a major showdown for his replacement, and I hope Obama swings for the fences. He’s not going to get cooperation in any case.
Kay
That NYTimes headline is bizarre. “A Top Liberal”
It’s completely unnecessary , too. Why not just “Holder to Resign”? Was Gonzales a “Top Conservative”?
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
Surely you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?
President Obama pardons Chelsea Manning and then supports her confirmation as AG?
Let’s make this happen!
Turgidson
@burnspbesq:
DiFi’s term isn’t up until 2018, and Harris would presumably only be AG for the rest of Obama’s term. So as a Bay Area godless pinko commie librul hippie Alinskyite, I’d be cool with it. And the reaction of the GOP base to her would be…dramatic.
Corner Stone
@Turgidson:
I just figure with a WOC as AG we’d get the best of both worlds. Continued focus on voting and civil rights, and hot and cold running abortions on demand for everyone!
You know, the rent on the Abortionplex doesn’t pay itself, people.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@burnspbesq: So don’t. I either vote wacky third party or write-in when she appears on the ballot, been doing that for years. Doesn’t do shit but I don’t have to feel guilty over helping her stay in office.
California’s Republican Senator is long overdue to get her one-way ticket out of Washington.
Kay
@catclub:
I agree with you there, but that doesn’t change the voting rights.
I don’t know, specifically, what they could have or should have prosecuted, but I absolutely believe that people think there are two justice systems, one for wealthy and powerful people and the other for the rest of us, and that is really corrosive and damaging over time. Credibility matters. Trust matters. People have to believe there’s something behind the words, or they will naturally and inevitably and rightly conclude that they have to game the system too, just to stay even or afloat. I feel the same way about the Supreme Court. They were given the credibility that comes with the seat when they arrived. There is absolutely no guarantee that they won’t or can’t piss it away. It was a gift. They inherited it. It’s up to those individuals to keep it.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: Nah, put her in charge of the NSA!
Josie
@Kay:
I think that ship has already sailed, along with the 2000 presidential election.
Chyron HR
Sure, Holder went to the mat for voting rights and not-getting-summarily-executed-for-being-black rights, but what did he ever do for REAL people?
Belafon
Prosecuting “The bankers” is pretty much like killing “the terrorists.” Unless you can come up with a name and something they actually did legally wrong, you can’t just prosecute someone for sitting at the top of a bank (and I’m pretty sure it’s hard to prosecute the person running the bank if they set up enough layers between him and the people doing the day to day stuff).
I would argue that the Roberts court has made Civil Rights – for minorities and women – the most important issue during this presidency. And Holder’s been going after that.
mai naem mobile
I never liked Holder but its personal because he ccould be a darked hued twin of my brother in law.who I dont like. I wasnt happy with Holder on the financial crimes bit but I understand he did a lot of good in the civil rights division. Kamala Harris would be awesome. Black, female and from the Bay Area – a threefer to make Jeff Sessions’ head explode. Pity shes not gay and gay married. I wouldn’t mind seeing Preet Bharara. I’m sure Andy Cuomos on the phone already pushing for that amd thats the reason it wont happen. Also too , Deval Patrick – another blackity black black black.
Kay
@Josie:
I think there’s this sense that there should be institutional credibility apart from the thing itself, and I don’t think they can ride on that forever. They’re supposed to be shoring these institutions up, not bleeding them dry. It’s not a limitless well. The respect and deference came from somewhere. It wasn’t granted at the creation and will just remain at that set level, no matter what the people in the institutions do. I sometimes feel as if they don’t how fragile it really is. 99% of this Rule ‘O Law thing operates by consent, by agreement, as a positive default. That isn’t guaranteed.
MomSense
@lol chikinburd:
It also escapes their attention that a Republican Congress, Bill Clinton, and C+Augustus deregulated the financial industry. Hard to prosecute people for things that were not illegal.
Elizabelle
@mai naem mobile:
All good suggestions.
catclub
I figure Wall Street is dropping on the announcement Holder is stepping down.
MomSense
Holder also had one of the best moments in Congressional testimony ever when he said “Good luck with your asparagus” to Gohmert.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
That’s the thing about conservatives, though — they want respect to be given on the basis of who or what you are, not on what actions you take. A white guy should automatically be given more respect than a black guy even if the white guy is a convicted fraudster and the black guy is the President of the United States. So, in their view, the Supreme Court should automatically be respected regardless of what they do because only the position deserves respect and the actions are irrelevant.
It’s a very aristocratic and hierarchical way of viewing the world, to say the least.
Elie
@cwolf:
You ought to learn civics..
The administration makes the ultimate direction on who to go after.. Obama has to shoulder that blame, not Holder. It was not the Holder administration and he would not be pursuing that level of prosecution of the bankstas without administration approval.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
from Media Matters:
Elie
@MomSense:
Absolutely…
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I remember all the DOJ employees wearing berets. Looked sharp.
Kay
@Mnemosyne:
Well, there’s a tipping point right? Possibly? The next Al Gore Of The Future could say “you know what? These people are hacks and that court’s been a joke 50 years. I’m not following that decision”
It’s not like it’s unprecedented in the history of the world. There really aren’t enough cops to enforce all the laws if X number of people decide they’re not all that credible, laws are optional, selectively applied, whatever.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m so glad. I knew they were going to use it to gin up their base, and go overboard.
2 hours ’till one of them says something that crosses the Mysterious Media Line of Incivility.
askew
Holder has been one of the best AG’s we’ve had in decades. He was excellent on voting rights, reducing sentences for non-violent crime, civil rights (especially gay rights), restoring voting rights to felons, cracking down on corrupt police units, etc. But, none of that matters because he didn’t jail some banker for some crime that no one can name.
I’ll continue to say that Obama and Holder are being held to impossible standards by too many white progressives. They discount any accomplishments because their, often impossible, pet issue hasn’t been addressed. The inane talking points from these progressives are just as bad as from the white tea partiers on the right.
I look forward to these same progressives falling over themselves praising the next white AG and white president.
Kay
@Elie:
I disagree, Elie. If Obama is telling the attorney general who and who not to prosecute, we have serious problems.
Elie
I hope that he feels some satisfaction from his tenure and doesnt leave with bitterness about the sorry state of our country. I’ll tell you what, if he can find the silver lining he is better that I. I am feeling pretty dark these days about the state of the world as well as our country. Six years of non-stop negativity and at times down right hatred and evil has broken all of us including the republicans who drove much of it…
gwangung
@mai naem mobile:
To me, if he does exemplary work in area, he’s good. If he does it in two or more, he’s great.
We shouldn’t be satisfied with just good, but we should appreciate what’s done well…and voting rights is damn important.
gwangung
@askew:
Pet issues of importance to whites, while ignoring issues important to minorities? Bread and butter living a life issue?
Kay
The NYTimes changed the headline to “Top Liberal Voice” because “Top Liberal” is bizarre :)
Cacti
Eric Holder has been a great friend of civil rights and voting rights, and his successor will have some big shoes to fill in those areas.
Kathleen
@askew: @askew: I eagerly await President Paul’s appointment of The Southern Avenger as AG. I trust they will both hound the bankers while diligently ensuring people of color aren’t subject to Jim Crow voting laws.
Jay C
@burnspbesq: @Turgidson: @CONGRATULATIONS!:
Also: why would a (presumably) two-year stint as Obama’s AG harm Ms. Harris’s career – in California, or elsewhere? It’s certainly a decent-enough posting to one’s resumé, and as noted, Sen. DiFi is going to be occupying that seat for another four years (at which time she will 85): plenty of time for a would-be Senate candidate to build up an organization for a campaign.
Howard Beale IV
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Bill Black laughs at how well you’ve been brainwashed.
burnspbesq
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
And from where I sit, that kinda matters.
burnspbesq
@askew:
They can name the crime. They just can’t find it in Title 18.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: Hmmm. Incompletely photo-shopped
gene108
@askew:
There’s a class of liberal / progressives who are just wired to be unhappy all the time with government because the world is not a perfect socialist paradise, where people are punished for accumulating wealth and making a profit.
These are the same people, who would rather scrap the PPACA because it interferes with the goal of creating a single payer system and wiping out for-profit insurance companies.
Tree With Water
@Howard Beale IV: Montgomery Burns would surely agree with B. Cracker. I can picture him now, rubbing his hands together while praising Holder’s tenure as having indeed proved, “Excellent”.
Howard Beale IV
@Elizabelle:
On many of the actions, the clock has run out.
Howard Beale IV
@catclub:
Wall Street is down, but not on Holder’s announcement. It’s down because of Apple’s iOS bug.
burnspbesq
@Howard Beale IV:
Or not.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-07-17/bharara-says-u-dot-s-dot-has-more-time-to-bring-insider-trading-cases
Jeremy
@Elie: Actually the President doesn’t make the decisions on who to prosecute. If we had stronger laws on the books then the crisis would have never happened in the first place.
rikyrah
@Kay:
tell it, Kay.
TELL IT!!
rikyrah
Holder Backs Suit in New York Faulting Legal Service for Poor
By MATT APUZZOSEPT. 25, 2014
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who last year
declared a crisis in America’s legal-defense system for the poor, is
supporting a class-action lawsuit that accuses Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the State of New York of perpetuating a system that violates the rights of people who cannot afford to hire lawyers.
The lawsuit claims that public defenders in New York are so overworked and overmatched that poor people essentially receive no legal defense at all. It describes a system in which indigent defendants navigate courts nearly alone, relying on spotty advice from lawyers who do not have the time or money to investigate their cases or advise them properly.
Because of substandard legal aid, children are taken from their parents, defendants in minor cases are jailed for long periods and people are imprisoned for crimes for which they might have been acquitted, the civil rights lawyers who filed the suit said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/nyregion/holder-backs-suit-in-new-york-faulting-legal-service-for-poor.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=1
Jeremy
@Belafon: It’s not easy. It’s not like the government can just come in and throw random executives in jail without serious specific evidence that he or she broke the law. There are so many layers in corporate governance so it takes time to find those who are responsible, and then you have to determine if they actually broke the law.
I hear emo liberals who also get mad because the Obama administration didn’t prosecute people in the Bush administration, but a few years ago a lawsuit against Condi Rice was dismissed by the courts. Too many people act like this is some video game.
rikyrah
Holder has also been excellent also with changes in the Prison Industrial Complex. You think any other AG would be talking about getting rid of mandatory minimums, breaking down the disparity in sentencing for powder and crack, and making the reduction of sentences retroactive?
Kay
@Cacti:
He has. I don’t think we’ll get anyone better. I think the voting rights advocacy and action is where a lot of the conservative vitriol comes from. I think they’re uncomfortable with suppression politically, aware that it’s a short term tactic that may cost them dearly, long term, but they can’t stop now because a huge part of their base believes it. Rand Paul knows it’s not a good position for them, and you saw how big consumer brands ran from ALEC voter suppression and SYG laws. Not a good look for them. Ultimately, politicians attacking voters is dumb. It’s one thing to go after “ACORN”. It’s a whole ‘nother thing to look at those voting lines in Florida, or the crazy witch hunts of individual voters, where they had names and faces.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Democrats won’t listen to me. I’d take half the money they put toward tv ads and send people to Alabama and Arkansas and Mississippi to do voting rights. They should have a voter protection staff member in every county to find and organize the lawyers. They won’t even have to pay the local lawyers. It’s one day training, a bunch of electronic communication and reading and then election day. They don’t pay them in Ohio, and it’s the same people year after year. I bet there’s a Democratic or liberal lawyer in every county in the south.
Tommy Dee
@burnspbesq: James Risen?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Risen
catclub
@Howard Beale IV: sez you. I sez its Holder. … or animal spirits.
fermented animals can be dangerous.
catclub
@Kay: I think that needs to be done for the long term. OTOH black turnout in Mississippi in 2012 was higher than white turnout, so there might not be any real gains for a long time.
Texas Latinos undervoting seems to be another case. I would go there.
Corner Stone
@catclub:
Especially if you’re pouring them over ice into a tall glass.
Howard Beale IV
@burnspbesq:
Well, the rumor mill has Holder slithering back to his old haunt with the rest of the white shoe mob at Covington & Burling (where he would be undoubtedly be heavily in demand by Wall Street) should a future DOJ decide to actually go down the road that Bharara laid out – but I kinda doubt that will happen unless the current suits between the big banks suing each other in the CDO trust space over the handling of the securities trusts show consistent patterns of malfeasance/fraud and aren’t just written off as ‘sloppines’.
Kay
@catclub:
I know this sounds pie in the sky, but it’s not about gains. It’s really not. It’s about telling each individual voter “we’re the Party that wants you to vote and we’ll protect your right to vote”. There will be the nasty voter fraudster side, the backlash, but it won’t matter. Their position is untenable. It’s wrong. Democrats should proudly adopt the label of The Party That Wants You To Vote. It can be done 100% positively. They could make attacking voting rights like attacking going to the library, or donating blood, or any of the other universally accepted Good Things :)
Voting WAS like those things, and it wasn’t that long ago. We had suppression then we had civic-minded expansion and protection for decades -“I Voted Today!” – now we’re back to suppression.
Democrats could own the right side of that. Republicans left the field.
Elie
@Jeremy:
I stand corrected – partially. I hear that there weren’t enough laws on the books but generally, you tend to prioritize in synch with the administration that hired you. You can go off the grid, but generally, in addition to having laws to support your actions as AG, you are influenced by the administration that you are in.
LAC
@askew: amen! Wait until you see the mental gymnastics being performed by some of our folks here when you know who springs forth like Athena from the head of Zeus in 2016. It will make cirque du soleil troupe proud. But of course, we shall not question because then we would be giving aid and comfort to republicans. Pot? NSA? What is thaaaaat?
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Amen and amen. It’s the right thing to do. That’s reason enough.
A Humble Lurker
@MomSense:
I could love him just for that.
Tree With Water
@Jeremy: “Emo liberals”? Please, name me a few of the more prominent ones and briefly explain what defines them as such. I don’t think you can do it.
Betty Cracker
@Tree With Water: The working definition on this blog occasionally seems to be “anyone who criticizes the Obama administration in anyway, ever.” That said, there really are liberals who are unrealistic about the limits of presidential power and who take the view that the Democrats are every bit as corrupt and evil as the Republicans. I used to be one, back when I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. But then I grew up.
Corner Stone
@Tree With Water: I’d like to see that list as well.
Tree With Water
@Betty Cracker: OK, name me a few of the more prominent ones (beginning with the best well known). Democrats, I mean, not a guy like Nader. I don’t think you can do it, either, even being all grown up now, and all.
Tree With Water
On reflection, it seems to me that ’emo liberal’ is just another term for ‘dirty rotten hippy’.
Betty Cracker
@Tree With Water: The original question was about “emo liberals,” not prominent Democrats. And it’s not my shtick anyway, so thanks, but no.
Tree With Water
@Betty Cracker: Well, you got me there. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight.
But I’ve lived my life on a political fringe in this country, and there I will die. Snotty pejoratives go with that territory, but I’m only human. Sometimes I intentionally react in a likewise snotty manner. Sometimes unintentionally, too.
mclaren
Betty Cracker gibbers:
Eric Holder is the Attorney General who for almost all of his tenure has been fighting hard to increase penalties for marijuana possession — in order to “send a message to the Mexican cartels.”
Eric Holder is the Attorney General who stated in public that firing a hellfire missile at a U.S. citizen from a drone at 30,000 feet constitutes “due process” according to the fifth amendment.
Eric Holder is the Attorney General who signed off on and enthusiastically agreed with President Obama’s order to murder at least four U.S. citizens (and maybe more, we don’t know because the “kill list” is classified) without trial and without charges.
Eric Holder is a disgrace. Holder needs to be impeached and thrown out of the legal profession. After being disbarred, Eric Holder should be indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit murder, murder under special circumstances, terrorism, assault, conspiracy to commit assault, vindictive prosecution, and perjury under oath.
LAC
Well, we can’t end a thread with the psychotic rantings of resident basement dweller mcrunningsentences. Cute kittens anyone ?