AG Gonzales: I'm 'Too busy' to answer oversight.

[SirNitram]

From the Douchebag Of Liberty, Bob Novak:

[quote]PROBING GONZALES

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has indicated he is too busy to answer letters from Democratic congressional leaders about his firing seven U.S. attorneys involved in probes of public corruption, though a lower-level Justice Department official rejected their proposals.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, House Democratic Caucus chairman, had written Gonzales two letters suggesting that he name Carol Lam, fired as U.S. attorney in San Diego, as an outside counsel to continue her pursuit of the Duke Cunningham case. Asked by Melissa Charbonneau of the Christian Broadcasting Network about this column’s report that Gonzales did not respond, Gonzales said: “I think that the American people lose if I spend all my time worrying about congressional requests for information, if I spend all my time responding to subpoenas.â€

[Josh]

And the system continues to groan and creak.

[frigidmagi]

I'm going to be fast and to the point. When Congress calls you, you go. It doesn't matter if it's Mickey Mouse Bullshit or not, YOU FUCKING GO. You do not have the right to say no. It''s part of your fucking job to go when Congress wants you. Alberto Gonzales has shit on the law, worse he's fucking with my Constitution in a way that is so fucking galling in it's open disregard for even the basics of the rule of law he needs to go. To tossed like a bad hamburger.

If the Democrats mean even a 1/10th of what they say, they need to act. Gonzales needs to be made an example of openly, publically even graphically. If he cannot be impeached then:

Cut funding to the executive branch. Refuse to pay the White House fucking power and water bill. Until he's fired. Let's see how eager Jr is to defend the little bastard when he can't shower or flip on a light. Power of the Purse Baby.

Fillibuster anything that isn't involved in the war and keep at it. While the lives of the troops need to be thought of, everything else is fair game. The Government will not move an inch on anything Jr wants until the asshole is gone.

Pass a law saying Gonzalies can't come within 500 feet of another government person or face instant arrest and whistle up some willing cop. There's gotta be at least 1 cop in D.C willing and able to slap some shiney bracelets on the fuck. Find HIM!

To be completely clear, I am calling for nothing less then full out non-military warfare until this fucking pus-filled boil is removed from office.

This isn't about parties or factions or even personal like/dislike. This is about the fact that one man has taken it upon itself to ignore his duties and responsiblities as a federal offical. If the Democrats have any hope of being something besides a joke, they need to strike back with all tools at their disposal.

[Josh]

I'd certainly call the senior legal official of cabinet refusing to enforce the law an impeachable offense, so yes, I would call for impeachment. And if the impeachment were to begin and he gives the inevitable resignation, then he can be properly criminally charged.

At which point he probably will be pardoned, but that's how it goes.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'd certainly call the senior legal official of cabinet refusing to enforce the law an impeachable offense, so yes, I would call for impeachment. And if the impeachment were to begin and he gives the inevitable resignation, then he can be properly criminally charged.

At which point he probably will be pardoned, but that's how it goes.

Well, the question at hand is whether or not the law mandates punishment or simply provides for it. There is a difference between the two, and when punishment is simply provided for (usually with the phrase "up to" in the sentencing list), the executive branch has the right to refuse to enforce any actual punishment on the class of offenders in question.

It was rather like the whole thing with some conservative groups suggesting the President lower taxes by writing Executive Orders instructing the IRS not to collect them. The question of the legality of such an act actually depends on whether or not the section of tax code in question provides for a tax up to the current level, or mandates it. In the first case it would be licit, in the second, illicit.

[Lord Iames Osari]

I'm going to be fast and to the point. When Congress calls you, you go. It doesn't matter if it's Mickey Mouse Bullshit or not, YOU FUCKING GO. You do not have the right to say no. It''s part of your fucking job to go when Congress wants you. Alberto Gonzales has shit on the law, worse he's fucking with my Constitution in a way that is so fucking galling in it's open disregard for even the basics of the rule of law he needs to go. To tossed like a bad hamburger.

If the Democrats mean even a 1/10th of what they say, they need to act. Gonzales needs to be made an example of openly, publically even graphically. If he cannot be impeached then:

Cut funding to the executive branch. Refuse to pay the White House fucking power and water bill. Until he's fired. Let's see how eager Jr is to defend the little bastard when he can't shower or flip on a light. Power of the Purse Baby.

Fillibuster anything that isn't involved in the war and keep at it. While the lives of the troops need to be thought of, everything else is fair game. The Government will not move an inch on anything Jr wants until the asshole is gone.

Pass a law saying Gonzalies can't come within 500 feet of another government person or face instant arrest and whistle up some willing cop. There's gotta be at least 1 cop in D.C willing and able to slap some shiney bracelets on the fuck. Find HIM!

To be completely clear, I am calling for nothing less then full out non-military warfare until this fucking pus-filled boil is removed from office.

This isn't about parties or factions or even personal like/dislike. This is about the fact that one man has taken it upon itself to ignore his duties and responsiblities as a federal offical. If the Democrats have any hope of being something besides a joke, they need to strike back with all tools at their disposal.

Hear hear.

[Josh]

Well, the question at hand is whether or not the law mandates punishment or simply provides for it. There is a difference between the two, and when punishment is simply provided for (usually with the phrase "up to" in the sentencing list), the executive branch has the right to refuse to enforce any actual punishment on the class of offenders in question.

It was rather like the whole thing with some conservative groups suggesting the President lower taxes by writing Executive Orders instructing the IRS not to collect them. The question of the legality of such an act actually depends on whether or not the section of tax code in question provides for a tax up to the current level, or mandates it. In the first case it would be licit, in the second, illicit.

Point, but I was willing to see Clinton hung on perjury, and I'm willing to see Gonzalez hung on this. The guardians of the law must be equally susceptible to the law.

[SirNitram]

This isn't about parties or factions or even personal like/dislike. This is about the fact that one man has taken it upon itself to ignore his duties and responsiblities as a federal offical. If the Democrats have any hope of being something besides a joke, they need to strike back with all tools at their disposal.

Frankly, as I look over statements and how a few factions have acted recently, prepared for the mother of all bad jokes.

The GOP at present, unlike the Nixon years, has decided it's time to throw a temper tantrum and take their ball home, instead of try and restore any integrity, if Grover Norquist is any indication. So any hope of bipartisanship in bringing this back to sanity? Yea, right.

That leaves the Democrats. And judging from the group that keeps de-fanging any attempt to pass serious legislation against the war.. You know, anything other than a mild waving finger.. We can forget unity there. The Blue Dogs, while good folks on fiscal matters, seem to beleive in the hallucinary 'centrism' of the Beltway pundits, who freak out if some anonymous posts on a random site on the internet, home of HOT XXX TEENS FOR YOU!!!!! say some unflattering stuff of the Vice President, but turn a blind eye to major voices in the Right-leaning media calling for the executions of liberals.

So no. I don't have much confidence unless the Blue Dogs suddenly grow some goddamn brains and see most people don't like the Rule Of Law pissed on, or some noticable part of the GOP realize that their party is supporting folks who simply don't give a fuck about the law.

[Josh]

The rule of law only means anything if the public's willing to support it. Mind you, the public in general doesn't usually give a damn one way or the other, because in normal times politics is sort of a more highbrow sports competition. But when the pump is nicely primed with divided camps willing to tolerate malfeasance among their own ranks because the enemy camp is so much worse, this sort of thing's inevitable. I saw that coming with the Republicans after '94, and that was one of various reasons that I moved on.

[SirNitram]

The rule of law only means anything if the public's willing to support it. Mind you, the public in general doesn't usually give a damn one way or the other, because in normal times politics is sort of a more highbrow sports competition. But when the pump is nicely primed with divided camps willing to tolerate malfeasance among their own ranks because the enemy camp is so much worse, this sort of thing's inevitable. I saw that coming with the Republicans after '94, and that was one of various reasons that I moved on.

The truly perverse part of it is that the general public, according to polls, rejects the BS of the false-Centrists. Hell, they tend towards rejecting Centrism, despite the blubbering of the self-proclaimed keepers of wisdom; a recent poll identified only ten percent of the population didn't class themselves as liberal or conservative. The disdain for the parties comes because the GOP has been careening into the most ridiculous depths of the Right, past the small-government, hands-off social policy and fiscal sense, and the Dems haven't been Liberal in half a century.

[Josh]

and the Dems haven't been Liberal in half a century.

I've been saying for years that the Dems are simply another flavor of conservative in the classic meaning of it. They're essentially an interest-protection group, and a dreadfully ineffectual one at that. Laid against any caliber of opposition, they would have been smoked years ago. Lucky for them they have the Republicans to out-stupid them.