The Justice Department is facing yet another possible contempt sanction from a federal judge. This is becoming something of a trend for the Justice Department. One could only imagine the response of the bar to a private law firm with such a record of contempt. The latest threat comes from United States District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker in Al-Haramain v. Obama. This remains one of the most troubling cases from the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration has again yielded to the worst element in the Justice Department in continuing the same policies and practices of its predecessor.
The case involves unlawful surveillance by the NSA. The Justice Department previously threatened the extraordinary act to removing evidence from the court after the court refused to yield to its demand. Despite orders to the contrary, the Justice Department continues to file motions to dismiss. In January, Chief Judge denied the government’s third motion to dismiss the case and the Ninth Circuit has also rejected the government’s case. Yet, the Justice Department continues in open contempt of the court.
Walker appears to have finally had enough, noting that the government was “continuing to assert legal positions already specifically rejected by the court in previous orders” and “government officials in one or
more defendant agencies, including the NSA Director … are refusing to cooperate with the court’s orders.” He has issued a show cause order on why he should not start handing out sanctions.
For the full story, click here
…”and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Leadership of both Democratic and Republican party is an embarassement!
What am I reading here…. a federal judge doing the right thing ???? seems foreign to my eyes, hard to sink in.
Put em all in jail. Yep, start from the top to the bottom.
Obama is a criminal.
Impeach him & frog march his loud mouth America hating wife and him out of the White House.
Write your Congressman; demand they start impeachment proceedings.
Obama has violated human rights accords, the Geneva Convention, our Constitution, etc. I will not listen to him blaming Bush for one single more thing.
‘WE’RE OUT OF MONEY’
Sat May 23 2009 10:32:18 ET
In a sobering holiday interview with C-SPAN, President Obama boldly told Americans: “We are out of money.”
C-SPAN host Steve Scully broke from a meek Washington press corps with probing questions for the new president.
SCULLY: You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?
OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now.
)
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AND THIS CLOWN IS OUR PRESIDENT! ON ONE HAND HE HANDS US A 1.7 TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT AND 1 TRILLION DOLLAR ANNUAL DEFICITS FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS, AND ON THE OTHER HAND GIVES A BIG GRIN AND SAYS “WE ARE OUT OF MONEY”!
UNBELIEVABLE!
cherry,
You are not contributing to the discussion with your own loud mouth. Mrs. Obama is a very decent woman, although she is human.
Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bush are the reasons why we are in today’s decline. Mr. Obama simply needs to be more of a leader and less of coward to help us recover from 2 disastrous human beings’ corruptness.
Obama orders Gates to update plan for Iran strike
American defense secretary tells NBC television president has instructed him to refresh plans for military action against Tehran prepared during Bush era.
WASHINGTON – US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Friday that President Barack Obama had asked him to update the plans for the use of military force against Iran which were prepared during former President George W. Bush’s term.
In an interview to NBC television’s Today show, the American defense secretary explained that “as a result of dialogue with the president, we have refreshed our plans and all options are on the table.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3720065,00.html
FFLEO,
“Mrs. Obama is a very decent woman, although she is human.”
Don’t you mean she’s a decent woman AND she is human? A person can be both, really. I know many decent people who are also human.
It’s a shame that anybody like Cherry would say that Mrs. Obama hates America, when anybody with eyes can see that she cares very much about our country and our people.
Cherry is obviously not a person of principle. He/she says:
“Obama has violated human rights accords, the Geneva Convention, our Constitution, etc. I will not listen to him blaming Bush for one single more thing.”
If Cherry cared a fig about human rights, if Cherry actually did respect the Geneva conventions, if Cherry truly did have the slightest bit of reverence for our Constitution, then……
Cherry would not be defending Bush, Cheney, Rove, Gonzo, Harriet Miers, Rumsfeld, Rice, and all the other criminals who trampled the constitution for their own material gain.
By the way, Cherry, how much do you just LOVE our men and women in uniform. Do you support our troops?
Well how about that big no-bid military contractor in Iraq getting some nice big bonuses –$83 million — after doing crappy electrical work that electrocutes soldiers while they’re taking a shower. Nice, huh?
“….evidence suggests KBR’s work was involved in some of the deaths. He said $34 million in bonuses was paid three months after Green Beret Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, of Pittsburgh, was electrocuted while showering in his barracks in Iraq on Jan. 2, 2008. Maseth’s family has sued KBR, alleging wrongful death.”
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/05/ap_iraq_wiring_contractor_052009/
The Federal Courts are executing their part of our checks and balance government. It’s going to take time to untangle BushCo policy.
FFLEO:
Rafflaw has taught me the Von Trolls just don’t give a lick about the facts.
cherry’s cut and paste replies remind me of a pasture full of manure.
Without the benefits of the microbe colonies to act as a catalyst for change.
LindyLou:
Do drop in more frequently. Your replies are always a treat at the daily banquet JT serves up.
CCD
So anyone who doesn’t share your views is a troll. You sound like the homeland terrorist watch that target anyone who dares debate this administration. Trying to silence or discredit those with opposing views is no better that the congress who won’t allow bills to be read before they’re passed or a judge who refuses to hear a case because it isn’t politically correct. Our two party system has been suspended.
Gwen, this is a fact based blog- when you make a claim as if it were a fact you need an argument (in the classic sense) to back it up. Cherry doesn’t do that. She just makes claims isolated in time to the Obama Administration. That is trollish behaviour.
Blogs are existential in nature. If you act like a troll people will call you a troll because in fact, you are a troll- you are what you do. No one ‘knows’ anyone on a blog; it’s by your 0′s and 1′s you shall be known. If you post like a troll you are a troll.
DNFTT
One wonders about the conversations between cherry and her handlers. No doubt she is required to report back to those who assigned her to harass this particular blog. We’ve watched so many trolls using what appears to be the same cut and paste source, it’s only fair to assume this site is her high school assignment.
My theory is that she writes or calls them and says something like, “Oh Boy, I really got those liberals at the Jonathan Turley site just like you taught me to do. I dropped a couple of cut ‘n’ pastes, said two or three really outrageous and patently stupid things and then left right away like the scared little girl I am. It was fun—–where’s my money”?
…”This remains one of the most troubling cases from the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration has again yielded to the worst element in the Justice Department in continuing the same policies and practices of its predecessor…
—
Interestingly enough, JT, in proceeding with the previusly established positions advanced by the former administration, the current DOJ is essentially ‘making the case’ against them by allowing judges to decide on the ‘merits’ or, perhaps more aptly put, the lack thereof. Thereby also clearly placing the (ir)responsibilty squarely where it belongs – on Bush and Co.’s shoulders.
I see this as the smartest and possibly THE bravest way to advance the ‘Constitutional cause’ while simultaneously illustrating the lack of it as being the cause of a lot of our current big problems.
If nothing else it is a lesson in the need to stick with the constitutional script ‘moving forward’ – as the rule.
Before leaving office, Bush and Co. became even busier creating ‘work’ for the new administration. After Obama’s election, I remember Dubya making a remark to Clinton, that he was trying to make the Obama feel as ‘welcome’ as the Clintons made him feel coming in. I don’t ‘know’ whether he was being snide or not. I also don’t ‘know’ what Bill Clinton was referring to when he commented on how much he was admiring the specially made new ‘rug’, Bush had placed in the oval office during his terms.
In some ways, the best ‘message’ Obama can send is to simply play these matters out with a renewable faith in our judicial system.
I also recall reading that the Bush Admin. was trying to ‘help’ the new Prez. by tying up various loose ends etc. so the new Prez. wouldn’t have to. Being a cynic I thought then and now that if Bushco had any cojones (and really wanted to do the Obama Admin. a favor) they would have ‘dissapeared’ ALL the Gitmo inmates and turned large swaths of Afganistan and Pakistan to rubble. No matter how cynical and bloodthirsty one can be and even taking them at their own words, by any measure Bushco=FAIL.
Not to say I would have condoned it, just say’n for the sake of argument.
CCD,
Thanks for listening.
Gwen,
The trolls aren’t here to actually discuss the issue or topic that Professor Turley has initiated. They are here to distract from the issue and from the facts. Most of their postings aren’t even related to the current thread.
I hope everyone is enjoying their Memorial Day Weekend!
Patty C,
I forget to comment on your posting. I agree with you that allowing the court to resort ot sanctions against the government is one of the ways that the Obama Justice Department can get the result they want with less political shrapnel, but I would prefer that they “man-up” and just cooperate when they should and fight when they should.
CCD, thank you for the kind words. I’m never far even if I don’t post. This blog has become my mainstay, and you guys here have become my ethical compass.
Does LintdLou=Patty C ?
Does LindyLou = Patty C?
Replace the name Obama with McCain, keep all the other facts the same, and cherry would probably be screeching about “Activist Judges” instead.
AY,
No way. I don’t look a thing like Katharine Ross and I think Jill is cool, fun, brave, and only wrong once in a while.
LindyLou,
Well ok. Let us just play nice, then.
Anonymously yours,
I’m not getting you. When was I not “nice” to you? Unless, of course, you are actually Cherry and you just hate being reminded of Dick Cheney’s little business deals.
Are you still mad at me because I said my brother has a better sense of humor than you do?
He’s a better judge of character, too. Patty and I couldn’t be more different.
JT: you say, “…. the Obama Administration has again yielded to the worst element in the Justice Department in continuing the same policies and practices of its predecessor.”
I’m curious. On what basis do you opine that the administration is yielding to DOJ? How do you know that the Obama administration isn’t actively supporting this approach?
LindyLou,
That was not directed at you. It was at everyone.
Never having been a fan of Bush, conservative though I am, Obama’s tyrannical tendencies were obvious from the get go, he’s in a whole other class of evil, and if action is not taken soon, it will be too late. By “action” I mean he needs to be impeached … the simplest way is to look at the legislative history behind the Constitutional requirement and point out that to be a *natural born* citizen one must have *both* parents who are US citizens.
Cindy,
I originally came here looking for information about the natural born citizen issue and found that Professor Turley and the posters here had covered the issue thoroughly (sorry, but I don’t have the link). After reading the discussion here I concluded that President Obama is constitutionally eligible to be president. I don’t think you will find many people here who see him as evil or tyrannical, either. I find that throwing around those sorts of terms tends to indicate extreme bias and an unwillingness to honestly look at the facts. President Bush did things that are far more tyrannical than President Obama has done, yet I would not call him evil (I might make an exception for his vice president, Dick the war criminal). Frankly, I’m sick of hard core conservatives trying to paint the president as some far left-wing, socialist, communist, fascist radical. Yes, I, along with many others here, are worried about some of the things that he has done, but I agree with 90% of his actions and on many of the issues I disagree with him it is because he is too moderate. The conservatives had control of this country for eight years and they have made a huge mess – the president is mostly doing what he said he would and trying to fix the huge problems that he inherited. Like it or not, this is the course our country has chosen and we will succeed or fail with our president. Remember that during the Bush administration attitudes like yours were called unpatriotic – and yet now there is a conservative chorus saying things about our president that they would have vitriolically denounced if said about a president that they voted for making Limbaugh, Hannity, Cheney, and all of the other hate-filled fear mongers hypocrites who should just shut up.
Cherry
Your wrote: Obama has violated human rights accords, the Geneva Convention, our Constitution, etc. I will not listen to him blaming Bush for one single more thing.
There is an easy remedy for you. Stop watching TV News. Stop coming to this blog. You don’t have to listen to or read anything that offends your delicate sensibilities ever again.
Have a nice day.
As of Saturday, May 30, DOJ has completed a high level review of the state secrets defense in this cae.
It just filed with the court. It is continuing to maintain the defense.