Thought the Obama admin. was supposed to be transparent?

So, who liked Fast and Furious?

I thought it was okay.

[QUOTE="whipassmt"]

[QUOTE="SEANMCAD"] what the f*ck! the man has a kill list you are just now starting to question his ethics on transparency?

SEANMCAD

it usually takes a person until about the age of 50 before they start to catch on that to get elected as president you have to be corrupt because the system is.

What is naive among many people is that they will attack Obama for doing the same thing Bush did which I am fine with HOWEVER, they will in the same breath defend Bush's action and that I have an issue with.

Its sad.

So, who liked Fast and Furious?

I thought it was okay.

Necrifer

[QUOTE="whipassmt"]

[QUOTE="SEANMCAD"]

it usually takes a person until about the age of 50 before they start to catch on that to get elected as president you have to be corrupt because the system is.

What is naive among many people is that they will attack Obama for doing the same thing Bush did which I am fine with HOWEVER, they will in the same breath defend Bush's action and that I have an issue with.

Its sad.

SEANMCAD

exactly. One doesnt excuse the other. Acting like the other only brings a person down to the same level. Its not a good benchmark to shoot for.

I love how whenever Obama uses an executive power common to any modern president everyone calls it an unprecedented step toward some Orwellian nightmare.Sajo7

Asserting executive privilege over documents pertaining to the biggest scandal to hit this administration does little to ease fears that there is something to hide. Especially since you have a case in which people from both sides of the fence have died as a result and an attorney general that has made contradictory testimony about his involvement/knowledge about fast and furious.

When i see a president exacting executive priviledge in this manner after stating this when bush was president...

"there's been a tendency on the part of this administration to try to hide behind executive privilege every time there's something a little shaky that's taking place"

... I think 2 things: 1) this is another case of obama saying one thing before taking office and doing another once he got there and 2) this scandal is too big to cover it up with executive privilege which means the info will eventually get out, so why do it?

Too many people have died, too many guns have been "lost", and too many documents have been withheld for this to just go away. What really happened and who was involved in this huge mistake will eventually come out which leads me to believe that obama wants to postpone knowledge of this scandal until after the election. I feel like the majority of people in this country will at least find this a little bit fishy and could hurt his reelection chances anyway, particularly because the increase in media exposure.ItalStallion777

This is rich, insinuate that there's a huge scandal, and then when the administration withholds some papers (because they're pertaining to a federal operation) use that as "proof" of wrongdoing. For one, the President never promised to release sensitive details about law enforcement operations. Two, the administration is still asserting (and has not been proven false in this asserion) that they were not directly involved in this operation, that it was an ATF operation. If that is true then President Obama is not going back on a campaign promise as his administration had no direct role in the operation.

As to people dying because of that, it's a specious allegation. As pro-gun advocates in the U.S. are always quick to point out, criminals get their hands on guns one way or another. The violence in Mexico is lamentable, but it is not a result of this program.

I feel like you are misrepresenting this president with those statements. I argue he has been one of the most polarizing figures in recent years. Look at the 2 biggest pieces of legislation that was passed during his administration. The healthcare bill was unanimously opposed by house and senate republicans and congressional bribes were tossed around to sure up a few key dem votes while the stimulus got 3 republican votes. This is not what I call bipartisan but instead taking advantage of a majority in both chambers of congress, something that most presidents would/have done. When you couple this with both pieces of legislation being either controversial and/or failed you get a voting base that is angry with the way things are being handled. So you got a bunch of people campaigning that they will vote down the majority of what dems put forth that disagrees with conservative ideals. Many get voted in, republicans get a majority in the house, and guess what... they do exactly what they said they were going to do. Don't blame all the republicans, blame the people that voted them in to do what they are doing now. All "progress" isn't necessarily a good thing for this country, or legal for that matter.

ItalStallion777

And I feel like you are misrepresenting President Obama's record. As to the healthcare bill, he went out of his way to include Republican ideas, including the personal mandate which had previously been proposed by Republicans as a healthcare solution. In fact, that would never have been necessary had the President been able to push through single-payer or a medicare buy-in, both of which Congress prevented. Without those options, the only way to stop individuals from being dropped due to pre-existing conditions was to give the insurance companies, who asked for this by the way, their personal mandate. President Obama promised to extend coverage to millions of Americans and he did, but Congress tied his hands in the manner in which he could accomplish this. As for the bribes remark, earmarks are par for the course in Congress. Not that I agree with that part, in fact I'm more angry at the blue dog who was asking for the earmarks, but if we're going to complain about that then we can open the book on every congressman, Republicans included, and see them all trying to get as much funding for their own districts as possible.

As for the stimulus, I find it ironic that the Republicans keep harping on the economy, yet deride the President for passing a bill that put people to work. I guess that means Republicans prefer that 800,000 people be out of work right now? Great platform for them to run on in 2012. In fact, since you brought up the mid-term elections, Congress' approval has gone even lower since then, with people citing concerns about the economy and Congress' failure to get anything done as reasons for disapproval. People with information should reasonably have expected Congressional Republicans to try to shut down Congress had they been following the situation for the past few years, but the fact of the matter is that most Americans have little knowledge of the gears of the political machine. They voted against Democrats because they didn't feel there was sufficient progress on key issues and they expected the Republicans to make some progress. Republicans have failed tremendously in that regard, and are now paying for it in the polls. Republicans may have personal goals of stopping the President at every turn, but the voters sent them to Washington to pass legislation to help this country. If they won't do that then hopefully voters will see through these ploys they keep putting up to distract from the fact that they're content to simply sit on their laurels. I also find the assertion that standing up for conservative principles means shutting government down. President Obama is standing up for progressive ideals, and he still manages to do it in a way that gets legislation passed through negotiation and compromise. That's the way government is supposed to work, through compromise, you know, that word that John Boehner doesn't know the definition of.

You're also glossing over all that President Obama has done to reach across the aisle. Without President Obama we would have had the Bush tax cuts end for ALL taxpayers, middle and upper class alike. Without President Obama we never would have had a payroll tax holiday, unemployment extension, or a decrease in the estate tax. President Obama has given in on key issues in order to get legislation passed to improve the economy, and Republicans have gotten concessions that most Democrats never would have thought they would have given in a million years. For his trouble, the Republicans come out and spew this demonstrably false refrain that the President is a partisan who is dead-set on pushing through a socialist agenda. Their rhetoric, and your rhetoric, don't match up with reality.

[QUOTE="Netherscourge"]

[QUOTE="airshocker"]

Apparently not when it comes to Fast & Furious.

SOURCE

Congress has been trying to investigate this thing for the past year and have had nothing but trouble from Holder and the Obama administration. Pretty shameful. Holder says the documents Issa wants are harmless, but then why would the Obama admin. claim executive privilege?

whipassmt

Well, if there are CIA agents currently embedded in Mexican Cartels... and the documents expose their identities...

Yea, maybe they should stay secret.

Stuxnet is probably one of my biggest complaints about this Presidency, but are you really trying to put it forward as a legitimate argument against President Obama in this election? "Oh hey, stuxnet sucked right? So instead of voting for President Obama, vote for Romney, whose rhetoric on foreign relations has been ten times as harsh and who wouldn't blink an eye at the prospect of carrying out something like stuxnet."

Your large amount of words means nothing!

Ahahahah!

Let's put Holder's lies and spin aside for a moment and get right to bottom line on one issue: do you think Fast and Furious made a mistake in allowing the guns to "walk"? Do you think that decision is evidence of incompetence? Personally, I don't think Holder or his team are guilty of anything on that issue, based on what I know and understand. kraychik

I don't think the premise of the operation was a bad idea. On it's face it seemed like it could be effective.

I don't know if Holder/Justice/Obama admin. did anything wrong. That's why I want the oversight committee to have these documents that are being held back. I do know Holder lied on two occaisions, which makes me think they're trying to cover something up.

But I thought the government can't multitask. -Sun_Tzu-

That's why we have committees in Congress.

Well, if there are CIA agents currently embedded in Mexican Cartels... and the documents expose their identities...

Yea, maybe they should stay secret.

Netherscourge

I have no problems with the indentities of special services personnel being redacted, so long as they're not involved in the scandal.

I'll let Stephen Colbert explain it to you. Linknocoolnamejim

I'm not watching Colbert, Jim.

If you can't acknowledge that all the news agencies are capable of reporting vanilla news without bias, then there's really nothing left to talk about.

@theone86 because I don't want to quote that whole opinion piece.

Let me throw some facts your way:

• 2000 guns were sold by ATF agents, 1700 of which they lost track of.
• guns directly relating to fast and furious were found at over 170 crime scenes in mexico and as you know 2 of which were found where border patrol agent Terry was killed
• holder has provided controdictory testimony during the congressional hearings
• the DOJ wrote a letter to congress saying how ATF had nothing to do with gun running to mexico, a statement which took them almost a year to take back
• 7600 documents have been handed over but the documents in question, the ones that the president has asserted executive privilege over, were following said erroneous letter from the DOJ
• the attorney general said he is not responsible but also can not give information on who is
• to top it off it has taken 18 months to get to this point in the investigation

Now that we have that out there you can see why I "insinuated" that this is a huge scandal... because it is one. A scandal is something in which sparks public outrage over some moral or legal wrongdoing. This IS a scandal by every definition of the word and to refute that point is baseless. If you were trying to argue my point that this was the biggest scandal to hit this administration then name one that was larger. Even if obama or holder had nothing to do with this and congressional hearings never took place this would still be a scandal because a huge amount of guns were sent to mexico that were then lost track of and used to kill. Fast and furious is the most recent part of what has been categorized as the "ATF gunwalking scandal"

For you say that people dying because of fast and furious is a "suspicious allegation" is complete nonsense. Even a small bit of research would show that guns were found near border patrol terry's body and that hundreds were found at crime scenes in mexico. Even if none of this evidence existed common sense tells us that over a thousand guns being lost track of ANYWHERE, especially when being sold to criminals, will result in deaths.

"As pro-gun advocates in the U.S. are always quick to point out, criminals get their hands on guns one way or another." I feel this comment is senseless. Yes, cartel members and criminals will most definitely find any way they can to get their hands on guns but does that mean they should get those guns from a US federal law enforcement administration and then use those same guns to kill an American citizen and many of their own? Equating this to what pro-gun advocates in the US say about criminals finding a way to get guns is misguided. That way should NOT be from a government agency. Sure the violence in mexico is horrendous at best but it sure as hell wasn't made any better by losing 1700 guns, many being military grade, in a country struggling with drug violence.

Even after all this I still have not said any of this was "proof" of wrongdoing directly by this administration like you wrongly stated. I was simply stating my opinion that I and many others find this evidence fishy and that I think there is something to hide. I also stated what I thought the reason was to hide it and obama's own words to back that up. My main point stands that I feel what really happened and who authorized it will eventually come out but not until after the election which I feel is what obama wants.

On to the rebuttal to my second post...

You can say obama is a bipartisan, compromising, negotiator til you are blue in the face but the facts speak for themselves. As I stated in my previous post, the healthcare bill got 0 republican votes and the stimulus got a grand total of 3. I feel my statement that he is the most polarizing figure in recent years stands true even after your discussion about how this was the only way and republicans tried to stand in the way. With regards to the healthcare bill maybe some thought this was the wrong time completely to pass any kind of healthcare legislation and regardless of what was in it they would vote against it because of the economic crisis. Maybe others didn't like the what was in the legislation. Others probably didn't even know what what was in it and felt it irresponsible to use the pelosi method of passing a bill before we know what it does.

With the stimulus the only thing we can look to is what it was supposed to do and what it has done. By the white house's own standards it has failed. On top of that fact and it being passed in an extremely partisan manner, the economy is still not doing well by anyone's account... except president obama's of course. You seem to be writing this post like you know exactly what the republicans were supposed to do and why they were elected into office. Yes people weren't satisfied with congress before as well as now but who are you to say the republicans specifically have "failed tremendously"? Maybe the "progress" on some key issues that you talked about is to NOT throw more money at the problem and run up the deficit more. Maybe it IS to vote down legislation and to do what they said they would do to get elected. People hate inaction on the part of congress but you know what they hate more... the wrong action.

Bottom line: You can say the president is bipartisan but the facts don't back that up. Obama seems too weak now to get anything done and even if he is willing to reach across the isle on some issues it is not enough anymore because he has lost so much of the power that comes with the presidency. And that is no fault but his own.

I think they should water board the sh!t out of Holder and Obama until they get all the details on Fast & Furious.

[QUOTE="nocoolnamejim"]I'll let Stephen Colbert explain it to you. Linkairshocker

I'm not watching Colbert, Jim.

If you can't acknowledge that all the news agencies are capable of reporting vanilla news without bias, then there's really nothing left to talk about.

I think all major news agencies can report vanilla news without bias, but I didn't need an excuse to watch Colbert. That bit was pretty great. The Asian and Mexican thing had me cracking up, and the Fast and Furious coverage was good too.