Tag: Eric Holder

Scarier than John Ashcroft

~ odd man out ~ 1 Comment

By Odd Man Out
Eric Holder might feel more at home in Vladimir Putin’s Justice Department than in the USA’s. Susie blogged about Charles Pierce’s take on the Attorney General the other day.

Yesterday, Jonathan Turley weighed in with his impressions:

…Democrats are largely silent in the face of a president claiming the right to unilaterally kill citizens.

Holder became particularly cryptic in his assurance of caution in the use of this power, insisting that they will kill citizens only with “the consent of the nation involved or after a determination that the nation is unable or unwilling to deal effectively with a threat to the United States.” What on earth does that mean?

This is precisely why the framers of the US constitution rejected the “trust me” approach to government, as discussed in this column. Since last year, US drones have killed three Americans overseas.

Fighting mortgage fraud

~ odd man out ~ 6 Comments

Hey, what a concept. The NYT thinks President Obama should act as a leader on this issue:

…[Obama] He should form an interagency task force to investigate and pursue potential civil and criminal wrongdoing by institutions and people whose conduct in the mortgage chain had the greatest economic impact.

That would mean focusing on the large banks and their top echelons. The investigators would need to include the departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development, the S.E.C. and the Internal Revenue Service, as well as bank regulators, with the formal co-operation of the most aggressive state attorneys general. The task force would need a leader with the impulses of a crusading prosecutor…