If you think Kim Jong is conservative, you should check out his birthday parties.

Oh yes. Basically the entire countries youth does gymnastics in the street to celebrate their leader's birthday. It's very elaborate.

They comply or die

Hey didn't bush get caught turning the U.S. Justice department in to a big political hatchet factory by firing all the US attorneys (which happens once in a while) and replacing them with political Republican hacks (which should never happen)? I seem to remember something like that.

Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy

 

The dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy was initiated by the unprecedented^[1] midterm dismissal of seven United States Attorneys on December 7, 2006 by the George W. Bush administration's Department of Justice. Congressional investigations focused on whether the Department of Justice and the White House were using the U.S. Attorney positions for political advantage. Allegations were that some of the attorneys were targeted for dismissal to impede investigations of Republican politicians or that some were targeted for their failure to initiate investigations that would damage Democratic politicians or hamper Democratic-leaning voters.^[2][3] The U.S. attorneys were replaced with interim appointees, under provisions in the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization.^{[4][5][6][7][8]}

The dismissed U.S. Attorneys had all been appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate, more than four years earlier.^[9][10] Two other attorneys were dismissed in controversial circumstances in 2005-2006. Twenty-six or more U.S. Attorneys had been under consideration for dismissal during this time period.^[11][12][13] The firings received attention via hearings in Congress in January 2007, and by March 2007 the controversy had national visibility. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stated that the U.S. Attorneys "serve at the pleasure of the president" and described the affair as "an overblown personnel matter."^[14][15]

By mid-September 2007, nine of the highest-level officers of the Department of Justice associated with the controversy had resigned,^{[16][17][18][19]} most prominently, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.^{[20][21][22][23]}

A subsequent report by the Justice Department Inspector General in October 2008 found that the process used to fire the first seven attorneys and two others dismissed around the same time was "arbitrary", "fundamentally flawed", and "raised doubts about the integrity of Department prosecution decisions."^[24] In July 2010, the Department of Justice prosecutors closed the two-year investigation without filing charges after determining that the firing was inappropriately political, but not criminal, saying "Evidence did not demonstrate that any prosecutable criminal offense was committed with regard to the removal of David Iglesias. The investigative team also determined that the evidence did not warrant expanding the scope of the investigation beyond the removal of Iglesias."^[25]

[edit] Issues in brief

The U.S. Attorneys controversy touches upon a wide range of issues. The U.S. Attorneys, in their pursuit of justice, wield enormous power. Their political impartiality in deciding which cases to prosecute and in arguing those cases before judges and juries with diverse views is essential.^[26] The scandal pitted Congress against the Bush White House, generating a series of constitutional issues. As the controversy unfolded, it led to other controversies, notably the politicization of hiring at the U.S. Department of Justice, the Bush White House e-mail controversy, and the alleged politically-motivated prosecutions by U.S. Attorneys in several states.

The following sections briefly summarize aspects of the controversy. More thorough analyses are further below, or in the related articles.

[edit] Changed interim appointment law in 2006

As the controversy emerged, U.S. Senators were concerned about a little-noticed provision in the re-authorization of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2006 which eliminated the 120-day term limit on interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys made by the United States Attorney General to fill vacancies. The law permitted the Attorney General to appoint interim U.S. Attorneys without a term limit in office, and avoid a confirming vote by the Senate. The change gave the Attorney General greater appointment powers than the President, since the President's U.S. Attorney appointees are required to be confirmed by the Senate; the law undermined the confirmation authority of the Senate.^[27] The U.S. Senate was concerned that, in dismissing the U.S. Attorneys, the administration planned to fill the vacancies with its own choices, thus bypassing not only the Senate confirmation, but also the traditional consultation with Senators in the selection process. Congress rescinded the provision by very large majorities in March 2007.

[edit] Administration rationale unclear

The reasons for the dismissal of each individual U.S. Attorney were unclear. Two suggested motivations were that the administration wanted to make room for U.S. Attorneys that were more sympathetic to the administration's political agenda, and the administration wanted to advance the careers of promising conservatives.^[28][29][30] Critics said that the attorneys were fired for failing to prosecute Democratic politicians, for failing to prosecute claims of election fraud that would hamper Democratic voter registration, as retribution for prosecuting Republican politicians, or for failing to pursue adult obscenity prosecutions.^[31] The administration and its supporters said that the attorneys were dismissed for job-performance reasons "related to policy, priorities and management", and that U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President.^[32] However, at least six attorneys had recently received positive evaluations of their performance from the Department of Justice.^[33] In September 2008, the Department of Justice Inspector General's investigation concluded that the dismissals were politically motivated and improper.^[24]

[edit] Administration testimony contradicted by documents

Members of Congress investigating the dismissals found that sworn testimony from Department of Justice officials appeared to be contradicted by internal Department memoranda and e-mail, and that possibly Congress was deliberately misled. The White House role in the dismissals remained unclear despite hours of testimony by Attorney General Gonzales and senior Department of Justice staff in congressional committee hearings.^[34][35] The Bush administration issued changing and contradictory statements about the timeline of the planning of the firings, persons who ordered the firings, and reasons for the firings.^{[36][37][38][39]} The origin and evolution of the list of attorneys to be dismissed remained unclear.^{[40][41][42][43]} In response the Inspector General's report in September 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor to determine if administration officials had perjured themselves in testimony to Congress.^[44]

[edit] Politicization of hiring at the Department of Justice

Attorney General Gonzales, in a confidential order dated March 1, 2006 not published in the Federal Register, formally delegated authority to senior DOJ staff Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson to hire and dismiss political appointees and some civil service positions.^[45][46] On May 2, 2007, the Department of Justice announced two separate investigations into hirings conducted by Goodling: one by the department's Inspector General, and a second by the Office of Professional Responsibility.^[35] In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, on May 23, 2007, Goodling stated that she had "crossed the line" and broke civil service laws regulating hiring for civil service positions, and had improperly weighed political factors in assessing applicants.^[47]

According to a January 2009 Justice Department report, investigators found that Bradley Schlozman, as interim head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, "favored applicants with conservative political or ideological affiliations and disfavored applicants with civil rights or human rights experience whom he considered to be overly liberal." The positions under consideration were not political, but career, for which the political and ideological views of candidates are not to be considered, according to federal law and guidelines.^[48]

In a May 30, 2007 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the United States Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General and Counsel for the Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed that they were expanding their investigation beyond "the removals of United States Attorneys" to also include "DOJ hiring and personnel decisions" by Monica Goodling and other Justice Department employees.^[49][50]

[edit] Dismissed attorneys and elections

The controversy surrounding the U.S. Attorneys dismissals was often linked to elections or voter-fraud issues. Allegations were that some of the U.S. Attorneys were dismissed for failing to instigate investigations damaging to Democratic politicians, or for failing to more aggressively pursue voter-fraud cases.^[3][51] Such allegations were made by some of the dismissed U.S. Attorneys themselves to suggest reasons they may have been dismissed.^[52] The background to the allegations is the recent tendency for elections in parts of the United States to be very close; an election outcome can be affected by a mere announced investigation of a politician. Indeed, it is explicit policy of the Department of Justice to avoid bringing voter-related cases during an election for this reason.^[53] The pursuit of voter fraud cases was an acknowledged political strategy of the Republican Party by 2006.^[54] The use of U.S. Attorneys for partisan purposes is highly improper, particularly given the strong non-partisan traditions of the U.S. Attorneys. In September 2008, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice concluded that some of the dismissals were motivated by the refusal of some of the U.S. Attorneys to prosecute voter fraud cases during the 2006 election cycle.^[24]

[edit] Fallout

By April 2007, the apparent politicization of the Department of Justice, the influence of politics on the appointment of some of the U.S. Attorneys, and the alleged politically-motivated prosecutions by some of the U.S. Attorneys began to affect cases of public corruption and voter fraud nationwide. According to the National Law Journal, "Just the appearance of political influence in cases related to those firings, combined with the recent, unusual reversal of a federal public corruption conviction in Wisconsin [c.f., Georgia Thompson], some say, will spur aggressive defense lawyers to question the political motivation of prosecutors in certain cases; make magistrates and judges more skeptical of the evidence before them; and perhaps even chill line prosecutors in their pursuit of some indictments."^[26]

By mid-September 2007, nine senior staff of the Department of Justice associated with the controversy had resigned.^{[16][17][18][19]} The most prominent resignations include:

• Attorney General Alberto Gonzales^{[20][21][22][23]}
• Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty;
• Acting Associate Attorney General William W. Mercer resigned from the acting office prior to Senate confirmation hearings for the same position, and returned to his post as U.S. Attorney for Montana (he held dual positions);
• Chief of staff for the Attorney General Kyle Sampson
• Chief of Staff for the Deputy Attorney General Michael Elston;
• Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA) Michael A. Battle;
• the subsequently appointed Director to the EOUSA, Bradley Schlozman, also the former acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division;
• the Department of Justice's White House Liaison Monica Goodling

In June 2008, a grand jury was empaneled to consider criminal indictments against officials involved in the firings. The grand jury was presented evidence from ongoing investigations at the Department of Justice Inspector General's office and at the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility.

Obama doesn't micro-manage the US Justice Department.

SELLC wrote:

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PowerStroker it's quite obvious Obama can't manage on any level, let alone on a "micro" level. He is wasteful and unproductive. If Obama had managed this country properly we wouldn't even be having this conversation, hell this thread would not have even been started.

 

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If he were a white dude this thread would not have even been started.

Denied because you've gone over your limit of bigotry?