View Full Version : Gonzales Resigns on a Monday
The architects are leaving and they're doing it on Mondays to draw lots of media attention. What's up?
Buh Bye, Speedy!
Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
Bring on the next joker.
mwillman
08-27-2007, 07:56 PM
4 Down
Ashcroft
Rumsfeld
Rove
Gonzales
3 to go.
Bush
Cheney
Rice
Krome
08-27-2007, 09:32 PM
Thing is they are all going and will make millions with books which they will pretend to write and non executive placements on the boards of companies.
Seriously, in 6 months time Gonzales will be stupidily rich on a beach getting a BJ from a cute girl and not caring about all the bad things he did.
Stormy
08-28-2007, 02:11 PM
What "bad things" did Gonzales do?
Krome
08-28-2007, 02:29 PM
What "bad things" did Gonzales do?
How many judges did he get rid of that were in his way?
Stormy
08-28-2007, 02:39 PM
How many judges did he get rid of that were in his way?
Judges? In his way of what? Krome what are you talking about? Do you mean the attorneys that were fired?
Krome
08-28-2007, 02:51 PM
Judges? In his way of what? Krome what are you talking about? Do you mean the attorneys that were fired?
Sorry yes I meant Attorneys.
The republicans and democrats were both a bit sick of him according to British press and tv coverage.
Stormy
08-28-2007, 02:55 PM
Sorry yes I meant Attorneys.
The republicans and democrats were both a bit sick of him according to British press and tv coverage.
You did not answer my question.
You stated he got rid of people that were in his way.
I asked you, in his way how? What exactly were they in the way of?
What "bad things" did Gonzales do?
It depends on your belief in how the country should be run. The far right talking point is "Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President". That means that using resources for presidential campaigns, harassing a hospitalized Ashcroft to sign off on unConstitutional wire tapping and forcing attorneys to pursue cases when their is no merit outside of political gain is acceptable.
The moderate, left and independent school of thought is that the President serves the people of the USA and that all resources are given to him to serve the best interests of the USA and not his own political agenda. They believe that our Founding Fathers created our system of government to have 3 separate entities of government to protect us, the people of the USA.
The debate is on.
If you believe that leaders are above the law, God speaks to them and they can do as they wish then Gonzales did nothing wrong.
If you believe in the form of government create by our Founding Fathers then Gonzales is as anti-American as they come.
Krome
08-28-2007, 03:03 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062702310.html
Well read through here on how he fired people that didnt push for the death penalty.
Just need to go to the shops. Let me find more when I get back.
Stormy
08-28-2007, 03:15 PM
It depends on your belief in how the country should be run. The far right talking point is "Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President". That means that using resources for presidential campaigns, harassing a hospitalized Ashcroft to sign off on unConstitutional wire tapping and forcing attorneys to pursue cases when their is no merit outside of political gain is acceptable.
The moderate, left and independent school of thought is that the President serves the people of the USA and that all resources are given to him to serve the best interests of the USA and not his own political agenda. They believe that our Founding Fathers created our system of government to have 3 separate entities of government to protect us, the people of the USA.
The debate is on.
If you believe that leaders are above the law, God speaks to them and they can do as they wish then Gonzales did nothing wrong.
If you believe in the form of government create by our Founding Fathers then Gonzales is as anti-American as they come.Howdy there, Moby. That's a mighty fine set of talking points you are throwing around and they could not be further from the truth. But I suspect you know that already. The U.S. Attorney General answers to the President of the United States. That is his/her boss.
I've seen "anti-american" and pal Gonzales ain't it.
http://stormythoughts.blogspot.com/2007/08/madam-co-president-do-you-recall.html
That being said, Ronald Reagan fired 93 U.S. Attorneys his first two years in office.
Bill Clinton fired 93 U.S. Attorneys his first two years in office.
George W. Bush fired 89 his two years of office.
This is what Presidents do. They come in. They get rid of the political hacks that were appointed by the prior President and they start over.
Please, don't act like this is anything new. And whatever you do do not for one moment slander this man for following the precedent set. Especially after the unspeakable crimes committed against our fellow Americans during the end of President George H. Bush's term and a few years into President William J. Clinton's.
That being said, Ronald Reagan fired 93 U.S. Attorneys his first two years in office.
Bill Clinton fired 93 U.S. Attorneys his first two years in office.
George W. Bush fired 89 his two years of office.
This is what Presidents do. They come in. They get rid of the political hacks that were appointed by the prior President and they start over.
Please, don't act like this is anything new. And whatever you do do not for one moment slander this man for following the precedent set. Especially after the unspeakable crimes committed against our fellow Americans during the end of President George H. Bush's term and a few years into President William J. Clinton's.
What do any of these items have to do with Gonzales?
In business and in government it is normal for new leaders to clean house and bring in new people. As far as we know Reagan, George H. and Clinton did exactly that and had no ulterior motives.
What Gonzales did was very different. He did harass Ashcroft in the hospital to support wire tapping.
As far as we know this is the first time in history that Federal Attorneys were pressured to pursue political agendas and were fired for not doing so. There is no evidence that this has ever happened in any previous administration.
You can't just look at a single set of numbers and understand the issue. You have to look deeper and if you can you will find that there are differences. Very big differences.
Stormy
08-28-2007, 05:01 PM
What do any of these items have to do with Gonzales?Simple. It shows that not only were the firings standard operating procedure but it also reenforces the indisputable fact that ANY U.S. Attorney can be terminated for any reason at all.........don't like that tie? Fired. Don't like the hair color? Fired. It's that simple.
The ONLY time it would be deemed inappropriate to fire a U.S. Attorney would be if they were actively investigating wrong doing related to their bosses. There has been NO evidence of that at all nor has this been suggested.
What Gonzales did was very different. He did harass Ashcroft in the hospital to support wire tapping.No, he did not "harass" Ashcroft to support wiretapping. You are basing this on heresy given by Mueller that the papers spun as a "contradiction." Mueller was not there.
As far as we know this is the first time in history that Federal Attorneys were pressured to pursue political agendas and were fired for not doing so. There is no evidence that this has ever happened in any previous administration.You mean YOU know of no such case as you claim above. Again, I refer you back to the Clinton Administration. Don't forget the opposite of "pressured to pursue" is "pressured to ignore."
You can't just look at a single set of numbers and understand the issue. You have to look deeper and if you can you will find that there are differences. Very big differences.You are correct. However those numbers certainly give an indication of reality.
Simple. It shows that not only were the firings standard operating procedure but it also reenforces the indisputable fact that ANY U.S. Attorney can be terminated for any reason at all.........don't like that tie? Fired. Don't like the hair color? Fired. It's that simple.
Open a case against my opponent, a democrat or I'll have your boss fire you? I don't think so.
Try to fire someone at a publicly traded company for one of the reasons above and see what happens.
As I stated, there are two schools of thought involved with the Gonzales issue. You believe that he could fire people for wearing a tie that he didn't like. I don't believe that it's proper to fire attorneys for not opening cases for political reasons.
We disagree. Why can't you accept that? More importantly, why can't you understand the issue?
I'm sure he resigned just to help out the republican party and the conservative goals of americas finest president.
Jennifer
08-28-2007, 09:27 PM
Gonzalez was gotten rid of as a consolation prize to the Democrats because they are incapable of:
A) Passing any legislation - thank goodness!
B) Impeaching Bush
C) Getting out of Iraq.
So they made Ashcroft, Rove, Gonzalez, etc evil master minds and criminalized them in the minds of honest, hard working Americans for their own political gain.
This is no shocker, they've been doing this since Richard Nixon.
My only question is, when are Republican elected government officials going to stand up and fight back like Democrats do when they are attacked (even when the attacks are warranted, as they USUALLY are when it's a democrat being attacked.)
Gonzalez was gotten rid of as a consolation prize to the Democrats because they are incapable of:
A) Passing any legislation - thank goodness!
B) Impeaching Bush
C) Getting out of Iraq.
So they made Ashcroft, Rove, Gonzalez, etc evil master minds and criminalized them in the minds of honest, hard working Americans for their own political gain.
This is no shocker, they've been doing this since Richard Nixon.
My only question is, when are Republican elected government officials going to stand up and fight back like Democrats do when they are attacked (even when the attacks are warranted, as they USUALLY are when it's a democrat being attacked.)
Wow, you have a lot of anger. Who hurt you?
mwillman
08-28-2007, 11:26 PM
Man
There seems to be an influx of right wing fanatics.
Gonzalez should be up in front of a judge for lying and obfuscations to the congress. Period.
Jennifer
What planet do you live on?
Republicans are the most ruthless group of politicians this country has ever seen. Impeach the president for a blow job but ignore a president that lied this country into war.
disrupter
08-29-2007, 03:54 AM
As whitehouse council Gonzales attempted to skirt the acting attorney general, by badgering a hospital ridden Ashcroft, which i believe is something akin to obstruction of justice.
He was attempting to evade the justice department & system.
Here Time magazine points out a much more technical law he likely broke during that same visit.
Was Gonzales' Emergency Visit Illegal?
Thursday, May. 17, 2007 By MASSIMO CALABRESI/WASHINGTON
When then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales went to John Ashcroft's hospital room on the evening of March 10, 2004 to ask the ailing Attorney General to override Justice Department officials and reauthorize a secret domestic wiretapping program, he was acting inappropriately, Ashcroft's deputy at the time, James Comey, testified before Congress earlier this week. But the question some lawyers, national security experts and Congressional investigators are now asking is: Was Gonzales in fact acting illegally?
In dramatic testimony Tuesday, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he raced to the intensive care unit of George Washington University Hospital that evening to intercept Gonzales and White House chief of staff Andrew Card and prevent them from convincing Ashcroft to reauthorize the program after Justice Department lawyers had concluded that it was illegal. Comey, who during Ashcroft's stay in the hospital was acting Attorney General, has told Congressional investigators that when he arrived at the room and began explaining to Ashcroft why he was there, he was intentionally "very circumspect" so as not to disclose classified information in an unsecure setting and in front of Ashcroft's wife, Janet, who was at his bedside and was apparently not authorized to know about the program.
Comey described what happened next: "The door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card. They came over and stood by the bed. They greeted the Attorney General very briefly. And then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there — to seek his approval for a matter, and explained what the matter was — which I will not do." Ashcroft bluntly rebuffed Gonzales, but Comey's unwillingness publicly to say what Gonzales said in the hospital room has raised questions about whether Gonzales may have violated executive branch rules regarding the handling of highly classified information, and possibly the law preventing intentional disclosure of national secrets.http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1622832,00.html
In any event Gonzales had complete contempt for the justice department, and yet in the perverted world of Bush & the NeoConmen that made him the first choice to fill the job when Ashcroft left.
NeoCons are disgusting, wicked & beneath even contempt,
Satan himself has more integrity than these slimy sleazebags.
Gonzales had complete contempt for international law & the Geneva Convention:
Gonzales concluded in stark terms: "In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4989436/
When Powell read the Gonzales memo, he "hit the roof," says a State source. Desperately seeking to change Bush's mind, Powell fired off his own blistering response the next day, Jan. 26, and sought an immediate meeting with the president. The proposed anti-Geneva Convention declaration, he warned, "will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice" and have "a high cost in terms of negative international reaction."
As always Bush, Gonzo & the gang attempted to be a law unto themselves which is to say lawless,
which is exactly what you see in their illegal spying on domestic communications without a warrant which is spelled out in the letter of the law.
NeoConmen, nothing more than lawless criminals.
Bush accuses EVERYONE ELSE of being political,
ALL he has done is be POLITICAL in EVERYTHING he does.
Legality doesn't matter, common sense doesn't matter,
only political palatability is what matters,
whatever the gullible American body politic will swallow is what he & his gangsters focus on, & they never lift a pinky beyond the point that that has been achieved.
Unelected trash has invaded the Whitehouse & is urinating on the constitution.
Impeach him?
Hell, just string the sucker up from a lamppost & skin him alive for all to see as a warning.
Jennifer
08-29-2007, 04:21 PM
The Justice Department reports directly to the Executive, not the Congress. Read the Constitution. It's not a Republican or Democrat argument, it's a legal certainty.
US Attorneys, then, by extension, work directly for the President and a CEO of any corporation, state or country is free to fire his or her employees with or without merit at their leisure.
mwillman
08-29-2007, 06:09 PM
The justice system is based on the rule of law not the rule of the president.
Government attorneys swear an oath to the constitution of the united states not to a single person.
If the president misuses his power then the justice system is there to stop him that cant be done if the justice system is the lap dog of the president.
If the justice system is not above politics then it can never be seen as just.
IF all branches of government are subserveant to the president then he is a king and we fought a revolution so that we were not run by a king.
US Attorneys, then, by extension, work directly for the President and a CEO of any corporation, state or country is free to fire his or her employees with or without merit at their leisure.
KEWEL! When hillary wins in 2008 all the republicans will just have to shut their mouths when every single republican in the justice depatartment is fired and replaced with flaming homos and pagan witches just itching to get some to work hunting down corporate corruption, republican voter fraud, and violations of the tax regs regarding right wing churches.
Maybe we'll get back all the money stolen by those abstinence programs fakers that popped up to make a buck off of "compassionate conservatism" and faith based inititive taxpayer dollars.
And republicans won't be able to say a word - they already established the principle - no need for fairness in the justice dept - the president's word is LAW!
Jennifer
08-29-2007, 07:55 PM
Man
There seems to be an influx of right wing fanatics.
Gonzalez should be up in front of a judge for lying and obfuscations to the congress. Period.
Jennifer
What planet do you live on?
Republicans are the most ruthless group of politicians this country has ever seen. Impeach the president for a blow job but ignore a president that lied this country into war.
President Clinton was impeached for perjury, witness tampering, illegally obtaining FBI files and many other charges. He was not impeached for having an affair. The affairs were used only as supporting evidence to demonstrate motive on his part to explain why he did those things.
Furthermore, did not Clinton establish that perjury by the President is par for the course? He was never removed from office for lieing to a Congressional Grand Jury and to the Ameircan people, Republicans forgave him when he owned up to his mistakes and apologized. We are very forgiving people.
As for Gonzalez, please inform me as to what crime he committed? Firing US Attorneys is not a crime for the Attorney General, rather, it is his JOB. If the attorneys are not prosecuting the crimes that the White House wants, they are free to be fired. Actually, if they decide that blond haired men are going to be fired, they can be fired. It's that simple. US Attorneys are employed until the President doesn't want them to be employed anymore.
Now, let's look at the Democrats and their mission of personal destruction of people"
Ashcroft (Attorney General BEFORE Gonzalez, for the record)
Foley (who happened to be gay and having sex with an intern - kinda like Bill Clinton, but gay.)
Gonzalez (doing his job, albeit not well because he was not going after illegals, but he was doing his job.)
Libby (convicted of having a bad memory on who first told him of Plame)
Rove (convicted of being Republican, all he was was an advisor.)
Now, let's see what has happened to democrats who were in genuine scandals:
Massachusetts congressman Gary Studds and the little patty cake he was playing with those House pages. Remember that one? Remember that? How about Barney Frank, Stephen Gobie? Stephen Gobie, Barney's partner, running a... Well, a brothel-type thing ran in Barney's basement. Barney said he never knew it. Barney was also fixing parking tickets for the guy. Joe Biden. Joe Biden plagiarizing Neil Kinnock during a presidential primary that Biden quickly faded. The Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd waitress sandwich. This is a scandal that was repeated practically every night at La Brasserie in Washington, a restaurant that's now closed -- and I'm not making this up. It would either be Senator Kennedy on the bottom and Senator Dodd on the top and the waitress in the middle, or Dodd on the bottom, Kennedy on the top, and the waitress in the middle, hence the waitress sandwich. The governor of Kentucky, Paul Patton, was accused of pressuring his mistress, harassing her after she broke it off and then withdrawing Medicare money from her nursing home that she ran, remember that? If the Democrats want to play this culture of corruption game, let's just remind them there's a new media. Oh, Edwin Edwards of Louisiana! Gosh, we could probably take up the rest of the program today mentioning a bunch of Democrat scandals. By the way, Dave Durenberger is a Republican from Minnesota. I said he was a Democrat senator. What about New Jersey? The whole state's a culture of corruption there. New Jersey itself --which is, you know, Democrat-run state.
• Travelgate (1993)
• Zoe Baird's nomination as Attorney General and Kimba Wood's subsequent near-nomination were derailed by past employment of illegal aliens as nannies. (1993)
***Both nominated by President Clinton.***
• Walter Fauntroy, Delegate to Congress from the District of Columbia, guilty plea regarding lying on financial disclosure form (1995)
• Wes Cooley (1996)
• Walter R. Tucker III of California resigned before bribery conviction (1996)
• Secretary of Agriculture Michael Espy forced to resign from office despite ultimate acquittal on criminal corruption charges (1998)
• Bruce Interior Secretary, independent probe (1998-2000) of alleged lying to Congress concerning influence of money in 1995 American Indian tribe casino decision finds no criminally prosecutable perjury by Babbitt.
• Vice-President Al Gore (1998) improper fundraising and "no controlling legal authority" defense. This is those nuns out in California they bilked, the Buddhist nuns. Then he went out and said "no controlling legal authority."
• Whitewater scandal (1994-2000)
• Dan "Rosty" Rostenkowski post office scandal (1994) That's not even half of it. When they got to Rostenkowski's house in Illinois they found a bunch of furniture from his congressional office!
• Teamstergate: Ron Carey's and Bill Clinton's 1996 campaigns for the Presidency of the union and the US, respectively, swapped Teamster's Union general treasury funds into Clinton's campaign for Clinton Campaign funds into Ron Carey's campaign warchest. The Teamster's political director was jailed. No Clinton officials were charged. Carey's re-election was invalidated James Hoffa, Jr was elected when the Teamster election was rerun.
• Henry Cisneros resigns as Housing Secretary and, after lengthy probe that began in 1995, pleads guilty (1999) to lying to the FBI about money he paid former mistress; later pardoned by President Clinton in 2001(Possibly reclassify or cross-reference to Sex scandal)
• Pardongate (1999, 2001)
• Linda Chavez, nomination as Secretary of Labor derailed by past employment of illegal alien. (2001)
• Jim Traficant (D-OH) we all know.
• Robert Torricelli bribery scandal (2002)
That's the Marc Rich pardon. We're just up to the year 2000 now, and this just a list of scandals -- and you want to talk about this "culture of corruption" in the Republican party because one guy had a consensual gay relationship with an intern and another was accused of inappropriate behavior in a bathroom stall?
You want to see hippocracy, I recommend you start looking in your own party where you can be gay, just not a republican and gay. If you are a gay republican, then you are indicative of all that is wrong with American. If you are a republican that actually does his job and prevents you from engaging in more scandals, you have to be run out of office. Honestly, are you THAT brainwashed, or is your Bush hatred so strong you cannot see the light even when the train is right on top of you?
mwillman
08-29-2007, 08:03 PM
So Jennifer
You are a political operative looking to support your party with any party line lie you can think of or are told to spew.
I am not a party operative I think both parties are in the pockets of the wealthy and care little for the masses that keep them in office.
That said Bush and company have lied, misused government resources and created a unneccisary war but you dont investigate him/them do you?
Why is that? Why do you give him your compete trust even in the face of obvious coruption when you no doubt supported the huge and obviously partisan investigations of President Clinton.
Linkster
08-29-2007, 08:19 PM
. If the attorneys are not prosecuting the crimes that the White House wants, they are free to be fired. Actually, if they decide that blond haired men are going to be fired, they can be fired. It's that simple. US Attorneys are employed until the President doesn't want them to be employed anymore.
Actually this is a false statement - while they do work for the department which is under the President, there are federal laws that prevent the president or attorney general from firing a US attorney for political retaliation - it doesnt matter if they were working against the "party politics". This is true of any civil servant(appointed or not) in the US government - and this was the origin and basis of the hearings back in 2004 in the congressional judicial committees papers that were filed.
Of course there is still one case in there where the reason given for the firing breaks another law - the US Attorney was fulfilling his Navy Reserve committment so he couldnt be in the office all of the time - and federal law allows for this - and expressedly forbids firing someone for it.
One thing you will hear floating around is that these attorneys serve "at the pleasure of the president" which again is what they would love for you to believe - but in totally incorrect - they serve at the pleasure of the people - that is why they are required to swear to uphold the constitution - it also why when the new incoming US attorneys and their staff first heard Gonzales's speech welcoming them that included talk of completely serving the White Houses's needs, they were totally bewildered - and has led to a large amount of personnel within the department (long term employees) resigning recently
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