posted September 11, 2012 02:54 PM            

The House Judiciary Committee plans to storm back into Washington, D.C. as Congress comes out of its summer recess with a Wednesday morning hearing examining President Barack Obama’s “abuse of power.”

It’s the latest attempt by House Republicans to take an aggressive stance against the Obama administration in the final weeks ahead of the election.

The House Ways and Means Committee is drilling into how the Treasury Department terminated the pensions of 20,000 non-union Delphi salaried retirees during the 2009 auto bailout. House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa remains intent as ever on his quest for justice in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal. And, House Energy and Commerce committee Republicans are planning on continuing to draw attention to the failures of Obama’s green energy programs – with emphasis on Solyndra – as they’re moving forward with new “No More Solyndras” legislation.

According to Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who is scheduled to visit the House side and testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, the hearing has a packed agenda aimed at confronting the Obama administration over its “unconstitutional” uses of power.

Among other things, Lee’s office said in a release forwarding information that was provided by the House Judiciary Committee, the hearing will focus in part on the president’s “prosecutorial discretion” – or administrative DREAM Act – immigration policies.

“The Executive branch has authority to set law enforcement priorities and to exercise prosecutorial discretion, but the Obama Administration has distorted and stretched these doctrines to unconstitutional ends,” the release Lee’s office sent out Monday outlining the plans the Judiciary Committee released reads. “By claiming the power to allow entire laws to go unenforced, the Administration has effectively suspended laws with which he disagrees. This is most flagrantly exhibited in the Administration’s decision to no longer enforce the Immigration and Nationality Act as to illegal immigrants who came to the United States as minors—effectively imposing the DREAM Act that failed to pass Congress.”

The release also explains that the hearing will accuse Obama of “evading” the Advice and Consent power of the U.S. Senate by “making ‘recess’ appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau even when the Senate, by its own rules, was in session.” In this part, the Judiciary Committee said that the Obama administration “has increasingly relied on its own ‘czars’ and White House personnel to set Administration policy in order to evade the Senate’s advice and consent power.”

The hearing will also rap Obama for internet regulations related to “net neutrality” that the committee says the Federal Communications Commission lacked “authority to regulate.”

The auto bailout is also likely to be examined, the committee says, as it argued that the “Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, acting on no legislative authority other than the raw power the Administration gained over GM & Chrysler when it bailed those companies out, abused the bankruptcy code to advance the Administration’s political interests over the rule of law.”

The 2009 auto bailout has come back into focus of late, as Obama attempts to frame it as a success and a rationale for his re-election. According to an analysis by the conservative Let Freedom Ring organization, Democrats touted the industry’s bailout more than 150 times during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., last week.

It appears House Ways and Means committee chairman Rep. Dave Camp is set to place his own emphasis on the Obama administration’s role in the auto bailout as well. He’s recently requested the White House, Treasury Department and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation hand over documents related to the termination of the pensions of 20,000 non-union Delphi salaried retirees. The administration has given no indication that it will cooperate with these requests.

On top of all of that, the Judiciary Committee said this hearing will dig into how Obama has been “flouting Congress’s oversight function,” specifically with regard to Operation Fast and Furious.

“The Administration’s contempt for Congressional oversight has undermined the Constitutional balance that requires the Executive branch to answer to the Legislative branch that authorizes and funds it,” the release reads. “Nowhere has the Administration’s contempt been more complete than in its misleading and stonewalling response to Congressional inquiries about the Fast & Furious scandal. For months, the Department of Justice refused to produce relevant documents, made false written assertions and gave misleading Congressional testimony. Then it dubiously asserted Executive privilege to avoid transparency. Ultimately, the Attorney General was properly held in contempt of Congress for his refusal to produce relevant, non-privileged documents.”

Additionally, Issa’s Oversight committee is planning a hearing for a week from Wednesday on Fast and Furious, as Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to complete his investigation by then.

posted September 11, 2012 04:57 PM            

despite the fact that you, jwhop, insist that clinton did nothing but allow the republicans to run the show, they felt the need to disgrace him...now darrell issa, who should be the OBJECT of investigation himself, is trying to tilt the election by copying that low point in our history. what a dude!

never mind that the entire tactic of the republican candidate was what they are now accusing the president of doing.

and never mind that reagan and many others have pointed out that "the president doesn't/can't spend one red cent, congress spends the money" the public message is still that obama has stolen the treasury to give to his friends.

posted September 11, 2012 10:03 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by jwhop:
Yes, when the president violates his oath of office, violates the Constitution of the United States, infringes on the authority of the other 2 co-equal branches of government and violates both US and International law...then the Congress of the Unites States has a duty to investigate the actions of the president.

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I hope so. I am so discouraged.

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted September 12, 2012 12:49 AM            

But that's not O'Bomber. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

posted September 12, 2012 02:44 AM            

"First Priority-- Make Obama a one term President."

posted September 12, 2012 10:51 AM            

Now I don't remember any caterwauling from demoscats when the story broke that Senator Ted (Red) Kennedy had attempted to enlist the aid of Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Soviet Union and America's still Cold War enemy to help defeat Ronald Reagan in the election of 1984 and prevent a SECOND TERM FOR RONALD REAGAN.

This was a breathtaking attempt at a conspiracy with a foreign power and enemy of the United States hatched by a US Senator and carried forward by another US Senator, John Tunney, both demoscats, naturally, to intervene directly in a US presidential election by a foreign power.

In that attempted conspiracy, Ted (Red) Kennedy proposed to give Yuri Andropov Reagan's negotiating positions on Nuclear Disarmament...in advance of talks between the nations. And what Ted (Red) Kennedy wanted from Yuri Andropov was Soviet Union help in defeating Ronald Reagan in the election of 1984.

So Node, do you know what you can do with your feigned outrage?

Let me tell you very directly Node..you and all the rest of the usual suspects.

You can take your feigned outrage over what Mitch McConnell SAID and stuff it where the sun don't shine because I place a hell of a lot more weight on what demoscats ACTUALLY DID.

Ted Kennedy's Soviet Gambit
Peter Robinson,
08.28.09, 12:01 AM EDT
Considering the late senator's complete record requires digging into the USSR's archives.

Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy.

"On 9-10 May of this year," the May 14 memorandum explained, "Sen. Edward Kennedy's close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow." (Tunney was Kennedy's law school roommate and a former Democratic senator from California.) "The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov."

Kennedy's message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. "The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations," the memorandum stated. "These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign."

Kennedy made Andropov a couple of specific offers.

First he offered to visit Moscow. "The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA." Kennedy would help the Soviets deal with Reagan by telling them how to brush up their propaganda.

Then he offered to make it possible for Andropov to sit down for a few interviews on American television. "A direct appeal ... to the American people will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. ... If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interviews. ... The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side."

Kennedy would make certain the networks gave Andropov air time--and that they rigged the arrangement to look like honest journalism.

Kennedy's motives? "Like other rational people," the memorandum explained, "[Kennedy] is very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations." But that high-minded concern represented only one of Kennedy's motives.

"Tunney remarked that the senator wants to run for president in 1988," the memorandum continued. "Kennedy does not discount that during the 1984 campaign, the Democratic Party may officially turn to him to lead the fight against the Republicans and elect their candidate president."

Kennedy proved eager to deal with Andropov--the leader of the Soviet Union, a former director of the KGB and a principal mover in both the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring--at least in part to advance his own political prospects.

In 1992, Tim Sebastian published a story about the memorandum in the London Times. Here in the U.S., Sebastian's story received no attention. In his 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, historian Paul Kengor reprinted the memorandum in full. "The media," Kengor says, "ignored the revelation."

"The document," Kengor continues, "has stood the test of time. I scrutinized it more carefully than anything I've ever dealt with as a scholar. I showed the document to numerous authorities who deal with Soviet archival material. No one has debunked the memorandum or shown it to be a forgery. Kennedy's office did not deny it."

Why bring all this up now? No evidence exists that Andropov ever acted on the memorandum--within eight months, the Soviet leader would be dead--and now that Kennedy himself has died even many of the former senator's opponents find themselves grieving. Yet precisely because Kennedy represented such a commanding figure--perhaps the most compelling liberal of our day--we need to consider his record in full.

Doing so, it turns out, requires pondering a document in the archives of the politburo.

When President Reagan chose to confront the Soviet Union, calling it the evil empire that it was, Sen. Edward Kennedy chose to offer aid and comfort to General Secretary Andropov. On the Cold War, the greatest issue of his lifetime, Kennedy got it wrong.