Specter draws blood from Holder
It took nearly eight-and-a-half hours, but Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) finally got under Eric Holder's skin. Specter was questioning Holder on why Holder objected to the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising violations by former Vice President Al Gore during the 1990s.
Specter disagreed with that assessment, and he said that incident, along with Holder's involvement in the Marc Rich pardon scandal, raised doubts about his fitness for the post of attorney general. "I think it's so clear that it raises questions about your fitness for the job," Specter said.
For the first time in today's session, Holder showed some temper.
"You're getting close to the line. You're getting close to questioning my integrity," Holder said. "That is not appropriate. That is not fair." Specter knew he had scored a point, and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) stepped in to defuse the situation.
Originally posted by jibeho Surely there is a better Non Clintonista candidate somewhere in this vast country.
The firm represents 17 Yemeni nationals and one Pakistani citizen held at Guantanamo Bay. The Supreme Court will soon review the D.C. Circuit’s ruling that ordered the dismissal of a number of habeas petitions filed by Guantanamo detainees; some of our clients are petitioners in the Supreme Court Case. We expect to play a substantial role in the briefing. We also plan to petition the Supreme Court to hear our Pakistani client’s appeal from the D.C. Circuit’s order dismissing his case.
Attorney General Eric Holder described the United States Wednesday as a nation of cowards on matters of race, saying most Americans avoid discussing unresolved racial issues. ....
Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, Holder said, but "we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."
He told Justice Department employees they have a special responsibility to advance racial understanding.
President Obama says he would not have used the same language that Eric Holder did last month when the attorney general declared that the United States is a nation of cowards on matters of race.
"We've made enormous progress and we shouldn't lose sight of that," Obama told The New York Times in an interview posted on the newspaper's Web site Saturday.
...
The president said he is not someone who believes that constantly talking about race can solve racial tensions. To address that problem, it will mean fixing the economy, putting people to work, making sure that people have health care and ensuring that children are learning, Obama said.
“The man accused of fatally shooting a soldier outside a recruiting center begged for FBI agents to free him from a Yemeni jail where he was ‘radicalized’ by Islamic terrorists, his lawyer told The Associated Press on Thursday. Lawyer Jim Hensley described Abdulhakim Muhammad as an impressionable youth driven to public service in an impoverished Middle Eastern country. But teachings by ‘hardened’ terrorists in Yemen and experiences with Afghan child refugees who were missing limbs drove him to become someone his parents didn’t recognize, Hensley said.”
That's real change we can believe in. Yeah ... that's him staying out of the situation and that's him not backing Obama's racist comments up.
