Where Are the Gun Protests?

Mark Thompson in reply to wardsmith says:

But as you can see in the post I was already typing here this administration uses executive fiat rather than congressional approval. Yes he is not the first president to use it for /some/ things but he is certainly the first to use it to this extent and for this /many/ things.

There is a huge, MASSIVE, difference between enforcing a non-existent law by executive fiat and declining to enforce, or at least deprioritizing enforcement, of an existing law. I should think this distinction is fairly obvious. And I really have to challenge the assertion that Obama is the first to use even this prioritization ability to the extent and with the frequency that he has. It is, of necessity, something that every Administration has to do, and in roughly equal amounts, increasing in proportion to the number of laws that it is supposed to enforce. The biggest difference is that usually Presidents don’t hold Rose Garden press conferences to announce that they’re doing it.

On the F&F issue, I’m not saying that this was necessarily limited to low-level ATF employees; I’m actually fairly certain that the stink went relatively high up the food chain (not necessarily all the way up to Holder, but definitely pretty high up, and I don’t rule out the possibility that it went that high up). But that’s a far cry from saying that the motivation was this convoluted idea that introducing more American-traced guns to the cartels would somehow create an outcry for more gun control in the US. Again, it should not exactly be a matter of controversy that this is the case, especially given the size of the US firearms industry combined with the huge cross-border drug trade between Mexico and the US. Instead, the evidence pretty consistently points to an attempt by ATF (and perhaps DOJ) officials to expand the agency’s jurisdiction, with callous disregard for basic things such as the rules of evidence and the actual law. When the proverbial shit hit the fan, these officials wanted to, and tried to, blame everyone but themselves and their participating underlings.* Those efforts, which are as I understand the main focus of the document demands on which privilege has been asserted, are no doubt incredibly embarrassing to the Administration. They are, indeed, an outrageous coverup. But they’re not remotely evidence of the particular conspiracy you suggest.

*There’s also some dispute as to whether the individual allegedly promoted was, in fact, promoted rather than simply transferred to desk duty.Report

Mark Thompson in reply to wardsmith says:

Second question first: regarding the agent(s) allegedly promoted, the link you provide doesn’t actually show any promotions, just transfers that Newsmax asserts are promotions without any basis; in the case of McMahon, the linked story actually shows a pretty clear demotion by most standards, from Deputy Director, Field Operations, to Deputy Assistant Director, OPRSO.

Regarding the Heritage Foundation story to which you cite….egads. The first two examples in that article just describe basic formal rulemaking under powers that were clearly delegated to the Executive (that you and I might think that Congress is Constitutionally not supposed to be able to delegate its powers is a ship that sailed a very long time ago); that is something that is done thousands of times every year. The third example was likely an overstepping of authority, for which the administration seems to have been rebuked by the courts. On the fourth, NCLB waivers for adopting national standards, Heritage’s claim that these waivers were without authorization by Congress is highly questionable since there doesn’t seem to be any dispute that the Executive is explicitly allowed to grant such waivers, just over whether it can place conditions on them.

The sixth, immigration laws, has largely already been covered. The seventh, marijuana laws, boils down to the same issue of choosing not to make enforcement of certain laws a priority; in addition, Heritage seems pretty clearly wrong in suggesting that marijuana laws aren’t being enforced, especially given stories like this: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/west-hollywood-medical-marijuana-raid.html

The eighth, again, is a matter of the Administration not enforcing a law as vigorously as conservatives would like. The exercise of executive privilege in F&F, the ninth issue, is bothersome but all-too-common over the course of several administrations. The tenth and final one, recess appointments, involves Heritage adopting a fairly novel view of the term “recess of the Senate.”

But you asked for equivalent examples from another administration, so I’ll give some examples from the Bush Administration:

– undeclared wars (yes, Bush was hardly the first to do this, but the precedent for Obama’s rulemaking, claims 1 and 2 above, is even more firmly established).

– Defiance of the legal – and Constitutional – prohibitions on the use of torture.

-Issued a directive gutting anti-trust enforcement (this is exactly equivalent to claim 6, above, and is Constitutional for exactly the same reasons)

-Gutted enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (again, Constitutional, but again exactly equivalent to Obama’s alleged non-enforcement of marijuana laws): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/us/politics/03rights.html

-Blatantly politicized the hiring process for DOJ attorneys, firing US Attorneys for purely partisan political gain

– Made questionable assertions of executive privilege

– Leaked classified information for political gain

– Developed a novel theory of the unitary executive, basically asserting authority to ignore judicial decisions

– Warrantless wiretapping.

I could go on.Report