Can Holder hold on?

Too many a problem?

Washington D.C. in damage control .  Huffington Post ran a front-page call for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign. The Obama administration has been on damage control since the outbreak of the 'scandals'.  ***Eric Holder's tenure as Attorney General is beset with failures, even if you judge him by his own goals .President Obama has expressed concern about the chilling effects his own administration has caused on investigative reporting by aggressively spying on journalists reporting on government actions, even to the point of accusing some of being co-conspirators and/or using the Espionage Act against whistleblowers and reporters. That seemed weird enough already, but one point that was even stranger deserves to be called out separately. In asking for a review of the administration's policy, Obama has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to run that review. And that's ridiculous. It's asking Eric Holder to review his own surveillance of journalists. But Holder would have us believe that, contrary to the claims of journalists and civil libertarians, the Justice Department did nothing improper. In his telling, spying on journalists was necessary because there was a leak that compromised national security in a particularly serious way. Pestered by Republicans and some Democrats, Holder testified that he has faith in the individuals conducting the broad investigation, driven in large part by GOP outrage last year over the possibility that administration officials leaked information to enhance President Barack Obama's national security reputation in an election year. Holder said he had rescued himself from the case because "I am a possessor of information eventually leaked." He said he was unable to answer questions on the subpoenas and why the Justice Department failed to negotiate with the AP prior to the subpoenas, a standard practice. Newly released documents show how the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and local police forces partnered with corporations to spy on Occupy protesters in 2011 and 2012. Detailed in thousands of pages of records from counter terrorism and law enforcement agencies, the spying monitored the activists’ online usage and led to infiltration of their meetings. One document shows an undercover officer was dispatched in Arizona to infiltrate activists organizing protests around the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),  the secretive group that helps corporate America propose and draft legislation for states across the country. Holder is a man not suited for the office he occupies. At most, Holder has shown himself to be completely incompetent and corrupt.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 *** While Eric Holder’s Justice Department was spying on Fox News… the Chinese were stealing all our military secrets. Patriot missile system, the Army’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, the Navy’s Aegis ballistic-missile, the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the Black Hawk helicopter, the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship, even the $1.4 trillion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – Chinese hackers got them all. Holder should have been gone long ago. That he isn't brings a sharp focus to what this administration thinks is legally & morally important. Members of the previous administration have publicly admitted, in PRINT, to activities that would seem to be glaring violations of both US & international law. But this AG refuses to even open an independent investigation. The CEOs of major international banks seem to have violated a number of laws in the process of raping the global economy since 2007, & no real investigations have been forthcoming there either. Legal advisers to the President find creative ways to justify assassination by drone of US citizens, & apparently the Justice Dept thinks that is just okey dokey. But let some individual government employee with a conscience dare to go to the media with reports of government malfeasance, after being systematically ignored by the chain if command, & woe betide him.