Now right-wingers are 'gunning' for Holder because he supported the Brady Bill...

[babylonsister]

http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2008/12/semi-criminalization-of-political.html
snip//

Now, I understand why right-wingers -- at least those who want to endless re-fight the battles of the Clinton years -- want to try to make hay of the Elian incident (in which the effective kidnapping of the six-year-old by the so-called Miami Relatives was ended by a raid with lousy optics) and the highly dubious Rich pardon, but this jumped out at me:

The senators also asked for any Holder ties to pardons of 16 Puerto Rican nationalists granted by President Clinton in 1999, as well as a gun-control measure Clinton signed that year and the extension of the gun-control Brady Bill.

So it's possibly a dealbreaker if you supported the freaking Brady Bill? It's the law of the land, it passed in 1994 with 88% public approval, but Holder has to be grilled about it?

[villager]

1. Is there any nut like a gun nut?

n/t

[SoCalNative]

4. No there really isn't

I wish someone would take their guns away then lock them up and throw away the key.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

5. How Bush of you.

[anigbrowl]

17. They're certainly the most tedious type

I don't mind the nerdy ones that just geek out over their hobby, I'm talking abut the type that are constantly obsessing over situations where they can finally shoot someone without getting in trouble.

[NewJeffCT]

2. well, they need to get worked up over at least one nominee

and, it seems they're focusing on Holder.

[Mojorabbit]

3. I am worked up over him too.

I think he is a crappy choice.

[aikoaiko]

6. Holder should be asked about it because many Democrats have moved away from gun control ala 1994

More recently, and more importantly, he expressed an extreme gun control position in a brief to SCOTUS for the Heller case -- that the 2nd Amendment does not protect an indivual right and that the handgun ban was constitutional.


I'll look for the pdf of the brief, but I couldn't find it with a quick search.

eta: Here it is --> http://www.gurapossessky.com/news/parker/documents/BriefforFormerDOJOfficialsasAmiciCuriae.pdf

[scarletwoman]

7. If the right-wingers can manage to derail Holder's nomination, I'll be grateful.

I don't want him for AG, and I have no intention of defending him against the right wing.

[readmoreoften]

8. Agreed. Derail him. Please. Be my guest.

[babylonsister]

10. Do you have a better candidate? nt

[babylonsister]

9. Great. So who might be preferable? Inquiring minds... nt

[firedupdem]

11. crickets?

That was a tough question!

[babylonsister]

12. Yes, and it wasn't even a stupid question! nt

[scarletwoman]

22. Pardon me, but I just got home from working a 10 hour day. I don't actually live on DU, I have maybe

a couple hours in the evening to spend online; in between getting my dogs out for their walks, eating supper, and various other real life tasks.

In any case, it actually IS a stupid question. It presupposes that Eric Holder is the best nominee possible. That in the entire U.S. there is evidently no one else better qualified to be nominee for Attorney General.

It's like asking, "Well, since you claim hitting yourself on the head is a bad thing, what do you propose as an alternative?" I'm simply proposing not hitting yourself on the head.

But sure, I'll throw a few names out just for fun.

How about John Dean? He's been doing yeoman's work all through these dark years of the bush* maladministration, pouring out article after article about the constant Constitutional abuses perpetrated by bushco.

How about Glenn Greenwald? A sterling intellect AND a Constitutional lawyer to boot. Not to mention, NOT a DC insider.

How about any number of academics in any number of prestigous law schools who have written eloquent dissents and cri-de-coeurs over the years? Maybe a member of the American Constitution Society of Columbia Law School?

How about someone from the Southern Poverty Law Center? Or a lawyer from the ACLU?

I refuse to believe that aren't any number of qualified persons whose only apparent detriment is that they AREN'T DC insiders or Clinton administration re-treads.

sw

[babylonsister]

14. WHO would you suggest, sw? nt

[scarletwoman]

23. See my post #22 above. (nt)

[rvablue]

18. Oh really....there's nothing like a RWer BS torpedo of a cabinet position

early on in an administration?

Whose side are you on?

[scarletwoman]

24. Whose side am I on? Not on Eric Holder's. (nt)

[girl gone mad]

13. Obama shouldn't have put Clinton people in his cabinet..

if he wasn't prepared to rehash those battles.

Of course the RWers will use it to their advantage.

On edit: why shouldn't they?

It was extremely hard for me to convince many of my NRA member friends and family to vote for Obama, but they did. Our country has moved well in the direction of libertarianism on issues such as guns, choice and drug laws over the last 15 years. If Obama wants to appoint someone who takes extremist positions on 2 out of 3 of those issues, they had better be ready to defend the pick.

[firedupdem]

15. Who else would he get with some sense of how things in government

work? Carter administration?

[babylonsister]

16. Should he have hired Chicago hacks? Who might be better?

Bush hacks? Ugh.

[krispos42]

19. I think what needs to be understood...

... is that to the gun-rights people, it is such an automatic and understandable right as to hardly be worthy of comment except where people (who dislike gun-rights people on a cultural level, which taints objectivity) try to restrict that right. Often times the citizens that supports such bans are woefully ignorant of the specifics of either firearms, ammunition, or accessories and are manipulated by fear-mongering and our wonderful corporate media to support restrictions that are billed as "reasonbable".

It is not that gun-rights people don't think that any restriction is unreasonable, it's that usually what is billed as "reasonable", isn't. They generally feel that any laws restricting guns should be minimally invasive to the law-abiding and should only be enacted if such a law has a good chance to fix some ill in society.

This is the hallmark of good government and we see what happened when it is not adhered to. Marijuana laws and speed limits are two examples of bad lawmaking. There is no good reason to outlaw marijuana and speed limits are often set ridiculously low. Both laws are largely ignored every single day by the population at large.


The right to keep and bear arms is seen by the "gun nut" with the same clarity as DUers see the rights of gays to marry or women to have control over their bodies.

So it's possibly a dealbreaker if you supported the freaking Brady Bill Patriot Act? It's the law of the land, it passed in 1994 2001 with 88% public approval, but Holder Clinton has to be grilled about it?

Since when did DUers have this kind of "oh, well, get over it" attitude?

[benEzra]

20. Methinks the blogger or someone else confused the Brady Bill with the much-hated Feinstein law.

The Brady Bill (mandatory waiting period for handgun purchases, with optional background check) expired in 1998 and was replaced by a mandatory point-of-sale background check on all firearms, the National Instant Check System. That was so noncontroversial that even the NRA supported it, so I don't see Holder taking any flak for that.

What worries gun owners isn't the point-of-sale background check, it's Holder's prior stated support for outlawing rifles with modern styling (aka "assault weapons"), which are the most popular civilian rifles in the United States.

[derby378]

21. I'm okay with the current NICS insta-check system

I am not okay with a Federal waiting period for firearms of any kind except for NFA weapons.