Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., joins Martin Bashir to discuss the Republicans eschewing a thorough Fast and Furious investigation for a partisan witch hunt versus US Attorney General Eric Holder.
BREAKING: The House has approved a precedent-setting resolution to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in criminal contempt of Congress. It was the first time a sitting Cabinet member has been held in contempt.
"Today's vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided - and politically motivated - investigation during an election year," Holder said. "By advancing it over the past year and a half, Congressman Issa and others have focused on politics over public safety."
Republicans pushed through the resolution because Holder did not turn over documents related to a botched gun-tracking operation known as Fast and Furious.
The final vote was 255-67, with only two Republicans voting "no." 108 Democrats abstained from voting on what they have long argued is a politically motivated stunt. Many walked out of the Capitol in protest.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi react to a House vote to hold U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt.
In a press conference with the abstaining legislators, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who will be our EXCLUSIVE guest tonight at 8pET, characterized the vote as an "abuse of power."
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants Justice Department records from a 10-month period after February 2011. That month, the department initially denied guns were allowed to be purchased in Arizona and be taken to Mexico. In early December that year, the department acknowledged the assertion was wrong.
Full coverage tonight on The Ed Show at 8pET on MSNBC!
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I hope most Americans understand the philosophy of the right wing party by now. In 2010, they were whining about how incompetent the congress was, tricking voters to vote for them in order to bring down the country's massive debt and, overall, CREATE JOBS.. Remember the slogan WHERE ARE THE JOBS? Now you got serve, and with some crackheads on steroid, ready to sale even your fundamental right to a good healthcare. People should wake up and realize how important is the year 2012. Vote out every crack from your district, city,state, get them to understand who really runs this country. AMERICANS FIRST, CORPORATIONS AFTER..AMERICANS FIRST, CORPORATIONS AFTER..AMERICANS FIRST, CORPORATIONS AFTER..
Sometimes things can go wrong with any investigation, or raid, with all levels of law enforcement. Sometimes, more of the bad guys show up than the police expect, with more weapons than the FBI expects, or law enforcement runs into a bigger plot than the CIA expects. Therefore, unless Republican leaders, who have led this investigation into Fast and Furious, want to take every person in law enforcement, and the government, somehow involved in every botched plan to Court, they had better give it a rest.
The Law is enforced and defined for all of us, not just for politicians who want to use it as a political weapon against certain things or people, and the only investigation we need, is into why Republican leaders do not respect that.
Election year. NRA lobbyist. Tea party conspiracy.
That just about sums it up.
Yep the good old our guy is a piece of @!$%# but our billionaires wanted him so how do we trick voters into voting for the piece of @!$%# hey lets try distraction away from the real problems of the country so our guy who has no plan can win crap.
Ed,
I am a Vet that served in the Iraq war. All the talk about secrecy about the fast an furious program. I want the same Republican to prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes. I as well as many other joined the military after 911. There was no weapon of mass destruction ever found. Million of Iraqi's die and thousand of military woman and men have lost there lives. We need answers Ed. An investigation should be launched to see why and who benefited from this invasion.Its a shame that this hasn't been looked into by the media
Republican politics seem to have descended into irrational madness. Responsible Republican elders are being forced to admonish, reluctantly, its Republican party’s approach to problem solving, and its willingness to alienate large blocks of American voters. This is to appease a virulently biased base that believes compromise does not represent a civilized method of resolving issues but a weakness in the human spirit that needs to be totally eradicated.
The carnage to our country is on full display. A lost top credit rating over a refusal to pay bills due for money already approved. Multiple threats to shut-down the US Government if elected officials will not do exactly what a small group of Republicans want. A refusal to approve highway projects unless funded completely on the small Republicans group’s wishes. The House Republicans voting for the first time in American history a criminal contempt of congress against a US Cabinet member.
No rational person believes, that in our entire history, there were not hundreds of disagreements between the branches of government. They were resolved through compromise. That most important tool to a functioning democratic government has been hijacked by unthinking zealots. The new abnormality is this; if one side will not do things exactly the way a single minded group wants, it must be met with the maximum outrageous response!
These Republican mad-hatters have scheduled another useless vote on healthcare. It can’t pass. They know that. But it is necessary to demonstrate, emphatically, their displeasure that some thinking people did not do exactly what they wanted done.
The most important things for the mad-hatters has been anti women’s health legislation, threatening to shutdown government over routine matters, naming post-offices, and proposing endless tax-cuts for the corporations and the wealthy. The Republicans always refer to tax-cuts for the wealthy as jobs legislation.
Maybe these Republicans don’t realize that America’s economy has an immediate jobs crisis. Bush’s tax-cuts for the job creators didn’t produce the jobs as promised. Obama proposed jobs bills that would create jobs immediately. The mad-hatters want us to believe that immediate tax cuts for the wealthy job creators will eventually produce jobs for Americans. We have now been waiting eleven years for those Bush jobs!