Is AG Eric Holder a 'Crypto-Conservative'?

[Jim_B]

Is US Attorney General a “crypto-conservative”? (I think the usu. term is “crypto-fascist”. But that term seems a little strong. So I will use a less strong term.)

I have suspected this for some time. I will give you the evidence I have accumulated and let you draw your own conclusions (but realize I have some space constraints on these boards):

My first suspicions were aroused when I read this Wikipedia article on him. Someone has edited this article for content. But I believe it originally said he is very anti-porn. In fact, he even believes in going after the small producers of porn. (I wish I still had this cite. But as I said, I think someone edited this article.) This strikes me as odd, because even Janet Reno took a relatively lax approach to porn. In fact even Attorney General Gonzales under George W. Bush took a relaxed approach to “obscenity”. And these two AG’s were hardly conservative (some people might say Reno was liberal because Pres. Clinton was–yeah, right:dubious:).

There’s more. Again, according to this article,

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan appointed Holder to serve as a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

I know Reagan may have just been trying to appease the Democratic Senate. But you have to admit, it’s odd he passed the Reagan “smell” test for appointment. Also, and I know I am not just jumping to the wrong conclusion here, Holder seems to like letting Republican defendants off the hook. Again, from Wikipedia:

On April 1, 2009, Holder announced that he had ordered the dismissal of the indictment against former Senator [Republican] Ted Stevens on corruption charges. Stevens had been found guilty, but hadn’t been sentenced; Holder’s action effectively vacated Stevens’ conviction.

(Believe me, there’s more examples of this. But this is all I have for now.) You have to admit, it does seem a little odd. Also, in Michigan (where I live), the US attorney went after liberal judge Diane Hathaway (cf. this article). In fact in Michigan, it seems US attorneys only go after Democrats or liberals. From Wayne County Executive Bob Ficano to former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (Detroit is the seat of Wayne County, BTW) . Yet, to date no Republicans or conservatives have been prosecuted by the US attorney (prove me wrong, if you think I am). There’s also little tidbits like this:

In 2010, in the run up to the referendum on California Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana use for personal recreation, Holder stated that the DOJ would continue to prosecute individuals on the federal level for possession of marijuana even if voters approved a ballot measure.

Anyways, the final straw for me at least came recently when Mr. Holder said banks are “too big to prosecute” (cf. this cite). If that isn’t Reagan-esque, what is??

But please, tell me your own take on the evidence at hand:)

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

-There are quite a few people who oppose porn from a liberal, feminist perspective believing it “objectifies women” and is conducive to a rape culture. After all Iceland instituted restrictions on porn recently and its a very liberal country with a lesbian Prime Minister

-The fact that Attorney General Holder was appointed by Reagan doesn’t say much, after all Earl Warren turned out to be a very liberal judge and John Roberts is increasingly also turning in a moderate (if still conservative direction).

-There are very few mainstream voices in politics it seems who support legalization of marijuana or ending the War on Drugs, this is a bipartisan problem, not one exclusive to conservatives.

[tim314]

@Qin_Shi_Huangdi

John Roberts is increasingly also turning in a moderate (if still conservative direction).

I don’t mean to hijack, but is there evidence of this outside of the Obamacare case?

[John_Mace]

@tim314

I don’t mean to hijack, but is there evidence of this outside of the Obamacare case?

I think in some conservative circles you only get one strike and you’re out.

[astorian]

Being appointed to the bench by a conservative Republican doesn’t always mean much.

In many instances, Presidents are expected to appoint judges who are proposed by the governor or the Senators from the state in which they’ll serve. If a red state has a Democrat governor and two Democrat Senators, they’ll endorse liberal Democrats for whatever openings come up in federal courts, and the President will usually appoint them.

[TriPolar]

If you define liberals and conservatives according to the issues they support then you have a meaningless definition anyway. Many people considered ‘liberal’ actually share the same core principles as conservatives and simply apply them to different causes. I suspect that Holder actually is a ‘social order’ conservative at heart.

[Evil_Captor]

Whatever Holder is, he is not fit to hold office as Attorney General. He has let the bankers go wild with fraud, hell, he let them get away with laundering drug cartel and Al Qaeda money while the Feds go after medical marijuana clinics in California that sell the drug legally under state laws. Under him, the term “Department of Justice” has a distinct ring of irony to it.

[ITR_champion]

@Jim_B

But please, tell me your own take on the evidence at hand:)

I don’t see how the evidence is supposed to add up to proof that Holder is a conservative. Much of it seems more like evidence that Holder is a liberal. Take, for instance, the fact that he promised to continue carrying out Obama’s instructions to prosecute marijuana dealers and users even if they’re obeying state law. How is that conservative? It’s entirely in keeping with what virtually all powerful liberal Democrats in living memory have preached and practiced.

It seems that you may be a bit confused about what liberals in this country believe.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Yeah, we Democrats are notorious for our support for drug laws.

[DrCube]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Yeah, we Democrats are notorious for our support for drug laws.

That’s true. I don’t believe either major party vocally supports ending prohibition. Libertarians are the only party that comes to mind.

[Human_Action]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Yeah, we Democrats are notorious for our support for drug laws.

@DrCube

That’s true. I don’t believe either major party vocally supports ending prohibition. Libertarians are the only party that comes to mind.

Yup. Democratic Party National Platform:

We must help state, local, territorial, and tribal law enforcement work together to combat and prevent drug crime and drug and alcohol abuse, which are blights on our communities.

The document makes no mention of marijuana specifically.

[WillFarnaby]

Modern liberalism is closer to fascism than is conservatism. Consider that Mussolini had nothing but praise for the New Deal.

[sitchensis]

In regards to the Ted Stevens case, Holder was just cleaning up a steaming pile that he inherited from Mukasey.

From: Wikipedia

Convictions voided and indictment dismissed

On behalf of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Paul O’Brien submitted a “Motion of The United States To Set Aside The Verdict And Dismiss The Indictment With Prejudice” in connection with case No. 08-231 early on April 1, 2009. Federal judge Emmet G. Sullivan soon signed the order, and since it occurred prior to sentencing it had the effect of vacating Stevens’s conviction. During the trial, Sullivan expressed concern and anger regarding prosecutorial conduct and related issues. Holder, who had taken office only three months earlier, was reportedly very angry at the prosecutors’ apparent withholding of exculpatory evidence, and wanted to send a message that prosecutorial misconduct would not be tolerated under his watch. After Sullivan held the prosecutors in contempt, Holder replaced the entire trial team, including top officials in the public integrity section.

The final straw for Holder, according to numerous reports, was the discovery of a previously undocumented interview with Bill Allen, the prosecution’s star witness, that raised the possibility prosecutors had knowingly allowed Allen to perjure himself on the stand. Allen stated that the fair market value of the repairs to Stevens’s house was around $80,000 – far less than the $250,000 he said it cost at trial. More seriously, Allen said in the interview that he didn’t recall talking to Bob Persons, a friend of Stevens, regarding the repair bill for Stevens’s house. This directly contradicted Allen’s testimony at trial, in which he claimed Stevens asked him to give Persons a note Stevens sent him asking for a bill on the repair work. At trial, Allen said Persons had told him the note shouldn’t be taken seriously because “Ted’s just covering his ass.” Even without the notes, Stevens’s attorneys claimed that they thought Allen was lying about the conversation.[101]

Later that day, Stevens’s attorney, Brendan Sullivan, said that Holder’s decision was forced by “extraordinary evidence of government corruption.” He also claimed that prosecutors not only withheld evidence, but “created false testimony that they gave us and actually presented false testimony in the courtroom” - two incidents that would have made it very likely that the convictions would have been overturned on appeal.[102]

[The_Second_Stone]

@Evil_Captor

Whatever Holder is, he is not fit to hold office as Attorney General. He has let the bankers go wild with fraud, hell, he let them get away with laundering drug cartel and Al Qaeda money while the Feds go after medical marijuana clinics in California that sell the drug legally under state laws. Under him, the term “Department of Justice” has a distinct ring of irony to it.

I’m unimpressed with Holder as AG. Regardless of his politics. He could have gone after a few of the bank fraudsters to make an example, he passes entirely on that in favor of prosecuting marijuana offenders and on-line poker? The economic integrity of our financial system is at stake and he does nothing. He could pick and choose the strongest case, but no. Nada.

[madsircool]

@Evil_Captor

Whatever Holder is, he is not fit to hold office as Attorney General. He has let the bankers go wild with fraud, hell, he let them get away with laundering drug cartel and Al Qaeda money while the Feds go after medical marijuana clinics in California that sell the drug legally under state laws. Under him, the term “Department of Justice” has a distinct ring of irony to it.

Please provide some mainstream evidence of Holders so-called actions you mention.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@WillFarnaby

Consider that Mussolini had nothing but praise for the New Deal.

Is there a Mussolini equivalent of the Godwin Rule?

[Darth_Panda]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Is there a Mussolini equivalent of the Godwin Rule?

I don’t know, but now I kind of want some pasta. For breakfast.

[Cliffy]

Holder, like the president under which he serves, in a believer in the Rule of Law. This means a couple things. First, marijuana is illegal everywhere in the country by operation of federal law. States do not have the power to change that. Whether you believe MJ should be decriminalized or not (I’m ambivalent, I must admit), allowing states to nullify federal law is a very dangerous road to go down, and in almost every instance the states that have tried were doing so in order to discriminate against black people. (There was a whole war we fought on the issue you may have heard something about.) As a black man, I don’t think Holder is unfamiliar with this tradition. Moreover, as a career prosecutor who spent the '90’s presiding over the drug-ravaged neighborhoods on the East Side of the District of Columbia, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he has different views on MJ than white suburbanites who just want to toke on the weekends without getting hassled.

As for the banks, the Administration made the decision in its early days that prosecuting banks and bank officers for the actions which lead to the financial collapse would only introduce chaos into a system on the brink and worsen the Recession. It is hard to remember how rough the sledding was five years ago because the economy still sucks, so you figure it was pretty much like this. But the economy is actually fantastically great compared to where it was five years ago, and it got to be as strong as it is because we dumped $800B into it to start the machinery of commerce working again. I’m not saying this was necessarily the right decision, but it wasn’t a decision made by Holder alone, and it was made in the context of a generational crisis, and the evidence is that the panoply of decisions made by the Administration at that time shored up the economy in a substantial and dramatic way. (And of course, it would have been even better if GOP and Blue Dog opposition to the size of the stimulus hadn’t hobbled it.)

Certainly Holder isn’t the most liberal member of the Administration (career prosecutors never are), and the Administration isn’t as liberal as the caucus of SDMB members who voted for it. But there is no credible evidence that he’s anything that he purports to be – an establishment Democrat with prosecutorial experience on his resume and the status quo bias that all of us who have a roof over our heads develop.

–Cliffy

[The_Second_Stone]

@Cliffy

Holder, like the president under which he serves, in a believer in the Rule of Law. This means a couple things. First, marijuana is illegal everywhere in the country by operation of federal law. States do not have the power to change that. Whether you believe MJ should be decriminalized or not (I’m ambivalent, I must admit), allowing states to nullify federal law is a very dangerous road to go down, and in almost every instance the states that have tried were doing so in order to discriminate against black people. (There was a whole war we fought on the issue you may have heard something about.) As a black man, I don’t think Holder is unfamiliar with this tradition. Moreover, as a career prosecutor who spent the '90’s presiding over the drug-ravaged neighborhoods on the East Side of the District of Columbia, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he has different views on MJ than white suburbanites who just want to toke on the weekends without getting hassled.

As for the banks, the Administration made the decision in its early days that prosecuting banks and bank officers for the actions which lead to the financial collapse would only introduce chaos into a system on the brink and worsen the Recession. It is hard to remember how rough the sledding was five years ago because the economy still sucks, so you figure it was pretty much like this. But the economy is actually fantastically great compared to where it was five years ago, and it got to be as strong as it is because we dumped $800B into it to start the machinery of commerce working again. I’m not saying this was necessarily the right decision, but it wasn’t a decision made by Holder alone, and it was made in the context of a generational crisis, and the evidence is that the panoply of decisions made by the Administration at that time shored up the economy in a substantial and dramatic way. (And of course, it would have been even better if GOP and Blue Dog opposition to the size of the stimulus hadn’t hobbled it.)

Certainly Holder isn’t the most liberal member of the Administration (career prosecutors never are), and the Administration isn’t as liberal as the caucus of SDMB members who voted for it. But there is no credible evidence that he’s anything that he purports to be – an establishment Democrat with prosecutorial experience on his resume and the status quo bias that all of us who have a roof over our heads develop.

–Cliffy

I agree with most of this, but I don’t agree with the part of no prosecutions then or now with respect to the finance crime type activity. A few prosecutions of the most flagrant cases would rein in the arrogance unaccountability of the banking sector. Think Ivan Boskey or Michael Millikin. Without a few prominent prosecutions every decade for actual violations of financial laws these guys think they are untouchable and take huge risks. And no, I don’t think prosecuting Martha Stewart counts. The justice department rolls over for the finance sector.

[Evil_Captor]

@Cliffy

Holder, like the president under which he serves, in a believer in the Rule of Law.

Sorry, doesn’t pass the sniff test. If he gave a shit about the Rule of Law, he would have prosecuted SOMEBODY at HSBC for laundering drug cartel and Al Qaeda money. But he didn’t, just sat back on his hands and let them pay a paltry fine that is a pittance compared to all the money they made laundering drug money.

And within THAT context, his going after small medical marijuana clinics in California is arrant hypocrisy.

He’s a shameful, disgusting excuse for an Attorney General.

Rule of Law my ass!