White House considering Republican for U.S. Attorney for Utah

[James48]

Source: Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY — The White House is finally considering someone for Utah's next U.S Attorney, but some Utah Democrats aren't happy with the choice.

The Obama Administration is checking the background of David Barlow, legal counsel to freshman GOP Sen. Mike Lee.

"I recommended him. Sen. Lee recommended him, too," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, Utah's senior senator who plays a key role in judicial and U.S. attorney nominations to Utah. "I recommended him about two or three months ago, so it takes quite a while down at the White House. They do a lot of vetting."

Lee declined to discuss the matter.

This isn’t the first time the White House has ignored its party’s suggestions for U.S. attorney nominees. Obama snubbed Texas Democrats last month by nominating Republican picks for all four U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Texas, according to the website Main Justice.

Read more: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705376097/White-House-considering-Republican-for-US-Attorney-for-Utah.html

---

That's it. I friggin throw my hands in the air and give up.

The local Democratic party telephoned me last night asking if they could count on me for 2012. I asked them "Count on me for what? I'm not voting for a republican.".

The caller was confused by my answer.


They shouldn't be.

But these days, I can't tell who is republican, and who is the President.

[ixion]

1. rofl...

And I maintain my thesis: There is only ONE party behind the scenes.

[Me.]

2. "This isn’t the first time the White House has ignored its party"

'nough said

[valerief]

3. Of course. Why bother with any Democrats? Why give people what they want?

Sheesh!

[peace frog]

6. Let them eat cake.

Or cat food. Whatever.

[EC]

4. Why on earth would he trust someone

recommended to him by Orrin Hatch?

[valerief]

9. We all know poor people simply aren't paying their fair share to bring down the deficit.

That's what Orrin tells us, so it must be true no matter how much it doesn't make sense.

[Hydra]

10. That's what I was going to say

Orrin drives me up the wall...why ANYONE would listen to him seriously is beyond me.

[Corruption Winz]

5. Unless the white house has something planned that I don't see....

I don't know how wise of a decision this will end up becoming.

[robinlynne]

7. of course. Obama justs wants to be hated equally by both sides I guess.

[Metta]

8. How far has giving in to Republicans got you, O? When will you wake up?

You aren't winning hearts and influencing minds with choices like this.

[Hydra]

11. He's just deferring to his real party

The funny thing is that like Clinton, he'll always be their favorite object of abuse, even when he's part of the "Family."

[OnyxCollie]

12. Keeping the Bush DoJ intact.

Highly partisan, through and through.

Good for prosecuting Democrats.

Bad for enforcing violations (When's ES&S gonna diversify?)

When making the Obama equals Bush comparison, THIS is where it matters.

[No Elephants]

47. It also matters in matters of torture, environment, and a host of other areas.

[OnyxCollie]

56. Do you mean the comparison, Obama equals Bush, or the DoJ?

Because a corrupt DoJ affects those other matters; ie a corrupt AG not investigating torture, a corrupt US Attorney not enforcing penalties for violations by coal, gas, and oil industry, etc.

[blueclown]

13. Obama honestly thinks he's winning friends in the GOP by doing this.

I'm seriously beginning to regret my vote for President Obama.

[No Elephants]

40. I don't think he thinks he's winning friends.

[roxiejules]

14. Tea Party Mike Lee recommends him?

Meet Mike Lee, the Tea Parties' most skilled spokesman


http://www.tnr.com/article/80296/utah-republican-mike-lee-tea-party

"While running for Senate, the 39-year-old Utah Republican proposed dismantling the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He wants to repeal both the federal income tax and the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment that makes children born in the United States automatic citizens. In October, Lee mentioned that congressional Republicans should pass a bill slashing non-defense, non-discretionary federal spending by 40 percent.

Lee, it seems clear, has a disarming ability to suggest the extreme in palatable terms and to push the argument to places that might have seemed inconceivable a few years ago. And, since he occupies one of the Senate’s safest seats at the tender age of 39, he’ll likely have the opportunity to do this for a very long time."

[placton]

15. why doesnt Obama just

make it official, and change parties? He obviously is yearning to do so.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

16. WTF!?!?!?!

[defendandprotect]

17. How far are we from .... Obama announces change of party -- !!

[bertman]

18. Anyone who is surprised by this has NOT been paying attention for the last two and a half years. nt

[blkmusclmachine]

19. The WH selected 4 GOP Attorney's for Texas this year.

Apparently, the "D" candidates for the positions were actual real Democrats, not the fake "bi-partisany" kind.

[Tx4obama]

21. And one of them is openly gay.

Please post a link that shows that the 4 nominees are republicans.

Obama picked the nominees from lists the U.S. Senators from Texas submitted, that is standard procedure.

[CleanGreenFuture]

23. Here's one...

http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2011/06/white-house-chooses-4-u-s-attorneys-for-texas-lloyd-doggett-calls-houston-pick-particularly-disappointing/

If this has changed, please provide a link.

[Tx4obama]

25. There is nothing in that article that says the nominees are republican. n/t

[CleanGreenFuture]

29. I was able to confirm one...

I was able to confirm one so far: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cBzLErRm0VsJ:www.txdirectory.com/online/person/%3Fid%3D31814%26office%3D13562+Kenneth+Magidson&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com

The party affiliation of the rest is harder to pin down. Though I cannot prove (atm) which party the others are affiliated with, I can almost guarantee that hardcore repubs Cornyn and Hutchison would NEVER nominate a true Democrat.

I suspect you'll want to argue that since we don't know for sure...blah, blah, blah. But you'll never get me to understand why the president is considering nominees chosen by Texas' U.S. Senators instead of those preferred by Texas Democratic Party.

Edited to add: I got the article from a DU posting from the other day: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1390273

Also, had to change the link because the directory I referenced before required a membership to view more than a couple of pages.

[Tx4obama]

33. I read the link you just posted. No where there does it say that he is a republican.

That website is not a republican website it lists all folks no matter of their party affiliation.

p.s. The four nominees were off of Hutchison's list, none from Cornyn's.

[CleanGreenFuture]

34. I guess that R by his name means nothing. Oh well, I guess it's better he choose

Hutchison's nominees than those of the Democratic Party of Texas!

[Tx4obama]

35. LOL

:blush:

I read the text twice and I completely missed the (R) at the top.

Okay, you win that one! :)

But we still don't know if any of the other three are Independents or Other.

[CleanGreenFuture]

37. You're right. Upon further review, we indeed do not know where the other 3

nominees' allegiances lie.

I would still have preferred the president consider the choices of the Texas Democratic Party, rather than a stupid repub like Hutchison.

[No Elephants]

43. The issue is appointing Dems, not whether his appointees are technically "Indies or Other."

Timmeh Geithner changed his political registration from Republican to Independentjust before Obama appointed him. Did that make Timmeh a Democrat? Or anything other than a Republican, really?

[Tx4obama]

46. You can't push dem appointments onto red states when they don't want them

You wouldn't get enough votes in the U.S. Senate to get them confirmed, so it would be just a huge waste of time - and the vacancy would be left unfilled.

[No Elephants]

48. Weak sauce. Every President before Obama has managed to get U.S. Attorneys of his own Party

appointed.

[Tx4obama]

49. Before Obama took office the minority party didn't block EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME in the Senate

and make the majority have 60 votes to invoke cloture in order to get just about every nominee confirmed.

The BS that the GOP is doing now in the Senate is 100 times worse than it ever was in the past.

Take a look at the big mess that has been going on in the Senate the past two years regarding the obstruction from the GOP regarding nominees/confirmations and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

[No Elephants]

51. I repeat, weak sauce. He can use recess appointments, just as Bush did.

[Tx4obama]

52. The GOP refused to adjourn two times there was supposed to have been a recess

and the Senate had to go into pro-forma session.

Let's wait and see what happens right before the summer recess.

If the GOP refuses to adjourn again then the Senate will have to go into pro-forma session again, and Obama will will be blocked again from making recess appointments.

[No Elephants]

55. Still weak sauce. Holder has statutory power to make interim appointments w/o Senate confirmation..

"Then, 20 years later, in March 2006 — again without much debate and again as a part of a larger package — a statutory change was inserted into the PATRIOT Act reauthorization. This time, the Executive's power was expanded even further, giving the Attorney General the authority to appoint an interim replacement indefinitely and without Senate confirmation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Attorney

I had a lot of debates with a lot of Republicans on message boards and off during the Bush years. I never got the kind of weak rationalizations being made for Oama. Never.

[OnyxCollie]

57. That was changed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4809561

In spite of the long-accepted, constitutionally sound, independence-preserving method of appointing interim U.S. Attorneys, the appointment process was radically changed with the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act in 2006. Removed was the interbranch appointment from the district court; the Attorney General could now make interim U.S. Attorney appointments. Also eliminated was the 120 day period that interim U.S. Attorneys could stay in office before a district court could appoint an interim U.S. Attorney to fill the vacancy. Interim U.S. Attorneys could now remain in office indefinitely, or until the President appointed a U.S. Attorney to the district. Interim U.S. Attorney appointments bypassed Senate confirmation, leaving the determination of qualification to the Justice Department.

The insertion of this new clause into the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act went unnoticed. Senators were at a loss to explain how the clause made its way into the bill. It was later determined that the Justice Department had requested Brett Tolman to insert the clause into the bill (Kiel, 2007). At the time the clause was inserted Mr. Tolman was a counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) is a member. Sen. Specter responded to inquiries about his involvement with the clause by saying, “I do not slip things in” (Kiel, 2007, p. 1). According to Sen. Specter, the principal reason for the change was to resolve “separation of power issues” (Kiel, 2007, p. 2). The Senate voted to repeal the clause in February 2007 (P.L. 110-34, 2007). Mr. Tolman is now a U.S. Attorney for the state of Utah.

[jmowreader]

63. It's very simple, actually

For appointments like US Attorneys, one senator from the state the person is being appointed to can place a "hold" on the nominee, and the nominee's chances for gaining the office end. Obama is far more interested in doing SOMETHING than in doing the RIGHT something, so he'll nominate Repukes to lifetime appointments just as fast as Boner and Bitch want him to.

[No Elephants]

44. Picking members of your own Party is standard operating procedure. See Reply 42.

[CleanGreenFuture]

22. Yep. We have a chance to get Dems into these positions yet repubs are getting them instead.

We work our asses off to elect a Democratic president only to get repub appointments.

It's just mind-blowing.

[saras]

20. Another teaching opportunity blown

It would have been a perfect time for Obama to tell the entire nation that the Republicans aren't going to get ANY positions like this - no quarter - until they clean house and weed the nutcases out of their own party so that the rest of the country doesn't have to. And THEN appoint the most progressive Democrat of the available candidates.

But this would only happen if Obama was actually a Democrat.

[ClarkUSA]

24. When's the last time a Dem president ONLY considered Dems for uber red state US attorney nominees?

[Fearless]

26. When was the last time a Dem president REPEATEDLY selected Republicans for positions? n/t

[ClarkUSA]

27. Can't answer the question, eh? Perhaps the answer would be enlightening for you.

[Fearless]

59. Your question sidesteps the real question...

It isn't an issue that a Dem selected A SINGLE republican or a few. This one has selected MANY. This is not a pattern we need for our legal system. This is not the kind of legal representation we need in Utah, and goodness knows we need good representation there.

[Tx4obama]

36. You're making it sound like Obama selects republicans the majority of the time & that's not true n/t

If you look at Obama's administration appointments/nominations, federal judicial nominees, etc - they are 99% democrats.

[No Elephants]

50. He's appointed more Republicans than liberals. And some of his Republican appointments

have been damned important. Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense. U.S. Attorneys. Not to mention that he had left the entire Bush D of J intact, to begin with. So, filling vacancies with Republicans is no small thing.

[Tx4obama]

54. That is untrue. Obama has NOT appointed more republicans than liberals/democrats.

Obama has made 1000s of appointments and the majority of them have NOT been republicans.

And the 100+ federal judiciary nominees have been democrats.

[Fearless]

58. Link?

[No Elephants]

42. "Consider: is not the issue. "Nominate" is the issue.

Reagan, Clinton, Dummya--all fired every U.S. attorney--Dummya more gradually than the other two--to replace them with members of their own party. Dummya even gave them a religious test on top of the Party test.(Poppy Bush did not have to do that, since Reagan's appointees were Republicans.)

[cstanleytech]

28. Some of you need to stop all the hate

Yes, the fact is alot of republicans it seems these days have questionable ethics to say the least, so much so I havent voted for one in years but that doesnt mean all of them do and Obama is the president of the united states not the president of the united states only for democrats.
Now regarding this guy is there anything to show that he wont probably do the job to the best of his ability and or evidence that he will be to partisan in cases against people depending on their political party?

[plumbob]

30. How about the guy is a Chicago lawyer? And a Dem was dropped.

Barlow graduated from Brigham Young University and earned his law degree from Yale University. Before joining Lee's staff, he was a partner with the Chicago law firm Sidley Austin, with experience in litigation and product liability.


In Utah, Barlow is the second Republican the White House has considered for U.S. Attorney. The first was Scott Burns, a southern Utah native who served as deputy director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy from 2002 to 2009. Burns followed former Utah Assistant U.S. Attorney David Schwendiman, a Democrat, who was dropped from consideration without explanation.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705376097/White-House-considering-Republican-for-US-Attorney-for-Utah.html

[girl_interrupted]

31. Figures!

[No Elephants]

45. Oh, please. Every President is President of all the people and they appoint their own Party members

to these positions. See Reply 42. These are called "political appointments" for a reason.

Facts do not equal hate.

[Bryn]

32. Everyone Chill the Fuck Out I got This

Hahahahahaha lol

I lol got lol this lol hahaha

[classysassy]

38. Has Obama lost complete

control of the White House?His advisers are giving him bad advice.If Orren Hatch approves of the man he must be a right Wing wacko.

[alp227]

39. Background check = stalled nomination, in the most optimistic view n/t

[Ter]

41. Well, to be fair, there are only three Democrats in Utah

:hide:

[Tx4obama]

53. Touche`. n/t

[democratinnashville]

60. Wow...

I was an enthusiastic Obama fan but I'm losing faith quickly

[Maven]

61. But he's the prezzidint of everyboddyyyy!!!!!1111!!!

:)

[indepat]

62. RW appointees make it so much easier to implement a RW agenda

:patriot: