Ok, what's the skinny on Eric Holder, apparent Obama AG pick.

[Subdivisions]

Will this guy go after the booshies?

CNN BREAKING NEWS NOW.

[chimpymustgo]

1. Doubt it. He's a Democrat. But damn, he's easy on the eyes!

[BlooInBloo]

2. Also: Would he obey Obama's order NOT to go after them?

Or would he assert the tattered-but-traditional role of DoJ being significantly more independent of the White House than other Cabinets?

[Subdivisions]

3. I hope so. n/t

[FrenchieCat]

4. Here.....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7891962&mesg_id=7891962

[Subdivisions]

5. Good work, FrenchieCat. Gave you a rec. n/t

[BlooInBloo]

7. Frenchie is our resident backgrounder. :)

[EFerrari]

6. And here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x9608

[BlooInBloo]

8. All aspects deserve to be covered, no doubt about it.

[amdezurik]

9. the dipshit believes the myth of gateway drugs

what an ass.

[stillcool]

11. we just de-criminalized..

marijuana in my state in the very recently past election. I have no idea what the consensus was in 1997 though. Do you?

[amdezurik]

34. yeah, and medical in Ca

and we still have DEA and FBI raids to arrest and jail sick people. As long as he has this unreasoning position it can still happen. Also, I find it silly how many people beat up on Hillary for being a court appointed lawyer for a child rapist but do not seem to have an issue with this guy being the selected paid representative of Chaquita Banana's defending their use of deat squads to insure their plantations were "safe" from those mean unions and stuff...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/lawyer-for-chiquita-in-co_b_141919.html

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. Apparently he's making Hannity's head explode. So far, so good.

[This One]

31. Great, he's perfect then.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

12. Without a doubt

his connection to Chiquita Brands, and helping them get a sweetheart plea deal for the murder of 4,000 Colombians is a little disturbing, to say the least. Chiquita admitting paying about $1.7 Million for a right-wing death squad to rub out labor leaders and other "malcontents." For doing that, Holder negotiated a deal in which NO Chiquita exec went to prison, and Chiquita paid a $25 Million fine over five years.

By my math, that's quite a deal Lawyer Holder worked out. I think that comes to about $6,675 per dead Colombian.

That's what you call earning your fee!

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. That's disgusting and heartbreaking all at once. :^(

[FrenchieCat]

14. My reading takes a slightly different spin.....

Chiquita admitted to paying 1.7 million in payola money to a death squad who was threatening Chiquita employees (think Mafia shakedown payments). In 2003, The Bush Justice Department came after them for paying this organization that had been labeled as a terrorist organization by the Bush Administration. Chiquita didn't pay to have people killed, although there is no doubt that the 1.7 million financed the death squads....so yes, indirectly they help fund the murder of others.

Holder was one of the International Attorneys in the Justice Department vs. Chiquita.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102601.html?hpid=topnews

[EFerrari]

15. All those "indirect" murders were people who died. n/t

[FrenchieCat]

16. And Holder didn't kill them.

and if you think the 2003 Bush Justice Department brought this case against Chiquita because Bush Justice gave a fuck about dead Colombians, you are sadly mistaken.

[alarimer]

17. No but he is tainted just the same as if he did.

You work with scum, you are scum.

[girl gone mad]

21. Starting to think we've been going about this all wrong.

If you want to succeed in today's Democratic party, you have to abandon your principles, campaign for Republicans and get in bed with sleazy corporations. Whatever you do, don't display progressive values or work hard to get Democratic candidates elected and strengthen the party.

[FrenchieCat]

22. I think that slogans are not for us.......neither is guilt by association.....

If you have not read the case, perhaps that would be where to start.

[EFerrari]

27. It's not guilt by association if you get paid by killers.

Is it? That's just flat out complicity.

And even you can't spin this.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

32. The objection isn't really based on "guilt by association"

it's more like "taint by retainer." Being a lawyer whose talents lay in defending corporate crime, Holder gladly took the fee and did his client's bidding.

How would you respond to news that a prominent lawyer with a history of defending drug dealers, rapists and pedophile priests had been nominated to be the nation's chief law enforcement officer? Would it give you pause? Would you think twice about supporting such a nominee? Those right-wing death squads hired and armed by Mr. Holder's CLIENT did all that and worse. Thanks to Mr. Holder's client and others, Colombia's not a very nice place for folks who think that workers have the right to bargain for fair wages and withhold their labor in the event they can't receive a living wage.

Given Mr. Holder's representative clients, what does his nomination tell the millions of union workers in THIS country who pounded the pavement, knocked on doors, made phone calls and gave of their wages to elect Senator Obama? One simply cannot make the argument that Mr. Holder is a lawyer who holds any regard for labor.

American corporations have been utter thugs in Colombia for years. When one knows that, and still agrees to represent them, one is, in fact, tainted. I am certainly not saying such criminal defendants are not entitled to a zealous defense. I simply don't think that the person who mounts that defense should be Attorney General. The nomination shows a rather callous contempt for working people.

[FrenchieCat]

28. That's what Palin said about Obama and Ayers.

[Zhade]

30. Obama was 7, and Ayers didn't pay him.

Your analogy is flawed.

[EFerrari]

18. Holder didn't kill them. He just collected his fee minimizing their deaths.

Much as you have been doing all night.

[FrenchieCat]

24. Right....I'm guilty too, via your ruling....

Yeah....I'm just a killing machine who minimizes death cause you say so.

You think the death squad would not have fulfilled their agenda had it not been for
Eric Holder practicing law?

You sound like Bush.

[EFerrari]

25. It's sad that you have to resort to this. n/t

[FrenchieCat]

29. Let me remind you......of your words to me, lest you forgot what you said.....

Holder didn't kill them. He just collected his fee minimizing their deaths.
Much as you have been doing all night.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

23. I wish you were correct. You're not

Chiquita Brands pled GUILTY to paying $1.7 Million to have Colombian labor organizers killed, as well as providing a cache of machine guns to the death squad.

The article to which you cite is Chiquita's excuse. Even the Attorney General of Colombia disagrees.

According to Mario Iguaran, the Attorney General of Colombia, Chiquita's payments to the AUC paramilitaries led to the murder of 4000 civilians in the banana region of Colombia and furthered the growth of the paramilitaries throughout Colombia and their violent takeover of numerous Colombian regions. Iguaran, in response to the claims of both Chiquita and Eric Holder himself that Chiquita was somehow forced to pay "protection" to the paramilitaries stated unequivocally that 'his was not payment of extortion money. It was support for an illegal armed group whose methods included murder.'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/lawyer-for-chiquita-in-co_b_141919.html?page=2 Dan Kovalik probably knows more of the serpentine twists and turns of murder and horror in Colombia than any other man in America.

Holder wasn't acting as "one of the International Attorneys in the Justice Department vs. Chiquita." He wasn't even in the DOJ at the time in question. He was retained defense counsel for Chiquita Brands and had been away from DOJ for quite some time.

Murdering labor organizers is sadly de rigeur in Colombia, for Chiquita, Dole, DelMonte, Coca-Cola, Drummond Coal and other upright citizens of corporate America. Eric Holder, Jr., who would be the nation's chief law enforcement officer, winked at it and saw it as another day at the office, another fee for his corporate defense firm. If we are to have "change we can believe in," it doesn't come in the form of corporate lawyering hacks raised to prominence at DOJ.

[Zhade]

19. What. The. Fuck.

"Change"

[upi402]

33. Change = corporatism, darker completed

so sad to see we will never have an opposition party to corporatism or democracy returned.

[leftofthedial]

20. no way, no how will anyone "go after" the bush gang.

they are privileged members of the upper crust.

Obama wants to make nice with repukes, not piss them all off.

[Ichingcarpenter]

26. Elliot Ness refuses to participate in Al Capone Criminal Behavior.

I await to see if goes after Al Capone

[Catshrink]

35. Eye candy

Doesn't he look like Det. Ron Harris (Ron Glass) from the Barney Miller show?