President Obamas assertion of executive privilege to prevent Attorney General Eric Holder from complying with congressional subpoenas on the Operation Fast and Furious fiasco will blow up in the White Houses face. But not for the reasons youve heard on the first day of this legal fight.
Breitbart News legal contributor Ken Klukowski is on faculty at Liberty University School of Law, and author of Making Executive Privilege Work, published by Cleveland State Law Review.
#1
From the article: The only way to beat an executive privilege claim is by court order. To take this issue to court, the full House must vote to hold Holder in contempt of Congress, thenwhen federal prosecutors predictably inform the House that they will not prosecute their bossthe full House must pass a second resolution authorizing Rep. Darrell Issa to file suit in the U.S. District Court for D.C. on behalf of the entire U.S. House.
Holder will lose the court fight. Hell appeal, of course, but eventually the appeals will be over, and well all learn the truth of what really happened in Fast and Furious.
And whom to hold accountable.
Wouldn't it just be easier to impeach Holder?
#3
There is no time for any of these lengthy legal maneuvers. The election is little more than 4 months away. With the Congressional recess and all the campaigning there will be no big fight in the courts.
The way to go is an incessant drum beat of attacks on this despotic clique on this and other issues. Unfortuneately there will be no coverage of that by the MSM. It's now time for the new media to show its power.
#4
My guess is that they're quite aware that they're gonna lose. The tactic has to do with time -- hoping against hope that they'll win in 2012, at which point B.O. expects to 'have more flexibility' and can pressure the matter to be dropped.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012 11:09 Comments ||
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#5
If BO loses in Nov. (be still my beating heart) you can expect a raft of F&F based pardons in Dec.
These criminals will get themselves all get out of jail free cards.
#6
John Hinderaker's analysis of the issue is worth a read. Of particular interest is the scope of the matter:
The public may not be aware that what we are talking about here is not some vast universe of documents relating to Fast and Furious, but rather, as Holder acknowledges, a tiny subset: The Committee has made clear that its contempt resolution will be limited to internal Department documents from after February 4, 2011, related to the Departments response to Congress. February 4 was the date of DOJs letter which falsely represented to Congress that Fast and Furious did not involve deliberately allowing guns to make their way across the border to the cartels. DOJ withdrew that letter on December 2, 2011, ten months later. So Issa is trying to obtain only DOJ communications relating to the false letter, and the process by which DOJ concluded that the letter was indefensible, and decided to retract it.
In focusing narrowly on DOJ's decision to withdraw its false statements, Issa has pared the issue down to the point where it should be bulletproof against even the most partisan hack on the federal bench. One would think that, given the nature of the content withdrawn, documents relating to the decision to withdraw would blow the entire matter wide open.
While we might prefer that this gain significant traction ahead of our elections this fall we should nevertheless give credit where it is due (to Issa) for engaging in what appears to be an all-too-rare act of good governance.
#7
With Obama extending executive privilege, I'm thinking some investigative reporter is smelling a Pulitzer here. 21st century Woodward and Bernstein. What he needs is a 21st century Mark Felt.
#8
If the Speaker is willing to press the issue hard, it will be the end of July before it clears the House and gets to a court, and well into the fall before a district court rules. If the ruling is in Champ's favor it will be trumpeted loudly, of course. Then it's off to the Circuit Court of Appeals. That certainly won't happen in time for the election.
Impeachment won't work: the Senate will never vote to convict, and Champ won't fire Holder under those circumstances.
I do suspect that the presidential pardons are already written and stored safely away.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/21/2012 12:53 Comments ||
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#9
The fun thing to do right now, when one encounters a liberal who defends Champ's use of executive privilege, is to ask them --
"So, what do you think President Romney will do with the precedent that Obama set in this case?"
Usually stops them for a moment or two.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/21/2012 12:54 Comments ||
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#10
With the election this close, investigation and publicity about F&F is better than prosecutions, the better to get Obama and Holder out my dear. The One can only pardon people who are charged and convicted. Save the prosecutions for 2013. I suspect that with BHO and Holder out of power that there will be sufficient lower echelon types to turn states evidence. If Holder did what most here think he did, then privileged immunity won't apply.
#11
F&F led to a murder; Holder is an accessory and there is no statute of limitations. Not to mention where all the documents will lead, there are other tangents no one mentions. They try to blame Wide Receiver/Gunrunner under Bush but to prove that, they have to release docs showing where it all originated. The weapons found at the Jaime Zapata murder scene were from Texas. The busts in Dallas and Columbus NM are in the area of operations of the Houston Field Division. They were not Fast and Furious busts and no one in Houston has come forward like John Dodson. We have the evidence presented by Carter's Country in Houston that they were being told to let the firearms walk, yet no one in local or national media has apparently asked the hard questions of the Houston Field Division ATF management personnel. Then there is Op Castaway, running guns south from Tx and Fl, with some going to MS-13 in Honduras; Rep. Bilirakis wrote to Holder last July demanding answers but I haven't seen compliance there either. Letting guns cross international borders requires State Dept. approval--seems like they are implicating themselves with silence or they too, would start producing evidence. Keep digging and all sorts of skeletons are bound to show up.
#12
Remember that Watergate became an issue well before the 1972 election. Nixon won that election but the Senate committee continued to investigate and in 1973 Nixon resigned because of the scandal. This is not to say that the same thing will happen to Obama but just imagine Obama making Slow Joe promise to pardon him. Then just imagine President Biden. Of course, if Biden goes under the bus we could get another President Clinton.
#13
Also from July of 2011:
Issa and Grassley name 12 senior Justice Department political officials they believe may have been involved in the decision which allowed guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. They asked Holder to provide all records relating to communications between those 12 individuals regarding Operation Fast and Furious.
"As our investigation into Operation Fast and Furious has progressed, we have learned that senior officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ), including Senate-confirmed political appointees, were unquestionably aware of the implementation of this reckless program," Grassley and Issa wrote to Holder. "Therefore it is necessary to review communications between and among these senior officials."
Obama administration officials Issa and Grassley named in their letter were:
--Former Deputy Attorney General David Ogden(since resigned)
--Deputy Attorney General James Cole
--Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer
--Deputy Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco
--Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein
--Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Keeney
--Associate Deputy Attorney General Matt Axelrod
--Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed Siskel
--Gary Grindler in the Office of the Attorney General
--Brad Smith, in the office of the Deputy Attorney General
--Kevin Carwile, section chief of the Capital Case Unit
--Joseph Cooley, in the Criminal Fraud Section
The October 27, 2009 email from ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge (SAC) William Newell regarded a Southwest Border Strategy Group meeting that focused on Fast and Furious. It contained a laundry list of high ranking Justice Department officials that attended the meeting, including:
Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) Lanny Breuer
Kenneth Melson, Acting Director, ATF (resigned)
William Hoover, Acting Deputy Director, ATF
Michele Leonhart, Administrator, DEA
Robert Mueller, Director FBI
Four other Justice Department directors (see below) or their representatives came from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), Bureau of Prisons (BOP), U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). The chair of the Attorney Generals Advisory Committee (AGAC) also attended the session.
While it has been known since the beginning of the investigation that the ATF, DOJ, DHS, and the IRS were heavily involved in Gunwalker, the Newell email confirms that every major agency within the Department of Justice was briefed on Gunwalker, including the AGAC, which has the formally ordered functions of giving U.S attorneys a voice in department policies and advising the attorney general.
#15
I do suspect that the presidential pardons are already written and stored safely away. It's very likely this whole thing will drag on beyond the election. If the "One" doesn't win and it is not known who is responsible for F & F, pardons can't be issued for unknown persons.
Fast and furious hasnt been discussed a lot in the mainstream media, which is why the facts can seem so preposterous when you read them for the first time. But the story is slowly unraveling and the public is catching up with the madness. On Wednesday, the The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over his decision to withhold documents related to the gun walking operation documents that President Obama tried to keep secret by invoking executive privilege. The question of why the Prez intervened in this way will surely hang over the investigation and the White House for many months to come. Be patient, conservatives. It took nearly eight months for the Watergate break in to become a national news story. But when it finally did, it toppled a President.
Heres what Fast and Furious is all about and for the uninitiated, be prepared for a shock. In 2009, the US government instructed Arizona gun sellers illegally to sell arms to suspected criminals. Agents working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were then ordered not to stop the sales but to allow the arms to walk across the border into the arms of Mexican drug-traffickers. According to the Oversight Committees report, The purpose was to wait and watch, in hope that law enforcement could identify other members of a trafficking network and build a large, complex conspiracy case . [The ATF] initially began using the new gun-walking tactics in one of its investigations to further the Departments strategy. The case was soon renamed Operation Fast and Furious.
Tracing the arms became difficult, until they starting appearing at bloody crime scenes. Many Mexicans have died from being shot by ATF sanctioned guns, but the scandal only became public after a US federal agent, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, was killed by one of them in a fire fight. ATF whistle blowers started to come forward and the Department of Justice was implicated. Its estimated that the US government effectively supplied 1,608 weapons to criminals, at a total value of over $1 million. Aside from putting American citizens in danger, the AFT also supplied what now amounts to a civil war within Mexico.
Its important to note that the Bush administration oversaw something similar to Fast and Furious. Called Operation Wide Receiver, it used the common tactic of controlled delivery, whereby agents would allow an illegal transaction to take place, closely follow the movements of the arms, and then descend on the culprits. But Fast and Furious is different because it was uncontrolled delivery, whereby the criminals were essentially allowed to drop off the map. Perhaps more importantly, Wide Receiver was conducted with the cooperation of the Mexican government. Fast and Furious was not.
So Obamas operation is subtly different. But just as concerning is the heavy handed way that the administration has handled criticism. Obama says that the Oversight Committee has been hi-jacked by Republicans who would rather talk about politics than creating jobs (because Obama is o-so very good at generating those). But there has been Democratic criticism too, and the Prezs determined defence of Holder will only encourage conspiracy thinking that the scandal has hidden depths. Executive privilege is usually associated with protecting information that passes through the Oval Office. What did the documents reveal about Obamas association with the operation?
Again, its important to contextualise. Executive privilege has been invoked 24 times since Ronald Reagan, and attempts to over-ride it rarely reach the courts. Moreover, Holders request for executive privilege made no reference to White House involvement in Fast and Furious, which seems to have been run exclusively by the ATF. Nevertheless, by refusing to sack Holder or push him to come clean, Obama may have made a very Nixonian mistake.
A lot of conservatives are writing at the moment that not only is Obama turning into Nixon Mark II, but Obama is much worse because no one actually got killed during Watergate. The comparison is based on the myth that Nixon ordered the Watergate break in and thats what he eventually had to resign over. But thats not true. Nixons guilt was in trying to pervert the course of justice by persuading the FBI to drop its investigation of the crime. Mistake number one, then, was to involve the White House in covering up the errors of a separate, autonomous political department. Mistake number two was that when Congress discovered that evidence about the scandal might be recorded on the White House bugging system, Nixon invoked executive privilege to protect the tapes. In both cases, it was the cover up that destroyed Tricky Dick not the original crime.
And, forty years later almost to the day, here we have Obama making the same mistake. Perhaps its an act of chivalry to stand by Holder; perhaps its an admission of guilt. Either way, it sinks the Oval Office ever further into the swamp that is Fast and Furious. Make no mistake about: Fast and Furious was perhaps the most shameful domestic law and order operation since the Waco siege. Its big government at its worst: big, incompetent and capable of ruining lives.
#3
So transparency is in the eyes of the beHOLDER?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
06/21/2012 13:44 Comments ||
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#4
Mistake number one, then, was to involve the White House in covering up the errors of a separate, autonomous political department. Mistake number two was that when Congress discovered that evidence about the scandal might be recorded on the White House bugging system, Nixon invoked executive privilege to protect the tapes. In both cases, it was the cover up that destroyed Tricky Dick -- not the original crime.
However, everyone learned from those mistakes of 40 years ago and technology has evolved beyond tape recordings. The Oval Office isn't as secure apparently assumed.
Posted by: chris ||
06/21/2012 16:35 Comments ||
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#8
One blogger--can't recall which--suggested that, if the purpose was to gin up outrage to support some kind of gun rights rollback, the project needed dead Mexicans. No dead Mexicans, no outrage.
We have dear friends in Mexico, and I'm feeling too ashamed to talk to them.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
06/21/2012 21:01 Comments ||
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#9
Where's Woodturd and Bernlean when you re4ally need em?
Posted by: jack salami ||
06/21/2012 22:15 Comments ||
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#10
Richard - that appears to have ALWAYS been the objective: dead Mexicans - US Weapons - Cut down on weapons here. It was just clumsy and stupidly applied...note: without (!) Joe Biden. This is on his level of strategic planning
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/21/2012 22:19 Comments ||
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#11
even in the Bush Admin DHS officials kept saying that 90% of the cartel guns hailed from the USA. My colleagues and I we're highly skeptical. The Administration of Barack Chavez Obama took it a quantum leap further by trying to prove the 90% to clamp down on the 2nd Amendment. Sort of sounds like what 60 Minutes does...search high and low for odd pieces to support a premise and present it as fact.
Posted by: jack salami ||
06/21/2012 22:23 Comments ||
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#12
DHS officials kept saying that 90% of the cartel guns hailed from the USA
They were, but not from private dealers. They were weapons originally sold/provided to the Mexican military. Coercing private dealers to sell to the cartels was an Obamanistic innovation.
The 'forty years to the day' thing makes me fear we are caught in some sort of time loop. It's like having our own private Nixon to kick around.
WASHINGTON: India and the United States, partners in prime, concluded the third round of their strategic dialogue last week. It was a talk session so vast and varied, it took 13 pages to summarise the discussions. The comfort level is obvious as is the keenness to help each other without pushing the wrong buttons.
The discussion has expanded from geostrategic issues to cover a dizzying array of fields - from agriculture to education, from science and technology to women's empowerment, from cyber security to counter-terrorism, from police training to creating virtual institutes on mathematics - a very large palette is coming alive.
To be sure it is an experiment in building a new kind of relationship, one never attempted by either country. Because it is an experiment, finding the right ingredients and a catalyst is a search. But the fundamental logic of strategic convergence holds. Of that, there is little doubt. And there is new logic unfolding daily.
Top officials in both governments have reached a good understanding on how to structure this "special relationship". The Americans know India will not become an "ally" and no one is pushing for it. They have enough treaty allies. Expectations have been adjusted and Washington well understands that India wants a partnership of equals. For historical, psychological and philosophical reasons, India won't be anyone's junior partner.
Neither is the US egging India onto adventures it doesn't want to undertake but at the same time it has determined it would help India to build capacity. As more US defence technology becomes available, India can gather greater "comprehensive national power"- a phrase the Chinese casually throw around to disparage India.
India is smartly hunting for strategic autonomy while getting closer to the US. It packages the alignment differently at different times. This may disappoint the with-us-or-against-us Americans but they are a minority. The big picture is good and getting better.
If former president George Bush cut through decades of diplomatic weed to put India in clear sight as a partner, President Barack Obama is shedding years of dependency on Pakistan to contain it. Bush changed the game by crafting the civil-nuclear deal with India and Obama is changing it further by relentlessly targeting terrorists ensconced in Pakistan. The slow realisation about Pakistan's dangerous designs has solidified into a cold determination to break the habit. Obama's eyes today are wide open after a year or two of trying to look into the hearts of Pakistani generals.
The Bush-Obama teamwork in South Asia is welcome and a source of greater stability in the long run. Pakistan has lost its primacy as a geographic and strategic blackmailer. Its bad choices in the past - no strategic reasoning can justify nurturing and unleashing terrorists - are closing its options in the present. If Pakistan's leadership does not see the writing on the wall and act positively, the future may be one of solitary splendour.
Meanwhile, India and the US will start a trilateral dialogue with Afghanistan. Surely a stark new reality for Pakistan as Washington begins to think of India as a net security provi-der in a country Islamabad considers its backyard. But India is understandably cautious because for all the "recognition" that India can take on more security-related responsibilities in Afghanistan, it was only yesterday that Washington was against New Delhi marking its presence - at the prompting of Pakistan - and issuing demarches. A copy of one such was brought to Washington as a reminder of unhappier times.
Within the span of the Obama Administration, Washington has courted China, then India, lectured India for engagement with Burma and then made a turnaround. One could call it nimble, fickle or evolutionary. The important point is that Obama's team is continuing with India where Bush left off despite some stone-throwing from the margins by those who continue to try to undermine the US-India civil nuclear deal.
But the "habits of cooperation" are building. More groundbreaking work can be done bilaterally, especially in defence production and research, as India wants. This will help foster trust. Strategic space for India has opened wider with US help. The question is how to use it wisely, timely and gamely. There is a lesson for both countries in the exercise.
Finally, the Pakistan hang in US policy towards India may have gone but China remains the biggest complicating factor for both India and the US. The Chinese vice-premier's attempt to play India was baldly obvious when he whispered during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting that the "real relationship" of the century was one between India and China. By implication, India was wasting its energy on a partner far away.
But China plays for itself while America can and does try to play in a team, especially in these times of economic trouble. India can help shape the team while gaining in strategic autonomy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/21/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
ION FORMER "GREATER INDIA", DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > BURMA/MYANMAR SHOULD BE PARTITIONED FOR GREATER REGIONAL STABILITY + PEACE.
* SAME, TOPIX > AFGHANISTAN NEEDS US$7.0BILYUHN IN AID AFTER WESTERN PULLOUT [2014], i.e. US$6-7.0Bilyuhn a year over 10 years [US$60-70.0Bilyuhn tote], + on top of US$4.1Bilyuhn already earmarked for 2014 + Afghan-specific training + devlopment as per Afghan Army-Police = Security forces, etc.
versus
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > NOLA.COM: THIS IS NOT AN EXERCISE [Drill]: AIR NATIONAL GUARD FIGHTERS [159TH FW = aka "Bayou Militia"] DEPLOYED TO SOUTHWEST ASIA.
Exact Mission, Locale cannot + will not be confirmed or denied.
* TOPIX > THAIS PROTEST US RETURN [NASA] TO U-TAPAO.
LOCAL THAIS > D *** NG IT, USA, WE CAN DO OUR OWN "WEATHER RESEARCH", THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > PINOY PRESIDENT [Aquino] THREATENS TO CONFRONT CHINESE SHIPS IN HUANGYAN ISLANDS [PHIL = Panataq/Panatag Reef] |
[Global Nation Inquirer] AQUINO: PHILIPPINES MAY SEND SHIPS BACK TO SCARBOROUGH/PHILIPPINES SHIPS TO GO BACK IFF CHINESE DON'T LEAVE PANATAG SHOAL.
* ALso from GLOBAL NATION INQUIRER > CHINA: WE STAKED CLAIM TO SCARBOROUGH IN 1949 [post-Kai Shek, Civil War founding of PRC/PROC]. Also, post-1949 via then-Premier Chou Enlai in 1951 as per the XISHA [Paracels], NANWEI, NANSHA [Spratlys], ZHONGSHA, + DONGSHA ISLANDS.
[Dawn] IN disqualifying a sitting, democratically elected prime minister, the Supreme Court has taken an extraordinary -- and unfortunate -- step. This whole story could have played out very differently, in ways much less disruptive to the nascent democracy this country is trying to build, if the SC had steered clear of a course of action that has now brought the judiciary, parliament and the executive in direct confrontation with each other. At a number of junctures the court could have avoided pursuing the contempt of court case as doggedly as it did, especially considering that the larger issue -- corruption -- was a matter involving the president, not the prime minister. Legally there might have been a case against the prime minister, but it was best for the supreme judiciary not to have waded so deep into such obviously political waters. Even at a later stage, it could have let the speaker's ruling -- which has the backing of a parliamentary resolution -- stand. If that was not possible, it could have declared her ruling unacceptable and referred the matter to the Election Commission rather than simply asking that body to issue a denotification. Even if the outcome had ultimately been the same, at least the court would not have taken on the role of directly disqualifying an elected prime minister. By doing so, it has both disrupted an existing democratic set-up and set a worrying precedent for the future.
But the damage has been done. And the PPP has an important choice to make. The party should now take the high moral ground and focus on the system rather than the individual. There are disruptive options: refusing to accept the order, for example, or delaying the matter by using the constitution to argue that the president can ask the prime minister to continue in office until a new one is appointed. For the sake of preserving the system, if the party has reservations against the judgment it should express these, perhaps even through a strongly worded parliamentary resolution, have Mr Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's last prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics could be awe-inspiring ... step aside and parliament elect a new prime minister as soon as possible.
Indications are that the ruling coalition has already embarked on this course. But it is still deeply unfortunate that matters have come to this stage; completing the five-year tenure of both an elected government and its chief executive would have been a much-needed win for Pakistain. What is critical now is that elections are held, whether early or on time and as free and fair as possible, so that the final judgment can be left to the people's court.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
Hmmm, you'd rather they didn't?
Odd, why? Maybe a little Biased?
Maybe a lot biased?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/21/2012 8:44 Comments ||
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[Dawn] THERE seems to be no end to the relentless murder of members of the Shia Hazara community in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... . Many of the victims of Monday's suicide car booming that targeted a university bus in Quetta, in which at least four people died and over 70 were maimed, belonged to this beleaguered ethnic group. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ... has grabbed credit for the attack saying that its latest atrocity was 'Dire Revenge™' for the bombing of a madressah in Quetta earlier this month. Members of the Balochistan Assembly have rightly questioned the role of intelligence agencies, particularly their inability to pre-empt such acts of terrorism. The deadly violence in Balochistan, especially in its capital city, has created a state of fear and mistrust between the ethnic and religious communities that reside in the province. However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... while the provincial government has largely played the role of spectator as violence consumes Balochistan, it is the security establishment that must primarily explain why terrorist outfits have been allowed to operate with impunity in the province.
As we have argued before, trying to stop a jacket wallah when he is about to strike is next to impossible. Also, it is not possible for the security forces to be everywhere all the time. The fact is a police vehicle was accompanying the ill-fated bus in Monday's tragedy, yet it could do little to prevent the carnage. The key, then, to checking the violence is to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorist groups through better intelligence gathering and pre-emptive action. The intelligence agencies' role in this regard has been woeful to say the least, with snuffies striking at will in Balochistan. These shortcomings need to be addressed and the authorities in Islamabad as well as Quetta need to shake off their apathy so that the lives of the people of Balochistan can be secured.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/21/2012 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
IN disqualifying a sitting, democratically elected prime minister, the Supreme Court has taken an extraordinary -- and unfortunate -- step. This whole story could have played out very differently, in ways much less disruptive to the nascent democracy this country is trying to build, if the SC had steered clear of a course of action that has now brought the judiciary, parliament and the executive in direct confrontation with each other. At a number of junctures the court could have avoided pursuing the contempt of court case as doggedly as it did, especially considering that the larger issue -- corruption -- was a matter involving the president, not the prime minister. Legally there might have been a case against the prime minister, but it was best for the supreme judiciary not to have waded so deep into such obviously political waters. Even at a later stage, it could have let the speaker's ruling -- which has the backing of a parliamentary resolution -- stand. If that was not possible, it could have declared her ruling unacceptable and referred the matter to the Election Commission rather than simply asking that body to issue a denotification. Even if the outcome had ultimately been the same, at least the court would not have taken on the role of directly disqualifying an elected prime minister. By doing so, it has both disrupted an existing democratic set-up and set a worrying precedent for the future.
THERE seems to be no end to the relentless murder of members of the Shia Hazara community in 
