Haven’t paid attention to this because there are only about 10,000 other things going on, but good catch from Tapper:
After being briefed today on President Obama’s firing last week of Gerald Walpin, Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the president did not abide by the same law that he co-sponsored – and she wrote – about firing Inspectors General.
“The White House has failed to follow the proper procedure in notifying Congress as to the removal of the Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service,” McCaskill said. “The legislation which was passed last year requires that the president give a reason for the removal.”
Anyone have a good link to the backstory on this (other than the ABC links in the story)? And by a good link, I mean a link to a writeup from someone who hasn’t spent the last year wondering out loud about Obama’s Muslim heritage or birth certificate, so of course the NRO is out of the question.
guster
Here’s your link: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/obama_removes_americorps_ig_who_clashed_with_ally.php#more
cleek
the whatnow?
clearly, this is a matter of consequence.
Warren Terra
This is basically TPM’s most recent post on the subject, from Saturday, at least the most recent on their main blog:
I haven’t bothered to copy their hyperlinks (you can click through) but basically they say to read Tapper.
Update on my comment: the “Yesterday afternoon Zack Roth wrote up our initial run-down” is a link to the post Guster links in the first comment.
Ash
@cleek: The way I understand is they’re the ones who basically run AmeriCorps
Mnemosyne
Apparently the issue was that Walpin pushed very, very hard for a prosecution in a case against Sacramento’s mayor that the US attorney’s office declined to prosecute and released information to the press just prior to the mayoral election even after the USA announced that they would not pursue a prosecution.
Here’s the nut graf from my TPM link above:
grimc
I doubt this had much to do with anything, but Walpin’s op-ed sticking up for poor, mistreated John Yoo doesn’t exactly make me feel for him losing his job:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/03/06/2008-03-06_shame_on_yale_law_school_for_betraying_i.html
Mnemosyne
D’oh! Warren beat me to it, and I can’t even edit my post.
At least we quoted different parts of the TPM piece.
jl
the other commenters beat me to the TPM posts. I think it is not a big deal. The IG went Medieval on Johnson for violations that historically have not merited going Medieval, particularly in a way that would punish a whole city. The IG would not relent, and was canned. Johnson still got punished. Sounds like a bureaucratic spat to me.
Now, here is some real controversy. Scientific proof that dogs are smarter than cats:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jun/16/psychologist-test-outsmarts-cats
Supposedly.
I am slightly more a dog person than a cat person. But I am skeptical of this. Just because we mere humans cannot figure out the cats’ Gran Plan, that doesn’t mean we are smarter. That kind of arrogance will be our downfall, and we will end up with Planet of the Cats, for sure.
Linkmeister
I think, and it doesn’t or shouldn’t make a lick of difference, the Johnson mentioned is Dennis Johnson, former Phoenix Sun.
MNPundit
No, my cat is a fucking moron. I am amazed it can even function most days he is so dumb.
Ash
@jl: I’m sure John will have definitive proof for us soon. Which ever it is, Tunch or Lily, that gets to John in his sleep first…
jl
Kevin Johnson, former Cavalier and Sun player
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Johnson
I was hoping the asinine hope, because it amused me somehow, that an ex-Basketball player Mayor of Sacramento would produce some magical something or other that would magically rub off on my beloved Kings. But… no dice so far.
Cat Lady
Word. They surround us.
AhabTRuler
Yeah, well, Momo’s no dummy. Last night she managed to back out of her harness, even though I had it cinched (what I thought was) tight behind her shoulders. Tonight, when putting on the harness, I tightened up the straps a little more, at which point she started mincing and walking gingerly…until I broke out the Greenies (brought low by the stomach, oh, how I can identify)!
Tim
Welp, it was fun while it lasted. The GOP will be screaming for impeachment within 48 hours. Expect the dem controlled congress to capitulate and bring charges against the administration as we know that Dems only have spine when it comes to fighting other Dems.
BombIranForChrist
As Sarah Palin’s representative, I demand that all of you apologize right the hell now.
Jennifer
@jl:
Oof, what balderdash.
Cats don’t understand cause and effect? BS. They all work out ways to make us do their bidding. They scheme.
The cats in that study couldn’t be arsed with fishing out the treat because that’s our job. They’re quite good at getting us to do it for them. And if they weren’t really hungry, it might not be interesting enough for them to be bothered with figuring out how to get it.
Besides, cats don’t have a whole lot of interest in static objects. By nature they are more predator than scavenger – dogs’ strategy depends at least as much on scavenging as predation. There’s a different intelligence skill set for an animal that, in nature, gets 80 – 90% of its food from predation. A big one of those skills is alertness to movement. Anyone who’s ever had a cat knows they are motivated to action by seeing movement more than by their nose.
pip
Byron York, lately of the Examiner, had a post up a couple of days ago. Same old he said stuff. Then York was on Bill Bennett’s show this morning. It’s the travel office nonsense all over again — Bennett focused on the words the supposed job hitman said “the President said” blah blah blah.
Apparently, Walpin is a hanger on old geezer with an axe to grind.
Mostly they — York, Bennett et al are looking for a way to smear the first lady — via Grassley of Iowa. “Michelle Obama works behind the scenes to get an old white guy fired.”
And I’m not joking.
Keith G
@John: Why is this a good catch from Tapper? What am I missing?
Chris
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/12/gerald-walpin-obama-remov_n_214715.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090612/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_national_service_inspector_general
http://volokh.com/posts/1245168784.shtml
Linkmeister
@jl: Oops. KJ, not DJ. I get those Johnson guys mixed up all the time.
Chris
Idiot version I (last night): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0-TH5zMmug
Idiot version II (tonight): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcD4ehm5l7I
WereBear
That psychology article reminds me of the dog intelligence rankings, based on how well the dog obeys commands. Hey, that’s handy, but no proof of intelligence.
Cars definitely scheme. But this is unlikely to come to light in an experiment. It requires a home.
Chris
Sorry, don’t think this comment was successfully submitted the first time:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/12/gerald-walpin-obama-remov_n_214715.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090612/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_national_service_inspector_general
And from Tapper’s post, the Acting US Attorney’s complaint to the IG oversight council: http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/Brown_letter_to_Kenneth_Kaiser.pdf
TenguPhule
Cats are idiots. Especially Feral ones.
Dogs on the other hand, they can mindmeld humans over time into waiting on them hand and paw, *literally*.
pip
Tapper is following York.
Here’s the link.
Irony Abounds
What I’ve read indicates that Republicans wanted this guy fired as well. Apparently he is just an obnoxious sort who likes to cause trouble for everyone, and not in a good way.
Mary
Walpin is from the Ken Starr school of IG as political hitman. In fact, he and Starr worked together to take down Clinton as Walpin was head of the “Federalist Society Litigation Project,” a key adjunct of the Arkansas Project.
Greg Craig is Obama’s counsel on this and was Clinton’s counsel for impeachment. Craig says they have cause to fire Walpin from his actions throughout the course of his tenure. I’m sure they are assembling the brief now. Did I mention that Walpin got the Bush Administration to give him unprecedented “Starr” police powers to treat his inspectors as criminal law enforcement officers? Wonder why he wanted those kinds of powers?
As an aside, there is in fact a Michelle Obama connection as Walpin also saw fit to audit Barack and Michelle’s old Americorps program in Chicago as a special project during the election. Coincidence, I’m sure.
Anyway, Walpin went all kinds of crazy on the Johnson case and I bet they had to get him out of there before he started destroying the evidence of his wrongdoing since he had been reported to the Ethics Board for IGs. After he got reported, he issued an unsolicited report to Congress on the Johnson matter, complete with press release, which was all kinds of wrong and even inserted a gratuitous sex charge against Johnson. He had gone postal. His removal was supported by the U.S. Attorney and the bipartisan heads of the NCSC.
Mnemosyne
@pip:
Precisely. Even the cursory Google I did had all kinds of “Michelle did it!” conspiracy theories. Because, hey, she’s just like Hillary! Who can tell them apart?
Not to mention that “Travelgate” was, well, not quite as presented by the MSM. I can’t get Joe Conason’s article on it from the Columbia Journalism Review to pull up anymore, unfortunately. Let’s just say that $50,000 vanished from the White House Travel Office and mysteriously showed up in the personal bank account of the head of that office. But investigating that was TOTALLY political!
(The link I can’t get to work is http://backissues.cjrarchives.org/year/96/2/travelgate.asp
if anyone wants to try and figure it out)
Jennifer
Cats are idiots. Especially Feral ones.
Feral cats might be idiots when it comes to dealing with humans, because it’s not something they ever needed to know. Beyond that, every animal is an “idiot” in human terms, because they don’t have language, which means their entire way of “thinking” is going to be fairly alien to our own and they aren’t going to be able to verbally share – or perhaps even form – abstract thoughts, learning, etc etc etc. But they certainly do exhibit planning to satisfy motivations, memory, emotions, and a lot of other traits of intelligence. You can’t really compare the “intelligence” of any two different species of animals, including ourselves, because each is unique to the survival needs of each particular species. Put a human brain into a dolphin or orangutang or elephant body and environment – or vice versa – and it probably wouldn’t work all that well.
eric k
Linkmeister,
Its easy,
DJ – 2 guard, great defender, under-rated on offense since he always played on good teams and didn’t put up huge scoring numbers because he didn’t need to. MVP of Sonics championship Team, key player on Celtics titles. Should be in the HOF, sadly died of a heart attack a couple years ago.
KJ decent PG, but overshadowed by Magic and Stockton and later Kidd and Payton in the West for most of his career.
Allan
Lived through it here in the Sacramento area. TPM covers it very well. At the time it felt incredibly politically motivated against Kevin. I was not KJ’s biggest fan as a candidate, he missed many opportunities to speak to voters at public forums and seemed aloof, but the whole investigation reeked.
gex
@jl: As the owner of both cats and dogs, I can tell you that the cats are smarter. Dogs are plenty smart too, and their motivations are very different. Of course, this is all based on what my sense of what “smart” is. Providing evidence of which species are smarter than others makes no sense when we all have wildly varying estimations of what “smart” is in the first place.
pip
Having tried to communicate with wingnut bloggers these past few days, it seems that Iranian tweeters get through better than regular Americans.
Who would have thought. . . .
J. Michael Neal
Time for another Dumb Eddie story. I am, I admit, sometimes delinquent in cleaning the litter boxes. Different cats deal with this in different ways. Dirk just toughs it out. Monster eventually starts peeing on things. As with much of her life, I don’t know what Ringling does. Eddie has come up with a clever way of handling the problem. He makes sure I’m paying attention to him, and then pees just a little bit on the floor, and then meows at me. He has found a way to communicate a specific thought, rather than just the general idea that he has something to say. I think that this is a remarkably polite way of telling me to clean the damned box, and it’s certainly the most effective of all of the options.
This cat might not be as dumb as I thought.
Steve
The firing sounds justified, but Obama is definitely not following the law he co-sponsored.
The law says that if the President wants to fire an IG, he has to give Congress a statement of his reasons 30 days in advance. The reason, of course, is that IGs investigate intergovernment corruption and thus we don’t want the President to be completely unaccountable in firing them. He at least needs to explain his reasons.
So anyway, what Obama did here is simply send a letter to Congress saying “I’m firing him because I no longer have full confidence in him.” Period. Technically, I guess you could call that a reason, but it’s no different from saying the guy serves at the pleasure of the President like all other political appointees.
Consider the 10-second version of this issue, the way Republicans would spin it: IG is investigating mayor who is big Obama supporter, so Obama fires him. Now, flip that around so it’s Bush instead, and everyone would at least want Congress to investigate and find out the facts.
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
What exactly does the law say? Obama’s letter to Congress specifically states that he is going to remove Walpin from his position “effective 30 days from today.” He gave Congress 30 days notice that he’s going to remove the guy. They now have 30 days to dig into the matter.
The Tapper article is pretty convincing that the guy needed to be removed. The Bush-appointed US attorney filed an ethics complaint against him based on his actions in this case.
Zuzu's Petals
Here’s a local angle:
Sacramento mayor says he didn’t seek inspector general’s removal
Zuzu's Petals
Just curious … how many other Big Tomato-ites here?
Chuck Butcher
@J. Michael Neal:
As the study review concludes, we are anthropomorphic – assigning human characteristics to animals despite their lack of use for it. Deer are very stupid about cars, deer are very smart about hunters – there’s a difference.
Canine realationship with humans developed for entirely different reasons than feline. Add into the mix that one is pack oriented and the other fairly solitary and well…
The idea that dogs are scavengers is incorrect, they are opportunists and quite adequate predators. People mistake their relationship with their pets for the pet’s nature, particularly dogs. Working dogs are treated differently and the relationship is considerably more independent on the dog’s part.
Gus, a Great White Pyrennese is quite independent as a pet dog goes, working Pyrennese are barely concerned with their humans.
I fight the urge to anthropomorphize Gus, but I fail…
Zuzu's Petals
Looks like Ed Morrisey has done his usual stellar job of flinging BS against the wall.
Does he just go out of his way to put up bad information/lies/innuendo? I don’t get it…it really has to be hard work to be this full of crap.
truculentandunreliable
I haven’t read enough about this to weigh in, but here are a couple of McCaskill’s tweets from this morning (always a source of in-depth information:
Strong substantive reasons stated for the IG Walpin’s removal yesterday. Request for invest into his conduct came from R appointed US atty.
Prior to letter delivered yesterday the WH had not followed the right procedure under the law. That letter did follow the law’s requiremnts.
So, it’s sounds like everything is okay now. Not that it will stop repubs from freaking the hell out.
The Other Steve
If you publically notify Congress that you are firing a guy in 30 days… isn’t this basically telling the guy himself he’s fired in 30 days?
And where in the law does it say the President has to give a good reason? It just says he has to notify…
tinat
@Linkmeister:
That would be Kevin Johnson….Dennis Johnson died a few years back of a heart condition
someguy
1) Who cares?
2) I’m surprised that McCaskill and John have been duped this easily into coughing up IG firing talking points crafted by wingnuts, served up by Villagers (mmmm… tasty.) This is Tapper, ferchrissakes – a totally discredited hack.
3) Where are the Republicans’ separation of powers and unified executive arguments now?
4) Who cares?
Roger Moore
@truculentandunreliable:
I’m just as happy with them freaking out over as many things that turn out to be completely unsubstantiated as possible. Every time they do, they’ll lose a bit more credibility. That way, when they bitch about something that I really care about, everyone will just ignore them as a bunch of WATBs.
Bender
Obama has a mean man-crush on Kevin Johnson (a young black Democrat politician who was — gasp! be still, my heart!– an NBA star!). When the IG started to expose KJ’s corruption in Sac’to, Obama had him fired. As far as reasons for dismissal and 30 days notice (a bill he co-sponsored while he was a mere mortal Senator), Obama said, “I am the state. I won. Shut up, that’s why.”
Because nothing says transparency and Most Ethical Government Ever like firing an IG for exposing fraud in your friends!
Hope and Change and Chicago Politics!
Bender
And, of course, The Zero can count on you Obots to say “What? This is no big deal! This is a distraction. Can’t he just eat his waffles? Can’t he just eat his motherfuckin’ waffles?”
But when Bush fired attorneys, it was The End Of Democracy.
beachrat
I didn’t see a link to the Washington Examiner stories, which as far as I know present the original and most complete backstories:
original
follow-up with links to other follow-ups
latest at the moment
Zuzu's Petals
Shorter Bender and beachrat.
gwangung
Yes, it is.
The exercise is left to the student.
satby
Bender and beachrat:
That’s it? That’s your A-game?
Pathetic.
Mary
Bender and Beachrat:
Careful what you wish for. It’s a trap that Walpin has fallen into and he is only making his troubles worse by giving press interviews trying to explain his disorientation and moaning that maybe they are discriminating against him for being disabled.
If the full report on Walpin is released to the public, which it now looks like it will after all the stink that has been raised, it won’t be pretty and Walpin will end up losing his law license as well as being totally discredited.
It may end up being a blessing for Walpin that there are allegations of disorientation and confusion which he may be able to use in his defense when he is called to fully account for his full perfidy. At that point, he won’t be giving interviews. His supporters will instead be saying, “Leave this poor feeble man alone!”
Laura
I haven’t commented in a while (like a year or two), but as a Sacramentan, I can tell you that Obama blew it. Walpin may be a right wing nutter, but Kevin Johnson is as ethically challenged as they come. Sure, he’s a Democrat, but he’s the union busting, anti-gay marriage, in the pocket of wealthy developers kind of Democrat. He’s got far more enemies on the left than on the right in this town. Seeing him get away with crap for years had most good liberals in Sacramento cheering Walpin on. What Johnson did with Americorps was pure fraud. Having worked in the nonprofit sector, including an Americorps program, I know it’s not just a mis-crossed T (Johnson’s excuse) that led to the misuse of nearly a million dollars of Americorps funds. First off, Johnson’s Hoodcorps was faith based. His corpsmembers were required to go to church every Sunday. That alone made them ineligible for the funding. The fact that they got funded tells me they weren’t exactly honest on their application. Later, they enrolled teachers at their charter school in Americorps so they could pay part of their salaries with Americorps funding. More than a tad illegal, there. And then he had Americorps kids canvassing for his preferred school board candidates, which was totally against Americorps policy. He also had them scrubbing his private school toilets when they were supposed to be tutoring kids. If I recall, that’s not part of the Americorps mission. He totally misused these funds, intentionally, and Walpin had every reason to nail his ass. And it’s not the first time. His organization has had to give back hundreds of thousands of dollars to at least one private grant that I know of. Not as illegal as misusing federal grant money, but just as unethical. I could go on and on about Johnson (which I obviously am), including how his thug attorney has intimidated teachers who have stood up to Johnson, students who have complained about him and any critic who had the balls to call him out.
Today, on the front page of the Sacramento Bee, we learn that Johnson and his organization is under investigation by the FBI for deleting emails (sound familiar?). If you’re bored, you might you read the resignation of the Exec. Director of Johnson’s organization. Americorps is just the tip of the iceberg. That Obama would even give the impression of firing someone for political reasons is bad enough. That he may have done it to protect someone like Johnson really stinks.
Bender
And that’s what passes for your “response?”
I suppose you thought it was brilliant banter, eh? Not so much.
LongHairedWeirdo
Okay… so, by sending his letter to Congress with his reasons, he’s violating the law saying he has to send his letter to Congress…
No, wait.
Okay, so by telling Walpin he could resign, or Obama would send the letter to Congress to fire him, Obama violated the law saying he had to send a letter to Congress if he wanted to fire him…
No, wait.
AH! I’ve got it!
By being a popular Democratic President, Obama violated the law; in particular, he fired Walpin, which could smell vaguely political if Walpin hadn’t been flapping his yap during an election and overstating the potential criminality of charges, while seeking stronger sanctions than warranted…
No, wait.
Bender
Because Obama’s “reason” was “shut up, that’s why” and not a real reason — no, it didn’t qualify under the law. Kind of defeats the purpose of the transparency aspect if the President can just say, “I lost confidence in him” when he investigated one of my big backers.
And in more chilling news, the Obama cabal has now written a letter to Congress saying that the reason for his firing is that Walpin appeared “confused” and “disoriented” at a meeting once (awesome, just like Khruschev would’ve done! To the Psikhushka with the crazy man!).
Look, anyone who’s seen this dude on TV can tell you that he’s not “confused.” In fact, he got off a zinger about Obama’s “confusion” about there being 57 states and Joe Biden’s “confusion” about, well, just about everything.
Which displays the real point of Obama firing him — Walpin isn’t an Obot, and Obama must have cronies all around him.
LongHairedWeirdo
Bender:
*I* got it.
Because Obama is a popular President, and sent a letter that you don’t like, he violated the law, because if he didn’t violate the law, you’re going to throw a tantrum and then sit in the corner and suck your thumb.
Well, I hope that thumb tastes good. Don’t suck too hard; you can pull off the nail.
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
So enlighten us. Under the law you’re quoting, what reasons are allowed? Name at least two.
Mnemosyne
I guess the Bush-appointed US attorney’s formal ethics complaint against Walpin is all part of the big Obama cabal, right? Have they gotten the Illuminati to join yet, or are they still holding out for a bigger slice of the international drug trade out of Mena … uh, Midway Airport?
eric k
The entire oversight committee including the republican member recommended firing him. The Bush appointed US Attorney recommended firing him.
It could very well be they didn’t release all the details about why because they wanted to let the guy save some face. Now he is forcing them to air all his dirty laundry.