(01-31-2017 01:21 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(01-31-2017 12:13 PM)JSA Wrote:  

(01-31-2017 12:03 PM)Rick Gerlach Wrote:  

(01-31-2017 10:31 AM)georgewebb Wrote:  

(01-31-2017 10:11 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I agree it should not be hard at all for Sessions to answer the question, and answer it just how you stated. However, I do not have a lot of faith that this will be what happens, and would love to be proven wrong.

The irony is that Trump does not take dissent well (see Yates firing and the subsequent statement released), and yet Trump has nominated an AG who believes (rightfully) that it is the AG's duty to stand up to the POTUS when they understand a law to violate the Constitution. Yet, when that happened to this president, that AG was fired because they stood up to the POTUS.

I think that Sessions was in the right with his line of questioning, but I was not expecting, in the slightest, to find out that line of questioning existed after news of Yates firing.

There is no irony in the belief system or understanding of how an AG should operate, it is in the players involved and the situation that has unfurled. Maybe coincidental is a better word?

Good points. And come to think of it, irony is probably as good a word as any. I interpreted "hilariously ironic" as an allegation of hypocrisy, which is not what you actually said.

As for Yates, it is not entirely clear what her basis for not defending the order really was. In her press release [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/30/us/document-Letter-From-Sally-Yates.html?_r=0] announcing that she would not defend it, she did not say that her considered judgment is that the order is unconstitutional, or violates an existing statute (and around the country, legal opinion on those questions seems to be mixed). The character string "constitution" does not appear anywhere in the document. She did say that she was "not convinced that the Executive Order is lawful", but without naming any particular law that it might conflict with. Rather, she emphasized that the "policy choice embodied" in the order is not "wise or just" or, alternatively, does not comport with "justice and ... what is right". So her stance seems somewhere between "I believe this order is patently illegal" and "I just don't agree with it."

From commentary on CNN, gleaned while I exercised last night, the order itself in its entirety is not unconstitutional, although there may be portions of it, or applications that are.

In her response, it was clear she disagreed with the decision to issue the order and that the implication that it would violate her own beliefs to enforce it.

The suggested course of action, then, might have been to take her objections to either Priebus or directly to Trump (if that were possible, who knows?) and if they could not provide a satisfactory response, then she could've offered her resignation.

Instead, she effectively made a political statement and publically defied her boss.

I don't agree with the majority of actions Trump is taking. As noted before, didn't vote for him and do not believe him to be qualified for the office he holds.

Having said that, while the optics are horrible (pretty much everything that's happening meets that criteria), I don't know that firing someone who publically defies their boss should ever be unexpected or unjustified.

As George points out, she didn't expressly state the order was unconstitutional, and the commentary I heard last night did not offer that the order itself was unconstitutional.

There are a variety of ways to make a principled stand on an issue.

From my perspective, her choice (in terms of her job) appeared to be to metaphorically douse herself in gasoline and light a match.

If that's not what she wanted to happen, there were definitely other avenues she could have taken and held on to her principles.

How much longer would she have been on job anyway?

How does this compare/contrast to officials who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples because doing so conflicted with their beliefs?

Regardless of how much time is left on a job, resignation is an option, as would be having a dialogue with your boss, or at least an attempted dialogue (even through the Chief of Staff).

I'm not objecting to her making a choice and following through on it.

My objection is to everyone acting as if a President is "out of bounds" for firing a cabinet member who refused to support his agenda based on disagreement (absent clear evidence that the agenda items were unconstitutional). Understand that I do not agree with the majority of actions taken by the president to date, and don't agree with the unilateral nature of his methodology at all.

As to the second part:

1. County clerks are usually elected, not appointed. It is my understanding that her 'bosses' are the voters in her county.
2. Obviously the stage is much bigger and the stakes are much higher.

Neither situation gets ignored. If the AG didn't understand what she was doing and what the repercussions would be, she is dumber than a post.

The media would be better served commenting on the specifics of the Executive Order, and which aspects of implementation may be legally suspect . . . . (this may be happening, I am not a TV junkie. But I see mostly emotional reporting, highlighting the 'human impact' side of the argument.)

versus making a martyr out of an exiting official who chose her path forward knowing full well what would happen.

I agree with a lot of your post and assume that Yates knew what she was getting into when she made the decision to not enforce the EO. However, Trump played perfectly into her hand by writing a horrible statement (have you read it yet?) and firing her pretty much on the spot, and that to me is the biggest problem (after the potential unconstitutional nature of the Christian refugee preference and the EO itself).

The reason I agree with most of your statement is that Trump should have done the same thing you're asking of Yates with the EO. He did not have it reviewed by the governmental agencies who would best be able to guide him on the legality of the implementation. In fact, the Secretary of the DHS was not briefed on the entirety of the order until the moment the POTUS was signing the EO.

However, Trump is not creating an environment where even internal dissent is tolerated, which is bad. Anyone who knows how to run anything effectively understands that discouraging or disallowing dissent will lead to failure. Spicer was quoted as telling people within State to either get on board or get out when he was asked about an internal memo that was circulating around State that was a dissent to the EO. This is concerning because this memo was meant for the dissent channel within State that was set up (after Vietnam I believe) specifically so those with expertise could provide push back and an argument against proposed or executed actions.

Here's some info on that: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/politics/c...sent-memo/