WH director won't testify before Issa panel

thehill.com ^ | July 15, 2014 | Justin Sink

[livius]

I think the difference is that when presidents in the past did it, the press - and therefore, the public - got upset about it. With Obama, the press not only doesn’t get upset but doesn’t even report it, so therefore there’s no public pressure on the WH.

Note that one of the things Issa is investigating is that the press was forced to “correct” its reporting to reflect the WH version of things...

Also, there has never been an AG (including Robert Kennedy) who is more obviously simply using the federal justice system for political ends than Holder. One of these ends is to defend Obama to the mat. This itself then makes it very difficult for Congress to investigate anything involving the WH because there is not only no support or even neutrality, but outright obstructionism from the Justice Department.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Jurisdiction stripping - Congress may define the jurisdiction of the judiciary through the simultaneous use of two powers.[1] First, Congress holds the power to create (and, implicitly, to define the jurisdiction of) federal courts inferior to the Supreme Court (i.e. Courts of Appeals, District Courts, and various other Article I and Article III tribunals). This court-creating power is granted both in the congressional powers clause (Art. I, § 8, Cl. 9) and in the judicial vesting clause (Art. III, § 1). Second, Congress has the power to make exceptions to and regulations of the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. This court-limiting power is granted in the Exceptions Clause (Art. III, § 2). By exercising these powers in concert, Congress may effectively eliminate any judicial review of certain federal legislative or executive actions and of certain state actions, or alternatively transfer the judicial review responsibility to state courts by "knocking [federal courts]...out of the game."