Al Sharpton Quotes
We are engaged in immediate conversations with the White House on deliberations over a successor whom we hope will continue in the general direction of Attorney General Holder.
Sharpton, Al. "Statement on Attorney General Eric Holder's Resignation." National Action Network, 25 Sept. 2014.
Arguing that executive agreements were being used to circumvent the Senate right to ratify treaties:
The Republican controlled Senate whose Judiciary Committee and voted overwhelmingly for the President’s nominee for Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, but the Senate Republicans refused to the nomination up for a vote unless the Democrats and the President would agree to add an abortion ban on money that was to be appropriated for assistance to trafficked and sexually exploited women and girls. Never before had a nomination like this have been subject to this type of blackmail over terms of legislation on a matter that had nothing to do with the nominee or the cabinet position. However, this was the time one of the extreme periods of hyper partisanship in American History.
In response to Administration tactics to delay a vote on the Church-Cooper proposal to limit American involvement in Cambodia after June 30, 1970, Senator Cotton asserted:
The reference was to the Presidential power to appoint Supreme Court Justices who will serve beyond his term.
During the Korean War Secretary of State John Foster Dulles sent instructions to the United Nations Ambassador as to how to vote in a UN debate. Lodge voted to the contrary. The Assistant Secretary of State called to inquire why the instructions were not followed.
One of the reasons that judges and government officials have much difficulty in enforcing and interpreting laws is that the laws themselves are often very vague and/or ambiguous. Often this is the result of a political compromise or one part of a law being at odds with another written be a different legislators. Also, this is a way of Congress avoiding tough issues—every member can say what it is that he/she voted for and the vagueness allows their opponents to claim that it means just the opposite. The Executive and Judicial Branches then have to resolve the issue.
He was Chief of Staff and was trying to calm the nation. However, he created a real problem. By saying he was in control, he alarmed many people as the Constitution did not give him any authority to be in control of anything. Many people saw this as a sign of his extreme personal ambition. Others, that he had just made a mistake.
Bolivar was a much greater military freedom fighter for democracy than he was as a democratic civilian leader.
He was explaining his reasons for resigning in 2005 from the number two position in the Justice Department. The George W. Bush administration had implemented a program of secret wiretapping and surveillance of American citizens in America which required the authorization of the Justice Department which had determined that the program as it was being implemented violated the law. The Attorney General was ill in the hospital but had told Comey that he would not sign the authorization. The White House then pressured Comey to sign and he refused, and in a similar replay of the Watergate “Saturday Night Massacre”, the number three man at Justice would have been ordered to sign. His resignation convinced President Bush to alter the program to take account of the Justice Department objections.
Alfred Charles Sharpton is an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, talk show host and politician. Sharpton is the founder of the National Action Network. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election. He hosts his own radio talk show, Keepin' It Real, and he makes regular guest appearances on cable news television. In 2011, he was named the host of MSNBC's PoliticsNation, a nightly talk show. In 2015, the program was shifted to Sunday mornings.
