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As Igor Volsky at Think Progress noted yesterday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) got called out during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing when repeating the NRA's talking points about why background checks for all gun purchases supposedly won't work. It was nice to see someone stand up to Graham and the bullying we've seen from him during these hearings.

Police Chief Embarrasses Lindsey Graham At Gun Hearing:

During a heated exchange at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) proposed assault weapons ban on Wednesday, Edward Flynn pointedly interrupted Graham’s claims that the federal government is failing to deter individuals from misrepresenting themselves in the background check process by failing to prosecute people who were rejected from purchasing a weapon as a result of their false claims.

Flynn argued that rather than embark on a “paper chase,” law enforcement officials are focused on preventing people from purchasing guns illegally, eliciting loud applause from the audience:

GRAHAM: When almost 80,000 people fail a background check and 44 people are prosecuted, what kind of deterrent is that? I mean, the law obviously is not seeing that as important…. We absolutely do nothing to enforce the laws on the books…

FLYNN: Just for the record, from my point of view, the point of a background check…

GRAHAM: How many cases have you made? How many cases have you made?

FLYNN: It doesn’t matter, it’s a paper thing. I want to stop 76,000 people from getting guns illegally. That’s what a background check does. If you think we’re going to do paperwork prosecutions, you’re wrong. [...] We don’t make those cases. We have priorities. We make gun cases. We make 2,000 gun cases a year, senator, that’s our priority. We’re not in a paper chase. We’re trying to prevent the wrong people from buying guns. That’s why we do background checks. If you think I’m going to do a paper chase, then you think I’m going to misuse my resources.

[...] Indeed, the “low number of prosecutions in 2010, the most recent year for which data are available, is consistent with other years” and is often seen as a poor use of resources. Prosecutors must prove that “the person knew they were lying when they tried to purchase the firearm” in order to secure a conviction which “usually carries a maximum sentence of just six months.”

UPDATE: The Rev. Al Sharpton spoke to Chief Flynn following his testimony and got his reaction to the heated exchange he had with Graham during the hearing. Flynn expressed his frustration over his dealings with Graham and I wanted to share at least this short portion of his conversation with Sharpton about the hearing:

FLYNN: And I found extraordinarily frustrating as I sat there... every one of those Senators with Lindsey Graham got up there and said, oh, we respect your work and oh, we're so sorry about the tragedy in Newtown, but, oh by the way, we're not going to do anything about it. Well, that's unacceptable. And you can't help but become a little agitated when somebody engages in a piece of sophistry that says, look over here, nobody prosecuted these people for filling out their paperwork wrong. No, but we've locked up thousands of gun offenders and the paperwork that was done prevented hundreds of thousands of more from getting guns illegally. So the background check worked.

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I'm fairly sure Graham knows that, but as long as he's worried about some TeaBircher giving him a primary challenge, he's going to continue with the sophistry.

From Rep. Kucinich's office during Darrell Issa's Koch Caucus today:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Admits that Stripping Collective Bargaining Rights of Workers “Not a Fiscal Issue” – Does Not Save Taxpayers “Any” Money :

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today scored an admission from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker that his decision to strip the rights of public workers to bargain collectively “doesn’t save any” money for the Wisconsin taxpayers. [...]

“Your proposal would require unions to hold annual votes to continue representing their own members. Can you please explain to me and members of this committee how much money this provision saves for your state budget?” question Kucinich.

After an unresponsive answer by Governor Walker, Kucinich pressed, “Did you answer the questions? How much money does it save, Governor?”

“It doesn’t save any,” admitted Governor Walker.

Kucinich then requested permission to enter into the record a letter from the State of Wisconsin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau (page 3 specifically), a nonpartisan state budget agency that confirmed Governor Walker’s efforts had no effect on the state’s budget.

“The Bureau was asked to identify provisions in the Governor’s bill that are non-fiscal; non-fiscal policy items that have no state fiscal effect. This letter confirms the obvious; that Governor Walker’s effort to repeal the rights of state workers is a non-fiscal policy item. No effect on the state budget shortfall,” said Kucinich.

The Chairman of the Committee then took the highly unusual step of reserving the right to object to the document’s the inclusion in the record.

Kucinich concluded by thanking Governor Walker for clarifying the purpose of his attack on workers’ rights.

“The attack on collective bargaining right is a choice, not a budget issue. ...Governor Walker has inadvertently done a public service …and brought this issue to the forefront.”

After the hearing, Kucinich referred to the letter from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. “My good friend, Chairman Issa, inadvertently exposed the limitations of his key witness, Governor Walker, by refusing to permit into evidence a document that demonstrated that collective bargaining was a non-fiscal issue. Chairman Issa called attention to it and ensured it would get much broader circulation, for which I am very appreciative.”

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Well, you've got to give Republicans credit for one thing. When they decide to attack someone, they stick together on their talking points. It looks like this is where Rep. Scott Garrett got his in the clip above where he's going after Elizabeth Warren during a House oversight hearing on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s priorities in regulating consumer credit.

Ex-Goldman Banker Behind WSJ 'Smear Campaign' Against Elizabeth Warren:

A Wall Street Journal editorial writer who has been closely involved with the paper's recent attacks on Elizabeth Warren is a former Goldman Sachs banker. The same editorial writer, Mary Kissel, is readying another piece critical of Warren and the new consumer agency, according to a source familiar with the coming article.

Like most major newspapers, the Journal does not disclose the authors of its editorials. Kissel recently appeared on the John Batchelor radio show as a representative of the Journal's editorial board do discuss Warren, and repeated the main arguments used in the editorials.

The editorials paint both Warren and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as an immensely powerful, unaccountable organization. The nascent agency is assuming the consumer protection duties currently exercised by regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The author, Mary Kissel, worked for Goldman between 1999 and 2002 as a fixed income research and capital markets specialist. [...]

On Wednesay, Warren testified before a House subcomittee, providing 34 pages of written answers while submitting to two-and-a-half hours of aggressive questioning from congressional Republicans, who deployed talking points similar to those used in the recent Journal editorials.

"There has definitely been an uptick in attacks on her and on the agency over the past few weeks, it's hard to imagine it hasn't been well-coordinated by somebody," said a source close to Warren. "The smear campaign by The Wall Street Journal's editorial board this week includes the most unfactual and outrageous hit pieces on her yet. If it's true that the author of the editorials and Goldman Sachs coordinated on them, they should both be exposed and called to account."

Read on...

It's not surprising to see Republicans go after Elizabeth Warren since she's one of the few out there actually looking out for the little guy as they noted in the rest of the article.

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Rachel Maddow slams the Republicans for making John Ensign their "ethics point man". Their hypocrisy meter is broken Rachel. They have absolutely no capacity to feel shame.

MADDOW: But, first, “One More Thing” about today‘s Senate hearings on Goldman Sachs. There was sort of an amazing moment that happened toward the beginning of today‘s marathon hearings. See if you can spot the irony in this particular line of questioning being pursued by this particular United States senator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ENSIGN: Do you think that the incentives that are set up in firms like Goldman Sachs are the proper incentives to have folks engage in ethical behavior?

SPARKS: Senator, I think Goldman Sachs works hard to engage in ethical behavior.

ENSIGN: I didn‘t say that. Do you think that those incentives are there that lead to ethical behavior?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Imagine what it was like in the Republican cloakroom before this hearing. OK, who‘s really going to go after these guys for ethical behavior? Who‘s going to go after these guys on ethics?

John Ensign, you up for it? John Ensign currently under federal and Senate investigations on ethics charges related to shtooping your employee and your former staffer‘s wife - John Ensign, you want to be our ethics point man here? Hey, David Vitter, you want to see if there‘s a way to go after them on hookers?

From the Senate Democrats:

Goldman Sachs executives were not received with a warm welcome by the members of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. At a hearing to discuss whether or not Goldman defrauded investors, McCaskill had strong words for the four witnesses: "You are the bookie. You are the house. You have less oversight and less regulation as you all began this Wild, Wild West of tranches, waterfalls, residual warehousing...You had less oversight than a pit boss in Las Vegas."

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December 03, 2009 C-SPAN

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November 18, 2009 C-SPAN Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing

Oversight of the U.S. Department of Justice

From Air America's blog--Al Franken Takes On Eric Holder Over Rape Kit Backlogs:

But Franken, staying true to his welcome focus on women's issues, asked Holder what Justice is doing about the immense backlog of untested rape kits, which can often yield DNA evidence that allows the police and prosecutors to close cases. Congress provided money under the Debbie Smith Rape Kit Backlog Reduction Act in 2004 and 2008 to reduce those backlogs, but there is no reliable database of how many rape kits haven't been tested and major backlogs remain in many errors.

And from Sen. Franken--Remarks By Sen. Franken to the Innocence Project:

The work of the Innocence Project has already led to 245 post-conviction DNA exonerations. And in four out of every ten of those exonerated, DNA testing identified the actual perpetrator.

When you consider that you’ve only looked at a small subset of all of the cases out there, the conclusion is pretty clear: there are innocent people in prison and on death row, and guilty people walking the streets.

The former should weigh heavy on our conscience. Both should be a cause for concern… and action.

Some people think efforts to exonerate the wrongly convicted are somehow soft on crime. I think it’s just the opposite – your efforts are not just morally right, they’re tactically smart – they help us ensure that innocent people are not wrongly incarcerated while the actual perpetrators walk free to commit more crimes.

There’s a lot of debate in progressive circles about what has changed under the Obama administration, and what hasn’t. But one thing has certainly changed: We have a government that believes in science once again.

Believing in science means acting on what the science tells you.

So what does the science tell us when it comes to crime?

Well, this February, the National Academy of Sciences released their comprehensive, two-year review of forensic science in use throughout American crime labs.

They concluded, and I’m quoting:

“Many forensic tests… have never been exposed to stringent scientific scrutiny. With the exception of nuclear DNA analysis… no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source.”

I participated in the hearing where those findings were released, and as we questioned witnesses, what became clear is that there have been many false convictions based on improper, or at best ineffective, forensic techniques.

And that tells us we need to reassess how our criminal justice system does business.

Continue reading...

Heather: As Megan Carpenter noted Sen. Franken pressed A.G. Eric Holder about the number of non-violent offenders incarcerated in America every year and stayed true to form with caring about women's issues. Everyone from Minnesota should be very proud to have Al Franken as their Senator with the good work he's doing.

November 18, 2009 C-SPAN

Senator Kyl questions Attorney General Holder on trials of alleged 9/11 plotters.

October 22, 2008 C-SPAN

Financial and credit industry executives testified about credit industry operations, regulatory procedures, and financial mismanagement that influenced credit market turmoil and led to global financial instability. They focused on the role of credit rating agencies, standards for issuing AAA ratings, and the levels of transparency in accounting practices at financial institutions.