Wednesday, March 14, 2012

This is interesting...

Glenn Greenwald claims that many prominent persons in national politics have openly conducted business with (and essentially become lobbyists for) a Federally designated terrorist organization -- a crime that is punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment. Many other people have been prosecuted for simply advocating on behalf of such organizations after speaking with representatives on the organization (without taking any money).

In other words, Greenwald claims that these people are above the law. If they are above the law, then there is no law.

As Lee Adama said:
if you are telling me we are throwing out the law, then I am not a captain, you are not a commander, and you are not the president. And I don't owe either of you a damned explanation for anything.

Here's the original report from the CSM. I may just have to subscribe again.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Quote of the day

"Obama is not serving Bush's third term, but Nixon's tenth term."
-Jim Davidson, commenting at Liberal Law

For what it's worth, if you want a clever take on what Nixon's 4th term might have been like, take a gander at the movie "Watchmen"  -- it's not just for comic-book graphic novel geeks.

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

The conservative case against attacking Iran

Public Discourse is a conservative blog that publishes academic-ish essays on various topics. I've sometimes considered taking it off of my blogroll because they do not acknowledge reader responses in any way (neither comments nor trackbacks) and I've found some of their arguments to be just absurd. However, every once in a while they have a gem, and now is one of those times. Here the author applies "Just War" theory to the proposed attacks against Iran. Using this framework, he manages to clearly state the various reasons why attacking Iran is not justified.

Check it out:
Just War and the Iran Crisis « Public Discourse