Legal Trash Talk: Liberal Reaction to The Letter

There is a lot of legal trash talk this week about “The Letter.”  Liberals called the 47 Republican Senators “Traitors” in big headlines.  The Pravda Press said that the letter was a violation of the Logan Act.  The commentators said the letter violated the Constitution’s allocation of all foreign negotiations to the president.  All of this was hogwash.

Just so everyone is clear on this, the Constitution defines treason:  "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."  I know liberals don't read the Constitution because it reminds them of the Tea Party, but it really helps to occasionally know what you're talking about. 

The Logan act was passed in 1799.  It outlawed negotiations between private parties and foreign governments.  The last and only prosecution under the Logan Act was in 1803.  It did not result in a conviction.  Since the Republican Senators did not negotiate and since they are Senators and not private individuals, the Logan Act doesn’t seem to apply.  Low information voters don’t know any of this, so the smear worked.

Since Barry the Brilliant said he would veto any attempt by Congress to advise him on negotiations with Iran and then consent to any agreement, the person ignoring the Constitution was the president, not the Senate Republicans who wrote the letter.  Treaties are supposed to be made with the advice and consent of the Senate, according to the Constitution, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2.  As with many other things, our Dear Leader is ignoring the Constitution in this regard also.  Since no remedy is specified, 47 Republican Senators chose to help themselves by writing an open letter to the Iranians to remind everybody, the Iranians, the president and the public that agreements which happen without the advice and consent of the Senate are not binding.  If one side is ignoring the Constitution, you can hardly complain when in reaction the other side fails to preserve decorum. 

I think any agreement President Obama signs will have exactly the same binding power on the next administration as the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 has had on the Obama Administration, in other words none.  The Budapest Memorandum, signed by the Clinton administration, guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Ukraine in return for the surrender of 1,800 ex-Soviet nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory. It was signed by the US, UK and Russia. The UK has special forces in the Ukraine right now training Ukrainian forces. Obama sent MREs (meals ready to eat).  According to the German ambassador to the US, Obama told Angela Merkel that the US would not send military aid to the Ukraine. So the US is not helping the Ukraine defend itself from piecemeal annexation by Russia at all.

Liberals seem to go to the Lewis Carroll school of legal interpretation.   I need to quote Mr. Carroll extensively so you understand how this really works.

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

In simpler terms, heads means liberals win, tails means conservatives lose. Liberals are to be the master. There are no laws any more, just liberal interpretations to suit liberal convenience.   The Constitution is to be interpreted out of existence.  It seems the liberal elite prefers a dictatorship of the liberal elite to the rule of law.  The trash talk is just there to justify their actions to the low information voters who don’t know any better.

Liberal Road to Plutocracy and Religious Intolerance

Liberals like to say that Conservative policies will lead to plutocracy and Christian theocracy. Conservatives see the end result of ever more powerful government, which throws the Constitutional checks and balances under the bus, as the surest way to crony capitalism and religious intolerance.

Goldman Sachs, the big Wall Street bank, gives all of its political donations to Democrats because complicated regulations, like Dodd Frank, makes it easier for them to compete against smaller firms. It's called regulatory capture in academic circles. In Chicago, it's known as political clout. A powerful government with heavy regulatory schemes has influence it can sell. This leads to corruption.

The main reason that Evangelical Christians became Conservatives is because they wanted to home school their kids. The authorities tried to make that impossible. It was a religious freedom issue. Most Conservatives are strongly in favor of religious toleration.

It is not religious toleration to force Catholic Nuns to pay for abortions under Obamacare or lose all federal funds for their work helping the poor of all faiths. It is not religious toleration for the City of San Francisco to try to outlaw circumcision for everyone, including Orthodox Jews. It is not religious toleration to force private vendors to bake cakes or take pictures for gay weddings when they have religious objections to them. It is not religious toleration to try to sue them out of business when they refuse.

Before Liberals make stupid assumptions, I go to a Protestant church once a year for Easter. My Grandfather was Jewish, as is my wife. My sister in law is the best thing that ever happened to my little brother. She also happens to be black. I am in favor of gay marriage, as long as it's done by state law, and not a Supreme Court 14th Amendment ruling. I plan to attend a gay wedding this summer.

The difference is that I am willing to tolerate other religious views. Liberals are not.

Obama Suppressed Bin Laden Documents to Help Reelection

The Bin Laden raid on May 2, 2011, yielded “the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever,” according to a senior US military official.  There were 10 hard drive, nearly 100 thumb drives and a dozen cell phones, not to mention DVDs, audio and video tapes and loads of other material.  However, what happened next, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, should really shock you.

 In May, 2012, President Obama said, “The goal that I set—to defeat al Qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuild—is now within our reach.”  This statement was backed by 17 documents that the CIA released which supported the statement.  The Defense Intelligence Agency, our uniformed military intelligence, saw facts on the ground that contradicted this narrative.  So the DIA, asked for access to the Bin Laden documents to resolve the difference between what they saw on the ground and what the CIA publicly was saying.

A small DIA team of analysts got limited, read only, access for a short period of time.  They were not allowed to make any copies.  Their conclusion based on the documents was that Al Qaeda had doubled in size by May, 2012.  Since that wasn’t what the White House wanted to hear, all further DIA access to the Bin Laden documents was shut down and the DIA was orderd to stop further analysis based on the Bin Laden documents.

Recently, more of the Bin Laden documents were released during the public trial of a Bin Laden associate in Brooklyn.  There are now about 24 documents available to the public.  They show negotiation between Al Qaeda and Pakistani Intelligence.  They show cooperation between Al Qaeda and Iran.  They show initial efforts to take advantage of chaos in Libya to build Al Qaeda cells there.

Since the Obama administration is unlikely to make good use of the documents, they should be made public.  Rep. Devin Nunes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, inserted a provision in the 2014 intelligence authorization bill that requires the documents to be released.

The original suppression of DIA access to the Bin Laden documents put party politics over national security.  The Obama administration should not be allowed to continue to promote its own political interests at the cost of the nation’s security. 

Link to Article (subscription required)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/stephen-hayes-and-tomas-joscelyn-how-america-was-misled-on-al-qaedas-demise-1425600796

Senator Cotton Speaks Truth to Power

How dare Senator Cotton speak truth to power!  Just because everything in the letter was completely true is no excuse.  Senator Cotton has interrupted delicate negotiations which were to conclude with an agreement that could never command even a majority in the Senate, let alone a 2/3 vote needed to ratify a treaty.  It was very rude of him and his 46 colleagues to notice that Emperor Barry the Brilliant can't bind the United States to a deal without ratification.  Who does Senator Cotton think he is anyway, a Senator or something? 

I think Conservatives and Liberals differ greatly in our views of the Iranian regime.  When Iranians chant "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," I believe them.  Since 1979, the Mad Mullahs have said they are at war with America.  And they have backed it up with acts of war starting with taking our embassy in 1979 and then continuing with the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983 and the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996.  More recently, Iran was the major supplier of the deadliest IEDs used against US troops in Iraq.  I do not believe for a minute that the Iranian government wants peace.  I believe they want world domination, because that's what they say all the time.

Every Liberal press flack in creation is attacking Senator Tom Cotton personally as a stupid war monger. Senator Cotton has a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Harvard.  He also has a Harvard Law degree.  One of his professors was Elizabeth Warren. His academic record is better that Obama’s, or at least what we know of it.  Cotton is not an ignorant hick.  Tom Cotton is a US Army combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.  He was awarded a Bronze Star for heroism under fire in Afghanistan.  He does not take war lightly.  As a Vietnam Era veteran, I find personal attacks on Senator Cotton's motivation for writing the letter to be extremely offensive.

The letter that everyone is complaining about was entirely accurate.  There were no lies in the letter, as even John Kerry was forced to admit that executive agreements do not have any binding power on future administrations.  The letter inconveniently pointed out that Emperor Barry the Brilliant had no clothes, that he can’t deliver what he was promising the Iranians without a Senate vote.  The timing might not have been what liberals would have preferred, but free speech is valid all the time whether you're a Republican or Democrat, Senator or President.

The agreement in prospect will remove economic sanctions against Iran.  The letter writers want sanctions to continue and actually to get stronger.  I also want the sanctions to be strengthened.  I think the sanctions combined with the current price of oil would be extremely effective.

The fall in the price of oil puts Iran in a very bad position economically.  Oil is at about $55 a barrel.  Iran needs oil at over $100 a barrel to fund all of their terrorism, wars and centrifuges.  They have a huge military and internal security structure which is very expensive.  The have large internal subsidies for food and energy.  The Iranian inflation rate is 30.3% according to the Iran central bank.  They are broke.  Continued sanctions could lead to a much better Iran arms deal.  Continued sanctions might even lead to the collapse of the current regime. 

One way to keep the price of oil low would be to allow American crude oil to be exported.  In the US, existing oil storage tanks are almost completely full.  Right now the difference between West Texas Intermediate, the American benchmark oil price, and Brent Crude, the international price, is about $10 a barrel.  The prices would be roughly the same if the US could sell crude on the international market.  Right now, that’s illegal.  

Signing the current deal as it's described in the press is much more likely to lead to was than continuing the sanctions.  In reaction, Saudi Arabia signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with South Korea.  The Saudis have also made it clear that if they need to, they can purchase nuclear weapons from Pakistan.

The Israelis have no way to attack Iranian centrifuges in the deeply buried concrete bunkers with conventional weapons.  The Israelis would have to use multiple nuclear ground bursts to do the job.  There would be a lot of radioactive dirt thrown into the air.  If the Iranians look like they are about to break out with nuclear weapons, there is a strong possibility of Israeli preemptive attack.

My conclusion is that the deal in prospect is more dangerous than no deal at all.  The letter was a legitimate exercise in free speech by a decorated combat veteran and Senators whose duty to the country was to head off what they saw as a very bad deal by reminding everyone of the obvious.  Without Senate approval, the deal is not binding.

The Letter:

http://www.cotton.senate.gov/sites/default/files/150309%20Cotton%20Open%20Letter%20to%20Iranian%20Leaders.pdf

Iranian Inflation

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/06/08/366072/iran-inflation-rate-falls-by-98/

Oil Storage Full:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-12/oil-storage-squeeze-may-lead-to-another-price-crash