Republican Second Guessing on Cotton's Letter

Republican second guessing of Senator Cotton’s letter was in full swing last week.  Some said it should have been addressed to the president instead of the Mad Mullahs.  Many said it wasn’t “helpful.” My view is that both of those positions are bunk.

I don’t think changing who the letter was addressed to would have lessened the liberal screaming.  For it to make any difference, you would have to assume that the left needs a legitimate reason to complain. I believe that's entirely false. They scream in proportion to how much damage is done. Senator Cotton's letter with 46 cosigners was embarrassing because it was entirely accurate in saying that executive agreements can be canceled at will, showed that Obama could never get a treaty through the Senate and was timed just as the administration was making additional concessions to clinch the deal. Just like "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor," our Dear Leader was lying about the binding force of an executive agreement to get a deal, any deal for his legacy. By pointing out that Barry the Brilliant could not really deliver, the letter wrecked the legacy and "Peace in Our Time." The damage was massive, so the response was equally massive. No tailoring of the message would have reduced the Pravda Press retaliation. They threw everything they had at Cotton, including charges of treason, ignorance, stupidity, arrogance and cowardice. All of the fireworks were needed to distract everyone from the basic point that everything in the letter was accurate. You were also not supposed to notice that the letter was posted on a US government web site and was never sent anywhere else. Senator Cotton spoke truth to power. When you do that, power has a tendency to massively retaliate. Sugar coating the offence will not lessen the retaliation.

Addressing the letter to the president would have been racism and disrespect for the First Black President! They would not have written such a letter to a white president! Nobody ever has written such a letter to a white president! It also would have shown mere personal animosity to Obama, with no need to even discuss policy disagreement.

I think the way Cotton did it was better. This way, we got to talk about the Dear Comandante letter to the dictator of Nicaragua in 1984, which was signed by 10 Senate Democrats including John Kerry. We got to mention that there has been only one prosecution under the Logan Act of 1799 and in 1803 they didn't get a conviction. We got to talk about Nancy Pelosi's chat with Bashar al Assad. We didn't have to talk about race. We made the Democrats look hypocritical. We had them accuse a decorated combat veteran of treason. It played very well to our base. John Kerry had to admit everything in the letter is true. My point is either way you're going to take a lot of flak from the Pravda Press. Why bother to over think this. They can only hang you once.

Contrary to the not “helpful” argument, I think the letter was very helpful.  This administration is the most outlaw administration in history.  I was pleasantly surprised that 47 Republican Senators had the guts to sign the letter. Barry the Brilliant and his merry band of outlaws have ignored the Constitution so many times that it's beginning to look like a used Kleenex. Every time the administration circumvents a Constitutional provision, the least we can do is publicly call them on it. The talking heads on TV don’t see a pattern, but I do.  On Obamacare, immigration, EPA regulation, the internet, wilderness designation, recess appointments and other areas too numerous to mention, our Dear Leader has ignored Constitutional and legal processes to rule by decree.  This time, the Pravda Press can make the messengers the story. But repeatedly pointing out that our Dear Leader is violating Constitutional provisions and linking the behaviors together is the only way we can move the argument to where it ought to focus.  We have to force the talking heads to connect the dots. 

If the administration establishes precedent after precedent that the Constitution is a dead letter, we will lose our heritage of limited government and become an elected dictatorship. When the elected dictator decides we no longer need elections, even those will be gone.

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