Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

White supremacy is terrorism.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Democrats are back in array!

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Republicans don’t trust women.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

You are here: Home / Politics / War on Terror / War on Terror aka GSAVE® / Rules are For Other People

Rules are For Other People

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Oddly enough, Fox news is not screaming about this:

DID former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Tom Ridge, a former homeland security secretary, and Frances Townsend, a former national security adviser, all commit a federal crime last month in Paris when they spoke in support of the Mujahedeen Khalq at a conference organized by the Iranian opposition group’s advocates? Free speech, right? Not necessarily.

The problem is that the United States government has labeled the Mujahedeen Khalq a “foreign terrorist organization,” making it a crime to provide it, directly or indirectly, with any material support. And, according to the Justice Department under Mr. Mukasey himself, as well as under the current attorney general, Eric Holder, material support includes not only cash and other tangible aid, but also speech coordinated with a “foreign terrorist organization” for its benefit. It is therefore a felony, the government has argued, to file an amicus brief on behalf of a “terrorist” group, to engage in public advocacy to challenge a group’s “terrorist” designation or even to encourage peaceful avenues for redress of grievances.

It’s a stupid law, but these clowns would have used it to bludgeon anyone who got in their way while they were in power.

Reader Interactions

42Comments

  1. 1.

    Jay in Oregon

    It is an extremely absurd law.

    Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to see those clowns given a taste of the medicine that they were so willing to feed us, though.

  2. 2.

    beltane

    And this is the same group of clowns who want to try Julian Assange on espionage charges because FREEDOM depends on it.

  3. 3.

    General Stuck

    DID former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Tom Ridge, a former homeland security secretary, and Frances Townsend, a former national security adviser, all commit a federal crime last month in Paris when they spoke in support of the Mujahedeen Khalq at a conference organized by the Iranian opposition group’s advocates? Free speech, right? Not necessarily.

    Well, I guess you can scratch one more topic from the coming Issa witchhunts, along with SestakGate, with the GOP implicated. Now we just need a new congressman wingnut involved in the pilloried US Attorney pol hiring scandal. Oh! waits!!

    A few years ago, Tim Griffin was a key figure in of the biggest scandals in the Bush administration. Democrats said — and the Justice Department Inspector General later concluded — that the Bush White House and Justice Department pushed out U.S. Attorney H.E. “Bud” Cummins III to give Griffin, a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove, a plum spot as interim U.S. attorney that would pad his resume.

    Now Griffin, who was elected to Congress from Arkansas in November, has been named by House Republicans to be a member of the House Judiciary Committee — the very same committee which took a close look at his own role in the scandal that ultimately lead to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

    Wingnuts being wingnuts. Who could have predicted.
    It is almost going to be worth losing the House and gaining a target rich environment to play with. Almost

    If only we can contain firebagger trolling by Cole on his own blog, this might become fun again.

  4. 4.

    bcinaz

    Is it just me, is anyone else having a little issue with the posts here? the entire box quote is in two very long lines – horizontal scroll bar and hidden under the right sidebar ads.

  5. 5.

    New Yorker

    Haven’t these clowns learned enough about the unintended consequences of joining forces with a group with the word “mujahedeen” in its title?

  6. 6.

    ed

    I’m still waiting for the U.S. Government to hunt down and kill, invade and occupy anyone who aided and abetted Convicted Terrorist Eric Rudolph.

  7. 7.

    New Yorker

    Oh, it gets even better. I looked up this group on wikipedia, expecting it to be some sort of Sunni resistance group in Iran (I know there’s been unrest against the Iranian government among Sunnis), but no, it’s a leftist organization in favor of a secular government.

    So, to sum up, clowns like Rudi who claim that Obama is the greatest threat to FREEDOM the US has ever seen because of his leftist, secular agenda are speaking on behalf of a leftist, secular group that engages in terrorism.

    My head a-splode.

  10. 10.

    General Stuck

    @New Yorker:

    The neocons need a new muslim country to blow up and invade, such ideological niceties of left/right must give way to that compulsion. They are prepping the battlefield, like they did with Clinton over Iraq. Pretty soon there will emerge an Iranian Chalibi figure to grease the skids with bullshit for the next republican presnit. I mean Halliburton is in need of a new flock to fleece, and soldiers to electrocute, among other stuff.

  11. 11.

    Mark S.

    But in June, the Supreme Court ruled against us, stating that all such speech could be prohibited, because it might indirectly support the group’s terrorist activity. Chief Justice John Roberts reasoned that a terrorist group might use human rights advocacy training to file harassing claims, that it might use peacemaking assistance as a cover while re-arming itself, and that such speech could contribute to the group’s “legitimacy,” and thus increase its ability to obtain support elsewhere that could be turned to terrorist ends.

    A lot of “mights.” The First Amendment doesn’t seem as robust as it used to be.

  12. 12.

    fasteddie9318

    Isn’t this the same statute under which our fine leaders were itching to toss anybody who’s ever sent aid to Gaza into the slammer after the flotilla raid?

    Fuck it, throw the fucking book at them.

  14. 14.

    Mattminus

    Possible legitimacy is now considered to be a weapon of mass destruction.

    Ipso fatso, the Iraq war was completely justified and the war bloggers are triumphant!

    Wolverines!

  15. 15.

    El Cid

    Also, the 14th Amendment is for other people.

    [Question from legal magazine California Lawyer for Scalia:] In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don’t think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we’ve gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?
    __
    [Fat Tony Scalia:] Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. … But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that’s fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that.
    __
    If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don’t need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box.
    __
    You don’t like the death penalty anymore, that’s fine. You want a right to abortion? There’s nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn’t mean you cannot prohibit it.
    __
    Persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and pass a law. That’s what democracy is all about. It’s not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

    Some silly women ‘lawyers’ (what liberal craziness allowed that?) blathered on some words as if they could be seen as a ‘response’ to the keen, amazing, incredibly deep and sharp legal mind of the Great Antonin Scalia.

    For the record, the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause states: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That would seem to include protection against exactly the kind of discrimination to which Scalia referred.
    __
    Marcia Greenberger, founder and co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, called the justice’s comments “shocking” and said he was essentially saying that if the government sanctions discrimination against women, the judiciary offers no recourse.
    __
    “In these comments, Justice Scalia says if Congress wants to protect laws that prohibit sex discrimination, that’s up to them,” she said. “But what if they want to pass laws that discriminate? Then he says that there’s nothing the court will do to protect women from government-sanctioned discrimination against them.
    __
    And that’s a pretty shocking position to take in 2011. It’s especially shocking in light of the decades of precedents and the numbers of justices who have agreed that there is protection in the 14th Amendment against sex discrimination, and struck down many, many laws in many, many areas on the basis of that protection.”
    __
    Greenberger added that under Scalia’s doctrine, women could be legally barred from juries, paid less by the government, receive fewer benefits in the armed forces, and be excluded from state-run schools — all things that have happened in the past, before their rights to equal protection were enforced.

    If you womenfolk don’t like it, then get your menfolk (because as nonpersons you shouldn’t have the vote anyway, whether or not you’re allowed to waste men’s time commenting on blogs) to vote for a Constitutional Amendment saying that you deserve some sort of rights equal to, well, that didn’t work the first time, but you shouldn’t oughtta let a bunch of librul activist judges throw away settled Confederate law.

  16. 16.

    Dennis SGMM

    This is another instance of the pervasiveness of the Cold War mentality. These guys (Mukasey, et al) seem to be falling for the old “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” line of bullshit. Just how stupid must a person be to support something called the Mujahedeen Khalq after our experience with OBL? If this outreach had been done by four Democrats the howls of outrage would be easily heard atop Mount Everest – as would the demands that the offenders be prosecuted without delay. As things stand, our forward-looking DOJ will ignore the incident.

  17. 17.

    Vor

    I have been re-reading “The Shock Doctrine” and it does explain the fixation on Iran. It is a relatively prosperous and large country, much larger than Iraq. It was secular in the not too distant past. But more importantly, there are a lot of state assets to strip and sell off for profit.

  18. 18.

    Joseph Nobles

    What the fuckity fuck fuck… “nine superannuated judges who have been there too long”????

    Scalia has the most senority of anyone on the Court right now!

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Vor:

    there are a lot of state assets to strip and sell off for profit.

    As you noted, it is a big country with a large population. If we invade, those assets will be blown up by the time Halliburton gets its hands on them. Look at the photos of 1945 Germany sometime.

  20. 20.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Oh you skeptics. The war in Iran will pay for itself. Look at all of the money we made on the one in Iraq.

    If the U.S. goes to war against Iran it will go down in history as the biggest mistake we ever made.

  21. 21.

    Jay S

    @Joseph Nobles:
    Hey, he did say “nine superannuated judges” so that includes him.

    ETA superannuated seems to be generally defined as retired or antiquated. I wonder what he is really trying to say here.

  24. 24.

    And Another Thing...

    So, I wonder how much these orators got paid for showing up at the “conference?” Or maybe Mukasey, Giuliani et al paid for their own flight tickets, hotel suites, etc? Right…..sure…

  25. 25.

    Dr. Psycho

    Sorry to say, it will do us no good to stoop to their level. They have had way too much practice at that game, we could never catch up.

    The best we can do is to take the high road and campaign fro repeal of the law — maybe in the midst of these vermin being prosecuted under it…?

  27. 27.

    Bobby Thomson

    @New Yorker:

    So, to sum up, clowns like Rudi who claim that Obama is the greatest threat to FREEDOM the US has ever seen because of his leftist, secular agenda are speaking on behalf of a leftist, secular group that engages in terrorism.

    Their check cleared. it ain’t more complicated than that. Rudy G. is the biggest whore this side of 8th Avenue.

  28. 28.

    Alex

    Last I heard, we were sheltering hundreds of MEK guerilla fighters in camps in Iraq during the Bush administration’s misrule.

    I wouldn’t want to bet that they’re not still there now. Which might make it kinda hard for the Obama admininstration to prosecute someone for giving aid.

    Of course, the designation of the MEK as a terrorist group occurred when Saddam was paying their bills. Now that we are paying their bills, they have morphed into patriots.

  29. 29.

    Suffern ACE

    @Alex: And yet, their name can’t be removed from the list. You would think that there would be an interest in declaring little victories in our war on terror by making the list shorter from time to time.

  30. 30.

    Mark S.

    @El Cid:

    Hey Scalia, the Constitution doesn’t exactly say anything about the right of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, does it?

  31. 31.

    GMF

    Look – it’s not like Rudy is the Dixie Chicks or anything…I can’t imagine why you’d want to eat your liver over this.

  32. 32.

    Caz

    So Cole, let me get this straight…

    You’re pissed because of a hypothetical argument these guys would have made if the roles were reversed, even though you don’t have a problem with what they did and apparently no one else really does either?

    What is your basis for alleging what they would have said in this hypothetical situation? Have they said anything or acted a particular way in the past on the same or similar issue?

    It’s a bit like being pissed at someone for something they did to you in your dream the night before.

    How about commenting on actual actions or words rather than on how you think they would act were a hypothetical situation the reality, notwithstanding that you don’t think what they did was wrong anyway. Surely, there is enough reality out there to comment on.

    As for Fox News not covering it, I suppose they are too busy keeping on top of real occurrences to worry about how someone might react in a situation that has not actually transpired.

    The real issue you should be addressing is whether they provided support to a terrorist organization, and if so, are these people really American patriots who support our war on terrorism, or are they terrorist sympathizers simply masquerading as patriots. Even then, the answer is clearly that they are patriots, so this whole thing is a non-issue.

  33. 33.

    Walker

    @Caz:

    Even then, the answer is clearly that they are patriots, so this whole thing is a non-issue.

    Because we all know that the rule of law does not apply to Patriots(TM).

  34. 34.

    Caz

    @ Walker

    Do you think they should be prosecuted or punished for this?

    The law applies to everyone, but applying it blindly is almost as bad as not applying it all. To wit: Brian Aitken, NJ, convicted felon.

  35. 35.

    General Stuck

    @Caz:

    Do you think they should be prosecuted or punished for this?

    Do you think George Bush should be prosecuted for waterboarding terrorist suspects, like we did the Japanese after WW2 for doing the exact same thing, and what about Bush’s admission he personally approved all waterboarding, including the 183 times for KSM, well above the limits set by his own clown attorneys?

  36. 36.

    Caz

    Gen. Stuck,

    Your George Bush retort has absolutely no connection to the question I asked or the issue being discussed here. Is there some analogy here that I’m missing?

    Anyway, how is torturing a terrorist even remotely analogous to speaking in support of one?

    Personally, I don’t have a problem with torturing terrorists or enemy combatants, particulary if its goal is gaining information that could help save American lives.

    So, no, I don’t think GW should be punished for that. Likewise, I don’t think these guys should be punished for their speeches (not that the two are even close to the same thing).

    In summary, I don’t see your point at all.

  37. 37.

    burnspbesq

    @Mark S.:

    Hey Scalia, the Constitution doesn’t exactly say anything about the right of corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, does it?

    Actually, it does. It’s the part that begins “Congress shall make no law …” The fallout fromCitizens United is le suck, but the case was correctly decided.

  38. 38.

    Dollared

    Burnspesq,

    I hope you didn’t try that to float taht assertion in Con Law. Citizens United overturned decades of settled precedent. In other words, it was incorrectly decided, but once the Supremes reverse, there is no recourse.

  39. 39.

    Yutsano

    @Caz:

    Personally, I don’t have a problem with torturing terrorists or enemy combatants, particulary if its goal is gaining information that could help save American lives.

    Apparently you need to read up more on what torture does to a human psychologically. If you think any information given by anyone who is under torture is liable, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Or you’re the reincarnation of Torquemada.

  40. 40.

    notjenna

    It’s a stupid law, but these clowns would have used the current DOJ is using it to bludgeon anyone who gets in their way while they are in power.

    See: Terrorist by Association

    If this ridiculous law is going to be enforced it ought to be enforced equally and the folks in the above piece should have something to say about that.

    The PATRIOT Act… it’s the new COINTELPRO.

    Disclaimer: I’m an Obot (given the alternatives) but gawddamn, it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between the old boss and the new boss!

  41. 41.

    General Stuck

    @Caz:

    Your George Bush retort has absolutely no connection to the question I asked or the issue being discussed here. Is there some analogy here that I’m missing?

    The analogy is an acid test of sorts, performed on GOP trolls to gauge the degree of apologist wingnut for republican lawbreaking. You scored quite high, btw. nearly to supreme sociopath on the right wing entitlement subscale.

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