Israeli vs US leadership

LDB · Mar 6, 2015

Well, leadership and I don't know what to call the other one.

RLENT · Mar 6, 2015

In Bibi's case, you can call him an "Enemy of the United States" ... given that he was involved in nuclear espionage against the US with MILCO ...

You know, espionage is potentially a capital crime that carries the death penalty ...

Ragman · Mar 6, 2015

RLENT said:
You know, espionage is potentially a capital crime that carries the death penalty ...

Of course, the death penalty is a crime against humanity.

<poke>

RLENT · Mar 7, 2015

I wasn't actually advocating it for Bibi - just reminding LDB, who seems to be quite a fan of it ...

witness23 · Mar 9, 2015

LDB said:
Well, leadership and I don't know what to call the other one.

View attachment 10586 View attachment 10585

Simple things amuse simple minds.

Simply showing a right wing wackadoodle a picture of someone or something that they want to see and they immediately equate that with reality.

simple mind = "We won"
reality = "We f'ed that up"

simple mind = "I'm tough and have a big package"
reality = "I'm a chickenhawk and have a small package"

simple mind = "great leader"
reality = "douchebag Communist"

simple mind = "great leader"
reality = "chicken chit leader that uses America any chance he can get"

witness23 · Mar 9, 2015

simple mind = "bad *** leader who is going to join the front lines to battle ISIS"
reality = "i didn't do anything to help against ISIS until one of my own was burned alive, so I decided to take this fake picture to make myself look tough when I'm really not doing much more with my military than before. But don't I look cool?"

RLENT · Mar 10, 2015

Score one for Bibi ...

Probably not the exact outcome he was looking for though ...

Netanyahu's accomplishment: Consolidating support for negotiations with Iran

witness23 · Mar 10, 2015

Rlent's post above about the 47 idiots aligning themselves with the hardliners in Iran, the propaganda photos I posted above and the observation below, it all goes to show the Republicans are willing to use the same politics and propaganda as those that they oppose. These tactics the Republicans and Middle Eastern politicians use work well on those that have a hard time thinking critically.

Link: Reports That Jordan' King Will Personally Join ISIS Airstrikes Based on Old Photos

Reports That Jordan’ King Will Personally Join ISIS Airstrikes Based on Old Photos

Warplanes in Jordan took to the skies on Thursday in retaliatory strikes against Islamic State targets, but rumors that the country’s King Abdullah would join in on military operations appeared to be based on Internet rumors and misconstrued official rhetoric.

The rumor that Abdullah would man a fighter jet to bomb ISIS was reported by FOX news in the United States, and by several media outlets and sources in the Middle East. It was also spread through Twitter and Facebook.
Angry Rhetoric

Jordan’s harsh rhetoric against ISIS, typical of Middle Eastern politics, has been bolstered by the unifying rage expressed throughout much of the Middle East over the murder of the pilot.

That rage morphed into admiration for a hero in King Abdullah on Thursday as reports surfaced that the king planned to personally join in airstrikes. Abdullah does have a military background and is often shown in a military uniform in official photos.

Old Photos

The two photos most widely circulated show the king standing stoically in combat fatigues with a determined expression on his face and one of him in the cockpit of a plane. Despite a strong public reaction in support of the king directly joining in the fight, the photos turned out to be a bit dated.

The photo was originally posted on the king’s official Instagram account in June 2014. The caption reads, “His Majesty King Abdullah II, the Supreme Commander of the Jordan Armed Forces.” The same photo, cropped slightly, was posted on the official Facebook account, with a somewhat misleading caption.

The cropped photo and new caption were posted on February 3, two days before airstrikes began:

“His Majesty King Abdullah II, The Supreme Commander of Jordanian Armed Forces, cuts short his visit to the United States of America after the martyrdom of Muath Al Kasasbeh.”

A second photo of the king in a cockpit of a plane is actually a still from a promotional video about the king’s charity work from October 2014. The video shows the king taking three boys to a hospital for cancer treatment. At about 2 minutes and 11 seconds, Abdullah gives the kids the thumbs up from the cockpit.

RLENT · Mar 10, 2015

witness23 said:
Rlent's post above about the 47 idiots aligning themselves with the hardliners in Iran, the propaganda photos I posted above and the observation below, it all goes to show the Republicans are willing to use the same politics and propaganda as those that they oppose. These tactics the Republicans and Middle Eastern politicians use work well on those that have a hard time thinking critically.

... 47 idiot felons ...

Text of the Logan Act

§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953 (2004).

Further:

In United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936), however, Justice Sutherland wrote in the majority opinion: "[T]he President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. He makes treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude, and Congress itself is powerless to invade it." Sutherland also notes in his opinion the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations report to the Senate of February 15, 1816:

The President is the constitutional representative of the United States with regard to foreign nations. He manages our concerns with foreign nations, and must necessarily be most competent to determine when, how, and upon what subjects negotiation may be urged with the greatest prospect of success. For his conduct, he is responsible to the Constitution.

Click to expand...

Logan Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RLENT · Mar 11, 2015

More hilarity, courtesy of the GOP Senate Clown Car and Follies:

Iran Schools GOP Senators On International Law

WASHINGTON -- After sparking a furor in Washington Monday with a letter signed by fellow Republican senators warning Iran against nuclear diplomacy with the Obama administration, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) went to the extra trouble of having his message translated into Farsi for Iranian leaders. Among his targets: foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Cotton needn't have bothered with the translation. Zarif is more than capable of reading the Republicans' letter in English. He attended prep school in San Francisco, San Francisco State University, Columbia University, and the University of Denver's School of International Studies (where, Zarif told The New Yorker's Robin Wright, a professor who had taught GOP foreign policy icon Condoleezza Rice once quipped to the young Iranian, "In Denver, we produce liberals like Javad Zarif, not conservatives like Condi Rice.")

Zarif, leading his nation's negotiations with the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China, put that education to use in his response Monday to the Republican message, which suggested that Iran's leaders "may not fully understand our constitutional system."

Zarif answered that it was Cotton and the 46 other Republican senators who signed his letter who suffered from a lack of "understanding."

"The authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfil the obligations they undertake with other states and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations," Zarif said, according to Iran's government-controlled Tasnim News Agency.

He suggested that the Republican warning that a successor to President Barack Obama could undo any agreement with Iran was baseless. Zarif said the "change of administration does not in any way relieve the next administration from international obligations undertaken by its predecessor."

Any agreement to limit Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief would likely be endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, Zarif said, as well as the other nations involved in the talks. A State Department official told The Huffington Post in an email that any potential deal with Iran would be a non-binding international agreement -- not the kind of pact Cotton and the GOP senators referenced in their letter.

Zarif noted, as did the State Department official, that many U.S. international agreements, including those that protect the rights of U.S. troops based abroad, are not ratified by the Senate. To the Zarif, that means that even if the deal with his country is not an executive agreement the way Cotton and his GOP colleagues suggested, the senators have undermined other U.S. agreements by suggesting they aren't taken seriously.

Zarif on Monday went even further by using the GOP misstep to seize an advantage that the Obama administration has said it does not want to give Iran: the chance to say the nuclear negotiations could fail because of the U.S.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has entered these negotiations in good faith and with the political will to reach an agreement," Zarif said. "It is imperative for our counterparts to prove similar good faith and political will in order to make an agreement possible.”

As chief nuclear negotiator, Zarif has been in a precarious position as the talks, twice extended, continue. He has been slammed by Iran's hard-liners, most recently over a photo op with Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva in mid-January. That Zarif went for a stroll with Kerry was, according to one influential paramilitary commander in Iran, akin to “trampling on the blood of martyrs."

Monday's letter presented Zarif with a rare opportunity to both look tough on the U.S. for his domestic audience and reasonable to the international community.

It was Cotton who drew flak. The State Department official who emailed The Huffington Post called Cotton's stunt "profoundly contrary to U.S. interests." Obama told reporters he saw the GOP effort as an example of "some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with the hardliners in Iran."

"It's an unusual coalition," the president added.

Neither those comments nor the statements from Zarif seemed to sway Cotton. Appearing on CNN in the late afternoon, the freshman senator told Jake Tapper he simply did not believe there was such a thing as an Iranian leadership that could be negotiated with -- begging the question of why he made such a high-profile and controversial appeal to Tehran in the first place.

"Jake, they're nothing but hard-liners in Iran," Cotton said. "Nothing but hard-line Islamic extremists who have been killing Americans around the world for 35 years."

The Obama administration maintains that diplomacy is the only way to prevent Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons. The administration also has made clear it will pursue any option to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, though it would like to accomplish that through peaceful talks rather than military action.

The next round of negotiations -- apparently the last before a March 24 deadline for a framework agreement -- will reportedly begin on Sunday in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Iran Schools GOP Senators On International Law

cheri1122 · Mar 11, 2015

It will be interesting to watch the lack of meaningful consequences for the Senators' act of treason. Depressing, but interesting.

muttly · Mar 11, 2015

cheri1122 said:
It will be interesting to watch the lack of meaningful consequences for the Senators' act of treason. Depressing, but interesting.

Act of treason? That's funny right there.
Article:
The “tell” is the way the author conflates treason with the Logan Act. They’re separate offenses: One will get you three years in the pen, the other will get you lethal injection. They’re being sloppy about terminology in the petition because they want to use the word “treason,” a term with political resonance that “the Logan Act” lacks. That’s what they’re outraged by — the political, not legal, crime of defying Obama on his big foreign-policy showpiece, despite the fact that the Constitution explicitly empowers the Senate to defy him by granting it veto power over treaties. From war to immigration to health-care reform, the Democratic view of separation of powers ever since Republicans reclaimed the House in 2010 is that Obama has the right to act unilaterally for the common good if the GOP tries to obstruct him. Some lefties are explicit about it. If you hold that view, that Obama has an obligation to work with Congress only to the extent that Congress is willing to do what he wants, then of course you’d see treason here. The Constitution doesn’t apply in cases of partisan gridlock, silly.
In fact, the way Democrats have misread the Logan Act is revealing in how it treats Obama himself as the sum total of the United States government. Steve Vladeck:
The text of the Logan Act makes it a crime for citizens to engage in “any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government . . . with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government . . . in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States.” As Peter explained yesterday, the Senators’ letter certainly seems to fall within this language. But, critically, the citizen must act “without authority of the United States.” Although most assume that means without authority of the Executive Branch, the Logan Act itself does not specify what this term means, and the State Department told Congress in 1975 that “Nothing in section 953 . . . would appear to restrict members of the Congress from engaging in discussions with foreign officials in pursuance of their legislative duties under the Constitution.” That doesn’t mean Members would have immunity under the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause; it just means the statute would arguably not apply in the first place. Combined with the rule of lenity and the constitutional concerns identified below, it seems likely that contemporary and/or future courts would interpret this provision to not apply to such official communications from Congress.
Is Tom Cotton, a duly elected member of the body that’s authorized to approve treaties, acting with the “authority of the United States” when he communicates with a potential treaty partner about its prospects? If you equate “United States” with “U.S. Constitution,” sure. If you equate “United States” with “Barack Obama,” who heads a branch that’s supposed to be no more powerful than Cotton’s, then no. In a country where one party increasingly views the national legislature as a rubber stamp to be sought for political cover (as with the pending Syria AUMF) or a nuisance to be ignored when it challenges the president, go figure that Democrats prefer the second reading.
And the punchline is, Cotton’s “letter” doesn’t matter at all. As even some lefties have admitted, the “letter” was really just a press release reminding everyone that unless Obama comes to the Senate for ratification of his Iran deal, it’ll have no binding authority on his successor. (One potential successor, Scott Walker, made that point himself yesterday.) If he won’t let them vote on the nuke deal, Senate Republicans can at least warn him what that might cost him. And Iran surely understands that already; they’re not going to make a deal with O without having studied the long-term prospects for its survival. Cotton’s not telling the enemy anything that the enemy doesn’t already know. Obama’s approach to a nuclear non-treaty is the same as his approach to amnesty: Even though he can’t legally bind the next president to it, he’s hoping/expecting that the politics of disrupting the status quo will be sufficiently harsh that not even President Walker will dare meddle with the arrangement he’s left. Again: Politics, not law. That’s what 140,000 people want Republicans arrested over. Of all the awful precedents Obama has left, this sentiment may be the most obnoxious.
Petition to have GOP senators jailed for sending letter to Iran draws more than 140,000 signatures « Hot Air

Some perspective:
A brief modern history on Congressional ?treason? « Hot Air

RLENT · Mar 11, 2015

Ooooooo ... 140K signatures ... that's up 50K from early yesterday evening ... lol ...

witness23 · Mar 11, 2015

muttly said:
Act of treason? That's funny right there.
Article:

Petition to have GOP senators jailed for sending letter to Iran draws more than 140,000 signatures « Hot Air

You know what's even funnier? Your "article" is about a petition from Whitehouse.gov's "We the People" petition site, that anyone and I mean anyone can post to get signatures on.

Also, you forgot to add the first paragraph of the article where the author tries to make a big deal about it,

"Ed touched on this in passing earlier but I think we should pause to savor the moment when more than 100,000 Americans join together — on the White House website, no less — "

Yes, let's all pause to savor the moment and at the same time, let's pause and take a look at some of the other open petitions from the White House website no less.

Reverse our nation’s “No Child Left White” policy.

Keep Daylight Saving Time Year-Round!

Quit funding Christian and Jewish “charities” to carry out White Genocide

Not burden the Mark Twain commemorative coin with the phase "In God we trust". Mark Twain was against that phrase.

To take Burmese pythons, Reticulated Pythons, and anacondas off of the Lacey Act.

Turtle · Mar 11, 2015

"A petition on the White House website to arrest the 47 Senators has gathered over 136,000 signatures, in an apparent attempt of the ignorant to publicly self-identify."

It's funny because it's true.

RLENT · Mar 11, 2015

With all his talk of treaties, Ed Morrissey - the author of the article Muffy quotes - misses the larger point: there is no treaty with Iran being pursued - it is simply an executive agreement ... a rather common thing.

Since that agreement will apparently include provisions to lift the sanctions against Iran - assuming they fully comply with their obligations under the agreement - Congress will get it's chance to weigh in - because the sanctions cannot be fully lifted without Congressional approval.

The real truth of the matter however is that many in the GOP want no agreement whatsoever ... preferring war instead.

By demonstrating that the United States potentially cannot be trusted to live by the agreements it's head of government makes, the fanatics from Konservative Kookville have once again shot themselves in the foot.

muttly · Mar 13, 2015

Once again he's going to act without Congress I see.
Article:
The Obama administration used this basic mechanism – political agreement followed by binding U.N. Security Council Resolution – in September 2013 in connection with Syrian Chemical weapons. It is thus easy to imagine the following events with an Iran deal. The Obama administration (as part of the P5+1) negotiates a non-binding agreement in which Iran agrees to curb its nuclear weapons development program for a specified period of time in exchange for the lifting of U.N. sanctions (and probably in exchange for the lifting of U.S. sanctions that exceed what the U.N. requires). The U.N. Security Council then blesses the non-binding agreement in the form of a resolution under Article 41 that not only lifts U.N. sanctions, but also obligates the nations of the world to not impose certain sanctions on Iran as long as it complies with the deal. At that point, depending on the language of the resolution, the United States could have an international legal obligation not to impose sanctions on a compliant Iran. Importantly, such an international legal obligation can persist far beyond President Obama’s term. In other words, by using the Security Council to “legalize” an otherwise non-binding agreement with Iran, President Obama could SKIRT CONGRESS ALTOGETHER(by claiming that his deal with Iran was simply non-binding, thus requiring NO FIRST-BRANCH PARTICIPATION) and then (via the Security Council) create an international legal obligation that would bind the nation (and thus the next President) to the terms of the non-binding deal under international law. Depending on the language of the resolution, President Obama’s successor might be able to fulfill this international legal obligation only by exercising presidential discretion to waive the sanctions. In other words, a Security Council resolution could mean that the next President can reimpose congressional sanctions only by violating international law.

Lawfare ? How a U.N. Security Council Resolution Transforms a Non-Binding Agreement with Iran Into a Binding Obligation Under International Law (Without Any New Senatorial or Congressional Vote)

http://dailysignal.com/2015/03/12/obama-sidestepping-congress-going-un-iran-deal/

RLENT · Mar 13, 2015

Barf,

This may be "new news" to you, but The Executive frequently "acts without Congress" ... it's the way our system of governance - to a certain extent - is designed.

IOW: it's not a bug ... it's a feature ...

RLENT · Mar 13, 2015

BTW - as a political strat, I love it.

It's the functional equivalent of ramming a telephone pole up the keisters of Bibi ... and the entire Obama Derangement Caucus in the Senate ... including the pencil-necked retard from Arkansas ...

And to think: some of our resident "geniuses" actually think Obama is a dummy ...

ROTFLMAO ...