Legal opinions and the killing of Awlaki

Andrew C. McCarthy : War-Power Paranoia "Second, “commander-in-chief” is not the sum total of the Constitution’s presidential endowment. The president is also made sole repository of government’s “executive power.” This, as no less a states’-rights partisan than Thomas Jefferson acknowledged, was a conferral of plenary power over foreign affairs. Moreover, “commander-in-chief” is not, as Mr. Williamson suggests, an honorific that implies only “titular” power. The Supreme Court construed it in 1850 to empower the president to “employ [the armed forces] in the manner he may deem most effectual to harass and conquer and subdue the enemy.” During the Civil War, it held that even in the absence of congressional authorization, the commander-in-chief was not merely authorized but obliged to repel attacks against the U.S. by any necessary force."

 Volokh Conspiracy : Public Legitimacy for Targeted Killing Using Drones  "This will never satisfy the non-governmental advocates or the academics, of course. They have no skin in the game and hence can always hold out for the most extreme position with only an indirect cost in credibility.  In the case of drones, in which even some of the advocates are belatedly realizing that the weapon is indeed more precise and sparing of civilians, ignoring the NGO advocates as profoundly mistaken has spared a human tragedy in collateral damage over the long run." 
Wouldn't you call the killing of Alwaki the same as the killing by police of armed resisters, such as those body-armored, machine-gunning bank robbers in LA some years ago? They didn't get due process either and plenty of limosine liberals howled about that as well. (Also because they had "no skin in the game".)
jihadica: English-Speaking Jihadis Lose Principal Propagandists

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/chipbok

Occupy Wall Street Protesters Call For Totalitarian Government, Re-Election Of Obama

InfoWars via Drudge.   "The ignorance displayed in these interviews knows no bounds. The protesters just don’t get it. They are calling for the government to use force to impose their ideas, all in the name of bringing down corporations who they don’t realize have completely bought off government regulators."....
"The zeal for totalitarian government amongst some of the “protesters” is shocking. One sign being carried around read, “A government is an entity which holds the monopolistic right to initiate force,” which seems a little ironic when protesters complain about being physically assaulted by police in the same breath."

George Soros' sympathy for Wall Street protesters  "Union members are expected to back a large rally planned for Wednesday.

"Last Thursday, the United Federation of Teachers and the Transport Workers Union, which has 38,000 members, pledged support for the protests."  Emphasis added.

From Bookworm Room: How important are the Wall Street protests?  "Don Quixote asked me at lunch today what I thought of the Wall Street Protests. In one way, I think they’re utterly stupid. After all, how seriously can you take people who storm Wall Street with this particular list of demands?",,,
Gotta read 'em to believe it!

Hillary should look to Italy's Foreign Minister for some guts

Andrew G. Bostom  "In contrast to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's rather tepid statement that the "US stands with the international community" in calling "for a government that respects the human rights and freedom of all those living in Iran," Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini offered these morally clear, powerful words about the applicable Western standards of freedom and justice:"...

From the comments to this post:

"Hope springs eternal that Sec. Clinton will..." I'm sorry, but the only way to hope she'll do the right thing is to forget everything you've ever learned about shameless self-aggrandizers, congenital liars, and people for whom the term "moral standard" is a challenge. Also from Mr. Bostom: CAIR's silence on pastor's apostasy death sentence is deafening "The eerie silence regarding Pastor Youcef Nadarkani's looming death sentence for "apostasy" from typically shrill mainstream Muslim advocacy groups such as CAIR and ISNA can only be interpreted as meaning these organizations reject true freedom of conscience, and condone such Sharia-based punishment for the "crime" of "apostasizing" from Islam."

Also here: Italy-NOT The United States- Comes To Iranian Pastor’s Defense

Michael Ledeen: Time to Get Real in Iran and Syria   "This is the right policy for all the good reasons::

–Strategic: Iran is our major enemy and the leading killer of our people;
Moral: Iran visits unspeakable horrors on its own people and wants to export this system worldwide;
–Regional: there is no hope for peace in the Middle East so long as this regime remains in power.

"And so? What the hell are we waiting for? And why is there not a single candidate who will give voice to it?"

On the road...

Tunnel Dweller and wife leave Plano, Texas Monday for Portage, Indiana to visit with our younger son and help him with some demolition and remodelling. Posting will be a bit more sketchy till we return, but we will attempt to make our presence known every day somehow. As always, your visits and comments are most welcome.
TD

Will Mainstream American Islam Condemn Pastor Nadarkhani’s ‘Apostasy’ Death Sentence?

Big Peace  "The quintessence of a contemporary Shiite pronouncement on apostasy in Islam (which cites Khomeini’s treatise extensively) appearing in Kayhan International, March 1986, stated openly"

In Islam, apostasy is a flagrant sin and guilt for which certain punishments have been specified in Shari’a (Islamic law). Apostasy means, to renounce the religion or a religious principle after accepting it. In other words, one’s departure from Islam to atheism is called apostasy. A person who abandons Islam and adopts atheism is called an apostate . . …Apostasy is the escape from the pattern of creation and nature and that is why the word “voluntary” has been adopted for such an apostate…Can the penalty of escaping from the path and pattern of nature and creation be anything other than annihilation? This is the same thing that has been crystallized in the penal code of Islam. The anti-apostasy punishments of Islam are proper laws to rescue mankind from falling into the cesspool of treason, betrayal, and disloyalty and to remind the human being of his ideological commitments.

Youcef Nadarkhani and His Wife Fatemah Pasindedah

Full Story of Youcef Nadarkhani

..."At each hearing he was commanded to recant and each time he refused. Two hearings were held after the verbal determination was made by the judges. There is a serious concern that he could be executed at any time because according to Sharia Law you are to be given three days to recant if you are an apostate. He was commanded to recant three straight days after the judges made their determination. The attorney’s for pastor Youcef are stating that, by law, the written verdict must be delivered within seven days. "....

During one hearing he was told to recant and he responded, “You ask me to recant. Recant means to return. What do you wish me to return to? The blasphemy that I was in before Christ?” The judges responded, “To the religion of your ancestors, Islam.” Youcef replied, “I cannot.”

Eleanor Clift: President Sent ObamaCare to Supreme Court Because He's Afraid He Won't Get Reelected

Newsbusters "Does the Obama-loving Clift think the Supreme Court would be less likely to overturn ObamaCare while its creator was still in office, or does she believe a ruling regardless of the decision would improve the President's reelection chances?
Maybe Clift saw syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer on Fox News's "Special Report" Friday saying that this is a win-win for Obama whichever way the Court rules:

If it is upheld, then it will give something of a boost in public opinion because it will be seen as legitimate. It will help its legitimacy and slightly and at least marginally increase the popularity. If it's struck down, it removes an albatross around Obama's neck. It will be a moot issue.

Is this Clift's thinking?


The comments section also has this: 
"Submitted by bkeyser on Sun, 10/02/2011 - 4:51pm.
"and there's two reasons they're going to the Court now.

1. They were likely to lose on Appeal in the 11th.
2. If this gets dragged out until 2013 and Obama loses in 2012, there will be a Republican-appointed Attorney General who won't defend it. It's either now or never.

Toby Toons picks on Jeneane Garofalo...

... the Tatooed wonder.

"Yes, I know what you are going to say... "Stop giving her attention and she will go away." The problem though, is that she has proven that she will not go away even when ignored. Why would she, she has "Olby" to give her liberal ideas (a.k.a. name calling) a platform."

Shovel Ready

From Bill Pyatt at On The Edge

SHOCKER: Bill Clinton, seemingly preening about himself, takes a devious shot at Obama.

Althouse   This article, "Bill Clinton wants more credit" is topping Drudge under the heading "I want more credit."

But let's see what's really going on here. Midway in the piece, there's this quote:

noseq.com

"I’m telling you this to point out that we need a coherent narrative... The No. 1 rule of effective politics, especially if the people you’re running against have a simple narrative — that government is always the problem, there is no such thing as a good tax or a bad tax cut, there’s no such thing as a good program or a bad program cut, no such thing as a good regulation or a bad deregulation — if you’re going to fight that, your counter has to be rooted in the lives of other people...."

"So... he wants stories and anecdotes, not a countervailing simple message?" More...

Preen Dictionary.com: verb Regularly used when referring to Presidents Clinton and Obama. (And sometimes Bill O'Reilly.)
1. (of animals, especially birds) to trim or dress (feathers, fur, etc.) with the beak or tongue: The peacock preened itself on the lawn.
2. to dress (oneself) carefully or smartly; primp: The king preened himself in his elaborate ceremonial robes.
3. to pride (oneself) on an achievement, personal quality, etc.: He preened himself on having been graduated with honors.

Roseanne Barr: Behead Bankers, Rich Who Won't Give Up Wealth

RealClearPolitics  "I first would allow the guilty bankers to pay, you know, the ability to pay back anything over $100 million [of] personal wealth because I believe in a maximum wage of $100 million. And if they are unable to live on that amount of that amount then they should, you know, go to the reeducation camps and if that doesn't help, then being beheaded," Barr said with a straight face."
OK, say this is just schtick and she is just doing a "bit". But you cannot convince me that if some evil dictator actually began performing these executions, Barr would protest the killings and hide the victims from the executioners. Just sayin'. TD

The RT logo behind Max Keiser stands for "Russia Today", the program Keiser appears on. He also appears on an Iranian TV show. Where else would you expect to see Roseanne Barr, famous singer?

The EPA Gets Caught in a Big Fat Lie

Warning Signs  "The notion that the Environmental Protection Agency uses “science” to justify their regulations is false, just like most of the claims they issue on various aspects of the nation’s environment. Their favorite scam is to estimate the number of deaths they will prevent with some new draconian regulation.
"The EPA is the American equivalent of the Gestapo, a ruthless enforcement agency with a very Green agenda that is opposed to the use of many beneficial chemicals, every form of energy, and the right of people to be left alone." ....

"The EPA has been short on the truth about all of its claims for four decades and needs to be shut down in order to let a truly science-based agency replace it with strict congressional oversight and limitations.
"The time is long overdue to pull the plug on the Environmental Protection Agency." Alan Caruba. 

Just a reminder: Obama’s jobs bill still has no cosponsors

Hot Air  "We have a federal system, not a parliamentary system, so our legislature doesn’t take votes of no-confidence to force an executive out of power.  But given the high-profile rollout of the AJA by Obama, including his demand for a joint session to escalate pressure for action, the lack of any co-sponsors on these bills is about as close as we’ll get to a vote of no confidence in this executive short of an outright floor-vote failure in the Senate on the bill."
Not even Kucinich? Bernie Sanders? Maxine Waters?

Obama jobs bill filed in the House ‘at the request of the president,’ but with no cosponsors
"Both versions, H.R. 12 and S. 1549 contain the same language and have no co-sponsors.
"“Members have not been asked to co-sponsor the bill. Instead, members have asked that the GOP leadership bring it up so we can address the need for job creation in this country,” a senior Democratic aide told TheDC. “We weren’t chasing co-sponsors.”’ "  The Daily Caller