Democrats to America: Just shut up!

It seems that the administration and some of its allies in Congress simply want you and me to just shut up on certain topics - a range that is sure to be expanded if they get their way.

"Shame on you! Shut up! Just shut up!"

First, Politico reports that the Hillary-headed State Department is coordinating with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation - a cartel of 56 Islamic states - to stifle Americans' rights to talk or write about Islam as they want to.

The State Department began a three-day, closed-door meeting Monday to talk about U.S. free speech rules with representatives from numerous Islamic governments that have lobbied for 12 years to end U.S. citizens’ ability to speak freely about Islam’s history and obligations. ...

The more realistic explanation for the three-day event, [activist Andrea] Lafferty said, is that administration officials, progressives and OIC officials are tacitly cooperating to gradually stigmatize speech that is critical of Islam.

Lafferty pointed to a July statement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in which she said that free speech will be protected, but the U.S. government will “use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor.”

Second: Democrat US Representatives Theodore Deutch, Peter DeFazo, Alcee Hastings, and Jim McDermott, and Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders are introducing resolutions for a Constitutional amendment that would take scissors to the First Amendment. Eugene Volokh explains, also here.

But nothing is new about all this. Consider the administrations new fascination with bullying.

Suddenly bullying in schools, which has been with us for as long as there have been schools, has been elevated to a "crisis." When this happens, people who were not born yesterday look for the agenda. And we find it written in large capital letters, in a scheme to impose "gay-straight alliances" on unwilling Catholic and private Christian schools, and otherwise extend the reach of "LGBT" propaganda into places where it is especially unwelcome.

This political method is itself a ripe example of bullying. Victimhood status is declared on behalf of a favoured group, emotionally-loaded examples of apparent victimizing are publicized, and the "crisis" is declared. Powers are sought by activists on behalf of such victims.

Those who resist their power grab are demonized. This is the way every "progressive" cause is advanced. It works, because no one could want to be publicly tarred.

And so New York Democrats have announced that the First Amendment is a privilege (presumably, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution should now be called, "The Bill of Privileges").

AND YET, PROPONENTS OF A MORE REFINED FIRST AMENDMENT ARGUE THAT THIS FREEDOM SHOULD BE TREATED NOT AS A RIGHT BUT AS A PRIVILEGE – A SPECIAL ENTITLEMENT GRANTED BY THE STATE ON A CONDITIONAL BASIS THAT CAN BE REVOKED IF IT IS EVER ABUSED OR MALTREATED.

(All caps in original)

These processes are all examples of Leftist mind control at work. Remember that Leftism is the ideology that people have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices. And so the Left's fascination and natural affinity with absolutist Islamic governments. They both want to decide what we proles may think and say.

More examples:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/overkill-on-internet-piracy/2011/12/11/gIQA9TK6nO_blog.html

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/198687-internet-piracy-bill-a-free-speech-kill-switch

47 percenters

WE ARE THE 47%: “A recent Gallup poll found that 47% of American households own a gun, up from 41% just a year ago.”

Let's see:

• 47 percent of American households own a firearm
   
• 47 percent of American adults pay no federal income tax at all.

Coincidence?

That figure of 47 percent paying no federal income tax dates from 2009, btw, and is almost certainly at or even over 50 percent now.

Where is the ACLU when you need it?

Officially promoted by the Obama administration!

Heritage's blog, The Foundry: "Obama Couldn’t Wait: His New Christmas Tree Tax"

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).

To pay for the new Federal Christmas tree image improvement and marketing program, the Department of Agriculture imposed a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year (7 CFR 1214.52). And, of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent Federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees

But wait! It's not actually a tax, you see:

Acting Administrator Shipman had the temerity to say the 15-cent mandatory Christmas tree fee “is not a tax nor does it yield revenue for the Federal government” (76 CFR 69102).

The 15 cents, you see, goes to a board, established by the SecAg, that promotes Christmas trees by "carrying out the program established by" the SecAg. No wonder OTB headlines it, "A Christmas Tree Tax? No, Just Good Old Crony Capitalism."

The problem here isn’t that the Federal Government is imposing a “tax” on Christmas trees, but that it’s doing so to finance a program that it shouldn’t be implementing to begin with. The reason that the Christmas Tree growers want a program like this is because natural trees have been steadily losing market share to artificial trees in recent years. ... It’s a choice consumers are making in increasing numbers apparently, and the natural tree industry obviously doesn’t like it.So, they decided to get the government involved in “promoting” natural Christmas trees. ...

Why, then, do we need a government program to promote their sale?

We don’t, of course, and in reality the government shouldn’t be involved in product promotion of any kind. That’s not their job, it’s the job of the industry itself. If tree growers want to create a promotional campaign, then they can do so through their trade association. This simply isn’t something that the government should be doing, especially for a product that is sold primarily in a domestic market. Instead of doing that, though, they lobbied the government to create a program to do it for them.

What we’ve got here, then, is another example of crony capitalism, with the government putting its finger on the scale to benefit the natural tree industry at the presumed expense of the artificial tree industry and, most likely, the taxpayers (that 15 cent a tree fee is unlikely to be enough to fund the program completely). That’s crony capitalism, folks.

This administration hardly originated crony capitalism but Obama et. al. have perfected it to a high art.

However, clearly this program is unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment! As we all know, the government with its partner, the ACLU, has been waging a War on Christmas Trees.

Okay, snark off. Actually, there are all manner of industries that use the government to promote their businesses and this sort of fee is by far from uncommon - as even DefendChristmas.com reports, "Akin to similar programs that promote milk, beef and cotton, the new Christmas tree program will impose on U.S. domestic producers and importers an initial fee of 15 cents per tree." However, it is still accurate to describe the fee as a tax because it is remission of revenue to the federal government by force of law, spent for purposes that are spelled out in law and regulation, carried out by an executive department.

The ACLU's web site is not terribly informative about its stance on Christmas trees per se. It does say that the government must not be in the business of promoting one religion over another or of promoting religion at all.

I hardly think that a program to strengthen the natural-tree growers is an endorsement of Christianity itself.  So no Constitutional line has been crossed. That doesn't mean that the program is wise or desirable. That no one in the government had a second thought about implementing it only shows how deeply rooted these back-scratching programs are in our polity. That's the problem, not 15 cents.

Shut them up, he explained

John Kerry: Media Has "Responsibility" To "Not Give Equal Time" To Tea Party | RealClearPolitics

John Kerry seems to think that not even MSNBC is living up to its presumed responsibility to be the official propaganda organ of the Democrat party.

SEN. JOHN KERRY: "And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely. The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it's exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual."

Well, since the administration's efforts to Alinsky Fox News Channel didn't work, a new tack, I suppose. Just get the media to ignore everyone who doesn't toe the party line.

We've gone from "Shut up he explained" (Ring Lardner, The Young Immigrants, 1920) to "'Shut them up,' he explained" (John Kerry, 2011).

Well, Senator Kerry, I promise to do my part for your call to action. I will not invite someone to post here who "says something which everybody knows is not factual." Sorry, no invitation to you.

You are the problem redux

This would seem to sum it up nicely | For What It’s Worth

In a conference call with reporters, [Energy Secretary Steven] Chu said the more-efficient bulbs required would save consumers money over the life of the product, even if the up-front price is higher.

“We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money,” he said.

And isn’t that what government is for, to take away the choices stupid people would otherwise make? $20 for a single light bulb vs. $0.37 cents, but who knows better than Washington how you should spend your money?

That's what this government is for, yes.This administration embodies a new Puritanism.

I wrote in October of last year (link),

"Progressives" think that the masses are actually eager to be embrace statist control of their lives. The progressive world view is that ordinary people are basically incapable of living rightly. Therefore, they must be managed for their own good, and the more closely the better. Furthermore, they think that the masses agree. But we don't and we won't.

It is critical to realize, though, that "change for thee but not for me" is the motto of the Political Class. That's why the president and his family are not going to be the beneficiaries of Obamacare. Nor will the Congress or its staff. The Political Class is more resistant to change than the rest of the country because they are far more heavily invested in the status quo. They have the power to micromanage us, but their rules for you and me never decrease their wealth or power.

Worth repeating what last year's definition of progressivism by the Denver Post's David Harsanyi. "Progressivism is the belief that we have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices."

Exhibit A: Energy Secretary Chu.

And remember, kids - CFLs are so much simpler to clean up if one breaks! NOT!

Previous You are The Problem posts:

http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2009/01/you-are-problem.html

http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2009/01/you-are-problem-redux.html

http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/2010/06/you-are-still-problem.html

Obama: That's not my arm

The TV series, "Cops," is a reality show in which camera crews follow patrol officer around. A commentator awhile back remarked on the excuses and denials suspects would always give to officers. When questioned by police, potential suspects would offer the most blatant denials of the obvious and protestations of non-involvement, leading the commentator to predict that one day the cops would arrest a drug user with the needle still hanging from his veins, only to hear him claim, "That's not my arm."

And so with President Obama, except it's, "That's not my questionnaire:" Senior White House aide: 1996 Obama gay marriage questionnaire is a fake, even though Obama signed it

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer told the Netroots Nation blog conference this morning that the Barack Obama never filled out the 1996 questionnaire, when he was running for the Illinois legislature, in which he averred that he supports gay marriage. The questionnaire - two questionnaires in fact - have been out there for years - 15 years in fact - and it has caused the President, who now claims to oppose marriage equality for gay couples, a good amount of heartburn as reporters, such as the Blade's Chris Johnson, keep asking the White House it.

This is the first time Obama has tried to question the questionnaires' authenticity. Both are fakes?

Yep, you betcha! Pfeiffer said,

"If you actually go back and look, that questionnaire was actually filled out by someone else, not the President."

Well, not to ask a, you know, stupid question here, but the responses were typed, so just how exactly can we "go back and look" to determine that the paper was "actually filled out by someone else"?

It would be one thing to insist that the signature was not his, that someone else signed it. But that might be real a troublesome door to open. Pfeiffer is not claiming the signature is inauthentic. The query is obvious, except to Pfeiffer: it does not matter who typed the answers because Obama signed it.

The implication of this kerfuffle goes beyond the surface issue. The real issue, which is of critical importance because the signer is the American president, is whether Obama is telling the truth about how his signature wound up below the answers on the questionnaire.

Whether Obama does or doesn't now believe what the record shows he affirmed in 1996 is not the core problem here. The core problem is now about the questionnaire itself: Is the president lying about it?

Right now there is no reason to say he's not. This is entirely a self-inflicted wound. With the economy tanking again, this president's credibility is more vital to him than ever. And yet with this relatively small issue, he shows once again that he simply has not learned the basic lesson of politics:

The Boston Herald finally gets hit by the clue bat

The background is,

The White House Press Office has refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama’s Boston fund-raiser today, in e-mails objecting to the newspaper’s front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed, saying pool reporters are chosen based on whether they cover the news “fairly.”

And the White House thinks that the BoHerald does not cover the news "fairly,' which is to say, the Herald is not sufficiently adulatory in its Obama coverage.

So the Herald has awakened to the fact that this president has an enemies list and they are at the top of the "media" section.

Boston Herald, welcome to the official “Enemies List!”

No, my Herald colleagues, you aren’t the first journalists to feel the wrath of President Richard Milhaus Obama. And you won’t be the last.

Giving a reporter the boot because you don’t like the Herald’s coverage — classic Obama, says David Freddoso, author of the book “Gangster Government,” who reminded me that during the 2010 campaign, the president promised that “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends.”

Well, welcome to August 2009: "The Obama Enemies List." But don't worry - once the pro-free-press liberal activists understand the situation, their protests will surely blow the roof off! yes, we are waiting!

Admiral Yamamoto and the Justification of Targeted Killing

The Volokh Conspiracy » Admiral Yamamoto and the Justification of Targeted Killing

Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University’s School of Law, echoed Greenberg’s argument that “targeting individual enemy combatants in war is perfectly legal and moral”.

Somin points at US targeting of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander of the Japanese fleet during World War II, and the British and the Czechs’ killing of German SS General Reinhard Heydrick [sic] in 1942, as precedents.

“Surely international law does not give terrorist leaders greater protection than that enjoyed by uniformed soldiers such as Admiral Yamamoto.”

“And if it is legal to individually target the commander of a uniformed military force, it is surely equally legal to target the leader of a terrorist organisation, including Osama bin Laden,” he told Al Jazeera.

I made the same point commenting on another Volokh post by Kenneth Anderson on May 6.

By any standard, OBL was commanding officer of al Qaeda. Why was it okay for the president to order the assassination of Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto in 1943, but not of Osama bin laden in 2011? Is it just that Yamamoto wore a uniform and OBL did not?

Related to the claims, such as the UN's, that the bin Laden raid was of dubious legality if not outright illegality, just consider that the SEALs' could not be less legal than a domestic no-knock raid. These are frequently lethal.

Dressed in black and carrying assault rifles, members of a local multi-jurisdiction police unit burst into a dark home in Ogden, Utah, one night in September shouting, "Police! Search warrant!" ...

A video of the incident made by the Weber-Morgan counties Narcotics Strike Force and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency shows a man suddenly appearing in a hallway holding a shiny object that an officer thought was a sword, but was really a golf club, according to Weber County Attorney Dee Smith.
In the instant he appeared, the video shows, three shots rang out and the man, Todd Blair, 45, fell to the floor, dead. ...

[Police] Sgt. Troy Burnett was found to have handled the situation appropriately, Smith says. "This was a split-second decision. He acted according to his training."

And now the Indiana Supreme Court has ruled thus:

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer’s entry.

So how can it possibly be legal for a police officer to break down the door to your home and shoot you dead for practicing your putting on your carpet, but not be legal to attack and kill an enenmy combatant (and an unlawful enemy combatant at that)?

Libya: Mission accomplished?

Many commentators have said that intervention in Libya now is too little, too late (or maybe too much, too late). The presumptive purpose of the campaign is to protect civilian lives against Qaddafi's predations. President Obama said yesterday,

Our military action is in support of a international mandate from the Security Council that specifically focuses on the humanitarian threat posed by Colonel Qaddafi to his people. ...

And in the face of that, the international community rallied and said we have to stop any potential atrocities inside of Libya, and provided a broad mandate to accomplish that specific task. As part of that international coalition, I authorized the United States military to work with our international partners to fulfill that mandate. ...

But when it comes to our military action, we are doing so in support of U.N. Security Resolution 1973, that specifically talks about humanitarian efforts. And we are going to make sure that we stick to that mandate.

[Question about Arab support]

Well, look, the Arab League specifically called for a no-fly zone before we went to the United Nations. And that was I think an important element in this overall campaign. ...

I think it’s also important to note that the way that the U.S. took leadership and managed this process ensures international legitimacy and ensures that our partners, members of the international coalition are bearing the burden of following through on the mission, as well.

Do you see a pattern here? It is that the employment of the American military must have prior international approval. Let's take a look at the timeline. Calls for a no-fly zone began in February. British Prime Minister David Cameron directed his general staff to start working it out before the end of that month.

March 12 -- the Arab League calls on the UN to establish a no-fly zone

March 14 -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton goes in Paris for intervention talks and then returns the the US.

March 15 -- A meeting of the G8's foreign ministers turns aside from endorsing intervention.

March 16 -- Qaddafi's forces are at the brink of taking Benghazi

March 17 -- The UN Security Council passes Resolution 1973 that calls upon member states to use "all necessary measures" (read, military power) to protect civilians.

March 19 -- Secretary Clinton again is in Paris for resuming the talks. Initially she is non-committal, reflecting a vacuum of leadership in the White House. Yet by the end of the morning, she noted that Arab leaders had "changed the landscape" of the situation by calling more clearly and urgently for intervention. She also said that the Arab Gulf states were "critical to the international community’s efforts on Libya." It is widely reported that she and America's UN ambassador, Susan Rice, together brought President Obama into concurrence.

March 19 -- France initiates air strikes against Qaddafi's army near Benghazi.

What seems to be the bottom line? First, the administration has repeatedly emphasized that American military strikes are authorized by the UN and the Arab League. That only the US Congress can authorize war against Libya seems to be of no concern to the president.

This administration, including Ms. Clinton, has placed American military employment subservient to the United Nations and, most particularly, the Gulf States. Although some US critics have called the Libya intervention a "cowboy" action no different from the (presumed) cowboy actions of G.W. Bush, it's more than obvious that Obama does not see it that way.

Community organizer that he is at heart, this president believes that only the "international community" (of which there is no such thing, but let that pass) can authenticate or authorize military actions by the United States. Since in this case the target is an Arab country, the endorsement of the Persian Gulf states was required. Since the Congress represents neither the "international community" nor the Arab states, then not only is Congress's authorization not needed, it would actually be counter-productive by maintaining the unjust position that America's national self-interest is predominant. This compulsion to subordinate US military operations to the "international community" also explains why the president has vowed to hand operational control of American forces over to a European authority (just who is yet to be determined).

By at least conceptually placing America's interests and the use of its military second or third to the "international community's," Secretary Clinton and President Obama likely believe that their main purpose in this intervention has already been accomplished, no matter the outcome on the ground in Libya.

Update: See also, "Understanding Obama: His One-World View and Foreign Policy."

Democrat Lawmakers: Impeach Obama over Libya

I noted in my reading (but not blogging) American Thinker's essay, "Libya and the Left's Sickening Hypocrisy on the Use of Military Force," by Michael Filozof.

President Obama has just committed American forces to engage in acts of war against Moammar Qaddafi. Where are the protesters? Where are the accusations that Obama is a liar and a Nazi? Where are the groups of "artists" wishing death upon the "warmonger" Obama? Where are the cries for Obama's impeachment? There aren't any, and there won't be any, either.

Werll, Michael is wrong. There are some leftists true to their principles (even if I think they have lousy principles): "Liberal Democrats in uproar over Libya action."

A hard-core group of liberal House Democrats is questioning the constitutionality of U.S. missile strikes against Libya, with one lawmaker raising the prospect of impeachment during a Democratic Caucus conference call on Saturday.

Reps. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Donna Edwards (Md.), Mike Capuano (Mass.), Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Rob Andrews (N.J.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Barbara Lee (Calif.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.) “all strongly raised objections to the constitutionality of the president’s actions” during that call, said two Democratic lawmakers who took part.

Kucinich, who wanted to bring impeachment articles against both former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over Iraq — only to be blocked by his own leadership — asked why the U.S. missile strikes aren’t impeachable offenses. ...

“They consulted the Arab League. They consulted the United Nations. They did not consult the United States Congress,” one Democrat lawmaker said of the White House.

It's an excellent point. My first post after UNSCR 1973 was that for President Obama to attack Libya would be an illegal war.

By any reasonable historical standard, in theory and in practice, any nation that carries out military actions in accordance with UNSCR 1973 is waging war upon Libya, or minimally against the Qaddafi-led part of Libya. ...

The United Nations has no authority to authorize any kind of use of United States forces. As a matter of legality, this resolution is worth less than the paper it is printed on. At best, it offers political cover only. But the UNSCR has no legal authority regarding employment of US forces.

What I want to know is this: Where is the United States Congress on waging war against Libya?

Only the Congress has the authority to declare [or authorize] war by the United States against Libya.

But doesn't the War Powers Act of 1973 grant the president the authority to conduct military operations for up to 60 days without prior Congressional approval? Yes, but the circumstances are very limited. The Act requires that the operations must be to respond to an actual attack by a foreign power or a serious, imminent threat. Otherwise, no can do. Libya meets neither test.

Since 1973, presidents of both parties have honored the War Powers Act only in the breach, following it in intent though not in letter. Serious Constitutional questions about the Act were raised by scholars and historians almost as soon as it became law, although there has never been a challenge in court.

Clearly though, Congress's intention in the Act is clear: non-emergency employment of the US military requires prior Congressional authorization - and the emergency concerned must directly be of US lives and territory. But as I explained earlier, Libya is a war "bereft of actual US national strategic interests."

Should President Obama be impeached over his usurpation of powers? Rep. Kucinich garnered no support for his inquiry, so it's not going to happen. Nor do I think that articles of impeachment should be drawn by the House. As I wrote before, the increasingly imperial executive is a trend that far predates Obama's inauguration.

Nonetheless, it is past time for the Congress to man up. Democrats and Republicans should jointly sponsor and pass, by veto-proof margin, legislationUthat writes into law at least the following:

1. No resolution by the united Nations or any other extra-national or foreign entity is of legal force superior to the US Constitution. Such an entity may not authorize the employment of US military combat power. Only the US Congress may authorize combat operations of US forces absent actual or imminent attack against American lives or territory.

2. Regarding Libya, the law should require explicitly that the president actually report to the Congress as a whole the justification for attacking Libya and actually request the Congress to authorize the attacks. If both of these are not accomplished by (insert deadline), then by law combat actions must cease by the expiration of that same deadline.

I am drawing a distinction between actually attacking Libya and supporting allied countries that are also doing so. I don't care what their internal procedures are for making war against Libya. I care about the requirements of the American republic. I see no Constitutional problem with the president ordering our military to provide logistics and other kinds of non-combat support.

I have not changed my position that the Libya war is one the United States should not be fighting in the first place. If the Congress decides to grow a spine then I think the wisdom of the war would have to be debated. That is exactly what no one is doing now.

Libya: You say you got a resolution ...

... well, you know, we'd all love to see the plan.

A rebel fighter shot down near Benghazi

French fighter jets are already flying over Libya.

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- French fighter jets soared over Libya on Saturday to counter Moammar Gadhafi's military forces who were intent on destroying the opposition as they pushed into the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

"Our air force will oppose any aggression by Colonel Gadhafi against the population of Benghazi," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking after an international, top-level meeting in Paris over the Libyan crisis.

"As of now, our aircraft are preventing planes from attacking the town," he said. "As of now, our aircraft are prepared to intervene against tanks."

I am perfectly content to let France and the other Euros take the lead here. I'd be more than happy if the US role never included actual, direct military action and was limited to logistic, intelligence and transportation support. It's the Euros who've been propping Qaddafi up all these many years, France in particular. So they can have it.

A FoxNews crew near Benghazi took this video of a rebel jet shot down by mistake by rebel ground fire:



Meanwhile, back in Washington,

After two weeks of playing down the prospect of military intervention in Libya, the Obama administration is on the brink of inserting itself into a third war in a Muslim nation — something the president, who has spent the first half of his term mending America’s relationship with Islam, had hoped to avoid.

The administration’s shift from skepticism to support for military intervention in Libya occurred over a frenetic week of war and diplomacy in Washington and Paris, at the United Nations and inside Libya, where facts on the ground changed swiftly.

However, we have not been told from the administration whether the president's "support for military intervention" includes direct action by US forces.

Having already addressed the fact that any direct-combat employment of US forces against Qaddafi woiuld be illegal absent Congressional authorization, I will here stipulate that the president will go forward with military intervention, approved by Congress or not. And my question for today is simply this: What's the plan?

I don't mean the military operations plan. I mean a comprehensive statement of national strategic objectives and rationale for the intervention, presented to the American people, that explains just what we are trying to do and why.

I frankly don't think that anyone in the administration, from the president on down, has the slightest idea what that could be in any more detail than, "Stop Qaddafi from killing the revolutionaries." But that's not a plan. It's not even a decent objective.

ABC News reported yesterday that in 2007 (while opposing President Bush's "surge" in Iraq), then-Senator Obama said,

"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

Before a single US plane flies over Libya, the president must explain to the American people the following at a minimum:

1. What is Qaddafi's "actual or imminent threat" to America that justifies combat deployment of US forces on presidential order alone?

2. Absent such threat, what is his legal authority to send US forces into combat without prior Congressional approval? (Congressional approval, or not, may yet be forthcoming.)

3. What is the primary strategic objective that the United States will achieve through military forces that cannot be obtained otherwise?

4. What is the moral imperative that justifies killing and being killed?

5. Apart from opposing Qaddafi, what exactly makes the Libyan revolutionaries worth the expenditure of American lives and treasure?

6. The president is on record as saying that Qaddafi must not remain in power. Does that mean that regime change is a US objective and if so, will US military power be used to achieve it?

7. If not, will a partition of Libya into territories controlled by Qaddafi and the revolutionaries be acceptable, and if so, why?

8. What influence do you expect to have over the political nature of a potential revolutionary government?

9. What are the conditions of success in Libya? What must happen before American combat forces are withdrawn? In other words, how will you know when you've won?

About the moral imperative for war. If no one in the administration can explain what America is trying to do within the context of Just War Theory, which demands specifically to delineate the just cause of war, the just conduct of war and the just ending of war, then there is no justification at all.

If there is a moral imperative to intervene in Libya, presumably to stop Qaddafi's attacks against Libyan civilians, then inquiring minds want to know why this imperatives rules for Libya here when President Obama specifically rejected the very same imperative in warring against Iraq in 2003.

My position hasn't changed. To paraphrase what Bismarck said about the Balkans in 1888, "The whole of Libya is not worth the bones of a single American pilot." It is a war that only a liberal could love, one bereft of actual US national strategic interests.

Update: An obscure report that so far, the president will not send US forces into direct combat except for launching cruise missiles from offshore vessels: "... the US contribution will be logistics and support, including refueling and intelligence, but not represent the pointed end of the spear."

If this is so and remains so, then the president should be commended. But this administration's public communications are the worst in decades, and we the people deserve to know whether this report is true. Why are we still waiting?

Update: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, answering questions in Paris:

Is the goal to protect civilians or to remove Qaddafi from power? Clinton adamantly says it is to protect civilians.

Could Qadadfi remain in power? "Those are all questions that standing here are difficult to answer."

She did rule out use of American ground troops.

Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy - the makings of a quagmire.

Related:

Libya intervention will justify Iraq war

Cameron: shut down Libya's air force

The Illegal Libya War

The Illegal Libya War

The UN Security Council cannot authorize the use of the American military - only the Congress can

So the UNSC has authorized member states to use military forces to enforce the terms of UNSC Resolution 1973 (text here).

By any reasonable historical standard, in theory and in practice, any nation that carries out military actions in accordance with UNSCR 1973 is waging war upon Libya, or minimally against the Qaddafi-led part of Libya.

In addition to imposing the long-discussed "no fly zone," the resolution authorizes member states "to take all necessary measures ... to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack." This is so open ended that it means that any military action against Qaddafi is authorized, including landing the entire 2nd Marine Division on the shores of Tripoli.

Despite the way the commentati (and I, above) say that resolution "authorizes" the use of military forces against Qaddafi, in fact the UNSC has "authorized" nothing at all. The United Nations has no authority to authorize any kind of use of United States forces. As a matter of legality, this resolution is worth less than the paper it is printed on. At best, it offers political cover only. But the UNSCR has no legal authority regarding employment of US forces.

What I want to know is this: Where is the United States Congress on waging war against Libya?

Only the Congress has the authority to declare war by the United States against Libya. And don't try the old dodge that use of US forces against Qaddafi is somehow not a war. It won't be a "police action," as Truman characterized his illegal war in Korea (36,500 US dead). Even LBJ had the weak cover the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, but the Congress failed to carry out its Constitutional responsibilities in the ensuing years, so 58,151 Americans lost their lives in the Vietnam War.

I am not ignoring that US presidents have ordered many military expeditions with no prior Congressional authorization - in some cases not even Congressional knowledge. President G.H.W Bush ordered a sizable force into Panama in 1989 (lived history for me) with no express Congressional authorization, but the proximate cause was the killing of an American officer by Panamanian troops plus other acts of violence against Americans, including American civilians. And the action lasted only about four days.

This same President Bush did gain explicit Congressional authorization for war against Iraq before ordering the military to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991. In 2001, President G.W. Bush gained Congressional authorization for attacking both Afghanistan that year and invading Iraq in 2003. Some of Bush's opponents claimed that the Congress has never actually "declared war" against Iraq, even bringing suit in federal court. The court rejected the suit altogether, holding that the Constitution doesn't specify how the Congress must declare war and that if the Congress authorizes the use of military force, the Constitution's requirement has been met. As then-Senator Joe Biden said at the time, the Congress has declared war whenever the Congress thinks it has. And he added that clearly it had declared war against Iraq even though the Congressional resolution did not use those words (see here).

Belatedly, some Congressional leaders are awakening to the fact the President Obama seems to think the UNSC has given him all the authorization he needs to start bombing Libya. And the Weekly Standard asks, "Does Obama Think His Oath Is to the United Nations?"

After weeks of failing to provide even strong rhetorical support for the uprising in Libya — an uprising in pursuit of liberty and against a United States adversary — President Obama has now apparently decided that he has sufficient international authorization to act. This begs two questions: Where is Congress on Libya? And does President Obama think he took an oath to the United States Constitution, or to the United Nations Charter?

Obama said today that the United States has moved “swiftly” on Libya (one would hate to see “not swiftly”) and that the United Nations Security Council has now authorized military action. Obama seems to view such U.N. authorization as both necessary and sufficient. In truth, however, it is neither.

In 2007, then-Senator Obama said,

"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

Two questions:

1. Will President Obama live up to his own words?

2. Will Congress do its duty and authorize (or not) the use of force against Qaddafi, or will it defer once again to an increasingly imperial executive (a trend that far predates Obama's inauguration)?

I predict no on the former and same-old, same-old on the latter.

Buy insurance, buy a gun

What is the difference between the government requiring you to buy (a) health-care insurance and (b) a firearm?

Well, none.

Update: Law Prof. Glenn Reynolds says that as a matter of fact, the government does have Constitutional authority to require you to own a firearm.

Federal judge voids entire Obamacare law

A federal judge has declared 100 percent of Obamacare is unconstitutional, based on his key ruling that the the individual mandate, requiring persons to purchase healthcare insurance, is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, ruled that the reform law's so-called "individual mandate" went too far in requiring that Americans start buying health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty.

"Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications," Vinson wrote.

What matters most here is that the mandate is "not severable," which is proof (if any were needed) of how badly written the act is. As I wrote in November,

Severability clauses are common in public laws and contracts. The clause specifies that if a section of the bill or contract is found to be invalid, then only the affected section is stricken. The rest of the bill or contract remains in force.

There is no "severability" clause in the Obamacare bill.

What that omission means is that Judge Vinson had the discretion on whether to strike down part of the law or all of it. He chose the latter, and bully good for him. Last month, a federal judge in Virginia also struck down the individual mandate, but did not invoke the law's lack of a severability clause to invalidate the whole act.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: OK to kill babies, but repealing Obamacare is murder

Jared Loughner killed six people this month and the leftwing media (but I repeat myself) were all over how he must have been inspired by rightwing rhetoric. Even after his friends told police that Loughner didn't even listen to radio or pay much attention to politics, the media would not surrender their preset narrative.

So how will Paul Krugman, Daily Kos, et. al., react to this: "West Philadelphia abortion doctor killed 7 babies with scissors."

WEST PHILADELPHIA - January 19, 2011 (WPVI) -- A doctor who gave abortions to minorities, immigrants and poor women in a "house of horrors" clinic was charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of a patient and seven babies who were born alive and then killed with scissors, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could, prosecutors said. State regulators ignored complaints about him and failed to inspect his clinic since 1993, but no charges were warranted against them given time limits and existing law, District Attorney Seth Williams said. Nine of Gosnell's employees also were charged.

Gosnell "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord," Williams said.

I think that the media's investigative reporting should include Dr. Gosnell's party affiliation (if any), what radio shows he listens to and what his reading preferences are. After all, if those things were fair game for one killer, they must be fair game for this one.

Okay, this is sarcasm on my part, but only partly. Hypocrisy might be "the tribute that vice pays to virtue," but the hypocrisy of the Left isn't run of the mill stuff. The Left denies virtue of any position but its own. Not even open self-contradictions bother Leftists, for reasons I explained here.

How ironic that on the day charges against the accused abortionist serial killer were announced, Democrat U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee arose in the House chamber to accuse Republicans of wanting to kill countless Americans by repealing Obamacare. View all, but the key points come starting about 2:30 in:

"Frankly, I would just say to you, this is about saving lives. Jobs are very important; we created jobs. But even the title of their legislation, H.R. 2, 'job killing' — this is killing Americans if we take this away, if we repeal this bill [italics added].

Rep. Lee, D.-Texas, also claimed that repealing healthcare violates the rights of the people under Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments because repeal would deny the people due process of law and equal protection under the law. Hence, she said, to repeal Obamacare would itself be unconstitutional. No, really, she said that.

What does all this have to do with abortion? Abortion is the glass house that Sheila Jackson Lee, D.-Texas,  lives in even as she throws stones at Republicans. What exactly is Rep. Lee's record on abortion? Thanks to OnTheIssues.org, we know. (My excerpt here is far from the complete record, boldface is original.)

Voted NO on restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions.

Voted NO on making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime.

Voted NO on banning partial-birth abortion except to save mother’s life.

Voted NO on funding for health providers who don't provide abortion info.

Voted NO on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad.

Voted NO on federal crime to harm fetus while committing other crimes.

Voted NO on banning partial-birth abortions.

Rated 100% by NARAL, indicating a pro-choice voting record.

So I would like to ask Rep. Lee, D.-Texas, these questions:

If Dr. Gosnell actually did what he is accused of, did he do anything morally wrong when he (allegedly) performed abortions later than 24 weeks, in contravention of state law?

Do you think there should be any legal impediment on abortion after 24 weeks, or for that matter, at any time during the entire term of woman's pregnancy?

Can you offer a coherent argument of how an aborted baby benefits from equal protection and due process while losing its life, while repealing Obamacare deprives people of the same?

Can you defend your explicit accusation that Republicans don't care whether Americans die while also defending your 100-percent voting record in support of ending the lives of millions of unborn children (30 million-plus since Roe v. Wade)?

And in reply, no doubt, the sound of crickets chirping.

But don't worry. The Dems can always fall back on accusing the Republicans of Nazism.

Update: Rep. Lee should consider the racism of legalized abortion. The Rev. Dr. Edwin King, a white Methodist clergyman instrumental in the civil rights movement in Mississippi, was a chaplain at Tougaloo College near Jackson, Miss., in the early 1960s. He worked to convince white pastors in the area to issue a statement against racial segregation.

Denied membership in the Mississippi Conference of the UMC by its other white clergy, Rev. kinf joined the almost-wholly black Central Jurisdiction. In 2002, Rev. King, now a professor of Sociology and Medical Ethics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center — spoke about legalized abortion’s negative impact on black Americans.

Today in Mississippi, two thirds to seventy five percent of the abortions are done for black children in the womb. In America in 1995 we had reached the point that black abortions were about thirty eight percent of all abortions in America, almost three times the black population rate, and Hispanic abortions then had approached twelve percent which was close to the Hispanic level, and the Hispanics being predominantly Roman Catholic. In 1995 the majority of the children whose life was snuffed out in the womb were black or Hispanic. Today it is about sixty percent [of] all abortions in America. Is that freedom for somebody or is something else going on? Fannie Lou Hamer was the first person to talk to me after Roe vs. Wade came down and she said, “Rev. King, this is another racial thing, this is the answer to the civil rights movement, they are going to get rid of black babies.” I know you have a variety of opinions on that [italics added].

And, as NARAL's rating of Rep. Lee affirms, she is 100 percent in support of getting "rid of black babies."