Tuesday
Mar262013
The Commentariat -- March 27, 2013
Obama 2.0. Julie Pace of the AP: "A White House official says President Barack Obama will name Julia Pierson as the first female director of the Secret Service." ...
... Update: David Nakamura & Scott Wilson of the Washington Post have the full story. "The appointment does not require Senate confirmation."
Greg Miller & Julie Tate of the Washington Post: CIA Director John Brennan "To help navigate the sensitive decision [of naming] the [CIA's] clandestine service chief, [CIA Director John] Brennan has taken the unusual step of assembling a group of three former CIA officials to evaluate the candidates. Brennan announced the move in a previously undisclosed notice sent to CIA employees last week, officials said. 'The director of the clandestine service has never been picked that way,' said a former senior U.S. intelligence official. The move has led to speculation that Brennan is seeking political cover...."
Adam Liptak & Peter Baker of the New York Times: "A majority of the justices on Wednesday questioned the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, as the Supreme Court took up the volatile issue of same-sex marriage for a second day. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, widely considered the swing vote on the divided court, joined the four liberals in posing skeptical questions to a lawyer defending the law.... The question is whether or not the federal government under a federalism system has the authority to 'regulate marriage,' Justice Kennedy said during oral arguments...." ...
... The Washington Post story, by Robert Barnes & Sandhya Somashekhar, is here. The Los Angeles Times story, by David Lauter & David Savage, is here. ...
... The transcript of today's oral arguments is here (pdf).
... Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog: "If the Supreme Court can find its way through a dense procedural thicket, and confront the constitutionality of the federal law that defined marriage as limited to a man and a woman, that law may be gone.... That would happen, it appeared, primarily because Justice Anthony M. Kennedy seemed persuaded that the federal law intruded too deeply into the power of the states to regulate marriage, and that the federal definition cannot prevail. The only barrier to such a ruling, it appeared, was the chance -- an outside one, though -- that the Court majority might conclude that there is no live case before it...." ...
... DOMA is in trouble. -- Jeff Toobin (of course, that's what he said about ObamaCare). Video via Raw Story:
... The New York Times' "The Lede" has live-ish updates of the proceedings in the DOMA case. Here are updates from the Washington Post.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times: " As the top civil rights lawyer for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, based in Boston, [Mary] Bonauto has spent more than a decade plotting a careful strategy to advance gay marriage rights. She prompted Vermont to create civil unions in 2000, won the 2003 case that made Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriage and last year persuaded a federal appeals court that the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to gay couples, is unconstitutional. Yet in a quirk of fate..., the justices are considering a Defense of Marriage Act case on Wednesday, but it is not Ms. Bonauto's, which she argued when Justice Elena Kagan was President Obama's solicitor general. Instead the court took up a similar case..., presumably so Justice Kagan would not have to recuse herself."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "While Tuesday's case, about California's ban on same-sex marriage, has the potential to establish a constitutional right for gay and lesbian couples to marry, Wednesday's case is comparatively modest: it asks whether married same-sex couples are entitled to federal benefits." ...
... The Washington Post's story, by Robert Barnes, is here.
You want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution, which is newer than cell phones or the Internet? I mean we -- we are not -- we do not have the ability to see the future. [Paraphrase: my sinecure-for-life job is just too hard.] -- Whining Alito
The principal argument in 1967 with respect to Loving and that the Commonwealth of Virginia advanced was: Well, the social science is still uncertain about how biracial children will fare in this world, and so you ought to apply rational basis scrutiny and wait. And I think the Court recognized that there is a cost to waiting and that that has got to be part of the equal protection calculus. [Paraphrase: Do your damned job.] -- Solicitor General Donald Virrelli
Remember the fine print in the Declaration of Independence? We have an inalienable right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, just so long as the specific type of happiness is older than mobile telephones.... Rights are not supposed to be open to popularity contests. -- Steve Benen
While Justice Alito can’t see into the future, most Americans can. If this court doesn’t reject bigotry, history will reject this court. -- Maureen Dowd
Adam Serwer of Mother Jones: "... the best argument the chief defender of California's ban on same-sex marriage could muster was that his side would ultimately lose." Read the whole post. ...
... While reading the Supremes' tea leaves is not a great idea (ask Jeff Toobin about that) Ian Millhiser of Think Progress seems to say it all in his headline: "The justices are not ready to bring marriage equality to Alabama, and they want Prop 8 to go away." Read his whole post. ...
The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals. That's where the compelling argument is. 'We're Americans. We just want to be treated like everybody else.' That's a compelling argument, and to deny that, you have got to have a very strong argument on the other side. The argument on the other side hasn't been able to do anything but thump the Bible. -- Cultural Arbiter Bill O'Reilly
When you've lost Bill O'Reilly, you've lost the war. -- Constant Weader
... The Washington Post published a terrific explanatory piece by Dylan Matthews late Tuesday morning on the issues before the Court. If you didn't know what the justices & lawyers were talking about when they discussed rational-basis review, intermediate scrutiny & strict scrutiny, read Matthews. The basis for determining which standard to apply still seems rather arbitrary to me. ...
... Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog, concentrating on the DOMA case to be heard today, also has an excellent explanation of the case & of "heightened scrutiny." BTW, Congress's argument against heightened scrutiny is that "gays and lesbians are one of the most influential, best-connected, and best-organized groups in modern politics, and have attained more legislative victories, political power, and popular favor in less time than virtually any other group in American history.'" CW: got that? Discrimination against a group of otherwise successful people isn't as bad as discrimination against those who are less "connected."
Kevil Cirilli of Politico: "Sen. Kay Hagan [ConservaD-N.C.] backed same-sex marriage Wednesday...."
Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post: "... national trends suggest that the fight over gay marriage is coming to an end -- no matter what the Supreme Court decides." With more charts!
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday limited the ability of the police to use drug-sniffing dogs outside homes. The case concerned Franky, a chocolate Labrador retriever who detected the smell of marijuana outside a Florida house used by Joelis Jardines. Based on Franky's signal, the police obtained a warrant to search the house, and they found a marijuana-growing operation inside.... The 5-to-4 decision in the case, Florida v. Jardines, No. 11-564, featured an unusual alignment of justices. Justice Antonin Scalia, a member of the court's conservative wing, wrote the majority decision. He was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, a frequent ally, along with three of the court's more liberal members, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan."
Appreciations of New York Times justice reporter & columnist Anthony Lewis, who died Monday, from Rick Hertzberg of the New Yorker & Emily Bazelon of Slate. NPR republishes an interview of Lewis, conducted in 2002 by Neal Conan, slightly after he retired from the Times.
Justin Sink of The Hill: "White House press secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday criticized three Senate Republicans, [Rand Paul, Ted Cruz & Mike Lee] who have threatened to filibuster Senate gun control legislation. Carney said a filibuster ... would send the wrong message to the families of gun violence victims. 'I don't think you need to tell the families of those who have lost their children to gun violence that bills like this may be filibustered...,' Carney said." ...
... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "ThinkProgress examined data from the home states of six Democratic senators currently on the fence [about universal background checks]: Arkansas, Indiana, North Carolina, Louisiana, Alaska, and North Dakota. According to the most recent data available, these six states had: 1) 1,462 gun murders in 2010; 2) 351 gun death since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre at the end of last year; and 3) widespread support for universal background checks (following the national trend). Meanwhile, 152 gun shows are scheduled to take place in these states this year, providing criminals who can't pass background checks in stores with ample opportunity to stock up on guns." ...
... Cruz News
Caught on Tape. Jonathan Allen of Politico: "Senate Democrats are accusing Sen. Ted Cruz -- one of the conservatives threatening to filibuster gun-control legislation -- of flip-flopping on the issue. Majority Leader Harry Reid's office posted a video [below] of Cruz raising the possibility of strengthening a federal database of individuals who should not be allowed to purchase guns.... The video ... includes a reference to the filibuster threat and ends with this tag line: 'We agree. Let's vote on that.'" Cruz claims Democrats twisted his words. CW: apparently in Cruzspeak, "twisted" means "replayed at an inconvenient moment."
... Jamelle Bouie of the American Prospect: "What's key about Sandy Hook isn't that it yields new legislation, it's that it inspires new activism around gun control, and provides energy for the long effort to build a political coalition unafraid of the cultural politics that surround guns. Sandy Hook -- helped along by a new Democratic majority of urbanites and nonwhites -- has changed the politics of gun control. It will just take awhile for us to see the effects."
Ian Urbina of the New York Times: "Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday that she had asked federal immigration officials to provide her with more information about immigrants being held in solitary confinement at federal facilities.... Her request came in response to an article in The New York Times on Sunday about new federal data indicating that on any given day roughly 300 immigrants are held in isolation, many of them for 23 hours a day. The data indicated that in more than half of the cases where this form of detention was used, detainees were isolated for 15 days or more, the point at which psychiatric experts say they are at risk of severe mental harm."
Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "All told, at least eight federal agencies are investigating [JPMorgan Chase Bank], including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. in New York are also examining potential wrongdoing at JPMorgan."
Fracking Faults. John Tagliabue of the New York Times: earthquakes in the Netherlands "were caused by the extraction of natural gas from the soil deep below. The gas was discovered in the 1950s, and extraction began in the 1960s, but only in recent years have the quakes become more frequent, about 18 in the first six weeks of this year, compared with as few as 20 each year before 2011. Chiel Seinen, a spokesman for the gas consortium known as NAM, said the extraction had created at least 1,800 faults in the region's subsoil. 'These faults are seen as a mechanism to induce earthquakes,' he said. The findings in the Netherlands parallel the anxiety about hydraulic fracturing technology in the United States, where several states have halted drilling temporarily.... This month, the New York State Assembly voted to block ... fracking...."
John Rogers & Shaya Mohajerap of the AP: "In his first public speech since resigning as head of the CIA, David Petraeus apologized for the extramarital affair that 'caused such pain for my family, friends and supporters.' The hero of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars struck a somber, apologetic tone as he spoke to about 600 people, including his wife and many uniformed and decorated veterans, at the University of Southern California's annual ROTC dinner on Tuesday." CW: I can't figure out why a person has to apologize to strangers about private, lawful behavior. An elected official may have disappointed the people who voted for him because he presented himself as a different sort of person, but Petraeus was a hired gun, not an elected official. It seems to me his apology is in itself a form of self-aggrandizement. What do you think?
Senate Race
Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: Sen. Tim "Johnson's [D-S.D.] decision [to retire in 2014], coming on the heels of a spate of retirement announcements from Democrats, opens up a potential new opportunity for Republicans in the state that President Obama lost by a large margin last year. Further, the retirement of Mr. Johnson, a moderate who is chairman of the powerful banking committee, will open up that slot, should Democrats maintain a majority. His replacement could be critical as Congress continues to deal with regulatory issues." ...
... Yep, bankers are all skeert my man Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) will become chair of the banking committee: Seung Min Kim & Kate Davidson of Politico: "... the Ohio senator who has made bashing big banks his trademark has a complicated, yet very plausible, pathway to the committee gavel — which would put him in a powerful position to move and promote his legislative priorities." CW: My guess: Wall Street's BFF Chuck Schumer will reserve the prize for himself -- and a grateful Street will shower him with Big Chuck Bucks.
Local News
North Dakota -- the Anti-Woman State. Alex Johnson & Daniel Arkin of NBC News: "North Dakota's [Republican] governor signed the nation's strictest anti-abortion measures into law Tuesday, including one statute that would ban most abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy." CW: that would be before many women even know they're pregnant.
Virginia Is Not for Voters. David Edwards of Raw Story: "The Republican governor of Virginia on Tuesday signed a law requiring that voters present photo identification in order to vote. Gov. Bob McDonnell said that HB 1337 was an effort to make elections 'less subject to fraud,' [CW: fraud which does not exist, but so what?] but voting rights advocates claimed that the law would suppress the rights of elderly and minority voters, who tend to vote Democratic and are less likely to have photo identification. In an executive order, McDonnell also directed the Board of Elections to educate the public before the law becomes effective in 2014." CW: kinda makes you wonder how our democracy survived pre-camera days. If only the portrait miniaturists of yore had had a friend like Bob.
Climate Change Comes to the Bond Market. Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has started to caution investors that climate change poses a long-term risk to the state's finances.... A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo said he believed New York was the first state to caution investors about climate change. The caution, which cites Hurricane Sandy and Tropical Storms Irene and Lee, is included alongside warnings about other risks like potential cuts in federal spending, unresolved labor negotiations and litigation against the state."
The Gohmert Daily News
Jake Sherman & John Bresnahan of Politico: Rep. Louis Gohmert (RCrazy-Texas) "got into a late-night verbal altercation with U.S. Park Police officers earlier this month, pulling rank in an attempt to get out of a parking ticket near the Lincoln Memorial. Shortly after 11 p.m. on March 13, officers wrote Rep. Louie Gohmert a citation for parking his black Ford SUV in a spot reserved for National Park Service vehicles.... Gohmert ... told the Park Police that his congressional parking placard allows him to park in that spot, and he's on the committee that oversees the agency. Gohmert took the ticket off his windshield and placed it on a police car along with his business card with a written message: 'Oversight of Park Service is my job! Natural Resources Thus the Congressional Plate in window.' He was 'rude and irate,' one officer reported. Another wrote that Gohmert was 'ranting.'"
See Comment by Akhilleus which begins, "In the Schadenfreude...." Akhilleus goes on to say, "Show of hands, kids. Who really believes Mittens stands in line at the Stop n Shop or rides a subway? Who believes he has EVER stood in line for anything?" ...
... CW: My hand is up. (What the photo doesn't show is that a few moments later, Romney grabbed the cane of the elderly lady in line in front of him & beat her to the ground with it. Stepping lightly around her battered body, he ordered a vanilla malt. Asked about the incident later, Romney brushed it aside as "a good lesson for irresponsible 47-percenters who consider themselves victims." A Romney spokesperson noted that family members of the woman confirmed that she received both Social Security and Medicare -- a double-dipper.)
News Ledes
New York Times: "James M. Nabrit III, a civil rights lawyer who fought school segregation before the Supreme Court and helped ensure that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., was allowed to go forward, died on Friday in Bethesda, Md. He was 80."
New York Times: "Defense lawyers for James E. Holmes, who is charged with killing 12 people and wounding dozens more at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater last summer, signaled in court filings on Wednesday that they were willing to have Mr. Holmes plead guilty if he was spared the death penalty."
AP: "Cyprus will impose limits on money transfers and dispatch extra security guards to prepare for Thursday's reopening of the banks, which have been shut for almost two weeks to avoid a run during the country's financial drama."
AP: "Raising tensions with South Korea yet again, North Korea cut its last military hotline with Seoul on Wednesday, a link that has been essential in operating the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation: an industrial complex in the North that employs hundreds of workers from the South."
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Reader Comments (20)
Excellent piece in Time magazine ! I take issue with the statement that Occupy fizzled. It didn't. It won't happen tomorrow but this is where we are headed. The pendulum has to swing the other way and it will. The only questions is "How Soon?"
Based on my cursory reading of articles about yesterday's SCOTUS Proposition 8 oral argument, it appears that the SC may be edging toward treating same sex marriage as it does pornography ... that "community standards" may be the current measure of judgment.
That treatment may work as a practical legal management of pornography (although, it does not seem to, really), but it really doesn't work if you are talking about "rights." Application of "community standards" in many states would have perpetuated Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal racial accommodations) up to the present day, for example.
If the SC punts on Proposition 8, but strikes down DOMA, there will be dozens of cases in very short order where same sex couples will be able to demonstrate denial of entitlements, therefore harm, which will be "winning" cases. The justices know that. So perhaps they feel that punting on 8 will bring up, rapidly, more compelling cases which would allow greater societal acceptance (broader "community standards"), within the next few years.
In the meantime, some individuals will suffer.
I'm sure we're all gratified to hear that certain justices are concerned for the "social science" aspect of SSM, especially how it will affect children.
Scalia intimated that "more study" will be needed to determine how SSM will hurt society.
How interesting that conservatives only seem worried about the affect of same sex parents on society when they don't seem to give two shits about things like caches of deadly weapons in homes, or the ease with which sick people can purchase stocks of armaments with no background checks, or the affect of unnecessary poverty brought on by the baleful influences of crony capitalism and connected bankers run amok, by an entire underclass of millions of boys and men incarcerated for years, often for minor offenses, by the affect of joblessness inflicted by conservative economic measures, by the affect of employment and pay inequality for more than half the population, by the affect of fundamentalist whackos supplanting fact based education for tens of millions of American children with superstition and bogeymen, by the ever increasing gulf between the haves and have nots imposed by the pre-existing condition of those who are connected and have opportunities and money flung at them, and everyone else.
When these people start caring about all or most of these enormous problems, I'll listen to their specious (non-existent) arguments for why having two moms or two dads is about to destroy civilization.
Fuckers.
There is a song in the musical South Pacific about learning how to hate early on––"you've got to be taught"––and goes on to emphasize the importance of "drumming into their dear little heads" something called acceptance, compassion, appreciation; in short, it's a song about how children are taught and what they are taught. When I first visited my grandson's school (private) when he was in kindergarden I noticed a wall that was covered with pictures of all the children's parents. There were a goodly number of two mommies and two daddies. I talked later with the teacher about this letting her know how very grateful I was that she had this display. She informed me that all the classrooms had a wall with pictures of families–––"We discuss the difference in families early on and celebrate all families––it's really all about love, isn't it?"
Akilleus' comments above spell out exactly my thoughts on all this. It's inconceivable to me that there are citizens in this country that are deprived of their rights because they are homosexual. The message––"Because you don't cotton to the kind of sexuality we cotton to, we are going to prevent you from enjoying the equality this country offers." When we look at the dogged push for preventing women health services (abortion) and the fight for gay rights isn't it in the end all about SEX? Lady parts and sexy times continue to consume these people of limited thinking while the real problems like roads, bridges, banks and fracking are put on the back burner. North Dakota, are you listening????
Move over Koch Brothers----there's an even more scary set of siblings on the planet: the (I kid you not) Blue Brothers (of course they're both Yalies---old blues), the men behind the explosion of military and CIA drones. Here's the link:
https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/blue-brothers/5d4b7fdfec224d6fe6c4a77cec6aed45154f7887/
Ho-hum, another day, another round of intellectual dishonesty and smartassery from the farther-right than far-right supremes.
So, what's on today's bill of fare? Oh yeah the DO fucking MA. Let's do the post-structuralist polonaise for a minute or two.
Defense of Marriage Act.
So, what, marriage is under attack? From whom and to what end? Oh, people of the same sex would like to marry each other? Cool. Sounds like a great idea. But, um, how is wanting to be married an attack on marriage? Oh, I see. God said they can't, is that it? The Bible says they can't? Well, if you put it that way...but wait, no. What if they don't believe in the Bible or in god? Oh, I see. They're not real Americans? Sez who? But what if I said that religious belief, at least according to the founders, is not a requirement for citizenship or any of the rights attendant thereto? Hey, hey...put down the guns. We're just talking here.
Let me ask you how marriage suffers or is under attack by same sex couples marrying each other? Do hetero married couples become somehow less married? Does the price of their homes go down? Do they lose social standing? Do they have to pay more for cable? Do their wedding rings turn to clay and fall off? Do their private parts stop working? No?
Hmmm...I'm confused then.
Oh...what's that? Homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of the lord? Yeah, okay. And show me where that is in any code of justice. Nowhere, right? So really, this is all about bigotry, ignorance, and hatred, correct? Christ! Put those fucking guns away! Get a grip, people.
You see, what you don't seem to grasp is that it makes no difference what your religious books say or what you believe as part of your religious faith. None of that matters a shit when you're talking about the law of land. And it shouldn't.
So the same arguments from yesterday stand.
And marriage is not under attack and so needs no defense.
Oh, we forgot about the ACT part of DO fucking MA, didn't we?
Well, all that means is that dunderheads in congress passed a law that may or may not be constitutional. It doesn't mean it's right or even legal. That decision is now in the hands of the farther than right far-right supremes whose bigot-bigot circuitry is about to be tested.
We'll see how it goes.
RIP Tony Lewis. I never missed a single column he wrote in his years on the Times but I've been missing him greatly of late.
He was never ill mannered or ideologically scarred. His prose was measured and meaningful, nothing like the wanton fractured frippery that passes as commentary these days.
So now, instead of his elegant deconstruction of the recondite workings of the World Juridical, we have vacuous maundering and insipid navel gazing from the likes of Doucheboy and the Mustache of Freedom.
But for a while, the Times op-ed pages were blessed with grace and erudition, thanks in large part to Anthony Lewis.
WTF? Harry Reid found a set and confronted Cruz. We know he found them somewhere during the 2012 election when he doggedly pursued Romney and his taxes. He dangled them in front of Boehner and got the big FU. So we have established that a set is available to him and in reach. Harry, access the cojonnes now, vote for the assault rifle ban and stop making sucker deals with McConnell regarding the filibuster.
Scalia, according to former Justice O'Connor, is not influenced by popular opinion or politics. Clearly logic isn't an issue and the equal protection clause? what's that? However, given his elevated asswipery Justice status, he must ask some questions during arguments. After all he has to speak for Justice mute too.
Last night Scalia, while seated on his chamber pot clothed in a night shirt and his favorite tri-cornered hat, was doing some research for today's hearing. He was reading his personally annotated copy of the Declaration of Independence; "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". Right there in the margins was written: "men means white men, not gay, brown, black, nor poor nor any combination thereof. Did I include women?- no I did not. T.J." Scalia finished his nightly poop, well satisfied. He paused for a moment to decide if Mrs. Scalia should be summoned to empty the chamber pot now or could it wait until morning. "Maureen, put some shoes on and bring the candle."
@Akhilleus, re: your comments on DOMA -- just another way to say what Bill O'Reilly said!
Marie
@Diane. Thanks, I've always wondered what "in chambers" meant. Now you've explained it. Rather vividly.
Marie
Regarding the commencement of what may become the Petraeus Mea Culpa Tour, I doubt the fact that his infidelity was perfectly legal (if slimy) has any bearing on his current thinking. It's the slimy part that concerns him now.
It seems as if Petraeus saw (and sees) himself as a public figure of great and noble standing, a kind of general/tribune whose diktats made world news (or at least the nightly news), and he's on a mission now to disprove Scott Fitzgerald's quip about second acts.
So if he wants to continue rowing his boat alongside the big dogs who get invited on the Sunday morning gasbag extravaganzas and who get called for quotes from the courtier press (to steal Charlie Pierce's cogent description), and invitations to black-tie bashes, he needs to re-moralize himself in the eyes of--well, I'm not sure who his real audience is, but he clearly feels some breast beating and gnashing of teeth is in order, after which he can resume his place among the mountebanks and muck-a-mucks.
Otherwise, it's life as the titular head of some backwater think tank or MIC corporate blowhole, poring over dusty policy papers and tortuous tracts on counterinsurgency strategies in "unacculturated zones of occupation".
Fun? Like you read about.
Not to mention limited chances to boink cute biographer/groupies.
So let the healing begin!
@Akhilleus: okay, so the So-Sorry Express is a career move, kinda like the rest of us getting a college degree or advanced training -- or telling the boss that plaid jacket looks great. Makes sense.
Marie
@Akhelius: If Petraeus' affair began while he was on active duty, it MAY have been illegal according to the Uniform Code Of Military Justice. Article 134, depending upon whether or not it was considered "prejudicial to good order and discipline."
http://www.juancole.com/2013/03/country-stolen-jamail.html
The link above is on the country Dick and George built--today's Iraq. Iraq is on the verge of civil war. We know that our "friends" the Saudis will back the Sunnis, while Iran will back the Shia. As Akhelius said, the 2003 war was just to test a theory. Well, it failed. We've "moved on." Iraq is "old news." Next year, we'll do the same to Afghanistan. To paraphrase the folk song--When Will We Ever Learn?
In 1945-46, we tried former Nazis for launching preemptive war, yet Cheney, Bush, Perle et.al. are still walking around free. .
Barbarossa,
Good point about the Nuremberg trials. But in that instance, three of the biggest fish (Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels) were never tried. They had the decency to kill themselves, an unlikely outcome for Bush, Cheney, and Wolfowitz.
But the Nuremberg trials also passed judgment on those who stood by or actively encouraged and supported the push to war and the final solution. Granted there is nothing on the scale or horror of the Holocaust connected with the Bush-Cheney Wars of Choice, but the destruction and loss of life, especially considering that war was prosecuted based on lies, was (and still is) of a magnitude that could should require not only the architects of war but their cheerleaders in congress and the media to stand trial.
Fat chance of a single one paying a price for their moral turpitude and rank cowardice.
As for Petraeus and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, my sense is that the it's mostly enforced only in the case of underlings and grunts. When the code butts up against a uniform with four stars attached, not so much.
With all the government dogs sniffing around JP Morgan Chase all they will find is more reason to fine the TBTF Bank for some misdeeds. The fine will be just a cost of doing business and be deductable for tax purposes. No individual law breakers will be found, no one, no matter how well compensated, will be found to have been at fault and life marches on.
Sorry, this is redundant, I know you all know this already. There is no longer any accountability in America. Trust in our financial system will soon be following accountability out the door. Without trust, Cyprus' fate awates us.
In the Schadenfreude mit der gross berg of skepticism Department, HuffPo has published a slideshow showing what regular guy Mittens the Rat claims his life is like now that he's one of the richest losers in America.
Mitty tries to make with the regular guy thing but he can never escape the RomneyBot rigidity. He talks about how cool it is now that he can go to the grocery store again.
Show of hands, kids. Who really believes Mittens stands in line at the Stop n Shop or rides a subway? Who believes he has EVER stood in line for anything?
Yeah, what I thought.
Just a regular Joe/
Interesting piece in The Guardian today about the results of newspapers fucking around with paywalls (sorry, don't have the link; torn up in a pique). Seems paywalls are effective for building fish-wrap circulation. The concept of news bundling--like cable channel bundling--is a winner in the race to monaritize information. In short, if you want to read about Syria or the Supreme Court, you gotta buy the used-car ads and the fashion gossip, too.
@Akhilleus: see last item in today's Commentariat. Marie
Marie. I'm confident you are not far from the truth should we actually see the the crime photo that followed the "regular Joe" photo. I just had to go look at the whole slide show. The pie lady obviously wanted to rip her Harriet Nelson get-up off and just wave her freak flag at Lord SB. The whole slide show screams for a Saturday Night Live send up.