If you’re not familiar with the Logan Act, which was been around since the end of the Eighteenth Century, it says this:
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
Every politician who signed the letter to Iran telling them (falsely) that any anti-nuclear agreements they made with Obama would be set aside once he left office has violated the Logan Act and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
PAD
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At first I thought this post was going to be about Boehner and Netanyahu; there’s something even more insidious about trying to use a foreign government that is an allied power to drive a partisan wedge. Whatever happened to politics stopping at the water’s edge?
On that point, PAD, do you think Boehner’s invitation to Netanyahu was also a violation of the Logan Act?
It would seem to me that if the Logan Act applies to the letter to Iran, it applies to the Netanyahu invitation. After all, Netanyahu’s speech addressed Iran; he wasn’t invited because he was making a general goodwill tour. Boehner’s invitation to the Israeli prime minister (which went behind Obama’s back) could be seen as a GOP attempt to undercut the president’s negotiations with Iran regarding that country’s nuclear program. Just like the letter.
Rick
Hmmm… violation, or just honesty in action.
Of course, as members of congress, the the phrase “without authority of the United States” comes into action, since as members of the government, they would have such authority.
Charlie, is there anything the GOP would do that you wouldn’t agree with? Are you that much of a team fan? Amazing.
He’s popping the popcorn now to have a front row seat for their next happy little war.
A GoP drone could abort a puppy on stage on TV and his fellow GOP’ers would cheer
Interesting,
I make a point of logic, and the response is an ad hominem. (sp?) No, I was just pointing out that the law would probably not apply in this case, as those publishing the letter are members of the present government, even if of a different party than the present executive.
Sorry to bring logic into a political rant…
Nice try loser, but WRONG.
Congress is not allowed to do what they did.
Cry all you want, but if if it was a retardlican president and democrats in congress did this, you’d be screaming for them to executed for treasonous actions.
Maybe, but this is the reason for legislative immunity, which is arguably present here and would prevent successful prosecution. And personally I’d take legislative immunity over prosecuting speech of elected officials for disagreement with other elected officials, whether agreed with or not.
Right now I’m more focused on two other aspects of this.
The first is the unintentional, and likely embarrassing to anyone but a Tea Party reality revisionist, error on the part of the writers and signers of the thing. The simultaneously tried to “educate” Iran on our constitution while pulling a grandstanding lecturing of Obama on it. Might be nice if they got their comments about the Constitution correct.
“First, under our Constitution, while the president negotiates international agreements, Congress plays the significant role of ratifying them. In the case of a treaty, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds vote.”
That’s not accurate. The Senate does not ratify treaties. The President ratifies treaties. The Senate takes up a resolution of ratification, by which the Senate formally gives its advice and consent, but it’s the President that ratifies a treaty. It may seem a small point, but considering that they’re declaring themselves the educators on our Constitution to the foreign masses here, they might want to actually get their facts right.
Beyond that is the overall game being played here. There have been factions in the GOP that have been pushing for armed conflict with Iran since the day after Saddam was toppled. They even started revving up their noise machine for brief period before seeing how bad it played at the time. They’ve been quietly pushing for armed conflict with Iran ever since.
The Netanyahu stunt, having him come and basically push for war while dooming and glooming the same way he inaccurately doomed and gloomed for the GOP push for war with Iraq some years earlier, was bad enough. Now they’re trying to undercut the peaceful creation of treaties directly rather than just through indirect acts and propaganda.
These áššhølëš want war. They won’t be happy unless they get a war. But, of course, if they and their supporters get their happy little war they’ll be sure to fall into one of two categories. They’ll either go the George H.W. Bush path of ensuring that their children “serve” while being kept far from any actual combat, or they’ll just go the Cheney or Romney path of deciding that they have “better things to do” while they cheer sending others off to die.
The only upside that I see right now to these assclowns and their antics is that the clown show that they’re putting together as front runners have little chance of taking the White House, and the typically larger turnout of a presidential election will likely throw the Senate back into Democratic control. Hopefully they don’t simply decide to send their own declaration of war off in the meantime.
Sorry, Jerry, you must have had a different civics teacher than I had. Mine told me that the Senate needed to ratify a treaty to make it final. Maybe just semantics.
And, why the hysteria that not accepting this will lead to war? We haven’t had an agreement for some time, and I haven’t seen any invasion forces lining up. Iran has a major history of laughing all the way to the bank when we have them sign some agreement, we relent on the pressure on them, and they quietly just ignore the agreement. What makes this agreement different?
Also, a large number of these folks are also veterans. Are you? (and no, I am not. I was released from my commitment due to the drawdowns after the Vietnam war.) No one sane wants a war, and no one even close to sane wants a nuclear one!
“No one sane wants a war”
Then there are plenty of batshit insane people in this country, because we got 8 years of Dubya.
“Also, a large number of these folks are also veterans. Are you?”
No, I’m a police officer and have been since before the march to war with Iraq. It’s also an irrelevant point to make as I’m neither banging the war drums unnecessarily as are some in the GOP and TeaPublican wing of the Republican party, nor am I seeking ways to avoid military service during a time of war.
“Mine told me that the Senate needed to ratify a treaty to make it final.”
Then your civics teacher was wrong. The President ratifies a treaty. A treaty must be advised and consented to by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. They cannot ratify a treaty. But the act of the Senate empowers the President with the authority to ratify.
It’s not semantics either. It’s as inaccurate as saying that the President writes the bills that become our laws or saying that the Speaker signs bills into law.
Charlie E wrote, “Also, a large number of these folks are also veterans.”
Are you sure about that? One website went through the signatories and managed to decipher 40 names (of the 47 who signed). I went through and checked those names against their Wiki entries. Of the 40 names, only ELEVEN could be counted as “veterans” and that includes some VERY liberal (pardon the pun) interpretations. For example, Mitch McConnell was discharged after FIVE WEEKS for medical reasons. And there’s Lindsay Graham whose service was as a JAG (which didn’t involve any combat service). There were also a couple whose service record only indicates National Guard duty (but nothing indicating they saw combat). Even allowing for the missing 7 as being TRUE veterans (active duty, more than a couple of years AND involved in some aspect of combat, whether frontline or support), that’s still not really a significant number of veterans signing a letter like this.
It’s also interesting to note that the man who wrote the letter (Tom Cotton) wrote an open letter to the Times recommending that three journalists be imprisoned for espionage after reporting on a (secret) Bush program monitoring terrorists’ finances. What a difference being elected to office makes when it comes to determining how much power the President is allowed to have.
Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution of the United States (https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii#section2) states that “He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;” He, of course, being the President of the United States, Article II establishing the executive branch, Section 2 talking about the powers thereof, et cetera.
According to Iran’s foreign minister, these actions are “unconventional methods, unprecedented in diplomatic history.” Ac cording to the NY Daily News, the 47 are “Traitors.” When you’re a solidly far-right party and you’ve lost a center-right paper like the Daily News, that’s not good.
The problem is anything not the Post or WSJ is considered ‘liberal media’ by the GOP.
Peter David: Every politician who signed the letter…has violated the Logan Act and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Luigi Novi: Or, we could just get Wolverine to pop his claws up their áššëš, so that they could know what it feels like to be violated by a Logan.
Nice try, Peter.
The Logan Act specifically does not apply to members of Congress.
Concerning an effort on the part of some to apply it to then Sen. George McGovern (for visiting Cuba and talking to officials of the Cuban government), the State Department said:
“The clear intent of this provision [Logan Act] is to prohibit unauthorized persons from intervening in disputes between the United States and foreign governments. Nothing in section 953 [Logan Act], however, would appear to restrict members of the Congress from engaging in discussions with foreign officials in pursuance of their legislative duties under the Constitution. In the case of Senators McGovern and Sparkman, the executive branch, although it did not in any way encourage the Senators to go to Cuba , was fully informed of the nature and purpose of their visit, and had validated their passports for travel to that country.
“Senator McGovern’s report of his discussions with Cuban officials states: “I made it clear that I had no authority to negotiate on behalf of the United States — that I had come to listen and learn….” (Cuban Realities: May 1975, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., August 1975). Senator Sparkman’s contacts with Cuban officials were conducted on a similar basis. The specific issues raised by the Senators (e.g., the Southern Airways case; Luis Tiant’s desire to have his parents visit the United States) would, in any event, appear to fall within the second paragraph of Section 953.
Accordingly, the Department does not consider the activities of Senators Sparkman and McGovern to be inconsistent with the stipulations of Section 953.”
Wow. Apples and oranges, don’t you think, Robert?
You even point out the difference in the situations.
To quote: “In the case of Senators McGovern and Sparkman, the executive branch, although it did not in any way encourage the Senators to go to Cuba , was fully informed of the nature and purpose of their visit, and had validated their passports for travel to that country.”
In other words, neither Senator went behind the back of the President or the Administration to do this.
It also clearly states that the State Department made this decision on THIS particular case. Where exactly is your proof that “the Logan Act specifically does not apply to members of Congress?” You offered ONE case (okay–maybe two, since there were two senators involved) where the State Department made a decision. What you DON’T have is an ABSOLUTE exemption for members of Congress.
Show us THAT.
Joseph: Wow, you can actually read that? Because…
Robert: Geez, what a long way to go for a short-ranged gimmick.
(Hey, at least I avoided the politics. And what (hopefully) a few people Think are politics.)
I suspect you’re missing a critical point of law, Joe:
The Logan Act last was enforced in 1803; it’s a criminal law.
Now, it’s true that a law in desuetude remains a law (the Logan Act is as good today as it was in 1803). However, it is a CRIMINAL LAW (violating it is a felony). And, the last I checked, a felony must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
In this situation, the key element is that the Senators acted within the framework of being Senators (and the Senate does have a role to play in the foreign relations of the United States). So, to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt, it is not enough to show the Executive did not approve. What you ALSO have to show is that the Senators were not acting as Senators (and that clearly is not the case).
Peter’s having a temper tantrum, deleted my previous answer (or so it appears).
The Logan Act is a criminal law; violation is a felony. And, the last I checked, the government is required to prove each and every element of a criminal accusation beyond a reasonable doubt.
Furthermore, the Logan Act is in desuetude; it is a law on the books, but there has not been a criminal prosecution since 1803. A modern court is going to read the statute strictly in favor of any defendant. Since the statute contains, in plain language, a scienter element, you would have to prove “intent to influence” or “intent to defeat the measures of” (the passage Peter bolded)on the part of a “citizen…without authority…”
To bring such an accusation against a United States Senator, for reminding an UNNAMED official in Iran re what the Constitution says, when the Constitution specifically says the Senate has a role to play in U.S. foreign policy, is wasting everyone’s time — a sitting Senator is, by definition, NOT a “citizen…without authority,” and reminding an UNNAMED Iranian of what the Constitution says on the matter CANNOT qualify as “defeating the measures of the United States.”
The case would not survive a motion for dismissal — which only would make Obama’s Justice Department look totally inept.
Nope. Your previous comment is still there, Crim. Just because you’re not bright enough to hit the refresh button when the screen doesn’t load everything new like the rest of us do doesn’t mean anything other than you don’t think things out too clearly before typing. Old news that though.
However, your asinine comments about Peter sticking his head in the sand, being a coward, having tantrums, and whatever else seems to have gotten you disemvoweled for a bit. Gotta say, your posts make more sense now than anything you’ve posted in the last couple of years.
Hey, is it just me or does a disemvoweled post look like a funky tribute to the Cthulhu mythos to anyone else?
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
Klingon would be more appropriate, Jerry.
You may be right. I guess I just lean more Lovecraft than Trek.
Ray (of S),
“Robert: Geez, what a long way to go for a short-ranged gimmick.”
It’s not a gimmick. There’s a tool that the blog’s admin has that has rarely been used over the years, but was employed here. It’s commonly referred to as disemvoweling.
If someone trolls hard enough or simply posts for no other reason than to attack/insult the host, the family of the host, or make off point observations as an opening to doing the same they can have their vowels removed. See better explanation here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disemvoweling
There’s also a disemvoweling tool website that allows you to do it to text you type into the site, but that’s not what was done here. Robert’s posts had vowels when I saw them earlierm so that, combined with the little ghost explanation thing that pops up in his posts now, should make it clear that his posts will actually be more comprehensible than usual for the foreseeable future.
Ah, and here I thought vowelessness was for personal notes and the “where are the vowels” was his tagline. Well, I always was a bit behind on the tech or ‘net curve. Stiull better than name-calling, though.
Behind? Hëll, I wouldn’t know what the hëll I was looking at if I hadn’t been here for two prior trolls who got this treatment some years back. If you’re fortunate about the nature of contributors on the forums you frequent, you rarely see it.
P.S. I see Peter is sticking his head in the sand again.
I guess the criticism genuinely hurts!
Svrpr1s3, svrpr1s3: P3t3r st1ll h@s h1s h3@d 1n th3 s@nd, & J3rry st1ll h@s h1s h3@d 1n h1s @ss!
Hi Robert,
Today is my birthday, lo and behold my e-mail forwarded your comment to me.
Of course criticism has a genuine sting to it, always. Peter’s opened up a forum in what? Wishes that the whole world agree with him or the reality of this site being a round table where everyone brings their critique and thoughts to be heard equally.
Head in the sand? Well he built the beach and we all go swimming at different times. Snark like sharks go unappreciated by everyone and taunts usually get a rise from acolytes, never the target. Example being a lukewarm dismissal “response” from the President yet outcry from majority of U.S. media and members of Congress(R./D.)
We research to develop law, not develop law to research.
To your interpretation of the Logan Act: 1)”…Intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government
2) “…To defeat the measures of the United States.”
1) Letter to Iran = Intent to influence. (Why else write a letter? To.Anyone.)
2) “…Nothing more than executive agreement; Next President could revoke executive agreement.” = To defeat the measures of the United States. (Namely, efforts of the present United States Chief Executive.)
With no sarcasm, sneer or snide do I offer: “How unfortunate for all of U.S. that certain issues leave NO ROOM for RE-Interpreation, and this matter like the text before you is simply black and white.”
Be well Mr. Crim, and thank you for caring enough to discuss… Some just offer silence.
A more serious query:
One may focus on the statute’s term, “unauthorized,” in terms of who “authorizes” and who is “authorized.” Certainly the lawyer of one charged with a criminal violation would do that.
But, perhaps more important here, what makes anyone think the letter was “unauthorized” even by the Administration?
I’ve yet to see any evidence of that, and certainly not evidence beyond reasonable doubt.
Do they care? F*ck no.
Catch is, I’m seeing a lot of talk like this from legal experts.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-senators-probably-broke-law-with-iran-letter/ar-AA9BIdI
The act bans U.S. citizens from engaging “without authority of the United States” in “correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government … with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government … in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States.”
Fortunately for Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and the 47 Senate co-signers of his open letter to Iran, the law is not enforced and is likely unconstitutional.
“They probably were in violation of the act, yes,” says Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the American University Washington College of Law.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, probably broke the law, too, by working with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to undermine the nuclear negotiations with Iran, he says.
But Vladeck, co-editor-in-chief of the legal blog Just Security, says senators could argue they were indeed acting with the authority of the United States or more convincingly that the act violates the First Amendment.
“The Logan Act is a vestigial and anachronistic holdover from a bygone era,” he says. “There’s never been a successful prosecution under the act, and the last indictment was in 1803.”
Yep, sorry guys, ain’t gonna happen. Maybe folks should just go full crazy and lobby for a return to the Sedition Act. Shouting fire in a crowded theater and all that.
Unfortunately, Charlie is probably right in that there could be sufficient ambiguity in the way the Logan Act is written that the congressmen in question could probably slip through. Where they are definitely wrong is in ignoring political protocol in terms of working against a sitting president. Where you you may be off-base Charlie is that while you’re correct about Senate ratification of a treaty, this isn’t a treaty. As Fred Kaplan points out in his excellent piece for Slate, it’s a non-binding international arrangement, in which Congress has no legal or constitutional role in drafting, approving or modifying. But as you say, maybe it’s just semantics. But in this case, potentially very damaging ones.
The Constitution is clear: The Senate must approve of any international agreements the President negotiates, or they are not binding. A president can, by executive order, impose them to a certain degree, but that is subject to a future president’s overturning. Further, no treaty can contradict the US Constitution or existing law while the Senate has withheld its approval.
But if you wanna talk Logan Act, how about some fun precedents:
1983: Ted Kennedy negotiates secretly with the Soviet Union for assistance on arms treaties in exchange for assistance to the Democrats in the 1984 elections.
1984: 10 Democrats (including John Kerry) sent a letter to Daniel Ortega expressing their opposition to Reagan’s policies towards the Sandanistas.
1990: Jimmy Carter wrote a letter to the UN Security Council opposing President George H. W. Bush’s move to liberate Kuwait.
2002: Rep. David Bonior, with the backing of several other House Democrats, flew to Baghdad (on Saddam Hussein’s dime) to try to save Saddam’s ášš.
2007: Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi flies into Syria to hold one-on-one meetings with Bashar Assad and put her blessing on his incredibly-rigged “election.”
That’s five examples, summed up from the Washington Examiner. (See link in my header.) And that’s just five.
Cue the outrage… or is this just another case where it’s outrageous when Republicans do things, but just fine and dandy when Democrats do far worse?
Jay Tea, I’m not enough of a Constitutional scholar to dispute you on this, but as I point out in my previous post, this is a non-binding international agreement, so Congressional approval, by your own definition, becomes moot.
Any president can bind himself (that’s what an Executive Order does). No president can bind another. And even a treaty can be abrogated though not initiated sans Senate consent.
The letter does no more than state a demonstrable truth — which does not violate the Logan Act even when done by a private citizen. Since Senators by definition are “authorized,” all of this tempest is just another waste of time.
Peter is rummaging through the statute books, desperately seeking an issue.
@Jay Tea: 1990: Jimmy Carter wrote a letter to the UN Security Council opposing President George H. W. Bush’s move to liberate Kuwait.
Weak “examples”. To pick just one: in 1990 Jimmy Carter was acting a a private citizen. Granted one with name recognition, but his letter to the UN didn’t come on Office of the President letterhead.
Congrats, you challenged one example. Do you seem to think that that knocks out the other four, or do I assert that since they weren’t challenged, they are undisputed?
But on that one example… up until then, with a couple of very notable exceptions (J. Q. Adams and Howard Taft come to mind), former presidents stayed the hëll out of politics after they left office. And that was a good policy. Carter has, on numerous occasions, acted as if he wasn’t a failed one-term president and has any relevancy left. And this was a particularly egregious example.
“Weak “examples”. To pick just one: in 1990 Jimmy Carter was acting a a private citizen. Granted one with name recognition, but his letter to the UN didn’t come on Office of the President letterhead.”
Er, what part of “Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be” would make Mr Carter immune to the penalty of the Logan Act? It covers everyone (if it were constitutional, which is most likely is not).
You’re acting like there *wasn’t* outrage when all of these things happened. The Democratic Party was thoroughly trounced in 1984, and Kennedy’s attempted outreach to Andropov wasn’t revealed until the 1990s (by which time I’d say everybody had already made up his or her mind on Kennedy). Carter was widely mocked for his letter, especially by crowds of marchers who’d changed the lyrics of the protest song to “All we are saying is kick Hussein’s ášš.” Democrats lost control of Congress in 2002, months after that Baghdad trip, and editorials in the “mainstream media” denounced Nancy Pelosi (and the Logan Act was specifically cited).
But here’s the thing: The number of people cited in those five examples doesn’t equal the number of people who signed onto Sen. Cotton’s letter. We’ve gone from instances in which a handful of Democrats did something that can be seen as traitorous, to an instance in which almost half of the U.S. Senate decided to school Iran on how the Constitution works.
And note that in each of your five examples, you cite a specific individual; this open letter is a BUNCH of people, all in one party. People can argue “Well, Democrats have done this for years,” but all of the instances they cite look like one or two or ten people — not 47 with the tacit support of their party.
Even if you want to distill this letter down to “Freshman senator from Arkansas fights back against executive overreach”…it inarguably says “President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then — perhaps decades.” How is that not the same hubris of Obama saying “After my election I have more flexibility”? I remember that angering a lot of people. How is that letter not saying, “Hey, Iran, don’t talk to the president; talk to us, because we’re not going anywhere”?
As an aside, I dare say that if a Hawaiian singer went to Britain and said “We’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Hawaii,” she would be embraced and championed by the same people who thought the Dixie Chicks were evil evil evil. Neither side of the political aisle is free of selective outrage.
Last point first: you screwed up your stupidity talking point. The anti-Obama people are supposed to talk about how they’re ashamed he was born in Kenya, not in Hawaii. Or did you forget that anyone who disagrees with Obama is a stupid Birther, too?
I freely admit the letter was a bit clumsy and misaimed; it would have been better as an open letter with Iran cc’d, but it’s still no big deal. It’s like the time all the Democrats in the Senate signed that petition to get Rush Limbaugh fired.
And the point both sides are trying to make is that the other side is lacking consistency. “Hey, you were/weren’t outraged when one side did it; why are aren’t you now that the other side is?” It’s coming across as two hypocrites swapping sides and howling about the other’s hypocrisy.
Which I find vaguely amusing.
To me, though, I consider those past moves I cited bad because they attempted to directly contradict the Constitutional prerogatives of the president, while the current letter merely states the Constitutional prerogatives of the Senate.
Plus, those fights were over, and your side won — no charges were ever filed, no long-term harm ever befell those worthies I cited. Therefore, their arguments — that what they did was acceptable — obviously prevailed. So we can take that as the standing precedent and move on.
Or do you want to re-open those cases under the new standard?
There’s one obvious way to reconcile the two, though; it’s OK when one side does it; it’s high treason when the other does. The defining principle then becomes “does this help the fine, noble, and good Democrats, or does it benefit the evil, underhanded, and stooopid Republicans?” ‘Cuz that’s how it’s coming across to me, and I’m not used to arguing with people who are quite that candid…
(Aside: for some reason, my followup comments didn’t appear on this page in Firefox — I had to use (shudder) Internet Explorer to see and respond to them. And that’s not the first time I’ve had that happen…)
It honestly wasn’t a Birther reference; it was just me remembering the cries of “the Dixie Chicks went to a foreign land and criticized the president in a time of war; that is treason” back in 2003. (Natalie Maines was in England when she said “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.”) I didn’t mean it to come across like a talking point…I had just spent so much time thinking about accusations of treason that my mind went back to the Dixie Chicks, whose music I always loved, and whom I always thought got a raw deal.
And really, all I wanted was an acknowledgment that both sides are being hypocritical; I was glad to see Jon Stewart point that out as well. (I’m not pro-Logan Act on this one; I know that it’ll blow over just like all the other instances. And as a resident of Arkansas, I can promise you, no long-term harm will fall to Tom Cotton. Heck, we’re in the process of trying to get state law changed so he can run for both the Senate and for either president or vice president in 2020; the consensus here is that he’s presidential timber, and there’s some regret among people I know that he’s not running next year.)
I’m also reminded of 2000, when Cuba offered to step in and monitor the presidential election, since we couldn’t seem to figure it out…I just hate it when people in this country do totally-preventable things that make all of us look silly. (Not to be confused with the nebulous “Obama has made us a laughingstock” that gets tossed around on the Internet entirely too much.)
And I had to abandon Firefox and get on Safari to read your comment and reply, so I understand about browser trouble! Thanks for the effort on your part.
So is this a firefox issue? The blog has gotten very hard to read of late. Small wonder Mozilla is losing market share.
It’s not. I have the same issue if I use Chrome. I usually have to refresh the page after the first load in order to get the new comments.
For me, Firefox will load the page, but not update the comments; Chrome won’t let me load the page at all. So I gambled on Safari (I have a PC).
Firefox has issues with this site, but I think the bigger problem is that the site appears to be using some rather old WordPress stuff.
Not to mention, there are some big security holes that have been discovered with a lot of older WP sites.
So it’s probably well past time for an upgrade.
I can’t be the only person who’s first thought was that the Logan Act made illegal the permanent bonding of adamantium to an individual without consent.
But in the comic books, that happened in Canada. Or did they retcon that to an American project that somehow wound up in Canada?
No, the Logan Act governs how many monthly titles a single character can appear in without invoking a hefty fine.
Another provision in there also says a character can’t be featured on the cover unless he/she/it also appears inside the book.
The 90s prompted a LOT of consumer-protection laws in the comic industry…
“Every politician who signed the letter to Iran telling them (falsely) that any anti-nuclear agreements they made with Obama would be set aside once he left office has violated the Logan Act and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Is there another letter I have not seen? The one being talked about says that barring the usual passage by a majority vote for a treaty or congressional-executive agreement the next president COULD revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future congresses COULD modify the agreement at any time.”
Just one letter but it really changes things.
As for the idea of actually following through on prosecutions…well, this puts it as well as any I’ve seen. When the Huff Po and Lawrence O’Donnell think it’s silly to talk about prosecuting republicans, you have probably overreached. The funny thing is that it’s pretty clear that the GOP senators made a dumb stunt but thanks to the hysterical overreaction they will probably not pay too high a price for it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/monica-bauer/the-logan-act-and-the-treason-meme-click-bait-for-liberals_b_6849040.html
“There are important debates to be had about brand new baby senator Tom Cotton’s ill-advised letter to the leaders of Iran. But none of those debates have anything to do with treason, or the so-called Logan Act. All the stuff flying around the Internet about Republican senators violating the Logan Act is click bait. I haven’t seen a single Constitutional Law professor say this is a real thing, for good reason. I used to teach Constitutional Law. Nobody’s going to charge anybody with this. It’s not treason either under any reasonable definition. “
I’m really wondering if there IS a second letter, because some of the commentary bears little or no relationship to reality as it pertains to the one I read.
“For them to address a letter to the ayatollah who they claim is our mortal enemy, and their basic argument to them is ‘don’t deal with our president ‘cause you can’t trust him to follow through on agreement,” Obama said in a trailer for a Vice News interview scheduled to run in full on Monday.
“That’s close to unprecedented,” he said.
(Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/obama-iran-letter-reaction-116056.html#ixzz3UI2D3ZNE)
Ignoring the “close to unprecedented” bit (I mean, you either are or aren’t.) I would challenge anyone to actually find in the letter the part where they say or even imply that the Iranians should not deal with Obama because he can’t be trusted to follow through on agreement. Seriously. See if you can find it. I think we all realize he has a tendency to take things personally but wow.
Hopefully this will all die down, I sure hope the left is not bound and determined to actually act on the impulse to jail people over open letters posted on websites. But here’s a provocation if they really MUST:
Dear Grand Poo Bah of Iran
You’ll never get a more naive negotiator than the one you have now. The next president will likely be either a woman whose husband once said he’d be willing to grab a rifle and get in the trench and fight and die for Israel or any republican not named Rand Paul. You would be well advised to make a deal now, before grownups take charge.
I’ve loved watching the various signers of this thing trip over themselves this week to put at least some distance between them and the letter. The “I basically didn’t read it” excuse was old hat from Capitol Hill, but the various signers trying to now claim that it was just a giggle… Yeah, let’s sabotage peaceful negotiations as a laugh.
I really doubt if the Logan Act would hold up in court, and even if the law itself were not invalidated, I doubt that this particular case would stand up.
But it is a really stupid move on the part of these Congressmen.
So where has the push for all this saber-rattling against Iran in the past few years come from, anyway? It’s not a pandering to the party-base, is it? I live in a very Republican area, but I haven’t noticed any desire for war among the people here. If anything, they seem pretty tired of the constant wars we’ve had for more than a decade now. There’s still a LOT of knee-jerk praising of the military, but that’s not the same thing.
I suspect his letter is likely to hurt these Congressmen in the next election, though sadly, it’s unlikely to be enough to actually defeat any of them, since incumbents almost never lose in this country.
There are 5 Democratic senators who would disagree.
And one might consider those who decided to “spend more time with their family” rather than face a difficult re-election campaign. But it’s true that an incumbent has a lot of advantages, though, as the aforementioned 5 senators discovered, those advantages can’t always be counted on..
“…it seems that the authors not only do not understand international law, but are not fully cognizant of the nuances of their own Constitution when it comes to presidential powers in the conduct of foreign policy.”
People? As an American: To hear a response like this from a foreign power is embarrassing and speaks against our nation’s title: United States of America. No matter which side of the political spectrum you fall under, our arguments? Are our arguments. As in belonging to U.S., the only republic to be held together by a single document for 226 years. No other country on the planet can say such.
“Not fully cognizant of the NUANCES of the Constitution”; shall no outside nation should be able to claim in the light of day, no matter the year or president in office.
“We’re better than this.” is the unofficial motto of our country, spirit and the motivation that has kept us peerless in industry, entertainment, and discovery.
The letter sent to Iran is absolutely un-American and a waste of time only matched by the vast income disparity that only increases… Exponentially.
Right and Left already has enough sins of inaction to fill the worst soap operas in the history of broadcasting.
Flame wars of comic-verse and sci-fi only result in the widening profits of the companies who hold the copyrights. Flame Wars in politics? Only costs the rest of U.S. our lives and a way to live them.
So today there was another open letter from the members of a house of Congress, announcing that they wouldn’t take any actions if they didn’t like how the negotiations with Iran turned out. This one had a much more respectful tone, which is nice. Additionally, it was addressed to the President instead of the Iranians, so nobody can argue that it violates an act that has never been enforced and that probably doesn’t apply to Congress anyway.
It is really embarrassing when the House has to show the Senate how to do things properly.