Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw), Guest Blogger
I realize that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, but when organizations are added to the Federal government’s list of Terrorist Organizations, the Supreme Court has determined that any assistance to that organization is a criminal act. Even a speech in support of that particular group can be a criminal act. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1498.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/opinion/03cole.html?_r=1 It seems that in December of 2010, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey along with former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Rudy Giuliani, a former Mayor of New York City and a former Presidential candidate, all spoke at a conference in Paris in support of the Mujahedeen Khalq. The Mujahedeen Khalq is an Iranian dissident group that the State Department has labeled as a terrorist organization. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm
Why does the fact that some United States politicians gave speeches in support of the Mujahedeen Khalq matter to me? I care because in the case of Holder, Attorney General, et al v. Humanitarian Law Project, et al., the Supreme Court declared that a speech could be considered as indirect support of a terrorist group’s alleged illegal activity. The New York Times article linked above was written by Georgetown Law Professor David Cole and we learn in that article that the kind of activity that Mukasey and Ridge and Giuliani were involved in on behalf of the Mujahedeen Khalq was exactly the same kind of activity that his client was engaged in the Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project case and it was declared illegal.
“It is therefore a felony, the government has argued, to file an amicus brief on behalf of a “terrorist” group, to engage in public advocacy to challenge a group’s “terrorist” designation or even to encourage peaceful avenues for redress of grievances. Don’t get me wrong. I believe Mr. Mukasey and his compatriots had every right to say what they did. Indeed, I argued just that in the Supreme Court, on behalf of the Los Angeles-based Humanitarian Law Project, which fought for more than a decade in American courts for its right to teach the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey how to bring human rights claims before the United Nations, and to assist them in peace overtures to the Turkish government. But in June, the Supreme Court ruled against us, stating that all such speech could be prohibited, because it might indirectly support the group’s terrorist activity.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/opinion/03cole.html?_r=1
I just don’t understand why the Federal Government would prosecute one party for assisting a terrorist organization, but not prosecute former Attorney General Mukasey and his associates? Is there a double standard in the Justice Department?
By Lawrence Rafferty, Guest Blogger
Federal LEO
🙂
anon nurse, I could never watch the BP commercials, if I was close to the remote control I’d turn them off. They were such blatant BS. $50m would go far to help a lot of sick people.
I’m a very stick-up-the-butt kind of person. I was raised to have good manners and even though i let them slip with some frequency I know good manners from no manners. It is just appalling to me that corruption is so ingrained in the system, and at such a level of magnitude, that it isn’t hidden anymore. Jeeze, if you’re going to do evil you should at least have the common courtesy to hide it.
That attitude of course may partly be the legacy of being raised Catholic 🙂
frank:
Ah, you use the devil made me do it excuse. That probably means you are a weak-minded person.
If you were virtuous you would already have been so and wouldn’t need to blame me for your bad behavior.
stuartbramhall:
Don’t incite violence.
Thanks a bunch.
AY,
unfortunately, you are probably right!
lottakatz,
So very well said. And thanks for the ipsnews link. It’s gut-wrenching… Remember BP’s “Making It Right” ad campaign? It’s cost was around $50 million. Didn’t we know that the day would come when we would hear pleas like the following?
“I have seen small children with lesions all over their bodies,” Foytlin, co-founder of Gulf Change, a community organisation based in Grand Isle, Louisiana, continued.
“We are very, very ill. And dead is dead. So it really doesn’t matter if the media comes back… or the president hears us, or… if the oil workers and the fishermen and the crabbers get to feed their babies and maybe have a good Christmas next year… Dead is dead…I know your job is probably already done, but I’d like to hire you if you don’t mind. And God knows I can’t pay you. But I need your heart. And I need your voice.” (from the ipsnews link)
http://bp.concerts.com/gom/MakingitRight.htm
BP – Making It Right:
“I’ll be here in the Gulf, as long as it takes to make this right.” -Darryl Willis, BP Claims
Where’s Darryl now, I wonder?
rafflaw,
Ask any black male the degree of fairness in there trials…..
“former Attorney General Michael Mukasey along with former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Rudy Giuliani, a former Mayor of New York City” should they be prosecuted?
—
Of course they should simply as a matter of equity, but that they should has nothing to do with it. It has never in my life been more clearly displayed that America is actually two country’s. One is wealthy, conservative, nationalistic, well connected and above the law. Then there’s everybody else. No law is beyond bending to suppress the ideas and activities of the later and no law is beyond ignoring if it advances the aims of the former.
Looking ahead, not behind, the Federal response to the BP oil spill and continued selective prosecution to advance the aims of a small minority of wealth holders and their political cronies is highlighted daily by acts just such as these. Remember that George Carlin sermon posted a couple of days ago by Ms. M (I believe) about how there’s a club, and we ain’t in it? Yea, that’s what the above article is all about. The examples are everywhere.
***
Sick Gulf Residents Beg Officials for Help
By Dahr Jamail
“Stephen Bradberry, executive director of the Alliance Institute, a non-profit that provides community organising support in the Gulf South, worries that the Gulf Coast Claims Facility is not accepting health claims, thus leaving sick residents unable to work and without any income to pay their medical bills.”
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54132
A lot of people (Democrats, Republicans, and None of the Above) are concerned that animal rights activists, Muslims and minority activists urging the kind of violent retaliation Palin wishes on her political opponents would have been jailed before they had the opportunity to target incumbent Congress people with gun sights. In the name of equal justice, there is a petition at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/IndictSP/petition.html – which calls for the Dept of Justice to indict Palin for incitement to violence.
FF Leo,
I’m sure the grounding in grammar helped me in my teaching. Still, I have a greater appreciation for the education I got at a state college in the 1960s. It was far better than the education many students get today at expensive private colleges.
Former fed
I have to agree with Elaine that our Catholic grade school didn’t have the facilities for a lot in the science realm and the only “math” that I had was arithmetic. The only Latin that I had was in memorizing the altar boy prayers. My public high school in Skokie did have Latin, but I wanted no part of it!
I am still pretty good at my multiplication tables!
tootles – since you seem to be immune to rational thought insults are what you should expect. It is you that is whining not me. I work also & get paid by the hour, not the month.
“I don’t have to take this abuse!”
“But you invite the abuse it would be impolite of you not to accept it.”
Ms. EM,
Maybe you were a much better teacher because of that English/grammar instruction by Nuns, which was likely far superior to public instruction.
I would have flunked out of Catholic school in all of the religious classes, although I would have appreciated the non-ecclesiastical aspects of the Latin courses.
FF Leo,
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a great science and math background after spending twelve years in parochial school. I did get a lot of instruction in English and grammar and did a lot of diagramming of sentences. And I got enough religious instruction in those dozen years to last me a lifetime!
Ms. EM,
I typed my reply to rafflaw before if read your post.
raff,
I had a good discussion with Ms. EM a while ago regarding a close friend of mine who went to Catholic School. He was so far advanced in his math and science skills that I wanted to enroll in his school. This was in Colorado in the 1950s/60s when the state’s public schools were very good and quite rigorous compared to the Texas schools I had previously attended.
When high school arrived, the Catholic parochial school kids joined us in the public school realm. My friend was at the top of the classes I took with him, including math, and physics. He tutored me in those subjects and I would have given a lot to experience his early educational opportunities. One thing that struck me was—how could ultra-religious kids be so good in what I considered the ultimate secular subjects of math/science.
Of course, one of the most apparent reasons, aside from the rigorous curricula, was the discipline meted out by the Nuns. My friend said that you simply did not miss a homework assignment or you spent many of your otherwise extracurricular hours making up for such transgressions.
I have often thought that the US would be much better off if all kids had to go to Catholic parochial schools (but definitely *not* other Christian-type/fundamentalist ‘parochial’ schools) in their most formative, early years of learning.
FF Leo,
I spent twelve years in parochial school under the strict tutelage of the sisters of Notre Dame. I think it was my sense of humor that kept me sane.
Former Fed,I don’t know about the good man comment, but thank you. You are correct about the good teaching from the Nuns. They had some interesting ways, but they got the basics into us. Besides, I was a tough nut to crack and I probably caused most of the problems!
You know, rafflaw, perhaps you would not have grown into the good man you are today had it not been for those Benedictine Nuns—of whom you have such ‘fond’ memories.
Former Fed.,
I thought the school of “hard knocks” was what the Benedictine Nuns were teaching us?