I mean to say that everyone in Congress is a "socialist" to some degree based on this popular redefinition of "socialism" that's being used today.
Well, what about Ron Paul?
And I wouldn't call it a "redefinition," of course.
when you say Obama is a socialist, there will be many many many many Americans who will immediately visualize Obama as carrying a little red book and secretly working with the Russians to plot our destruction
And many more who don't.
I'm not convinced that Obama's belief in caring for the poor in this country falls into socialism as Bastiat believes it to be.
Not his belief in caring for the poor, no. But his view that we should force people to do that "caring" on our behalf by taking their property, yes, Bastiat absolutely would include Obama's views in his definition of socialism as legal plunder. For example:
You say: "There are persons who have no money," and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from a source outside the society. Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in.... The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.
My point, ultimately is that "socialist" is a red herring; just another jingoistic label to people like McCain want us to put on our bumperstickers as his friends sell more and more of the country to China and Saudi Arabia.
Every single label we use is a convenience, a way to wrap up a large idea into a small package. Everyone uses them as a shorthand. But the idea behind the label is not a red herring at all: it's the point.
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a wiretap program contrary to law, isn't that pretty clear cut?
Yes, but the argument is that the law's restriction on the President was unconstitutional. In the words of the Clinton Justice Department, the President has "inherent authority" to conduct national security searches, and in the opinion of the chief of the FISA Court of Review, that would mean the Congress has no authority to restrict that authority.
I do not agree that such inherent authority exists, but Clinton's J.D. also wrote a memo on a related topic I agree with entirely: that a law from Congress that restricts a constitutional power of the President is inoperative.
So, therefore, if all that is true, then yes, it was in contrary to statute, but no, it was not illegal, because the statute overstepped the legal authority of Congress.
I mean, I guess if you wanna get technical, it's for a court of law to determine that a given act on the part of the administration was illegal or not. So is he supposed to keep quiet 'til then?
I never implied any such thing. If you think you need to break the law to follow your conscience in regard to what you believe is an illegal act by the government, then that's what you do.
And let's turn it around: "Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but he broke the law by leaking classified information, isn't that pretty clear cut? It's for a court to determine that a given act on the part of the administration was illegal or not. So are we supposed to not follow up with investigations and charges against him until then?"
The way law works, we have to just follow what we know. All we know is he leaked information illegally.
if there's a murder, one person committed the act, another encouraged them to do it & another ten allowed it to happen, who's most responsible for the murder?
You didn't ask who is the most responsible. You asked if he was more than half responsible. Of course Bush is the most responsible. As President, he is the most responsible for everything the Executive Branch does. But that doesn't necessarily mean he is more than half responsible.
If I could possibly quantify such a thing, I'd say he's probably more than half responsible, but since I can't, I won't.
I'm guessing you'd say "Oh, multiple people! They're all equally guilty!"
I never implied anything about equality of guilt, so your guess isn't even a rational one.
Dude commits a felony and they go after him for it and that is "chilling"? Howso?
Uh, not to 'godwin up' the discussion, (and I'm not actually comparing anything to the holocaust, keep in mind) but don't we all basically agree since the Nuremberg Trials that an agent of the government has a duty to their own conscience, to disobey an unjust law?
It has not been determined that the law was unjust. That's the point. He doesn't get to decide that.
Notice that opinion was for physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, not warrantless wiretapping of US citizens.
Yes, which is even worse: physical searches within the U.S. border have been absolutely protected by the Fourth Amendment, whereas searches of international communications have not been. The inherent authority to conduct such warrantless physical searches implies the same for the less-protected searches such as those for international communications.
Again and again: I think the warrantless wiretaps are illegal and probably unconstitutional. I think Gorelick and the FISA Court of Review chief and Bush are all wrong. But I am not so blind as to think this was invented by Bush.
It's both, in fact. Math is how you actually count, but science is how you determine what to count, and what methods to use for the counting.
And really - your little display of pedantry is quite pathetic.
No less so than your insipid question that led me to it.
You're willing to use a 'measured and quantified' phrase like 'not all' (less than 100% for the lazy), but complain when a reply to you uses the same loose vernacular to indicate greater than 50%.
That you can't see the difference is sad for you. Just because we can see that more than one person was involved, doesn't mean we can quantify percentages.
Who would the enemies of the United States be in this case?
I am not saying it's treason. I'd argue it's not, because even though it could obviously lend aid to terrorists, it was not directed toward them and he had no contact with them. But it could possibly be.
There is nothing treasonous about exposing these constitutional violations
Again, it was just a couple posts ago I reminded you of your question-begging fallacies. Why must I remind you again? You are falsely assuming that any violation of the Constitution took place.
If there is anything about this case that is reassuring, it is the fact that he will most likely never be prosecuted because he is guaranteed a trial by jury, and the members of that jury cannot be forced not to talk about their time in the courtroom. We don't have secret trials.
That is a problem for the case, but not necessarily a serious one. It's not without precedent to prosecute based on incomplete information for the jury. That said, a recent Supreme Court decision insisted that all facts must be weighed by the jury, which makes it harder. Not impossible though.
Treason is about waging war against your country, not making sure it follows its own laws.
You're confused, because you keep begging the question.
But more importantly, the plan Ashcroft was supposedly ready to resign over was, from all appearances, not the one that was actually implemented.
Wrong again. See above. The program was already running, and they were trying to reauthorize it.
Who said it was a mere reauthorization? The reporter. Did Comey say that? Not that I see. And even if he did, all we know is that there was an order -- we don't know what it said, or whether it was significantly different from a previous one -- and that he wouldn't sign it and that changes were made.
You're right. The original program was obviously much worse.
Since you have a habit of saying you know things you obviously don't, I am unsurprised you'd make such an assertion. Obviously, Ashcroft and Comey thought the one in the original authorization that wasn't signed was worse, but we know nothing more than that.
You can get the death penalty for exposing the illegal acts of the government.
If it is shown you committed treason in doing so, sure. How could it possibly be any other way?
If this ever goes to trial, the facts that he exposed will not be what is on trial.
Of course they will. The defendant has the right to make an affirmative defense. The facts may not be public, but they will be part of the trial one way or another.
Anyone with any moral sense at all can see the perversity of the situation.
Anyone with any legal sense knows that this is how it has to work. I keep asking people how it could work any other way, and no one has any options. There aren't any.
Saying someone cannot get the death penalty for exposing an illegal act is the SAME THING as saying someone cannot get the death penalty for exposing a LEGAL act, because you never know if the court is going to agree with you that it was a legal act, and we can't just take your word for it.
So you're arguing against the death penalty for almost any treason, really, since treason is usually about giving out secret information about the government.
I didn't say that. I said THEY were, not that everyone is.
... then the label is no longer distinguishable, is it then?
I think it is. McCain, for example, might have had socialist leanings in some areas, but more often than not he put individual liberty first. Obama is the opposite, putting his view of the "common good" before individual liberty most of the time. So I think it would be wrong to say McCain *is* a socialist, though he has some socialist tendencies, while I have no problem saying Obama *is* a socialist, because socialism is a guiding principle of almost all of his domestic policies.
That said, I don't spend much time calling anyone a "socialist": I spend far more time identifying which policies are harmful to liberty, and why.
I think Bastiat's position on socialism come with the caveat that governments and markets must live in harmony and work efficiently such that we don't wind up with a huge gaping hole in our labor force and a large class of poor, unskilled citizens who depend on the rest of society to care for them because they simply cannot get a job.
It goes deeper than that. He was very concerned about the right of the ruling class to determine the fate of individuals in society. He was ultimately concerned with liberty and justice, and socialism to him was a path toward injustice by taking away liberty.
Actually, what is the political struggle that we witness? It is the instinctive struggle of all people toward liberty. And what is this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties -- liberty of conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of travel, of labor, of trade? In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so? Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism -- including, of course, legal despotism? Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense; of punishing injustice?
Don't you wonder at all just what the NSA was doing that had Ashcroft and half the Department of Justice ready to resign?
Not much, first, since I don't even believe those stories entirely. Usually stories like that are way overblown. We don't know what happened with Ashcroft.
But more importantly, the plan Ashcroft was supposedly ready to resign over was, from all appearances, not the one that was actually implemented. Changes were made prior to implementation because of the concerns of Ashcroft and others.
So you're kinda arguing against yourself here when you say, "If they were all just fine with the arguably illegal wiretaps that were exposed by the hero mentioned in TFA, what could have been bad enough to make them freak out like that?," because what the "hero" leaked to the press was NOT what made them "freak out like that."
Many christians believe that Jesus preached in support of tithing. You might try to argue that tithes are voluntary due to religion being voluntary while government and secular taxes are not.
No, I would argue that money to the church isn't the same as money to the government. They are two completely different things. Jesus had almost nothing to say about what government should do, and many things to say about what the church should do, and we should not pretend that his lack of statements about the government mean that he favors small government, nor that we can carry over his statements about church over to government.
Generally speaking, though, Jesus was for freedom. That was the whole point of the Spirit instead of the Law (Romans 8). And as such, I am not one to favor taking away freedom if we can help it. And of course, government should not be corrupt or do evil. But that's about the extent of my views about a "biblical" system of government.
So you missed the President commuting the Vice President's chief of staff's sentence? And where the President invokes executive privilege whenever Congress tries to assert oversight over the President's activities?
The first has nothing to do with anything at issue here, of course. Not sure why you even bring it up.
The second isn't true. It does happen sometimes, yes, but certainly not all the time as you claim, and indeed, not even close to most of the time. In fact, the warrantless wiretapping was presented to key members of both parties in both houses of Congress, so this was an issue already being watched by Congress.
My dictionary says, "giving the impression that something harmful or evil is happening or will happen". This act indicates evil in our society.
OK, and I see nothing remotely evil about destroying your own copy of a CD, or authorizing someone else to do it on your behalf, as a means to express your displeasure of what someone has said. Not the classiest move, but not evil in any sense.
Which is why it would be a bad thing for it to be carried out widely. I don't want that opinion to be widespread. If people do it a lot, it means it is widespread. Therefore people doing it a lot is a bad thing.
If people don't do it out of fear of societal prosecution, it could be still widespread, but you just won't know it. I'd rather know it (though since I would not want to make the view generally accepted such that it would not receive societal prosecution, I have no solution to the problem).
My point still stands that the expression of the view is not the bad thing. It just shows us that we have the problem causing that expression, which is the real problem. And I'd rather know we have that problem, than not know.
Why are you supposed to feel sorry for anyone? It's an indication of the destruction of our country
No, it's not. The initial act -- the unprovoked hateful statement by the Dixie Chicks -- was such an indiciation. The response was just human nature, which happens in every society.
Get your facts straight. The legal justification was not written by the Clinton Justice department.
Oh, so you don't know about the Jamie Gorelick's infamous statement on FISA in 1994: "The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes." "Inherent authority" means, of course, that Congress cannot take that authority away with a statute, such as FISA.
Oh, and if by "Jesus was a liberal" you mean "Jesus supported the government taking property from people by force in order to give it to other people," then, no, Jesus was no liberal. He did believe in people giving of themselves to help others -- as opposed to forcing other people to do so -- which conservatives also believe in.
I like that earlier in the discussion, you defended Bush for not being solely responsible (or even responsible at all) for the wiretaps
No I didn't. I was not defending Bush, I was defending the facts.
and here you are blaming Obama for something that any reasonable person could see he *clearly* had very little to do with.
Um. Such as? I said, "... I agree [that there's nothing that suggests that Obama drug Joe's name through the dirt]. Obama used Joe a lot, but not to smear him" (emphasis added).
No, you provided no source that says they are immune from prosecution by virtue of their status. Indeed, one of your sources contradicts your claim, saying they were specifically granted immunity in specific cases, which means the were subject to U.S. law in the first place, else no grant of immunity would have been warranted.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean to say that everyone in Congress is a "socialist" to some degree based on this popular redefinition of "socialism" that's being used today.
Well, what about Ron Paul?
And I wouldn't call it a "redefinition," of course.
when you say Obama is a socialist, there will be many many many many Americans who will immediately visualize Obama as carrying a little red book and secretly working with the Russians to plot our destruction
And many more who don't.
I'm not convinced that Obama's belief in caring for the poor in this country falls into socialism as Bastiat believes it to be.
Not his belief in caring for the poor, no. But his view that we should force people to do that "caring" on our behalf by taking their property, yes, Bastiat absolutely would include Obama's views in his definition of socialism as legal plunder. For example:
My point, ultimately is that "socialist" is a red herring; just another jingoistic label to people like McCain want us to put on our bumperstickers as his friends sell more and more of the country to China and Saudi Arabia.
Every single label we use is a convenience, a way to wrap up a large idea into a small package. Everyone uses them as a shorthand. But the idea behind the label is not a red herring at all: it's the point.
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was a wiretap program contrary to law, isn't that pretty clear cut?
Yes, but the argument is that the law's restriction on the President was unconstitutional. In the words of the Clinton Justice Department, the President has "inherent authority" to conduct national security searches, and in the opinion of the chief of the FISA Court of Review, that would mean the Congress has no authority to restrict that authority.
I do not agree that such inherent authority exists, but Clinton's J.D. also wrote a memo on a related topic I agree with entirely: that a law from Congress that restricts a constitutional power of the President is inoperative.
So, therefore, if all that is true, then yes, it was in contrary to statute, but no, it was not illegal, because the statute overstepped the legal authority of Congress.
I mean, I guess if you wanna get technical, it's for a court of law to determine that a given act on the part of the administration was illegal or not. So is he supposed to keep quiet 'til then?
I never implied any such thing. If you think you need to break the law to follow your conscience in regard to what you believe is an illegal act by the government, then that's what you do.
And let's turn it around: "Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but he broke the law by leaking classified information, isn't that pretty clear cut? It's for a court to determine that a given act on the part of the administration was illegal or not. So are we supposed to not follow up with investigations and charges against him until then?"
The way law works, we have to just follow what we know. All we know is he leaked information illegally.
if there's a murder, one person committed the act, another encouraged them to do it & another ten allowed it to happen, who's most responsible for the murder?
You didn't ask who is the most responsible. You asked if he was more than half responsible. Of course Bush is the most responsible. As President, he is the most responsible for everything the Executive Branch does. But that doesn't necessarily mean he is more than half responsible.
If I could possibly quantify such a thing, I'd say he's probably more than half responsible, but since I can't, I won't.
I'm guessing you'd say "Oh, multiple people! They're all equally guilty!"
I never implied anything about equality of guilt, so your guess isn't even a rational one.
Dude commits a felony and they go after him for it and that is "chilling"? Howso?
Uh, not to 'godwin up' the discussion, (and I'm not actually comparing anything to the holocaust, keep in mind) but don't we all basically agree since the Nuremberg Trials that an agent of the government has a duty to their own conscience, to disobey an unjust law?
It has not been determined that the law was unjust. That's the point. He doesn't get to decide that.
And it's sad that you're not able to quantify responsibility when there's more than one person involved.
No one can.
Notice that opinion was for physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes, not warrantless wiretapping of US citizens.
Yes, which is even worse: physical searches within the U.S. border have been absolutely protected by the Fourth Amendment, whereas searches of international communications have not been. The inherent authority to conduct such warrantless physical searches implies the same for the less-protected searches such as those for international communications.
Again and again: I think the warrantless wiretaps are illegal and probably unconstitutional. I think Gorelick and the FISA Court of Review chief and Bush are all wrong. But I am not so blind as to think this was invented by Bush.
Errrr no - that's not Science, that's Maths.
It's both, in fact. Math is how you actually count, but science is how you determine what to count, and what methods to use for the counting.
And really - your little display of pedantry is quite pathetic.
No less so than your insipid question that led me to it.
You're willing to use a 'measured and quantified' phrase like 'not all' (less than 100% for the lazy), but complain when a reply to you uses the same loose vernacular to indicate greater than 50%.
That you can't see the difference is sad for you. Just because we can see that more than one person was involved, doesn't mean we can quantify percentages.
Who would the enemies of the United States be in this case?
I am not saying it's treason. I'd argue it's not, because even though it could obviously lend aid to terrorists, it was not directed toward them and he had no contact with them. But it could possibly be.
There is nothing treasonous about exposing these constitutional violations
Again, it was just a couple posts ago I reminded you of your question-begging fallacies. Why must I remind you again? You are falsely assuming that any violation of the Constitution took place.
If there is anything about this case that is reassuring, it is the fact that he will most likely never be prosecuted because he is guaranteed a trial by jury, and the members of that jury cannot be forced not to talk about their time in the courtroom. We don't have secret trials.
That is a problem for the case, but not necessarily a serious one. It's not without precedent to prosecute based on incomplete information for the jury. That said, a recent Supreme Court decision insisted that all facts must be weighed by the jury, which makes it harder. Not impossible though.
Treason is about waging war against your country, not making sure it follows its own laws.
You're confused, because you keep begging the question.
there was only on-the-record sources for that story
Er, "there was only one on-the-record source for that story."
No, we do have a pretty good idea what happened
No, we don't. Last I checked there was only on-the-record sources for that story. So no, we don't have a good idea of what happened at all.
and we know that Bush was deeply involved
Again, no, we don't know that. We only know one person implied that.
It was certainly illegal, at least according to James Comey
Yes, based on details he won't share.
But more importantly, the plan Ashcroft was supposedly ready to resign over was, from all appearances, not the one that was actually implemented.
Wrong again. See above. The program was already running, and they were trying to reauthorize it.
Who said it was a mere reauthorization? The reporter. Did Comey say that? Not that I see. And even if he did, all we know is that there was an order -- we don't know what it said, or whether it was significantly different from a previous one -- and that he wouldn't sign it and that changes were made.
You're right. The original program was obviously much worse.
Since you have a habit of saying you know things you obviously don't, I am unsurprised you'd make such an assertion. Obviously, Ashcroft and Comey thought the one in the original authorization that wasn't signed was worse, but we know nothing more than that.
What does science have to do with anything?
If it can be measured and quantified with specific figures (such as "more than 50 percent," the definition of "majority"), then it's science.
Why do you hate science?
You can get the death penalty for exposing the illegal acts of the government.
If it is shown you committed treason in doing so, sure. How could it possibly be any other way?
If this ever goes to trial, the facts that he exposed will not be what is on trial.
Of course they will. The defendant has the right to make an affirmative defense. The facts may not be public, but they will be part of the trial one way or another.
Anyone with any moral sense at all can see the perversity of the situation.
Anyone with any legal sense knows that this is how it has to work. I keep asking people how it could work any other way, and no one has any options. There aren't any.
Saying someone cannot get the death penalty for exposing an illegal act is the SAME THING as saying someone cannot get the death penalty for exposing a LEGAL act, because you never know if the court is going to agree with you that it was a legal act, and we can't just take your word for it.
So you're arguing against the death penalty for almost any treason, really, since treason is usually about giving out secret information about the government.
If everyone is a socialist to some degree ...
I didn't say that. I said THEY were, not that everyone is.
... then the label is no longer distinguishable, is it then?
I think it is. McCain, for example, might have had socialist leanings in some areas, but more often than not he put individual liberty first. Obama is the opposite, putting his view of the "common good" before individual liberty most of the time. So I think it would be wrong to say McCain *is* a socialist, though he has some socialist tendencies, while I have no problem saying Obama *is* a socialist, because socialism is a guiding principle of almost all of his domestic policies.
That said, I don't spend much time calling anyone a "socialist": I spend far more time identifying which policies are harmful to liberty, and why.
I think Bastiat's position on socialism come with the caveat that governments and markets must live in harmony and work efficiently such that we don't wind up with a huge gaping hole in our labor force and a large class of poor, unskilled citizens who depend on the rest of society to care for them because they simply cannot get a job.
It goes deeper than that. He was very concerned about the right of the ruling class to determine the fate of individuals in society. He was ultimately concerned with liberty and justice, and socialism to him was a path toward injustice by taking away liberty.
Would you agree that the majority of this was Bush?
How could you possibly quantify such a thing?
Why do you hate science?
Don't you wonder at all just what the NSA was doing that had Ashcroft and half the Department of Justice ready to resign?
Not much, first, since I don't even believe those stories entirely. Usually stories like that are way overblown. We don't know what happened with Ashcroft.
But more importantly, the plan Ashcroft was supposedly ready to resign over was, from all appearances, not the one that was actually implemented. Changes were made prior to implementation because of the concerns of Ashcroft and others.
So you're kinda arguing against yourself here when you say, "If they were all just fine with the arguably illegal wiretaps that were exposed by the hero mentioned in TFA, what could have been bad enough to make them freak out like that?," because what the "hero" leaked to the press was NOT what made them "freak out like that."
Thanks, my fault too ... your links said Iraq at first and I should have said something then.
Many christians believe that Jesus preached in support of tithing. You might try to argue that tithes are voluntary due to religion being voluntary while government and secular taxes are not.
No, I would argue that money to the church isn't the same as money to the government. They are two completely different things. Jesus had almost nothing to say about what government should do, and many things to say about what the church should do, and we should not pretend that his lack of statements about the government mean that he favors small government, nor that we can carry over his statements about church over to government.
Generally speaking, though, Jesus was for freedom. That was the whole point of the Spirit instead of the Law (Romans 8). And as such, I am not one to favor taking away freedom if we can help it. And of course, government should not be corrupt or do evil. But that's about the extent of my views about a "biblical" system of government.
So you missed the President commuting the Vice President's chief of staff's sentence? And where the President invokes executive privilege whenever Congress tries to assert oversight over the President's activities?
The first has nothing to do with anything at issue here, of course. Not sure why you even bring it up.
The second isn't true. It does happen sometimes, yes, but certainly not all the time as you claim, and indeed, not even close to most of the time. In fact, the warrantless wiretapping was presented to key members of both parties in both houses of Congress, so this was an issue already being watched by Congress.
Fine, then here, here, and here.
I never said there was no immunity in IRAQ. I was responding to a comment about immunity from U.S. or Afghan laws, not Iraq laws.
Indeed, your articles back me up, that this was a special situation just for Iraqi law, implying it doesn't cover U.S. or Afghan laws ...
My dictionary says, "giving the impression that something harmful or evil is happening or will happen". This act indicates evil in our society.
OK, and I see nothing remotely evil about destroying your own copy of a CD, or authorizing someone else to do it on your behalf, as a means to express your displeasure of what someone has said. Not the classiest move, but not evil in any sense.
Which is why it would be a bad thing for it to be carried out widely. I don't want that opinion to be widespread. If people do it a lot, it means it is widespread. Therefore people doing it a lot is a bad thing.
If people don't do it out of fear of societal prosecution, it could be still widespread, but you just won't know it. I'd rather know it (though since I would not want to make the view generally accepted such that it would not receive societal prosecution, I have no solution to the problem).
My point still stands that the expression of the view is not the bad thing. It just shows us that we have the problem causing that expression, which is the real problem. And I'd rather know we have that problem, than not know.
Why are you supposed to feel sorry for anyone? It's an indication of the destruction of our country
No, it's not. The initial act -- the unprovoked hateful statement by the Dixie Chicks -- was such an indiciation. The response was just human nature, which happens in every society.
Get your facts straight. The legal justification was not written by the Clinton Justice department.
Oh, so you don't know about the Jamie Gorelick's infamous statement on FISA in 1994: "The Department of Justice believes, and the case law supports, that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes." "Inherent authority" means, of course, that Congress cannot take that authority away with a statute, such as FISA.
Oh, and if by "Jesus was a liberal" you mean "Jesus supported the government taking property from people by force in order to give it to other people," then, no, Jesus was no liberal. He did believe in people giving of themselves to help others -- as opposed to forcing other people to do so -- which conservatives also believe in.
I like that earlier in the discussion, you defended Bush for not being solely responsible (or even responsible at all) for the wiretaps
No I didn't. I was not defending Bush, I was defending the facts.
and here you are blaming Obama for something that any reasonable person could see he *clearly* had very little to do with.
Um. Such as? I said, "... I agree [that there's nothing that suggests that Obama drug Joe's name through the dirt]. Obama used Joe a lot, but not to smear him" (emphasis added).
Hypocrisy much?
Read much?
Obama is a socialist, and his socialism is scary.
Wait, are you saying socialism is scary, or just Obama's socialistic ideas are scary? Just curious.
Both.
No, you provided no source that says they are immune from prosecution by virtue of their status. Indeed, one of your sources contradicts your claim, saying they were specifically granted immunity in specific cases, which means the were subject to U.S. law in the first place, else no grant of immunity would have been warranted.